Fanis and his cousin Kera are
sitting in Kera’s flat in London watching yet another Democrat debate. The more Fanis watches, the more ashamed he
gets of the country he was born and raised in that half of them support the
Democrats given how pathetic they seem.
Even Kera, a lifelong Democrat, is disappointed by what she’s
watching. Biden keeps to his narrative
that he’s beaten the NRA twice so he will implement gun control. Kera blurts out, “Finally, the man that
destroyed Paul Ryan in a vice president debate is coming out. This is his best performance.”
Biden ends with, “150 Million
people have been killed by guns since 2007 and when I’m president I’m going to
stop that.”
Fanis turns to Kera, “You were
saying?”
“What?’
“There are only 330 million
people in the United States. You think
half of that has been killed by guns?”
“You forgot the 11 million
undocumented workers”
“Okay, so 341 Million”
“Yea, so it’s a lower
percentage.”
“44% of the American population
you think has been killed by guns since 2007.
Do you know anyone killed by a gun because I don’t and that stat should
mean that more than one of every three people we know has been killed by a
gun.”
“No, I don’t” Kera put her head
down, “ I guess I spoke too soon.”
“The dude is senile. It’s almost sad to watch.”
“If he wasn’t a Democrat, you would
think it was sad.”
“Yea probably.”
“He’s seen some shit though; I
mean he got arrested going to visit Nelson Mendella in the 70s”
“No he wasn’t. He got detained at the airport and
questioned. That’s happened to me too.”
“Well, when you fly
internationally as much as we do, it’s inevitable.”
“I agree, it’s Biden that
thought it was akin to being arrested.”
As they continue to watch, they
listen to Mike Bloomberg talk about how he was responsible for the Democrats
winning the midterms because he financed 21 of the 40 winners. Mayor Bloomberg starts saying something and
then stops and rephrases but it wasn’t lost on Kera. She exclaimed, “Wait, did he just say he
bought the 2018 midterms for the Democrats?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Since when do we let a 1%
represent the Democrat party? We’re
supposed to be against the 1%. He’s not
even 1%, he’s like .01%”
“Actually, .01% is like 2.5
million. He makes 64 Billion so it’s a
much tinnier percentage.”
Kera shot her cousin a dirty
look, “Shut up. Bloomberg is supposed to
be the safe pick but he’s not because we don’t like money in politics and
that’s all he’s about. He always was a Republican when he was mayor of New York
and promoted stop and frisk. He’s a
corporate rich billionaire and that’s anathema to everything we stand for.”
“Democrats don’t stand for
anything. That’s why they spent years
talking about that old white men shouldn’t be in charge and the top two
nominees are old white men.”
“We need to go.”
“Where to?”
“Brazil”
“Alright”
They head to the airport and
board the plane to Natal, Brazil, which is located in the northeast
corner. As it is near the equator, it is
much hotter than San Paulo and Rio and the Brazilians that can afford it have
their winter homes up here to escape the cold.
While on the plane, Kera is still reeling from the debates. She states, “I just don’t understand. Why can’t Sanders just be like ‘I got duped
by the lies that the communists were telling just like many people did.’? Instead he doubles down with this ‘truth is
truth’ shit. I mean does he think he’s
Ayn Rand? Newsflash, she hated Communism
too. I mean yes literacy is good but at
what cost!”
“It doesn’t matter the cost to
Sanders. The ends always justifies the
means to a socialist.”
“I guess so.”
“You said something interesting
though. He could just pretend he got
duped by Russian propaganda. Maybe he
doesn’t know he was tricked and that’s why he’s falling for the same trick.”
Kera contemplates this, “You
mean that Cuba’s good numbers are lies?”
“Yea, take the life
expectancy. Since we spend so much time
in Cuba, we know that the doctors are given benchmarks and targets and there
are strict punishments if they don’t meet them.
That gives them incentives to fudge the numbers.”
“Yea, well we’re going to be
kind of close”
“Look at a map; it’s on the
Atlantic not the Caribbean. Too far east
to be the Caribbean.”
They land in Natal and if you
were to draw a line up from Natal you would be hit Greenland as your first land
mass more so on their eastern side than western. They check into the hotel and drop off their
stuff. After that, they go to a seafood
buffet that Natal is famous for. Neither
Kera or Fanis are very impressed by it.
After dinner, they head out to bars and have a couple drinks before
going back to the hotel to get some rest.
The next morning, Kera heads to a meeting where she will try to sell a
Chinese artifact as that is her profession as an international Chinese
antiquity dealer. While Kera is
negotiating, Fanis asks the security guard in Spanish, “Do you guys get a lot
of Cubans here?”
Although the national language
in Brazil is Portuguese, most of them speak Spanish. Although most places an American goes, they
will be relieved to find a majority of the population speaks English, Brazil is
not one of them. Fanis continues in
Spanish, “You wouldn’t know anything
about statistics over there would you?”
“Actually I do. I was a Cuban doctor.”
Fanis gave him a weird look
wondering why he didn’t mention this before.
The security guard gave him a smile as if to answer his unvoiced
question indicating that he never asked.
Fanis let it go and inquired, “Why are Neo-Natal deaths so low there?”
“You have to understand that
communists lie with statistics.”
“Yes, I know but is it
completely fabricated or is there manipulation?”
“You have to understand that
there are neo-natal numbers and late-natal numbers.”
“Alright”
“Both of them have similar
causes so the ratio between them ranges between 1-3”
“Alright”
“Cuba’s ratio is six. That makes it double the high end of the
range”
Fanis thinks about this for a
moment and then declares, “So, since their infant mortality numbers are based
on Neo-natal deaths, they misclassify neo-natal deaths as late-natal deaths.”
“There you go.”
“And I’ve been to Cuba a few times;
you can’t tell me there are no homeless people there.”
“Even the Pravda-like Havana
Times talks about the number of homeless growing. That would be a ridiculous statement if the
number was 0. Most of the retired population
makes $10 a month. You really think
someone can own a home with that?”
“And homes are privately owned
in Cuba. It’s one of the few private
property they have.”
“Not really because the
government steals it whenever they want.”
“I’ve also heard that.”
“Don’t believe anything Bernie
Sanders says.”
“So you see where I’m going with
this?”
“Yes, he talks about the low
unemployment numbers….”
“That one’s easy. It’s forced employment. It’s not impressive when you force the
unemployed to work at the butt of a gun.”
“It’s slave labor. The average Cuban makes $300 a year.”
“The United States is $63,000
per household.”
“Yea, Bernie doesn’t want to
mention that part.”
“But hey, at least they all can
read.”
“Yea, so they can read the
propaganda papers they write. It’s not
even impressive. Literacy rose 26%
between 1953 – 2000. In Paraguay that
number was 36%. Meanwhile, food
consumption and car ownership decreased in Cuba during that time so you gave up
everything else for more people to be able to read.”
“In 1953 they had a much higher
literacy rate than Paraguay so they had shorter to go to full literacy than
Paraguay.”
“I’ll give you that but it still
doesn’t justify torture, execution and oppression.”
“That I agree with.”
Kera exits her meeting and Fanis
says bye to the security guard and they head out. Kera and Fanis return to the hotel and change
into their bathing suits and head to the beach.
The waves are pretty big in Natal and for reasons neither understands,
there is a small lake that separates the beach.
When walking toward the water, you have to walk through the pocket of
water that extends the length of the beach and then the sand picks up
again. It is obviously caused by the
ocean but why there is sand in between and not just a high tide is lost on the
Americans living in London. As they set
up on the beach, Fanis finds his eyes wandering. Brazilian women bathing suit bottoms are
thongs and the proportion of their large breasts and butts to their thin waist
is more pronounced than any culture Fanis had seen. Kera notices her cousin’s eyes and giggled,
“Don’t hurt your neck.”
“How could you not?”
They go into the water and enjoy
the ocean. During a break, a man
approaches Kera. He asserts, “You know
you Americans need to stop using Brazil for your dirty work.”
Kera glances over at Fanis but
he already assessed the threat. He walks
in between Kera and the Brazilian and commands, “Walk away. We’re just here as tourists. Whatever problem you have with the American
government has nothing to do with us. We
don’t even live in America anymore.”
“Natal is a small town; I know
who you are and why you’re here.”
“I suggest you leave.”
“How does it feel to live in a
country where the rich don’t have to pay any taxes?”
“The Wall Street Journal just
wrote an article very subtly called, ‘Wealthy Americans Already Pay Their Fair
Share.”
“Lies”
“No, the United States has the
most progressive tax rate in the world.
The top 10% of our earners pay 45% of all income taxes; that includes
Social Security and Medicare.”
“Numbers mean nothing unless
compared to something else.”
“Then compare it to 28% in
France, and 27% in Sweden. If we spent
as much of our GDP on government programs as those countries, the rich would
pay roughly the same but the bottom 90% would see their income taxes double. That’s why we need to stop Bernie.”
“You need to get your military
bases out of Natal.”
“I didn’t know we had any here.”
“Yea, it’s from World War I
because it could access Europe because of how far east we spread.”
“Good to know.”
He gives Kera a dirty look and
throws a punch at Fanis. Fanis gets his
arms up and blocks it. The Brazilian
shoves Fanis but Fanis chops his arms up and down leaving Fanis’ right hand
cocked at his waist. He shoots his right
palm out and nails the Brazilian in the solar plexus. To Fanis’ surprise, the Brazilian flies backward
and lands on his back. Fanis puts his
knee on the aggressor’s chest and grabs him by the throat, He seethed, “I don’t
know what your problem is, but you’re going to leave us alone.”
There was a sly smile and the
Brazilian wrapped his leg around Fanis’ arm and forced him to the side. Fanis scrambled to get his legs under him but
the Brazilian kicked them out. Fanis
found his arm forced behind his back by the man’s legs and Fanis was mounted
while kneeled over. The Brazilian rained
down fists to Fanis’ head and Fanis covered up and slouched his shoulders as
close to his head as he could get. It
lessened the impact but it still never feels good to have someone punching you
in the head. As Fanis used his superior
weight to push up, the Brazilian wrapped his legs around Fanis’ waist and
squeezed. Fanis felt the breath leaving
him and he hoped that Kera had left.
Fanis dropped his weight to his leg and reached back and grabbed the
Brazilian’s right arm. He tucked it over
his shoulder and threw his upper body forward trying to flip him over his
shoulder but his ankles were interlocked and held tight. Fanis eased his grip and the Brazilians
pulled up but Fanis yanked him back down as he shot his head back. The back of Fanis’ head slammed against the
Brazilian’s nose. F anis repeated it a couple times and the Brazilian released
his hold and Fanis shot to his feet. The
Brazilian wasn’t far behind. Both
combatants were bleeding; Fanis from the face and his opponent from the
nose. They circled each other and Fanis
moved forward with a punch that was dodged.
The Brazilian jumped back and fell on his back. To the untrained eye, they would have thought
that he tripped but Fanis recognized Brazilian Ju Jitsu when he saw it. They are trained to fight on their backs so
Fanis dropped his arms and waved him up.
The Ju Jitsu fighter smiled and Fanis started spinning knowing that the
Ju Jitsu fighter was going to go flashy and kick up. When he did, he fell right into a kick from
Fanis dropping him. Fanis put everything
he had into that kick and it had the desired effect as it knocked the Brazilian
out.
Fanis went back to his hotel
room and Kera noticed what the martial artist didn’t, Fanis’ left arm was
unnaturally straight as the maneuver where he lost the mount position, the
Brazilian dislocated Fanis’ elbow. Kera
dabbed the blood on his head and stopped it.
She asked, “What do I do about your elbow?”
“You need to pop it back in.”
“How do I do that?”
“To be honest, I don’t
know. I only really do shoulders.”
Kera took out her phone and
searched YouTube and found it. Kera had
to use both arms and her leg but she executed it and Fanis yelped in pain but
he had use of his left arm again. As he
tested his elbow, he uttered, “Thanks”
“No problem, I love hurting
you.”
Both of them laughed. The next day, they went back to the beach
undeterred and that night they flew back to England. While on the plane, Kera announced, “It looks
like Flynn is going to be sentenced”
“If he gets sentenced, then he’ll
be a political prisoner.”
“How do you figure?”
“This is worse than any of the
other people that were arrested. Not
only is Flynn not guilty of anything but a crime hadn’t even been
committed. There is no truth in this
entire thing.”
“Wasn’t he charged with lying to
the FBI just like Papadopoulos?”
“Yes, except the FBI agents that
interviewed him wrote in their report that they didn’t think Flynn was being
deceptive.”
“Is this another conspiracy?”
“No, it’s another set up.”
Kera rolled her eyes, “It’s a
long flight. I got time to listen to
this nonsense.”
“First off, Mike Flynn is the
only person that Obama singled out to Trump as someone not to hire during their
transition meeting.”
“Which, of course, Trump didn’t
listen to.”
“Naturally but let me just go
over the timeline.”
“It bothers me that you know it
off the top of your head. You’re way too
involved in this.”
“On August 16, 2016, the case
against Mike Flynn was open by the FBI.”
“Is that supposed to mean
something?”
“You mentioned Papadopoulos. The FBI opened the investigation on him and
Carter Page on August 10.”
“Who cares that they went after
them first?”
“Stephan Halper did.”
“What? “
“The next day, on August 11,
Stephen Halper magically shows up and meets with the FBI and the Office of Net
Assessment in the Pentagon.”
“They are the ones that paid
Halper a million dollars to write papers that he never wrote. Halper was the CIA spy that taught at
Cambridge and lured Trump people to London right?”
“Yes, and Flynn was one of his
first targets.”
“I see where this is going.”
“No, you don’t. Also, a memo in Steele’s dossier has a date
of 8/10/16 accusing all three of them of accepting money and meetings from the
Kremlin with travel paid by Putin. Flynn
is the only name not following the format of putting the last name in caps; almost
like they just threw it in because someone told them to at the last second.”
“That’s speculation if I ever
heard of it.”
“Anyway, they spy on Flynn and
by December 29, they know they’re not going to find anything. As they have nothing on Flynn yet he’s
Obama’s biggest enemy since he attacked the Iran deal so publicly and vocally,
Obama has to set him up.”
“Oh so Obama did it” Kera
replied with skepticism littered in her voice.
“Yes, Obama expelled 35 Russian
diplomats in the compounds in Maryland and New York; nowhere near DC.”
“Well, yea Russia was meddling
in our elections.”
“Then why not expel the ones in
DC? They’re the ones closer to the
government to spy. Why do the ones miles
away?”
“I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“He did have his reasons. Mike Flynn was in the Dominican Republic on
vacation and he was going to be the National Security Advisor for the new
administration that would happen in a month.
Obama needed to do something to get Russian Ambassador Kislyak to call
Mike Flynn. Since he was in DR, there
weren’t secure lines so they could listen in on the call and get a transcript.”
“Wait, I heard that there were
multiple calls.”
“The duration of the calls were
short. The service may have been bad so
the call kept getting dropped so he had to call back.”
“Again, you’re speculating?”
“Why else do you call so soon
after you get off the phone repeatedly?”
“I don’t remember reading
anything about when they took place or how close they were to each other.”
“Exactly, the media reports omit
shit to make something sound worse than it is.”
“Alright, so what?”
“Then, since he didn’t say
anything bad on the call, they arrest him over the Logan Act, which hasn’t been
prosecuted successfully in American history.”
“Yea, that was a little
weird. It can’t be illegal to be a
civilian and talk to foreigners about American policy.”
“It’s unconstitutional. Nobody ruled on it because nobody has brought
it up since the 1700s.”
“I understand the background but
what about going forward.”
“Well, now you know why Flynn
and his lawyer Powell are subpoenaing Baker.”
“Who’s Baker?”
“He was the head of the
Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment and Halper’s handler. Someone illegally leaked the Flynn
conversation with Kislyak transcript to David Ignatius of the Washington
Post. Powell is subpoenaing both of them
to see if it was Baker that leaked it to Ignatius.”
“I got to say these court cases
haven’t gone well for you conservatives lately.”
“Well, that’s about to
change. Trump targeting the 9th
circuit and appointing constitutionalist judges is paying off already.”
“What do you mean?”
“They upheld his right to defund
sanctuary cities and Planned Parenthood.
That was the most liberal appeals court but now 10 of the 13 senior
judges are Republican appointees. The
liberal strategy of getting judges to legislate from the bench is over.”
“Oh God. I bet the LGBT community is pissed.”
“I haven’t heard anything but
honestly, I don’t think Trump is going to target them.”
“He doesn’t have to. A religious person can do it for him.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
“Yea, maybe it’s good we live in
London.”
“Boris Johnson isn’t too far
off.”
“That is true. I hope this is just a fad and not a trend.”
“Time will tell.”
“Yes it will.”
They land in London and head to
their flat. Fanis’ elbow immediately
starts bothering him as the constant rain in London makes old injuries flare
up. He manages to move on and they relax
from their trip to South America. As
Kera reflects on the past few days, she decides that she has no real
candidate. Bernie Sanders is dangerous
and a tyrant-loving socialist but Kera can’t bring herself to vote for Donald
Trump either. She has eight months to
decide.
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