#heidisiegmundcuda

[maewestside]

TRUMPUTIN: HOW TO SPOT A DICTATOR IN FIVE EASY STEPS… by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, aka @maewestside

I’m praying for them, you know. All of them. Not between gritted teeth but with a grace I’ve learned from spiritual allies. I pause to grace, close my eyes and send healing thoughts into the universe, praying those perpetrating crimes against humanity are relieved of their spiritual maladies. The RNC was hacked and the files are holding pols hostage. At some point, they’ll have to do what’s right. I pray it’s soon.

In the meantime, I’ve been studying how a dictator comes to power, and I’ve mapped it out in Five Easy Steps so we can all recognize the signs:

1. “LYING IS THE MESSAGE”: While reading David Frum’s brilliant and prescient essay in The Atlantic from January 30, 2017, in which he predicts what America will look like in 2021 in stunning detail if we do not resist, he quotes a Russian journalist named Masha Gessen. Gessen notes that “lying is the message,” and by that she means when a dictator lies with the ease of breathing it’s to “assert power over truth.” The first lesson I learned in 2016 from a member of the Resistance who grew up in Romania: “It starts with the silencing of truth.” Today, as each Network gave “Trumputin” facetime, we witnessed the blather of nothing. As Gessen told Deutsche Welle regarding Putin, “the former spy has remained in the Kremlin despite a declining economy, diplomatic isolation and nearly continuous allegations of corruption and human rights abuses because of his ability to ‘have words mean nothing. He just keeps talking… it’s meant to create the impression that he knows what he’s talking about. But it’s also meant to drown you in meaningless stuff.’” Hmm.

Read the David Frum “Atlantic” article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/

2. DISINFORMATION HIGHWAY: Now that we’ve established those with authoritarian leanings have no trouble lying about everything, the next step is to ensure the lies are amplified by the Disinformation Highway. A dictator utilizes multiple fronts to amplify lies: botnets, State News agencies, paid flacks and political loyalists/opportunists/consultants. There’s a lot of money in lies: as cognitive thinkers spend hours researching and refuting the lies, those on the corruption payola keep up the “theatre craft,” the tornado that creates the fog and the fury so beautifully described by Mike Mariani in Vanity Fair. Lying is a soulless gig. The truth always prevails eventually, but havoc is wreaked in the meantime.

To learn how the Kremlin creates chaos and to see if you can spot some right here at home, check out Mike Mariani’s Vanity Fair essay:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/is-trumps-chaos-a-move-from-the-kremlins-playbook

3. POWER GRAB: As the lies, subterfuge and the hacks on State News chip away at truth, bite by bite, and the Disinformation Highway piles up with bumper-car bots, riding roughshod over facts, what is really taking place is the consolidation of power. While cognitive thinkers cry foul, unqualified, but extremely loyal henchman are being installed into power at the highest levels. Dictators rush to replace talent and integrity with toadies and sycophants, who share in common a history of shade but offer their leaders the assurance they’ll do their bidding at any cost. When one’s moral compass is already blinky, what’s another three, four acts of corruption. Pockets will be lined, and thus, the corrupted are banking on a soft landing. That is until, the dictators turn on them and then it’s flee or plea.

4. MAFIA STATE: When a government is comprised of members of organized crime that’s what’s known as “a mafia state.” In America, we haven’t been immune to corruption, but it’s always been countered by the fact that, ultimately, we are a country of law and order. But when a leader is cultivated, financed and backed by the mob, it gets sticky. As we watch Special Counsel Mueller and his team of prosecutors navigate their way carefully, indictment by indictment, guilty plea by guilty plea, to take down a global crime syndicate, we see how naïve America has been in thinking it couldn’t happen here. We are watching our allies being alienated and dictators being praised. This is what a mafia state looks like. When a leader casts shade on our top intelligence agencies, that’s the markings of a dictator, shaping a mafia state.

For more on how it’s done, read this Deutsche Welle explainer: https://www.dw.com/en/vladimir-putin-how-a-spy-rose-to-power-and-held-on-to-it/a-43030900

5. VOTER TAMPERING: Dictators need to control all outcomes and this includes the voting systems. A dictator ensures victory at the ballot box in myriad ways: intimidation, stuffing the ballot box, voter suppression, hacking voter rolls, redistricting, hacking electronic voting databases, hacking the machines, and using bot networks to blast voters with so much false information that they will either stay home or vote for the dictator who paid hackers to advertise directly to a voter’s preconceived biases. Cognitive thinkers know about the data breaches, but we still are at the early stages of understanding just how much this digital arms race, to quote digital activist Professor David Carroll, is harming Democracy everywhere. Stay vigilant, read the latest indictment from Team Mueller and know that if we show up in gigantic numbers at the polls, we may yet have a chance to salvage Democracy. 

Ohm.

***

Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative producer, mother and activist. Her short film, “Rigged,” debuted at the 2017 Orcas Island Film Festival: http://www.orcasfilmfest.com/rigged

[maewestside]

“THEY’RE A ROTTEN CROWD”: THE VAST CARELESSNESS OF DECEIT… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously penned the quote: “They’re a rotten crowd.”

The jazz age author was referring to moneyed monsters he created for the novel, “The Great Gatsby,” about society’s movers and takers. Nearly one hundred years later, our country’s headlines obsess on a “rotten crowd,” the moneyed monsters and stooges who lie, cheat and spiel, creating a continuous lying loop meant to interfere with truth. The truth being that a Russian military campaign helped install a flunky into the White House.

In other words, mobsters create Russian foreign policy with pay to play tactics, and Democracy is stuck holding the bag. As I’ve written many times before, we are witnessing the last gasp of the dying brand of greed. May it pass (ohm).

In the meantime, behind all the photos ops of lying liars and their bumbling, fumbling plays, here is what you need to know as we enter this August of our discontent:

THE FACTS

1. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN: MANAFORT, COHEN AND FLYNN.

* Former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s tax trial is set to begin this week. It’s the first of two trials for the beleaguered lobbyist, who is in jail on charges of witness tampering and stands charged with 18 counts related to tax fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, failure to register as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice. Why all this matters: Manafort is alleged to have used his campaign access for a “quid pro quo” loan and to get out of hock to an oligarch (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/29/paul-manafort-mueller-charges-court-trial-trump).

* Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen claims that Trump knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to CNN. Russian nationals were expected to offer dirt on Hillary Clinton at the now infamous meeting, which Trump stooges say was no big deal but legal experts say is a very big deal.

* Former Trump national security advisor, General Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his contact with a Russian ambassador and lobbying of foreign governments, is on schedule to be sentenced in late October, just before the mid-terms.

2. PENSION TENSION: Prepare for Putin to double down on crazymaking, as his popularity at home tanks due to a retirement age increase passed quietly during the World Cup. Nothing will doom a career politician quicker than messing with pensioners. As protesters in Moscow make global news, expect more despot-brolove storylines to disrupt the real news cycle.

3. RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE UPDATE: As Washington Post opinion columnist Max Boot pointed out in a video explainer today, Trump mentioned “Wikileaks 164 times in the last month of the campaign.” He reasons that since we now know from reading Mueller’s latest indictment “Wikileaks equals Russian intelligence, Trump was actually thanking Russia for helping him with the election.” With the news breaking from the New York Times that Mueller’s team may be scrutinizing tweets from the president* for obstruction clues, the heat is on, which explains the uptick in facetime for stooges.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/editorial/opinion/opinion--heres-why-trump-wouldnt-have-won-without-russia/2018/07/30/e4098f1e-93ff-11e8-818b-e9b7348cd87d_video.html?utm_term=.a555d75175a9 

4. MARIIA BUTINA: News broke today from McClatchyDC that the gun-crazy moll is now linked to money transfers from Russia to limited liability companies in America and that investigators at the Treasury Department received a number of “Suspicious Activity Reports.” https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article215565240.html

5. LEGAL PROGRESS: A federal judge allowed a lawsuit to continue that alleges Trump’s business interests are a violation of the Constitution. The Emoluments Clause bars any president from profiting from dealings with foreign or domestic governments; and AP reports that New York state tax officials are investigating the Trump Foundation for charity violations, in tandem with the state’s Attorney General civil lawsuit against the foundation; and lastly, the ladies push on, as attorney Michael Avenatti says he’s now repping three additional women who say they were “paid hush money” for their silence about affairs with the president*, prior to the election.

As Fitzgerald notes of his moneyed monsters, “They were careless people… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Time to hold the rotten crowd accountable. A little tough love might do ‘em some good.

****

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative producer, political consultant, filmmaker and mother.

(Above, F. Scott Fitzgerald) 

[maewestside]

ANY PORT IN A STORM: Seeking Refuge in "Downton Abbey"… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

“Life is short, death is sure, that is all we know.”

Mr. Carson utters these comforting words to Mrs. Hughes, after witnessing the Earl of Grantham projectile vomit blood all over Neville Chamberlin, who was visiting “Downton Abbey” because the Dowager Countess had one up on him. I know this because when pain defenestrates a writer’s heart, survivalist mode includes mainlining copious amounts of the famed British series, which offers a port in the sturm und drang of reality.

When your heart is no longer in your chest, but a weighted object that now requires two hands to carry and the pain of love’s labour’s lost is the first breath you breathe each dawn, the only figurative bedfellow worth his salt is Julian Fellowes, the fellow who wrote and created “Downton Abbey.” In his lyrical words, you find brief respites from sorrow and by the time you get through the final season, you’ve got enough verbal fortitude to survive the next Great War, que sera, sera.

What follows are gems by Fellowes to help you buck up and fly right. Whether you’re suffering the paralyzing mental flu of a Democracy under siege by charlatan$ or recovering from the trainwreck of a terminated vow, steel yourself with the words below, because life is short, death is sure and truly, that is all we know.

In no particular order, 40 life-affirming quotes on love, hope, reality and mortality from the pen of Julian Fellowes, who brought us the lush painterly landscape and brilliant complex characters of “Downton Abbey,” the Carnival Films/Masterpiece series which began as the Titantic was going down and consummated on the eve of 1926:

“Hope is a tease designed to prevent us accepting reality.”

“Don’t be defeated! It’s very middle class.”

“You’re frightened of being hurt again, but let me tell you this: you will be hurt again and so will I, because being hurt is part of being alive. But that is no reason to give up…”

“There’s no such thing as safe love: real love is giving someone the power to hurt you.”

“No one has sharper eyes than a loving son.”

“All life is a series of problems which we must try and solve. The first one and the next and the next, until at last we die.”

“I’ve been reminded recently that one is not given many chances in life and if you miss them they may not be repeated.”

“A lack of compassion can be as foul a curse as an excess of tears.”

“Stranger things have happened at sea.”

“It’s better to know the truth than to live in a cloud of mystery and despair.”

“Sympathy butters no parsnips.”

“Go as far in life as God and luck allow.”

“How comforting it is to know there really are a few good people left in the world.”

“What must he do to persuade you he is in love… open his chest and carve her name on his heart?”

“I’m not sure what I am, except for a man in search of a better world.”

“Lie is so unmusical a word.”

“Never mistake a wish for a certainty.”

“Marriage is a long kind of business.”

“Let it be. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

“How many lives are you going to wreck, just to smother your own misery?”

“I wish you nothing but good. I want you to have a long and happy life, just not with me.”

“I’d rather vent my rage on the tacid air and return when I’ve regained control of my tongue.”

“If love is allowed to wear the balance, I have plenty of that.”

“Ma Ma is an old intriguer, she will use tears or terror with equal facility.”

“Does it ever get cold on the moral high ground?”

“Never complain, never explain.”

“The presence of strangers is our only guarantee of good behavior.”

“My dear, love is a far more dangerous motive than dislike.”

“I like it when good things come from bad.”

“In the end, happiness is a matter of choice.”

“With any luck, they’ll be happy enough, which is the English version of a happy ending.”

“What do you think makes the Engish the way we are? I dunno… some say our history, but I blame the weather.”

“It’s good to do some crazy things when you’re young, as long as you survive them.”

“I’d rather not look a fool just yet, she can discover it gently.”

“All this endless thinking, it’s really overrated.”

“I always feel more comfortable leaving the past in the past.”

“Your words have made my heart pound at such a rate I’m surprised you can’t hear it: I’m hot, I’m cold, I can barely breathe, and it’s all because of you.”

“The only thing I’m not ready for is a life without you.”

“It’s good to be in love, whatever age.”

“I will love you until the last breath leaves my body.”

“The business of life is the acquisition of memories.”

And there you have it, a few words of comfort and reality from a defunct British series that lives on in the hearts of all who cherish it. As we await the day Fellowes announces “Spratt & Denker: the Sequel,” we recall the words of another British scribe, Shakespeare (or someone calling himself Shakespeare): “The course of true love never did run smooth.” And neither did the course of history. As we digest the coarseness all around us, do let’s hope this chapter in history reaches an abrupt conclusion, for personal and global betterment. As Bukowski reminds us, the days run away like wild horses over the hills. May they be filled with joy, not sorrow, and may great leaders and massive love emerge from the wreckage.

****

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an Emmy award-winning investigative producer, director and screenwriter. Her first screenplay, “The House Near Paris,” is based on the true story of an American actress who saved 42 airmen, while working in the French Resistance.

[maewestside]

VICHY MSM: Or When a Writer Has to Do Math… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

Because the things that Americans need as they sift through the debacle of Scamalot… clarity, truth… cannot easily be found in Vichy MSM, an unshackled gal like I must help clarify the narrative. When you’ve worked in corporate telly and print, you know the racket. Sometimes you’ll get some truth, and often you get the mandate from the billionare$ who sign the checks. Ergo, there’s no checks and balances on truth in reporting, so it’s difficult to find it anywhere consistently. Truth in corporate controlled media is like the rose that grows from the concrete. Cherish it.

Even the most noblest of things you see on TV are sponsored by greedcreeper$ who are cyberbombing the world with info-lie$ adjusted to ensure a winning portfolio. 

But as the rotating doors of Scamalot’s very own Stoolie$ reminds we truthseekers that THIS IS NOT NORMAL, I figgered, just as I gave you a character timeline of “Silent Bob” Mueller vs the Mob Carny, aka the “Diarrhea Tweeta,” I felt it was important for someone from #freepress to step up and count the “Fade Outs” lulz, those fired or who resigned from working with the Worst Thing That’s Ever Happened to Our Country and Certainly the Most Déclassé: the Real Fake President aka #Bot45, a full-on mental ca$e. 

So here goes, a writer who ain’t a mathemagician attempts the arithmetic of a Real Fake President who can’t control his staff lulz:

THE FADE OUTS, in order of their last appearance:

Tom Price, House and Human Services lulz… quit in di$grace

Sebastian Gorka, WH Counterterrorism Advisor lulz… re$igned

Andrew Hemming, Rapid Response Director lulz, who was tasked with peddling positive news stories to both media and #Bot45 #sad… resigned

Carl Icahn, Special Advisor… recu$ed hisself

Steve Bannon, WH Chief Strategi$t lulz… depend$ who you a$k or read, but hi$ removal put him outsky on his own tripsky, still funded by #mercercreeper and the queens of “glittering steel” lulz and getting lots of facetime on #vichymsm as loose gravel everywhere

Anthony Scarymucci, WH Communications Director… fired #burpfarthurl

Reince Priebus, WH Chief of $taffz lulz… fired lulz

Michael Short, Asst. Press Secretary… resigned

Sean $picer, WH Press Secretary… resigned lulz #burpfart

Michael Dubke, WH Communiations Director… resigned

James Comey, Director of the FBI… fired not lulz… very serious shit

Angella Reid, WH Chief Usher… “dismissed” not lulz… #trulysad

KT McFarland, Deputy National Security Advisor… reassigned lulz

Katie Walsh, Deputy Chief of Staff… dismissed? repurposed? after health care fail

Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York… fired not lulz 

Craig Deare, National Security Council Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs… fired not lulz… (an example of the vainglorious #mental45 inability to not be fawned over relentlessly i.e., “kiss the ring, bitch”)

Michael Flynn, National Security Advisor lulz not lulz… #treasonweasel

Sally Yates, #shero, United States Deputy Attorney General… fired resulting in a promotion into the hearts of the American public

Patrick Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for MGMT… quit #word

Now gentle reader, this is only a fraction of reality: the night I arrived in Washington, DC, to partake in the Women’s March, I was hosted by a gent who had resigned his position in our government that evening and shook the hand of the gentleman who had hired him, President Barack Obama, on the way out the door.

My host, like many, had no intention to ever work under a Real False President, a man of such staggering inelegance whose staggering track record of failure and mobponzi-ne$$ was downplayed so profoundly by Vichy MSM which was profiting so tremendously off his rise… but I digress (stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before; and it’s not too late to sign my #cybertreason @moveon petition https://twitter.com/foxycuda/status/854824622901960704).

As we await the next resignation, firing, scandal or whatevs to oust SessionsCreeper, PruitCreeper, ConwayCreeper, the Golden Doo$h and of course the Diarrhea Tweeta hisself, we also want to remind everyone that we prolly won’t remember the names of those who bailed on #Bot45 early, but the stench of collaborator$ will last long after impeachment.

Gee, I’m guessing a few of my millionaire pals are wishing they’d listened to their only real friend in the media when I cautioned them a year ago to not take the call, the filthy lucre or the facetime.

Kliegeye is a permanent condition when the spotlight becomes an interrogation light.

#word

******

Emmy award-winning investigative reporter Heidi Siegmund Cuda’s latest film, “Rigged: A Tail of Corruption,” makes it big screen debut at the Orcas Island Film Festival, which takes place the weekend of Oct. 6-9. Cuda is one of three directors who won a grant to make a short film on the San Juan Islands. You can view her film, “RIGGED,” here: http://www.orcasfilmfest.com/rigged/

Cuda believes the world is being misrepresented by vichy media, which is inflaming hate for profit, when most of this world is beautiful and people love each other and this uptick in misery we are seeing is a for-profit stew that’s now metastasizing. 

[maewestside]

SIX FEET HIGH AND RISING: Glamazon Bravehearts of the Resistance I Salute Thee… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

I like being the shawty of my crew: they’re six feet high and rising. 

Big brains, moxie, bravery, ne’er say ne’er spirit, and a down for whateva tude. Just when I need it the most. Reinforcements. We are bonded by our not-so-secret love of some six-feet-under goppers as well as some modern dems, flawed characters sure, but men and women who taught us much about how to survive in what is still apparently a man’s world.

But truly what we gals have in common is we allow the walls to collapse into us but just momentarily before breathing, flipping the script, cueing up James Brown, “This Is A Man’s World,” and then reminding ourselves not only of all the sisters we have on speed dial but of the men who support us. We are not alone as we soldier on, assuming the heavy load of democracy on our backs, because we knew it would not be easy, because it is never easy.

NATHIN WITHOUT A WOMAN

As we unite forces, the brainy broads with love in their hearts and warrior spirits, and the men who are bringing us not only their a-game of excellence, CEOS, PhDs, White Hats, Vets (of thee we sing), all that and a bag of gifs, all parties, but mostly the party of love. Knowledge. Kindness. More love, more knowledge, kindness, candles along clandestine alleys, Romanians, Ukrainians, Bosnians, Hungarians, invite us to follow them… as they show the horrors of the recent past so we won’t be fooled again. 

We must believe in things we cannot see.

Shit’s real, friends. 

Are we going to be Good Germans now, or are we going to be Americans, who must only look up from their televisions to see all the friends we have across the universe rooting for us to look up from our televisions. The sky is falling. It fell on your laptop, it fell on your news, it crushed the truth for filthy lucre.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Truth seekers are standing up, getting on twitter, wearing their love and unity on their sleeves, putting past squabbles behind because nothing is more important than saving democracy right now. And one of our brainy glamazon esq’s says, “No distractions. Fraudsters will lead you down 100 rabbit holes. Only two focuses: Mueller investigation and Congressional investigation.” #word 

So please as we focus on sending light to Bob Mueller… unite, march and don’t be timid on behalf of truth. Join the Bravehearts of the Resistance, you’ll make new friends. We march globally to impeach July 2 (impeachmentmarch.org).

TERMI-NADIR

We’ve descended to the bottom. It’s no longer a reality show, you don’t vote for the guy cuz he was on tv. You turn that shit off, put your nose in books, and move on with your life. Say hello to your neighbor, and stop buying into fear to sell you meds to combat that fear. Please turn off those still suffering the visible scourge$ of #rupertscurvy and #zuckerpunches. 

Please stop #sleepingwiththetvenemy.

NOT-ZZZZS

I’ll tell you a true story. Cuppla years into W’s war, ratings were sagging and I was told to find some not-zzzzs. Being punk adjacent that ain’t no thing. I made a call and found the smartest one I could find. I believe in giving everyone their best shot. So the smartest one I could find told me, “Hey, I just want to give out scholarships to white kids. There are scholarships for other races, and I feel it’s my right.”

Hmm. 

I went back into the office and said, “So there’s a show this weekend, buncha misanthropes and brigands, yeah, ‘Punkvoter,’ buncha carnies…”

https://maewestside.tumblr.com/post/153932938156/slumlord-billionaires-and-other-tales-of

And so instead of delivering not-zzzzs, who will always be there in times of a ratings sag to inject fear and nonsense, I put the camera on something meaningful, Punkvoters who were rocking against W & the War. Thus I assisted my fellow Americans to feel safer about protesting a war of questionable merit. Score one for democracy.

ANARCHY IN THE U.S.A.

Ice T taught me we are here for each other, to work within the system to help each other get a leg up. When the system is kaput, anarchy ensues, and the crew of brainiacs I role with are really trying to save this country with a knowledge swap live on twitter cuz free press has no ownership. Among the innumerable cosmic things we have in common is a deep knowledge of #thuglife. 

Buncha dogooders.

Together we rise.

******

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda was just honored with a film grant to make a movie on her favorite island. She is humbled by the goodness and kindness of people she has met through the resistance, #bravehearts all.

(above art by dave zaboski, “purpose rising,” drawn at an early resistance meeting, nov. 2016, south l.a. the author sat next to him at the meeting, and watched him sketch, certain he’d gotten it wrong: women had lost. by the end of the meeting, tears had turned into strength, and she realized dave had it right and began her journey out of darkness.)

[maewestside]

BETTE DANGEROUS: And Other Women Who March... by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestswide

I’ll never forget the day Anna Nicole Smith gave up the ghost. It was February sweeps of 2007, and for #BIGNEW$ it was manna from heaven. The lovely trainwreck that was Ms. Smith was milked 24/7, with wall to wall coverage in all her boosomy glory. She was such a dish that the syndicated boy$ and girl$ trotted out her remains all the way through the holidays.

Beautiful trainwrecks are always ratings juggernauts, and they gave her facetime day after day to ensure hefty end of year bonuse$. Any time ratings sag, they go for the low-hanging fruit: jon benet (tragically, still dead); the kkk (tragically, still there); and casting shade on Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a full-time industry of the modern #gop. Even today, there’s some obscure twerp in bumf*&k who only gets ample FaceTime on #BIGNEW$ because he continues ye ol’ black widow routine on #HRC. A gag that started in an op/ed piece titled “Blizzard of Lies,” when a Nixon speechwriter got his facts wrong in the New York Times in ‘96, and no one called him out. 

Let me be clear when I say I have no respect for the modern #gop, because my #gop mentors wouldn’t suck up to the pageant queen. They would be strategically figgering out how to stabilize the union so their wives would sleep with them again. Or husbands.

They would have walked beside John Kerry and his dog at the Women’s March on Washington.

By the by, I am making a short film on the March, because when you have love in your heart, you don’t need much else. I was able to document the Women’s March on Washington because my mentors felt there might be some value in sending a news veteran there not currently shackled by a corporation. They supported a purveyor of truth in the eye of the Love Hurricane that didn’t have a foodchain attached to it. 

Voila. 

As I was seated on the plane with all the other pink-hatted enthusiasts, I was besieged with text messages warning me about danger from across the various ponds from those still tuning into FEAR TV. I gleaned from what I was reading that some thought we were marching with the baby killers and castrators. Whatevs. I haven’t watched a moving screen with a multitude of dizzying banners willingly since I exited stage right. Seated next to me was director/activist Dave Ambrose, who slipped me a dvd copy of the Greg Palast expose, “The Best Money Democracy Can Buy.” (I promised to watch it on my mini DVD player after I finished my study of Bette Davis in 1935′s “Dangerous,” where she performs Shakespeare ‘drunk,’ thus winning her first Oscar.)

Thanks to the generous support of some badass punk rockers, reformers, artists, and activists, a girl like I was able to be on that plane and present at The Revolution on behalf of #freepress. 

I was blessed to be teamed with a Veteran of the Fourth Estate as my running mate, producer/videographer Doug Ross. With a modified rig and a gopro strapped to my chest, it was veni, vidi, vici baby. We came, we saw and we conquered corporate controlled media.

#Freepress is slicing through the pre$cripted narrative and gumming up the works with a surgical precision that could only come with decades of #BIGNEW$ expertise and the kindness of strangers who repurpose my work on twitter. 

No small feat when you consider the enormity of the money chain we’re disrupting. Each initial headline I read by #BIGNEW$ about the March confirmed that they’d missed the point entirely. A real revolution was taking place, while they were still showing reruns of the pageant guy carny. It was just as well. 

The entire world united in love to show solidarity to those marginalized by the Billionaire Boys Club that scripts the #BIGNEW$ narratives, so it would make sense they didn’t get the memo. (As people argue one station is better than another, I remind them when a half dozen multinationals own most of the media, and billionaires own the rest, whose truth are you getting? )

As I flew into DC on the second plane I’d hitched to get to the March around midnight Friday (I didn’t care to make any appearances during the day on Friday. You could catch a carny act like that any night for a five spot and a pulse), unfortunately a moving TV image caught my eye. 

Because I suffer from Post Traumatic New$ Syndrome, I can’t watch tv but as I deplaned late Friday, I was assaulted by a headline in the airport, which referred to the Slovene as our first lady. Waterworks ensued, and I went into a brief emotional tailspin, but recovered almost as quickly, as I saw a fellow marcher in a full body catsuit and platform combat boots. (As an aside, please send the Slovene light. She needs this country’s kindness right now. This mess wasn’t her idea.)

As my crew and I met up the next morning to stroll among the million women who marched, we also danced and shimmied with the men who love women, and elderly men, and babies in strollers, and women who flew in from Sweden and Australia and Ann Arbor. 

Yes, a salty 100-year-old gal from Ann Arbor offered #freepress this sage advice: Ms. Mary Parker says women have come very far (she should know, she made her appearance here on earth three years before voting was legal for women). But she admonished, we still have very far to go and the way to get there is through hard work. 

Ms. Parker herself is no longer able to walk. So she rolled.

As I enveloped my soul in that sea of unbridled love, intentionally interviewing women of a certain age for their wisdom, we spotted two little women from New York. They were standing on a wall, with a captivated crowd, singing: “When I say ‘girl,’ you say ‘power.’ Girl! Power!” I watched them go through it a few times till they’d exhausted themselves. And even though you’re not supposed to stage in the field, the spirit of Bette Davis knocked me out of the director’s seat and in her Yankee voice, I heard myself saying, “Okay girls, now once more from the diaphragm!” With the poise of two mini queens, they sucked in some air, and let it howl. Doug Ross got it on wax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfFp5xqCl5w

******

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda followed the advice of her muses and wrote her own narrative. Below, Mary Parker and her daughter, at the Washington Monument, Women’s March on Washington, January 21, 2017).

[maewestside]

DIPSOS AND THE GIMMIES: PRESIDENT TROLL’S CLASS OF 2017…WHERE ARE THEY NOW? by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

I remember when I had my first beer.

I also remember when I had my last. With nearly two decades sans alcohol, maybe that’s why I have clarity to recognize the maladies of the dipsomaniacs, zapoys and gimmies surrounding President Troll. Upon closer scrutiny, there’s no shortage of DWIs, drug allegations, assault charges, money-love and drinking games linked to affiliates of this current White House. Clearly, being loaded probably helps lackeys justify their lackings. Truth, being the most lacking. Me, I’m just lactose intolerant. Truly, I love everyone. 

But with the avalanche of lies spewed forth this weekend by President Troll and on Vichy MSM (which just can’t seem to get over its addiction of giving facetime to stooge$), I feel it’s helpful to stay rooted in reality and offer up sobering facts to calm one’s noives. Thus, reducing the need for the general public to imbibe, toke, sniff or pop to battle the sour ennui of witnessing a president* battle PDS (Putin Derangement Syndrome, an ailment first diagnosed by Simon Tisdall of the Guardian).

To counter the ever relentless and mutating phony narratives, here’s a roundup of the goings of some of President Troll’s erstwhile staffers and advisors. Whether they suffer from spiritual or physical maladies, may they get well soon.

SCOTT PRUITT: The former head of the Environmental Protection Agency spent the better part of the year defending the GOP’s “freedom to pollute,” (catchphrase, courtesy Paul Krugman), justifying his first class travels and cheap digs rented from a top energy lobbyist. Embroiled in myriad lawsuits, Pruitt submitted his resignation in July after multiple corruption investigations. EPA staff now have to figure out what to do with his $43k private phone booth. Washington Post reports Pruitt allegedly made only one outgoing call to the White House on his fancy phone. Score one for the “fiscal conservatives.” Alas, Pruitt will likely go down in history as the worst choice for one of the most important offices in America. 

REX TILLERSON: It seemed a good fit: an oil industry captain as Secretary of State (lol), until Tillerson went rogue by backing the British government’s findings that Russia was guilty in the nerve agent attack in the U.K. That’s when Putin’s Apprentice went full nutter and fired Tillerson…on Twitter, which is where the former Exxon CEO learned of his dismissal. Those who would like to congratulate Tillerson for calling the president* a “moron,” can find him hosting a charity ball next month, with events taking place at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth and the Fairmont Dallas.

MICHAEL FLYNN: President Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn. The rest is tragic history. Flynn, who forever will be haunted for leading a chorus of “Lock Her Ups,” is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to the FBI. The shortest serving National Security Advisor, Flynn admitted he had discussed Russian sanctions with the country’s Ambassador during the transition, after it had been disclosed. Currently, the three-star lieutenant general is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his ongoing probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

MICHAEL COHEN: Trump’s former personal lawyer just surrendered to the FBI today and no matter how President Troll tries to spin it, it’s bleak news for Trump Inc. Cohen reached a plea agreement with prosecutors investigating payments he made to women on behalf of Trump: pleaded guilty to eight counts and said he made illegal campaign contributions "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office." Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Cohen had "testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime." Wow. And a disturbing tweet from Cohen a few days before Christmas in 2015 did not age particularly well. He Tweeted: “@HillaryClinton when you go to prison for perjury, your room and board will be free!” 12/19/2015. And so, here we are. Another carny en route to the Big House.

PAUL MANAFORT: Trump’s former campaign manager is in jail for witness tampering, while awaiting a jury verdict in the first of two trials for conspiracy against the United States, making false statements, money laundering, failing to disclose lobbying efforts on behalf of foreign entities and tax fraud. To truly understand the tragedy that is the rise and fall of Paul Manafort, check out “Russia, Are You Listening” with Matt Bevan on ABC Australia: http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/russia-if-youre-listening/paul-manafort-the-dictators-fixer/9924894. Working with dictators of questionable integrity appears to be his sweet spot, and clearly, the money was never enough. THIS JUST IN: Jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts. Whispers of a pardon already fluttering in the air.

GARY COHN: In an effort to drain the swamp, Trump hired the president of Goldman Sachs to be his top economic advisor. Cohn, who stepped down after a year and is credited with helping to steer the massive tax cuts, reportedly resigned over Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, which Cohn opposed. Cohn, the former chief operating officer and president of Goldman Sachs, is currently unemployed. He was replaced by Larry Kudlow, whose well documented past with substance abuse resulted in his firing from Bear Stearns but didn’t get in the way of obtaining security clearance in the Trump administration.

STEVE BANNON: Referred to as a “parasite” in search of a host by a former Breitbart colleague in USA Today, Bannon has been on a global populist tour, acquiring facetime anywhere he can get it. The former Chief Strategist for the White House, the former executive chairman of Breitbart, the co-founder of the former Cambridge Analytica and the former husband of a third wife accused of smuggling drugs into a prison, Bannon is not exactly winning. You wouldn’t know that, however, if you tuned into MSNBC or ABC News or the New York Times or the Hill or NPR or CNBC or Newsweek etcetera over the last couple of days. Vichy MSM is falling all over itself to give the gasbag coverage. A petition is trying to ban him from stepping foot into the U.K., and billionaire Robert Mercer, who aided and abetted Bannon’s wingding aphorisms by funding the hacks of Cambridge Analytica and the spreading of hate rhetoric along the disinformation highway, is no longer bankrolling him. Although he’s been trying to find a new sponsor and continues his Leni Riefenstahl film career, he’s been publicly rejected by rightwing Euro-fascists.

ROGER STONE: The longtime friend and former advisor to the president* has indicated he is the unnamed source in Mueller’s latest indictment, and eight of his associates have now been interviewed by Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors. Although he’s backpedaled on comments that he met with Julian Assange and had insider knowledge of the DNC hack, Stone acknowledged trading messages with Guccifer 2.0, which according to the Mueller indictment, is a front for Russian intelligence officers.

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: This sordid tale starts in a bar with Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Whilst drinking in London, Papadopoulos told Alexander Downer, Australia's top diplomat to the UK, that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos soon thereafter struck a plea deal with Mueller's office, admitting to one count of lying to the FBI. He is now awaiting sentencing, with Mueller recommending six months.

OMAROSA MANIGAULT NEWMAN: As Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci and Hope Hicks have learned, being a member of the Trump Admin isn’t exactly an enhancement on one’s resume. Manigault Newman one upped her former colleagues by going bigly. She didn’t just write a book and do the circuit, she kept receipts and is dropping them daily. I knew how much trouble America was in when moments after the 2016 Electoral College Victory Heist was announced, the Hollywood Reporter printed an “exclusive” feature on Manigault Newman’s elevator ride with Trump to accept the real fake presidency*. In the article, she threatened those who would not submit to Herr Trump, and I knew we were in for a long, ugly haul to regain the dignity of our country. Since no one who seeks redemption is beyond salvation, score one for reformed trolls everywhere.

HONORABLE MENTION:

ANDY PUZDER: I used to tell Andy I was his only friend in the media, so of course, he blocked me. Truly, I begged him not to hitch his star to the pageant guy, because I knew there was no way it would end well. He ultimately withdrew his nomination for Labor Secretary after allegations of abuse serviced, allegations he denies. A vocal supporter of Trump on the campaign trail, Puzder is now the former CEO of Carl’s Jr. and is currently promoting his latest book, “The Capitalist Comeback.” As someone who once produced and hosted a business series, the bottom line in the long run: it’s integrity that’s bankable.

***

There’s a theory that everything Trump touches turns to poo, unless Russia is picking up the tab (see Zembla docs on “The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump” for clarification). It’s understandable why a six-time bankrupt mob patsy would have allegiance to his providers de rubles, so calling former staffers ugly names and slandering our top intelligence agents is simply part of his job requirements as Putin’s Apprentice.

Yet as ugly as this divide in our country is, I am a firm believer that this too shall pass. We’ve weathered ugly before as a country, when that lame duck Buchanan was our president. Buchanan did nothing to prevent a country divided and handed over the keys to the White House to Abraham Lincoln with a shrug, leaving Lincoln to clean up his mess. It’s been awhile since the American people were tested and we were broadsided by Russia’s long game. It’s up to us now to save the republic, and I’m staying close to the truth and those who provide it.

To quote that great philosopher Winnie the Pooh from “Christopher Robin,” it appears I’ve come to the end of my thoughts.

Bottom’s up.

****

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is a veteran investigative reporter, screenwriter, activist and mother.

[maewestside]

PRESIDENT TROLL GOES CLUBBIN’... by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

Among the things I learned as a nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times, nothing clears a dance floor faster than playing Nico at last call. Lights up, party’s over.

Among the things I’ve learned as a free press activist on Twitter, nothing kills a thread faster than an oily botnet of fake resistors. They’re like throwing a stink bomb on a dance floor. A serious bumout. No one wants to stick around when the trolls show up. After two years of this shite, I block and move on but the thing is, bots are inflicting real damage to democracy.

Unlike 2016, when Russia was programming fake love for Putin’s Apprentice, aka Donald J. Troll, the latest bots appear to be part of the Resistance. They appear to be anti-Trump; but they’re really anti-democracy. And you will know them by their trail of divisiveness. Anyone trying to divide the Resistance is not one of us. They’re bot. 

Working on a recent Congressional campaign with a stellar grassroots team and a brilliant candidate, we faced troll-venom daily. We faced constant personal attacks and of particular note was the hits we’d take when we had good news to share--out would come the coordinated Twitter bots. They’d show up as soon as we posted our good news, and they’d start spreading negative juju. Hateful, racist, ignorant lies, often cloaked with the pretense of defending democracy or lobbying for another candidate. Because we have friends in high and low places, it was easy to determine many weren’t real people at all, but part of an elaborate scheme to depress and suppress the organic narrative with disruptive dialogue. Geolocators revealed the trolls weren’t local. In fact, they were from all over the world, part of a botnet, a zombie network.

The term botnet, short for robot network, can refer to automated accounts that are legitimate, deployed to publish headlines and amplify real stories. But the malicious Twitter bots I’m referring to produce false narratives and fake followers for anyone willing to pay for them. They not only feign popularity for the buyer, they manipulate debates and twist public opinion in perfidious ways that are difficult to prove and prevent. Despite Twitter’s recent bot sweep--it was all quiet on the western front for a few weeks--I’m watching the return of these joykiller bots as we near the mid-terms. Particularly alarming: if a candidate appears to be popular due to botnet boosting, real people think they’re backing a winner. In fact, they’re backing a fraud (or someone who has no problem paying for fraudulent activities).

Troll armies are a cunning, cheaptrick by bad actors. The reason Russia pushed them hot and heavy in 2016 is they’re effective. Bots influence the dynamic of real discussions and opinions and ultimately, impact real elections.

As a veteran investigative reporter, I knew something was amiss back in 2016. There simply wasn’t that much hate in the world. I’ve brought cameras and pens into people’s homes for 30 years and know most people are good and kind and just trying to get by. I read Mueller’s troll farm indictment through tears. Everything I knew to be true was right there in black and white. Our intelligence agencies, fighting for democracy.

So what does President Troll do as the Mueller investigation zeroes in on truth? He clubs his detractors by churlishly taking away security clearances, and his best boys and gals are diminished to crude catchphrases when they’re no longer obsequious flatterers.

Oh what a tangled web.

I moved to Los Angeles in the ‘90s to write a book with Ice T. Among his mantras that always stuck with me: “Freedom of speech… just watch what you say.”

The fact is, we’re in a disinformation war and President Troll is clubbin’ everything and everyone that gets in the way of his tangled web of deceit. When he revoked the security clearance belonging to John Brennan today, the light of liberty dimmed just a bit more.

So here’s a question: Are we going to go gently into this dark night, handing over democracy without a fight? Or will we fight the power?

As voters showed up in record numbers this week, while neo-not-zees not so much (as I’ve written a million times, halfwits can always be dredged up during a ratings sag), the numbers appear to be on the side of democracy.

Let’s do something very American. Let’s face the music and dance.

****

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative reporter, filmmaker, political consultant and mother.

[maewestside]

LONELY ARE THE BRAVE…by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

It’s surreal out there. I see American flags waved wildly by folks in red hats, and I think, “If only they knew.”

If only they’d watch the three Zembla reports on “The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump.” If only they’d read the Steele Dossier and all the Mueller indictments. If only they’d watch the Frontline documentaries, “Vladimir Putin’s Rise to Power” and “Putin’s Revenge,” Parts 1 & 2. If only truth wasn’t becoming an endangered species. If only journalists weren’t dying.

As media falls into every gaslighting trap set by the president* and his stooge$, I think, “If only they’d stop repeating the lies.” I started writing about the dangers of gaslighting in 2016, how lies can become “truth” when repeated often enough, and now we’re seeing the verified impact in the polling percentages. Lying is a cheaptrick, and it’s straight out of the Dictator’s Playbook. Lying is the message, as Russian journalist Masha Gessen cautions, the lies then amplified by bots and trolls, which are then amplified by people, which are then countered by reporters and so it goes.

I first wrote about Trump in the Los Angeles Times in 1996, referring to him as a has-been. I then investigated him in 2006, in relation to a pyramid scheme. He was the shiny object trotted out to lure the naïve to write checks. By now, investigating the trumpery of the election of 2016 is a fulltime passion. So many rabbit holes, so little time. So many activists doing great work, enduring attacks for presenting the truth. Lonely are the brave. But we have each other. We stay rooted in truth by communicating truth, propping each other up with facts and reassurance. When one is attacked, we all share the pain.

Activists knew early on the seriousness of democracy’s carnage: if you just followed the rubles it led straight to the Kremlin. Most of us never acknowledged the authenticity of the election, because we simply knew too much. We followed the rubles to the oligarchs, who’d bought and propped up the politicians. Clearly, the uptick in hate and inelegant cruel rhetoric was bot. It’s all been hiding in plain sight, regurgitated by the media, inflamed on social media and filtering into churches, which embrace the bigotry embraced by the Russian orthodox. Pitting Americans against each other was easy, our openness a vulnerability.

Seasoned investigative reporters at McClatchy DC, Mother Jones and the Guardian have been unwavering in truth, exposing shells and cyber subterfuge, and independent activists continue connecting truth-dots, exposing the greed at every turn. But the messaging isn’t hitting the cult, most of whom don’t know that they’re supporting a patsy, a desperate despot’s best boy.

And that’s the thing, Putin’s desperate. His popularity in Russia is waning, and he’s making some bad moves. Thousands of Russians are rioting in the streets, turning on him en masse over his pension age increases. A pension office was just bombed two days ago. Three Russian journalists in Central Africa were murdered last week as they investigated Russian military contractors directly linked to the Kremlin. U.K. intelligence officials believe recent poisonings in the U.K. were carried out by Russian agents. A nationalist biker gang, under U.S. sanctions for its role in aiding pro-Russian militants in the Ukraine, just showed up unwelcomed in Slovakia, a member of NATO and the EU. It’s the same biker group that helped Russia seize Crimea. Putin’s ramping up militant nationalism, while preventing millions from leaving the country. Greece expelled two Russian diplomats last month, in retaliation for Russia meddling with a Macedonian deal; Russia’s power continues to erode in southeastern Europe, as the EU and NATO expand into the Balkans. And a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers are doubling down on sanctions, loudly breaking with Trump, as U.S. intelligence beats the drum louder about Russian interference in the American election of 2016 and the 2018 mid-terms. Anyone paying attention to Russia’s hybrid war in the Ukraine, which included unmarked militants and a cyber disinformation campaign, could have predicted, note for note, what the Kremlin would pull in the U.S. Even down to the hacking of our power grids. As Russian bank profits drop and the economy continues to rise and fall on the price of oil, nothing is a given. And former Russia investor, Bill Browder, just keeps getting louder, the pain of the death of his brave attorney leading to the Magnitsky Act, allowing the U.S. to freeze assets and bar human rights violators from entering the country. But perhaps the biggest looming shadow being cast on Putin is coming from his fanboy in the White House. By using cyber stunts and cheap intimidation to tilt the election away from his foe, Hillary Clinton, and toward the oily charlatan, Putin’s now stuck with him. And stuck with the scrutiny by U.S. intelligence, which is coming down hard on Kremlin operatives, as noted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments.

As lonely as it can feel being a pusher of truth in an era where liars get free facetime, it’s even lonelier being the guy keeping the secrets of the guilty.

****

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative producer, filmmaker and activist. She curates the best global reporting on the truth of the Trump-Russia scandal on Twitter @foxycuda.

[maewestside]

THE SHELF-LIFE OF ANCHORHACK$: A Deeper Look at the Resumes of Scamalot... by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

In trying to ascertain why gungy grifter$ cling so close to the Real Fake President that it’s unseamly and unmanly, I finally zeroed in on the malignant trumpery afoot: many of the Diarrhea Tweeta’s cozyboy$ have one thing in common: they’re anchorhack$… former, current and some so vainglorious they’ll say anything for Vichy MSM FaceTime. 

Among the “Conservative Talk Show Hosts” of the inner circle jerks of Scamalot:

Mike “Devotional Gaze” Pence

The VP became uber churchy after two failed political runs, one featuring an ad campaign that revealed himself to be a bigot, and it wasn’t until he picked up a radio microphone and became the calm voice of bigotry and misogyny that a career was born. Freepress sources in Indiana tell me the churchy bit became amplified after an evangelical$ bailout over a bunk family oil deal (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/10/1/252402/-). Until being selected to run as VP of Scamalot, Pence was on his way out as Indianans had had enough of hi$ churchy routine. Jane Mayer of the New Yorker likens his “devotional gaze” directed at the Real Fake President as a look usually reserved for first ladies.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-pence-talk-radio-225855

Sam “Weird Science” Clovis

Another wannabe politician who failed in his run for Iowa State Treasurer in 2014, Clovis had built a loopy fringe following through his conservative radio talkshow, “Impact With Sam Clovis,” where he espoused the usual info$lime found in bigoted pockets of AM radio. Clovis, not only hosted a radio show, he also blogged racist bull jive about President Barack Obama, and although he claims to be an academic, his writings reveal a tosser who calls climate change junk science and opines that legalizing same sex marriages could lead to nefarious chicanery. Now that it’s been outed Clovis talked to the Feebs about his role in RussiaGate, he withdrew his nomination for a position a grifter like he had no business being considered for in the first place: the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist. To be sure, an anchor fomenter denier is some kinda weird science. Add sketchy to the resume and pffft.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-appointee-sam-clovis-was-a-birther-called-eric-holder-a-racist-black

Anthony “Ten Day$ of Infamy” Scaramucci

Aside from sperience at Goldman Sachs and “private wealth management,” Scaramucci joined Fox Business Network as a correspondent in 2014. He was fired ten days after his announcement as White House Communications Director. During his brief Scamalot stint, Scaramucci joined such White House talking heads as former Fox & Friends host, Heather Nauert, who currently serves as a spokesanchor for the State Department, and Lara Trump, who debuted her impression of a Fox propagandist for the Real Fake President’s Propaganda TV #sad.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/08/02/lara_trump_s_debut_as_an_anchor_is_part_fox_news_part_amateur_vlogger_100.html

Steve “Blackbart” Bannon

Anyone who knew Andrew Breitbart says he’d be puking in his grave. Once Bannon, the creeper of #glitteringsteel lulz and Cambridge Analytica, took Mercer’s cash, it was on. After Mercer’s original pick for president, Ted Cruz, flopped, he assigned Creeper Bannon to MeinTrumpf and we all know how well that worked out as the global dom nature of glory hunters blasé blasé. But all you have to do to feel their erstwhile brolove is have a listen to Breitbart Radio to see how flattery directed at MeinTrumpf will get even fringe grifter$ a gig in Scamalot. Below, WaPo’s foxy David Fahrenthold gives a blow by blow of the blowhards hit parade:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/clips-from-breitbart-radio-show-reveal-trumps-relationship-with-stephen-bannon/2016/11/15/5854c606-ab89-11e6-8f19-21a1c65d2043_video.html?utm_term=..4443115d90d0

Sean “Shammity” Hannity

Although Shammity doesn’t hold an official position in Scamalot, the veteran Anchor Hack serves as Chief Apologist. In that position, Shammity not only is fending off pervy accusations of his own, but British government regulators just ruled his infoshow breached impartiality rules. In addition, his creepy coverage of the Roy Moore creeper-circus resulted in Keurig Coffee pulling ads off the Shammity Show today. Although I’m no fan of throwaway living, and prefer a French press with no filter or single use components, I do applaud businesses withdrawing support of veteran dooshe$ who assisted in turning our fathers into bigots (latest count: five advertisers have bailed). 

Remember when the boycotts aimed at his fellow anchor pervs started? Ya, turns out the shelf life on Anchor Hack$ finally expired in 2016 but America’s just batting cleanup.

Keep yacking boyz. You’re burying yourselves.

******

Author/columnist Heidi Siegmund Cuda is a free press activist, screenwriter and film director. Her short film, “Rigged: A Tail of Corruption,” made its big screen debut at the Orcas Island Film Festival in Oct. 

You can see “Rigged” at riggedfilm.us

[maewestside]

#FAKEHATE: THE LINGERING EFFECTS OF RUPERT SCURVY... by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

One of my former managers told me the secret to his success is he got up earlier than everyone else. #word

On Mother’s Day morning I allowed myself to sleep in till 5 am, an hour later than usual. And then hopped down the stairs and did what any bright chap would do, I searched the word “impeach” in social, hoping to get a single wiff of the smell of impeachment in the air. For months all we’ve been smelling is tension and rage, as the lingering effects of Rupert Scurvy has combusted America’s heart and soul. We used to have one, you know.

As story after story with the same inelegant script under different HateBot$ turned up under the word “impeach” revealing a non-story about Ms. Maxine Waters, one of the most courageous #sheroes of the revolution, I thought, “This can’t be!” But there it was, a grotesque caricature, #misogyny on Mother’s Day, the inelegant orche$trated verbiage an indication of an auteur who either hates himself or his mother. That the sicko junk was repurposed by "legit" lol new$ $ites caused me to hurl. 

I stared in horror at my busted screen. It just couldn’t be, but in all it$ scummy glory: heavy heavy misogyny on Mother’s Day, with heavy heavy racist undertone$ to add extra.

Aghast, I realized clearly the troll$ were still under contract to #scamalot, as I watched the soulless f$!ker$ find a new critical public servant to inelegantly ba$h, because the cottage indu$try of ba$hing Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton for profit has been outed by the hard work of chumps like me and myriad dogooders cutting through the corporate scripted narrative that sells #misogny #homophobia #bigotry and #fear for profit.

So there I was on Mother’s Day morning, trying to turn off the bigot $pigot from hurting Ms. Waters one tweet at a  time by calling out the Fake Hate, and when I saw the enormity of the prescripted bot and $old venom spitting its way back at me, I summoned the strength of love, because it was afterall Mother’s Day. I wasn’t gonna let miserable, small and weak hearted troll$ ruin a day that is meaningful in my home and millions of others. 

I live in a home where mothers are cherished.

So I did the only thing a peace provocateur could do in that situation. I asked the #twitter universe to send Ms. Maxine Waters extra love on that glorious Mother’s Day, and the universe responded in kind. 

https://twitter.com/foxycuda/status/863746232748986369

We have to keep trying to detonate #fakehate with love, because we only have love and truth and as I’ve said from the jump, it might be all we need. 

Everyone wants to swing baseball bats at those who voted for #meinshit and those who sat it out. But we must unite over the simple fact that truth is a commodity that hasn’t been profitable for corporate controlled media for some time, so things got kinda confusatory as #fakehate cloaked by billionaire fanzine$ and #bignew$ was propagated to the masses in the form of infogreed. Thus, folks truly believe there’s been a significant erosion of goodness in mankind, when it’s merely the passing of greed… let it pass…

We weren’t so easily misled down the slippery slope of info-lie$ a few short years ago cuz we weren’t getting our information from an endless sea of 24/7 $hite skewed to a demographic that the bean counters say will likely buy whatever it i$ they’re selling. Just look at the real #fakenew$ info-ad$ adorning your favorite websites. They had to figger out how to monetize somehow, so taking money from gangster$ musta felt like manna from heaven (eff you Facebook etal).

HIGH NOON FOR CYBERTREASON

A gent with a bent asked me for bulletpoints on my petition to “Investigate Project Alamo.” That’s the nifty name for #cybertreason.

https://twitter.com/foxycuda/status/863454998096519168

Hmm. Five bulletpoints to unite America and help preserve the free world from unloved children who haven’t learned to love themselves. That’s a lot of pressure but we mothers understand pressure because we’ve been in the cooker since the ‘70s.

Okay.

Five Bulletpoints to Save Democracy, as it pertains to #Scamalot and the #Cybertreason of #Project Alamo:

Number one: Sorry pal, you’re gonna have to do some homework cuz I used to condense complex shite into simple graphic bitesize pieces for a living but cybertreason takes due diligence so this will take some reading on your part. There will be no bulletpoints only homework, which you will be quizzed on later.

Your first assignment: read billionaire fanzine Forbes’ cover story on the Golden Doo$h of #Scamalot (Dec. 2016)

(for psychedelic cliff notes: https://twitter.com/foxycuda/status/856152842024869890)

Then follow it up with Businessweek, and myriad Texas new$paper puff piece$ on “Project Alamo,” a San Antonio affair starring the #sanantonio100, the number of digital hack$ it took to fukc up our country but good. 

Now, the irony up to this point is these dirty deed$ were all in plain site because the Dumb Bunnie$ running the racket not only gave cozy interviews to collaborator journo$, they were celebrated en masse for playing “moneyball” with America’s heart. And America’s soul.

I have a blind friend who tells me she loves not being marketed to. #word

Today is Wednesday? Okay you have till Friday to read Forbes “exclusive” lolnotlol before my pop quiz and your next assignment: #alexandrachalupa explainer. 

Ergo, read… tune out… turn off… meditate… read… seek truth. Cuz it is the truth that will return America to its good and kind soul.

Now I must return to the music in my head and my million projects piling up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zallzQAm040&feature=youtu.be

“… can’t eat, can’t sleep, knowing that nothin’s gonna satisfy me… another blip upon the television screen.. among the oceans of stars…”

#word

(and please don’t be one of the cheapie$ behind the palm$, please tip your #freepress activists. we weren’t chic six months ago when crickets were the only response to truth. now our good efforts are resonating globally so please i beseech you to join such rebel outlaws as pennywise, strung out, the adolescents, sublime, pulley, unit f and a swell group of philanthropists and help me grow the team: https://www.gofundme.com/freepress)

(above, the author, watching sunshine rick schuler channel john denver at “conejo valley days,” featuring buster akrey in the red plaid shirt. cuda asked organist akrey who his favorite artists are who he’s played with: by the time he got to jimmy page, peter frampton and steely dan, you coulda knocked her over with a feather. among the artists who performed at the annual event in simi valley over mother’s day weekend were the foo fighters, cuz the foo is on the right side of history. the mark mahoney-inked “pen is mightier than the sword” back tat circa 2000ish was designed by chris gallipoli, the art director of cuda’s third and fourth books, on her 15th anniversary of being a writer for a living #word). 

[maewestside]

POLICE STATE NOHO: The Film Noir Edition… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

I was picking up my daughter from poetry practice on a soggy, dark night. My 15-year-old Beetle, affectionately known as #thugbug, had been parked in a flood zone overnight and flood she did. The natives of Tujunga Village get sploshed something fierce when we get even the slightest patter of rain.

Well, through the shadows of the dark eve came the unmistakable siren sound of an eager officer. I’d known a few. I’ve also known some of the best men and women to ever dignify blue uniforms and because of their grace and dogoodin’, I will keep it classy. (Although the cats I know on The Force also keep it real. We are simpatico in our love for humanity.)

So out of the mist comes Officer One. Although I know to only speak when spoken-to in matters of the Po’-lease, my inner Bette Davis got the better of me (again) after this Dewy Babe in the Woods asked for my I.D. 

I couldn’t help but quip, “I’m gonna need to see your I.D. too!” He looked 15 if he was a day.

Well, Baby Dewy didn’t break character and up came Officer 2 with a flashlight, to make sure #thugbug didn’t have any hidden Gats, Glocks or sundry other contraband. Dust bunnies, sure. Gats? As if! 

Being a midded-aged women driving an old but well maintained car, I was uncertain as to why I was detained, but I figgered I never got hurt keepin’ my mouf shut so hands on wheel, I waited for instructions. Miffed, cuz I had to turn down the volumn on Pulley “Sometimes,” which no one should ever have to do. Again, it wasn’t my roe-day-oh, so I sat tight. Real tight.

Sure, the darkness of the night had something to do with the dampness creeping over my soul, but it took a really long gaddman time for Baby Dewy to run my CDL (yes! I’m a mother in suburbia who volunteers, watches birds and eviscerates with my pen). True dat.

So after what seemed like a frightening long time, here they both come, for shorthand, let’s call ‘em Eins und Zwei, to let me know my left headlamp was out and I would need to fix it and that “it won’t cost me anything as long as I sign here.”

Well, among #thugbugs charms isn’t her ability to keep her left headlamp glowing for more than six months in a row, so I took my Fix-It Ticket, signed where Eins instructed me to sign, and I was released for Time Served. I cranked Pulley back up to 11, took a breath and texted my daughter that I’d been pulled over for a headlight infraction, of which I was not aware, and that I would be on my way as soon as The Heat backed off and my anxiety level goes back to bearable.

I recall the darkness of the safe street I turned down to collect her not sitting well with me that night. Things have a more sinister bent since the Hawkish Pageant Regime’s Victory Heist. It’s as if the rain and the wind are whispering, “Achtung baby!” on the same streets where I used to admire the foliage and the lingering smell of jasmine.

THE FIXER

Back at the ranch, Mein Hombre immediately took care of the headlight bulb and off I went the following week with the Fix-It ticket paperwork to make sure I stayed on the right side of the law, my preferred modus operandi.

Boy oh boy what you can learn when you make an attempt to listen. 

The thing I found, after standing in the first wrong line as per the instructions on the instructions I received in the mail, was thus: the instructions have no merit whatsoever.

The good news about being in the wrong line: I met a women whose son needs the kinda help a free press activist with ample media cred can offer, so I guess it was the right line after all.

Well, as I quickly learned by following all the incorrect instructions: 

I did not have to sign the ticket: that part was optional; I did not have to pay $20 to wait in a non-line in my car for a half hour, only to have a Cold Prickly tell me I “had the wrong paperwork. And only the signed ticket” would do. Well, I rifled through the glove box to find the ticket, only to be verbally told to amscray while I was rifling said glove box. I was told to vamoose in case another customer was fool enough to show up. Despite the fact there were no other fool customers, a lot of flapping ensued and I swear she was Strother Martin in “Rooster Cogburn” reincarnate. Any minute now, I expected the “round the horn” speech.

And just as backups were being called in to eject me from the inspection zone, victoriously, I waved my Authentic Violation through the moon roof. 

With impeccable timing, I held my ticket up high so they couldn’t roust me, and with great suspicion, and with much clipboard clicking, it became evident, my headlight was working. 

Off she signed, we exchanged pleasantries as she told me my next stop was the Courthouse where I would only have to pay $20 to be relieved of my crime.

Well, that was after two trips back to my car to relieve my handbag of such security measures as nail files and cuticle cutters.

Once I was allowed in the building, everyone was quite polite from there on out, after they took my money. 

First shocker/coulda saved a $20: the $20 extracted behind Door Number One for using the Valley inspection station indicated on my real fake paperwork was a “convenience,” rather than the multiple free, CHP locations that I could have used in SoCal. Of this fact I was unawares until I was correctly guided by kind workers within the system who whispered hidden truths to make sure I didn’t get screwed agin.

And for the Final Act of Thievery, I had the pleasure of going to Floor Number Two, where I was charged $25 to clear #thugbug’s good name from the Infernal System of the Damned. The Scarlet Letter F for F... Fix It.

It was two hours of my time, where I was forced to multi-task conference calls, miss appointments and generally piss people off who needed me to be other places. But along the way, I met more stranger angels, and we are here to help each other.

******

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is seeking a civil rights attorney to match with a client, whose son appears to be deeply injured by the system. Calling all you angels, please holla.

[maewestside]

getting on with the libretto: unfuck the world... a poem by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

http://johnsidneybarrymore.tumblr.com/post/132338372741/blame-it-on-barrymore

[maewestside]

DUCK, YOU SUCKER: DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION by heidi siegmund cuda, aka @maewestside

I once told my daughter, sexual harassment was just part of my job description.

She looked at me and said, “That doesn’t make it right.”

She had a point.

Those of us who entered the workforce in the “Greed is Good” ‘80s had grown accustomed to the ways of a man’s world. Hell, we were just grateful to be in the game. Particularly after the Great Recession gave Titans of Industry a license to ill, i.e., layoff employees with the idea of not replacing ‘em as the economy recovered.

Those still left in the salt mines now wear 12 hats, inelegantly. God help you if you rise to the occasion cuz it’s certain you’ll be donning a 13th chapeau.

Like the bandito in Sergio Leone’s “Duck, You Sucker,” I just wanted to feed my family but accidentally got swept up in a revolution. I realized if the price you pay to feed your family is to live on your knees, then time to find a new way to live.

I’ve set a terrible example for my children: I’ve taught them about ideals, respect, humility and dignity. We can do poverty standing on our heads.

They’ve taught me we have much to be hopeful about in this world. The youth, for one, are steadfast in the belief they can change things.

Punk philosopher Jello Biafra taught me two decades ago, people will always whine about problems, but few will spend half a day trying to solve them. We can already feel a sea change, just in the last two weeks. It’s like a giant mass of lethargy has awoken from its stupor and said, “F this noise! Why all the hate?”

I’m just grateful that my children will always have markers to know their mom didn’t hang on the sidelines and watch the world burn in an undignified manner.

To quote The Jerk (sorta): All I need is this pen, and that’s all I need. 

#dumptrump

#freepress

#goodforamerica 💕✒️🇺🇸✌️️

******

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is the mother of two writers.