April 30, 2019: Kakistocracy and Hackistocracy, Hucksters Over Experts, Manifestly-Flamoyantly Unqualified.

“It's no secret”, economist Paul Krugman observes, “That Donald Trump has appointed a lot of partisan, unqualified hacks to key policy positions.” (1)

In this, Krugman is joining the ranks of scores of reporters and millions of Americans in their ridicule of a man who once promised us that “Only the Best People” would be brought into our government.

Indeed, as Krugman notes, fellow Times contributor Gail Collins now annually asks readers to name the worst of the worst. She has introduced the equivalent of the late Senator William Proxmire's “Golden Fleece” award only this time the dubious honor is given to the most venal, corrupt, malignant or downright breathtakingly incompetent member of this maladministration. This year it went to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross who scores high on at least two of the aforementioned criteria.

But until recently, notes Krugman, “one agency had seemed immune to the continuing hack invasion: the Federal Reserve, the single institution most crucial to economic policymaking. Trump's Fed nominees, have, by and large, been sensible, respected economists. But all that changed last week, when Trump said he planned to nominate Stephen Moore for the Fed's Board of Governors.

“Moore is manifestly, flamboyantly, unqualified for the position. But there's a story here that goes deeper than Moore, or even Trump; it's about the whole G.O.P.'s preference for hucksters over experts, even partisan experts.

“About Moore: It goes almost without saying that he has been wrong about everything. I don't mean the occasional bad call, which all of us make. I mean a track record that includes predicting that George W. Bush's policies would produce a magnificent boom, Barack Obama's policies would lead to runaway inflation, tax cuts in Kansas would produce a 'near immediate' boost to the state's economy, and much more. And, of course, never an acknowledgment of error or reflection on why he got it wrong.

“Beyond that, Moore has a problem with facts. After printing a Moore op-ed in which all the key numbers were wrong, one editor vowed never to publish the man's work again. And a blizzard of factual errors is standard practice in his writing and speaking. It's actually hard to find cases where Moore got a fact right.(2)

So why Moore and why now? Krugman suggest that Disgustus' tax cut has proven itself a miserable failure and therefore someone or something must take the fall. In this case the Federal Reserve which tRUMP is now accusing of aborting his 'great recovery' by modestly raising interest rates. And so, the Federal Reserve now joins a long chorus of institution with whom our errant Caesar wages war. To that end he has appointed not only the intellectual vacuous Moore but the Pizza King Herman Cain. Cain, who at least served on a regional bank board has since demurred, claiming he would have to take a pay cut to serve. But the prospect of the kleig lights shining on Herman Cain is more likely the reason. Beyond mere sexual peccadillo, Cain would have to defend, while serving a chief of a restaurant lobbyist his adoption in the 1990's of Clinton's raise in the minimum wage in return for his industry not being effected. As a result he would have to explain to the nation his role in keeping restaurant workers minimum wage pegged at $2.30 an hour. Would he then apply the same rationales for Fed policy as it pertains to the money supply as it relates to labor? That is would he, like Greenspan before him, see any real rise in wages as a rationale for turning the screws down on the economy by raising the cost of money therefore increasing unemployment? More than likely, and such an explanation would quickly lay bare the fraud that is tRUMP when it comes to those who actually sweat at work.

In any case, one of the idiots has removed himself, for all the wrong reasons, from consideration. But the other—Moore--still stands. This is the same Stephen Moore who pioneered the “privatization” movement during the Reagan years.

Our Caesar Disgustus, the Great Vandal, knows nothing if not how to vandalize. By earning his wrath the Fed is now in the cross-hairs, and what better instrument than a man who apes so much of Disgustus himself. A man who has no relationship with fact or truth; a man who steadfastly refuses to recognize failure, much less take responsibility for it; a man of unwarranted confidence posturing as an 'expert' upon the stage.

We shall see, when confronted with imposing ignorance on the handling of high finance, how the moneyed interests respond. Will Wall Street, seeing a dunce at the helm, finally recognize that he now threatens the value of money itself, that he is a clear and present danger to everything the stock-jobbing, blood-sucking parasites hold dear?

The worm turns and the nation groans.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”.

Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1. Krugman, Paul. “Trump's Kakistocracy Is Also a Hackistocracy” The New York Times. Tuesday, March 26, 2019. Page A22
2. Ibid.

April 29, 2019: Larvae of Misfortune, The Reality-Distortion Field, Any Damn Fool

“Jarvaka” as they are known, are the larvae of Brooklyn's two “great” real-estate fortunes running riot in tRUMP's White House. We are speaking, of course, of the infamous son-in-law and daughter of the current occupant of the Oval Office. There is a new book out probing “Kushner Family Secrets”, written by Vicky Ward entitled “Kushner, Inc.” which, according to The New York Times' Michelle Goldberg is “a scintillating investigation of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump's White House Sojourn”. (1)

“According to 'Kushner Inc.,' Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council, has told people that Ivanka Trump thinks she could someday be president. 'Her father's reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American Dynasty,” writes Ward.” (2)

Normally, Goldberg observes, people on the 'make' “suffer from impostor syndrome”. That is, that upon arriving to an exulted position of economic or political power or influence, those from more modest beginnings normally experience doubt as to their fitness for the position and occasionally exhibit some measure of fear that “They will soon be found out”. (3) Goldberg references Michelle Obama expressing such doubts even though the Gallup Poll last year ranked her as the most admired woman in America. Harry Truman once remarked to one of his aides that there were at least a hundred men in America more qualified than he to be President, “But they aren't sitting in this chair, I am”. Modesty tempered by realism. Not so with the Kushner's.

“As political actors, the couple are living exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon which leads incompetent people to overestimate their ability because they can't grasp how much they don't know.

“Partly, the Jared and Ivanka story is about the 'reality distortion field'--a term one of Ward's sources uses about Kushner—created by great family wealth. She quotes a member of Trump's legal team saying that the two 'have no idea how normal people perceive, understand, intuit.' Privilege, in them, has been raised to the level of near sociopathy.” (4)

The incompetence of the two is staggering. Kushner, famously put his family's fortune at risk buying 666 Fifth Avenue at nearly twice it's value just as the market was about to take. Any damn fool, in 2007, should have seen it coming. I remember construction in newly 'developed' sub-divisions advertising mortgage payments that, if you did the math, wouldn't cover the interest payments on the loan—so desperate were the banks and the contractors to unload the properties. It was widely reported at the time that the country was building homes and offices at a rate exceeding demand by 25% annually, meaning that a huge backlog of vacant properties were in the making. Any damn fool could discern the risk. But Kushner, needing to demonstrate his bona fides to his felonious father and impress his equally felonious father-in-law, demonstrated that he isn't just any damn fool.

Neither is his wife, who in the process of assuming national prominence and, therefore, national exposure has more than tarnished her 'brand'.

“(E)ven if you assume that the couple are amoral climbers”, writes Goldberg, “their behavior still doesn't quite make sense. Ward writes that Ivanka's chief concern is her personal brand, but that brand has been trashed. The book cites an October 2017 survey measuring consumer approval of more than 1,600 brands. Ivanka's fashion line was in the bottom 10.” (5)

Jared has likewise been tarnished by his close association with tRUMP.

“A leading real estate developer tells Ward that Kushner, now caught up in multiple state and federal investigations, has become radioactive: 'No one will do business with him'”. (6)

Except, perhaps, Qatar and other actors in the Middle East.

“'You'll notice that the U.S. position toward Qatar changes when the Qataris bail out 666 Fifth Avenue,' said Ward, adding 'We look like a banana republic'. (7)

Perhaps this is why our Caesar Disgustus gave Jared the Middle East portfolio begging questions as to what personal financial dealings are behind our abrupt alterations in our regional policies. As Goldberg notes, the Kushner's are, as public servants, way out of their depth. “But as self-dealing scions of a gaudy autocracy? They're naturals.” (8)

As the disgraced former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen has, to her eternal regret, learned association with Caesar Disgustus will ruin your life. No ones reputation, not even, apparently or especially, that of of his children, can withstand the exposure. Everyone within reach of our Caesar Disgustus gets slimed. If, in the end, we are saved from the likes of a tRUMP dynasty or, better still, destroys the ReSCUMlickan Party, then perhaps there will be some redeeming value to this national nightmare. The problem is that the republic itself hangs in the balance.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

______________

1. Goldberg, Michelle. “Who Do Jared and Ivanka Think They Are?” The New York Times. Tuesday, March 19, 2019. Page A26.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. Ibid
8. Ibid

April 28, 2019: Rescuing Netanyahu, Time to Face Facts, Death Of The Two-State Solution.

We must not let the time pass without commenting on what, in the last month, has transpired in the Middle East.  Our Caesar Disgustus has come to the rescue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by recognizing the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights.  Our Disgustus did this without consulting our allies, the Congress, or even the U.S. State Department.  It was yet another example of government by tweeting.  Only a birdbrain tweets.

This, of course, is a complete reversal of U.S. and allied policy toward Israel which not only gives credence to Israel's illegitimate claims upon the territory and further emboldens Israel's truculent behavior, but further isolates the United States in the international community.

It is time for the United States to face facts.  The Israeli's have never been serious about negotiating with the Palestinians.  They have, since the six-day war, used whatever peace processes were imposed upon them to delay and obstruct in order to continue their policies of ethnic cleansing and occupying the seized territories.  I remember my late mother-in-law returning from a trip to the region with a map as a souvenir in which Israel was drawn including territories they called Judea and Samaria, that is, the occupied west bank.  And indeed, the practice of fracturing the territory by building settlements pell-mell in the region, building "Jews Only" highways connecting them and further fracturing the territory, and  establishing hundreds of check points to protect this infrastructure within the region assured that a future Palestine, had it ever been recognized, would have looked like Swiss cheese and been nothing but an Israeli colony.

Jimmy Carter understands what has happened.  In the wake of the Camp David accords, Israel used the agreement to trade territory that is largely useless to them in exchange for dividing the Arab world, a division that cost Egyptian President Anwar Sadat his life, after which for Israel it became business as usual.  Israel treated the agreement as just another stratagem and went about the real business of annexation.  Carter, seeing this has, for good reason, become a critic of Israel.

The United States has never been, despite it's international posturing, even-handed in this.  The U.S. has always come down, in the end, on the side of the Israeli's.  Oh, one protests, what about this rebuke or that in the last half-century?  They have been mere slaps upon the wrist, mere admonitions, as we look the other way.  How else does one explain our constant condemnation of Palestinian resistance and "terror" when we never condemn Israel for provoking it?  How else does one explain our incessant pre-occupation with developing nuclear capability in Iran (or Iraq when Saddam Hussein ran amok U.S. policymakers), while never calling out the Israeli's and demanding that they give up their nuclear weapons?  How else to explain going to war with Iraq for violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions while standing stone silent in the face of over two dozen Israeli violations of the same?  All of this is lost on the ignorant American population but none of this is lost on the residents of the region.

It is also time to face the fact that the "two-state solution" is dead. If we are to be compelled to recognize, in the end, the annexation of the occupied territory then we must demand a "One-State" solution, wherein everyone within what now amounts to "greater Israel" is accorded citizenship and voting rights.  The West must demand that every Palestinian be recognized as a voting citizen, that there will be--as in South Africa and elsewhere--no apartheid.  This will, effectively, end the concept of the Jewish State and force Israel to join the rest of humanity.  In such a state, walls are unnecessary.

Netanyahu was in a tight race and the prospects were good that he would have been replaced had not Disgustus raced to his rescue.  By negotiating the Faustian bargain Netanyahu, himself under indictment for corruption, won another term, but he did it by destroying his country.   As Thomas Freidman, long an observer of the region, has observed, annexation means the end of Israel as it was founded.  It is time for the West to recognize it and demand full participation of the indigenous population.

But for our immediate purposes other questions linger in the mist: just what did tRUMP and Kushner get from this slavish devotion to Netanyahu and his coalition?  The ReSCUMlickans have long been playing footsie with Israel's wrong-wing, but why suddenly are we moving so swiftly on their behalf?  Oh, the religious wrong in this country support such moves so that the ancient "kingdom" of Israel, once established, would then re-build the temple and bring about the second coming of the great sky-god, but we all know tRUMP believes none of it.  There must be some transactional consideration--some form of remuneration--for Disgustus is nothing, if not transactional.  Could it be another monument or two to himself?  A tRUMP tower here or there?  Tel-Aviv, Jericho, Bethlehem, Nazareth, or perhaps looming over the new temple on the mount itself.  Already the Israeli's have announced a new settlement named in his honor.  But this means nothing to Disgustus, what he wants is money.

And, so for thirty pieces of silver Netanyahu has sold out his country, and Donald J. tRUMP has done likewise, further isolating both Israel and the United States in the world community, further undermining the authority and legitimacy of international organizations, further destabilizing the region, and further opening the door to Russian influence.  It is clear now for all the world to see:  the United States is no longer an honest broker in the region and the world will no longer look to Washington for guidance.  That role will go elsewhere, perhaps Moscow.

This is what happens when a birdbrain "tweets".

"An Br'er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison.

April 27, 2019: Terror in Trouble, Incestuous Relationships, Stench of Good Scandal

The most dangerous terrorist organization in the United States is in deep trouble. Tonight Nebraska academic and activist Amanda Gailey posted this on Facebook:

“Oh, man. The cesspool of the NRA is in bad shape. Oliver North just announced he will not stick around for a second term as President.

Why? Because the NRA is in big, big trouble.

Back in the 1980s they started a relationship with the Oklahoma-based advertising firm Ackerman McQueen. By the 1990s the amount of money flowing from the "nonprofit" NRA into Ackerman McQueen was already causing internal rifts in the organization. The La Pierre/Ackerman McQueen faction won, and the relationship has only gotten more incestuous.

What appears to be happening is that AM submits bills for whateverthefuck they want to the NRA--ranging from costs to run NRA TV, with its incitements to violence against the left and the press and its absurd idiot-pandering in features such as dressing Thomas the Tank Engine up in KKK hoods--to mega-inflated salaries that go directly to NRA board members. So the NRA gets a "nonprofit" income stream from memberships, donations, etc., and they write a virtually blank check to AM, who then pays the NRA's own board members lavish graft salaries, including millions of dollars to Oliver North himself. All while the NRA is currently running something like $30,000,000 in the red in its most recent annual accounting.

La Pierre has historically been just fine with this arrangement. He himself has enjoyed an exponential increases to his salary and has some kind of absurd golden parachute that will continue to pay him his $1.4m salary *after he retires*.

But the NRA has attracted increased scrutiny of its finances, what with probably funneling tens of millions of dollars of foreign money into the Trump campaign and running afoul of regulations in NY for its bullshit scam insurance program (engineered by Ackerman McQueen) and hosting a convicted Russian spy as she sought to set up backchannels between Putin and Trump.

So that means that the NRA is in big, big trouble, because their incorporation (from way back when) is in New York state, and that means that New York's state officials are the ones who will likely investigate and punish the NRA when this shitshow "nonprofit" is addressed. You know, New York--where they are not beholden to the NRA.

La Pierre, attempting to cover his deatheating grafter ass, filed a suit against Ackerman McQueen on behalf of the NRA two weeks ago, essentially pointing the finger at the agency he has been in bed with for 30 years for supposedly ripping off the NRA and keeping bad accounting. Blame as much as you can on AM and spare the NRA and your own ass, seems to be his thinking.

But AM is not going down that easy, especially when a bunch of NRA board members will also be in deep trouble for consistently ignoring whistleblowing about AM from the NRA's own staff. So Oliver North, one of the many grafters sucking blood money out of this con, attempted to extort La Pierre into dropping the lawsuit by threatening to reveal a bunch of side money-sucking he and his staff have been drawing off the NRA coffers.

La Pierre called him out on this, though, apparently far more worried about spending the rest of his pathetic soul-dead life in prison if investigators discover the decades-long Ackerman McQueen con than if they just nail him on whatever shitty fascist tailored suits he and his staff have been buying for themselves off of skimmed NRA money.

So now there is some kind of glorious battle of the Orcs going on in the NRA board, each scrambling to save as much of the sugar tit and cover as much of their own asses as possible. I can only hope Chris W. Cox remembered to pack his vitamins for the NRA Convention this weekend because he is going to need them--being a festering piece of living human shit can really be hard work sometimes. Time to earn that $$$, Chris.” (1)

We can only hope that the authorities in New York pursue these financial crimes as well as the fraud that lies beneath them and prosecute the principals as well as the NRA's board members to the fullest extent of the law. Perhaps we shall soon be rid of this terrorist organization.

But who would have thought that Oliver North would be found mishandling money while extorting his fellow villains? Certainly not our Caesar Disgustus.  Ordinarily, a president would avoid attending an N.R.A. conclave as the ancients would avoid a leper colony.  But not our Caesar Disgustus who simply cannot resist the stench of good scandal.  With a Russian operative currently about to be sentenced for infiltrating the NRA in order to influence the ReSCUMlickan Party, and with battle raging over who is best equipped to plunder its coffers for their own gain, Disgustus is found swimming in the cesspool like a pig in shit, addressing the NRA annual convention casting false pearls before real swine. 

“An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

________________

1. Gailey, Amanda. Facebook Post April 27, 2019.

April 26, 2019: The Impeachment Imperative, Not An Option, Worst Kind of Partisanship

Our Caesar Disgustus is begging us to impeach him.  He knows he's unfit for the office.  He knows he's a miserable failure.  Deep down inside he knows that he is in over his head and is drowning but he has not the courage to resign.  He also knows that resignation will leave him open to immediate indictment and prosecution.  So he hangs on, begging the public to resolve the crisis.

He also knows that he can play the martyr when the Democrats finally screw up the courage to confront this constitutional crisis.  Martyrdom fits in well with the persecution complex of his following and he will play it to the hilt.

But the Democrats cannot let the prospect of our Disgustus squealing like the pig he is when the axe begins to fall prevent them from doing their constitutional duty.  Already we hear even the "progressives" within the Party murmur that it is useless to impeach, that the election is right around the corner and that if they move against Disgustus his senate lackeys will simply not vote to convict and remove him from office.  In the aftermath, they reason, Disgustus will emerge triumphant and will be out of control.

He already is.

Already he has taken "victory laps" in the wake of the Mueller report, or at least Attorney General Barr's summary of it, claiming total exoneration, that he was a victim of a partisan 'witch hunt', and promising retribution in the aftermath.  Already he is emboldened to resist virtually every inquiry by Congress into the corruption of this maladministration.  Already he is framing the debate for the next election, declaring himself triumphant in the face of his adversaries.  Already he is about tearing up even more international agreements, this time weapons agreements, to satisfy his political base.

Disgustus is begging to be impeached.

It is wrong to frame this question in the context of the next election.  Democrats from Pelosi and Barney Frank to Bernie Sanders are telling the nation, citing the Clinton experience,  that to impeach will backfire and ensure the re-election of Donald tRUMP.  First, we cannot use the Clinton experience as a guide, nor should we.  The Clinton impeachment was another capital example of the "generation of swine" making a pig's breakfast of everything they touch.  Like the ReSCUMlickan tax bill, or their efforts to repeal Obamacare, there were no hearings.  Only Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr appeared before the Congress as he presented his report and then the scum moved to impeach without calling any witnesses, failing to present the case--such as it was--before the nation.  Clinton had lied to authorities and there was some legal jeopardy, but the nation--always focused on tits and ass; always drawn to the seedy and tawdry--didn't hear the legal argument for obstruction.  As a consequence the country decided that whatever the offense it didn't matter and moved on.

But we are confronted here with much, much more than lying about illicit sex.  The brazen contempt of this 'president' for the institutions of this country, the intelligence community, the justice department, the courts, the congress, the press and even the leadership of his own party, as well as his overt disregard for the rule of law demand action.  Here the Watergate example is much more instructive.  Hearings must begin into this administration and the corruption that pervades it.  It isn't just tRUMP, it is also the people who surround him.  His daughter, his son-in-law, as noted in the previous post.  We know that tRUMP has a long financial connection to the Russian oligarchy, we must look into Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and his ties to Deutchebank and the Bank of Cyprus, both known for laundering Russian mob money. Then there are Betsy DeVos and her brother Eric Prince both staunch advocates of privatization who have reaped huge financial rewards from the outsourcing of public funds.  And we haven't even begun to hear from the Southern District of New York, the New York State Attorney General's office or the jurisdictions in Northern Virginia--conducting at least a dozen more investigations into tRUMP and his dealings.

tRUMP biographer David Kay Johnston, as well as others, have written about the corruptions that surround the tRUMP 'empire'.  As noted in these columns, the New York Times published a lengthy article detailing the intergenerational organized syndicate that is the tRUMP family detailing decades of tax evasion and bank fraud.  tRUMP attorney Michael Cohen has testified to insurance fraud.  David Kay Johnston has written about money laundering.  And there is much more.

It is now beyond doubt that our Caesar Disgustus is the least informed, most ignorant, incompetent and corrupt individual ever to darken the door of the White House.  He represents a clear and present danger.  Impeachment is not an option, it is an imperative.

To fail to impeach is to abrogate responsibility.  To fail to impeach is to violate one's oath of office.  To fail to impeach is to fail our constitution.  To fail to impeach is to fail our country.  To fail to impeach because of feared political consequence is to practice the worst kind of partisanship.

Impeaching Caesar Disgustus is an ethical, legal and political imperative.  Justice and the nation demand it.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison

April 23, 2019: Disloyal Opposition, Deeply Malignant Force, Too Far Gone

Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, appeared on MSNBC last Friday night telling the nation that not only is the White House refusing to comply with his committee's request for information and that there has been no response whatever from the White House, but that the ReSCUMlickan minority members have written to the White House asking that the administration not reply. Similar reports of noncompliance from other committee's are also emerging though it is unclear if the minority is similarly acting to sabotage the legitimate functions of the House.

There is nothing new to this. The 'Disloyal Opposition', one may recall, similarly worked to undermine the Obama administration's foreign policy back in 2015 when they invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress without first discussing, much less clearing, the event with the White House. A harbinger of a future drift toward partisanship in Middle Eastern policy with Likkud and ReSCUMlickans walking hand in hand. But even more destabiling was the action taken by 47 ReSCUMlickan senators, in an unprecedented act of political mendacity, signing an open letter to the Iranian government stating that any subsequent president could nullify the agreement “with a stroke of the pen”, suggesting that bargaining with Obama would result in, at best, a transient agreement that would be quickly nullified by the succeeding Administration.(1) The ReSCUMlickan's, of course, made good on the threat destroying at once continuity in American foreign affairs and further destabilizing the region in the bargain.

The rogue elephant that is the ReSCUMlickan Party is not of Donald tRUMP's making. Our Caesar Disgustus isn't making the party over in his own image, he is simply the face on an already deeply malignant political force. So it should come as little surprise to find them enabling his increasingly paranoiac, aberrant and deeply troubling behaviors.

It would be of minor interest if the questions about which the House seeks answers were not so serious. What are his ties to Russia? What obligations does he have? What is motivating this lick-spittle, sycophantic, even juvenile behavior when it comes to Russia? What is motivating our Middle Eastern policies? Could it be that there are real estate transactions behind the moving of our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and tRUMP's recognition of Israeli claims to the Golan Heights and the West Bank? How much of our policy toward Qatar and Saudi Arabia are determined by the financial interests of the tRUMP's and the Kushner's? About these and scores of other questions the country demands answers.

But it gets more serious. Reports have surfaced that the clown in charge of White House security clearances waived objections to over two dozen top White House officials including the daughter and son-in-law. Ivanka, who has yet to be called before the House to explain the trademark grants given her by the Chinese government, and Jared who has yet not been called to account for the pressuring of the government of Qatar to provide loans to shore up his teetering real estate empire. Instead, the ReSCUMlickans in congress are encouraging this 'president' to obstruct any inquiry over anything relating to either his finances or his behaviors.

As the Mueller reports sinks in, this administration is coming under greater scrutiny. The nation can look for no help from the disloyal opposition. The rotting ReSCUMlickan Party is too far gone. It is up to the Democrats and the independents to bring political pressure to bear.

Disgustus is stinking up the forum. Disgustus is daring us to impeach him. Disgustus is a clear and present danger, and major voices within the Democratic Party recoil at what stands before us.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

_______________

1. See post of March 11, 2015: Generation of Swine, Mendacity of the Swine, Deeply Offensive Performances.

April 19, 2019: Swamp Monsters, Break-neck Speed, No Known Minimum Standards

Our Caesar Disgustus ran for this office pledging to drain the swamp. He drained it alright—right into the White House. The swamp-monsters, as Senator Elizabeth Warren so aptly calls them, are now emerging from the bowels of this administration at break-neck speed.

Steve Benen is reporting on Rachel Maddow's blog that the newly minted Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, is now subject of an ethics probe four days after his confirmation by the Senate.

A former corporate lobbyist for the oil industry, and it is no surprise that our Caesar Disgustus would chose just this sort of fox to tend to the hen house.

“There are a handful of ways to look at a story like this one,” writes Benen. “The first is to note the incredible speed with which the Republican cabinet secretary found himself facing an ethics probe.

“Bernhardt certainly isn't the first member of Donald Trump's team to find himself under investigation, but the interior secretary may have set some kind of land-speed record: he was confirmed on April 11, only to receive word about an ethics inquiry on April 15.

“The second is to ask how in the world 56 senators voted to confirm this guy. None of the controversies surrounding Bernhardt is new; each were well documented before his nomination reached the Senate floor. (While serving as former Secretary Ryan Zinke's deputy, Bernhardt had so many conflicts of interest the 'Washington Post' reported last year that he had to 'carry a small card listing them all,' because he 'worked for years as a lobbyist representing many of the businesses he now regulates').” (1)

And yet, as Benen points out, every ReSCUMlickan in the United States Senate, along with a handful of Republicans-in-drag voted to confirm this swine. It appears that, as far as Senate ReSCUMlickans are concerned, there are no known minimum standards.

Bernhardt has now joined a growing list of swamp creatures that have emerged, albeit reluctantly, into the national spotlight, including his predecessor at Interior Ryan Zinke. Then there's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, accused of protecting a sex trafficker in underage girls, “former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, former HHS Secretary Tom Price, former regulatory adviser Carl Icahn, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, former CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald, and White House counselor Kellyane Conway.

“And that wasn't an exhaustive list...(T)here have been related controversies surrounding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former VA Secretary David Shulkin.

“While we're at it, lets also not overlook controversies surrounding Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and former FEMA Director Brock Long. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is also facing an ethics probe—and he hasn't even been nominated for his current post, much less confirmed.” (2)



“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.
_______________

1. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/four-days-the-job-trump-cabinet-secretary-faces-new-investigation
   
2. ibid.
   
   

April 18, 2019: Appointing the Unfit, Dustbin of History, Rummaging Through the Refuse

“No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus; and yes, Virginia, the president can be impeached “For Being Ye Publick Ass.”

                 ----from The Quotations of Chairman Joe

So observed these columns, citing chapter and verse, on August first of last year. (1) Indeed it amazes how the serial defenders of the modern imperial presidency—no matter the party rushing to the defense—emphasize the phrase “High Crimes” to mean that the chief executive must not only be seen to have shot someone on main street, but that their must be a video presented showing evidence that it was in his hand when the deed was done. As stated in that entry “High Crimes” meant, in the eighteenth century, violating one's oath of office. But concentrating on this part of the phrase misses entirely the two words that follow: “and misdemeanors”. A misdemeanor is a minor infraction. Read literally, and inclusively, the president could be impeached for jaywalking or double parking.  Now no one is suggesting that recourse to impeachment be taken over trivialities, for to undo a national election is serious business.  But you get the point.  

I bring this up because, as discussed in the entry of last August, one can be impeached for—among other things—appointing unfit subordinates. (2) Appointing the unfit is an impeachable offense. This brings us to the Federal Reserve.

Caesar Disgustus, observes the editors of The New York Times, “has been toying with two contentious possibilities: Stephen Moore, an economics pundit and former Trump campaign adviser with a reputation for being reliably wrong; and Herman Cain, a former pizza executive. Both men have expressed enthusiasm for adopting the gold standard...

“Republicans are still pondering a challenge to Mr. Moore,” opines the Times, “who has raised alarms on professional as well as personal ground (the I.R.S. Claims he owes $75,000 in back taxes). He admits to knowing next to nothing about monetary policy, and his opinion writing over the years has drawn criticism from economists of diverse views. As Justin Wolfers of the University of Michigan put it, 'More than possibly any other economist in modern America, he has a track record of getting the big issues wrong.' Wall Street isn't crazy about him, either.” (3)

Then there is Herman Cain, promising to do to America what Dominoes Pizza man Tom Monihan did for the Detroit Tigers. Cain is, of course, the refugee from the 2012 campaign that stood 666 on it's head with a totally idiotic and doctrinaire tax scheme predictably transferring more of the tax burden upon the shoulders of the working classes with his 999 flat tax proposals. The details of this regressive tax proposal are thankfully no longer relevant since the author had been kicked into the dust bin of history. That is until our Disgustus, having exhausted his available talent pool, went rummaging through the refuse. (4)

Similarly, our intrepid Caesar has appointed several members to the federal bench whose ignorance could not even McConnell abide. And now, as the editors of the Times point out, he is cleaning out the Department of Homeland Security and replacing the ethically challenged Kirstjen Nielsen with one Stephen Miller, tRUMP's version of Joseph Goebbels, because Nielsen balked at reintroducing family separation of migrants at the border. Mendacity and sadism tRUMPs experience and competence if not ethics and morality.

We are now laboring under the weight of several acting heads of departments, including the Defense Department and Homeland Security as our Caesar Disgustus struggles to impress his ignorance and mendacity upon the nation. There are consequences when one imposes ignorance on the system. (5) There are greater consequences when ignorance is accompanied by mendacity and sadism.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

_______________

1. See https://wandererandshadow.blogspot.com/2018/08/august-1-2018-saxon-mothers-son-crimes.html.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. See. https://wandererandshadow.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-30-2011-imagine-theres-no-pizza.html.
5. See. Https://wandererandshadow.blogspot.com/2019/02/february-1-perils-of-ignorance.html.

April 17, 2019: Women of Color, A Miserable Failure, The Political Wrong

Our Caesar Disgustus has been a miserable failure. His only accomplishment, the tax cut, has been a failure. As middle Americans completed and submitted their tax returns the found out just what a con job it was as the middle and working classes average about a penny an hour in tax relief. This means that for a standard forty hour work week the average worker gets a 40 cent return, less than 50 cents a week. For the year, you can buy a large size pizza with what tRUMP has given us in tax relief.

But the kicker is that this wasn't even tRUMP's bill. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell conjured up this flying monkey and, for a while, it took flight but now, when America must put pen to paper, the country is discovering to its dismay that the slight increases in take-home pay realized in the aftermath of the new law are being recouped by the government in the form of diminished returns.

It gets worse. For instance, in case you haven't noticed, and you probably haven't, the floor was raised on medical deductions. Formerly one needed about five thousand dollars in medical expenses before one could begin deducting the expense from one's tax bill. Now it is over ten thousand. Limited too are deductions for interest on home mortgages, with ceilings placed on those deductions that affect the upper middle classes.

The result is that the singular accomplishment of this maladministration, which has never been popular, is becoming increasingly less so. So too are tRUMP's assaults on the environment as his band of pirates continue the rapine and plunder. Ditto for the remainder of his policies where the cartels are busy consolidating and concentrating wealth and power, as they plunder the public domain. None of this is resonating with the vast majority.

Indeed, as economist Paul Krugman points out, even his attacks on Obamacare rung hollow. Not only is there growing approval for his predecessor's signature achievement, but the country is moving beyond Obama as it struggles in the grip of the insurance, medical and pharmaceutical cartels. This was demonstrated last week when Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders held a town-hall meeting with Fox News. The moderator, in an attempt to demonstrate how Bernie wouldn't resonate with his following, asked the audience—all viewers of Fox News—how many of them favored single-payer health insurance. The hosts didn't get the answer they expected as nearly 70 percent of the Fox followers raised their hands. The grafting of populist hide upon the corporate pig, it appears, has not been an entirely successful operation.

“But while today's G.O.P. Can't do policy,” observes Krugman, “it commands a powerful propaganda machine. And this machine is now dedicated to a strategy of portraying Democrats as extremists. It might work—but it shouldn't, because Democrats aren't extremists, but Republicans are.” (1)

Krugman points out that the Republican response to the wholly predictable unpopularity of their agenda has been to demonize the opposition, principally two women of color. The first being representative congresswoman Ilhan Omar one of the two newly minted members of Congress who are both female and Muslim. Krugman observes that “the usual suspects have gone all-out in using an out-of-context quotation to portray her, completely falsely, as sympathetic to terrorists.” (2) Disgustus, ramping up the hysteria has called her “dangerous” while openly questioning her loyalties. Omar, for the record is a refugee from the political strife in Somalia and came to this country while in her teens. She is now a citizen and represents a legitimate American constituency in the Congress of the United States. You don't earn much more legitimacy than that.

The other object of ReSCUMlickan preoccupation is the notorious AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Likewise a woman of color, AOC has become such an object of fascination by the idiot wrong that Fox and Fiends cannot, it seems, spend a moment without her. They just cannot get her out of their sights. “Over a six-week period,” Krugman relates, “Fox News and Fox Business mentioned her more than 3,000 times, invariably portraying her as ignorant, radical, or both.

“It's surely not an accident that these two principal targets are both women of color; there's a sense in which supposed concerns about extremism are just a cover for sexism and white nationalism. But while it's still worth pointing out that while both Omar and AOC are on the left of the Democratic Party, neither is staking out policy positions that are extreme compared with either expert views or public opinion.

“Take AOC's famous advocacy of a 70 percent tax rate on very high incomes. Economists who knew anything about public finance immediately recognized that number as coming from a widely cited paper by Peter Diamond and Emanuel Saez, two of the field's leading figures. You don't have to agree with their analysis to recognize that AOC, far from showing her ignorance, was actually drawing on solid research.” (3)

While Krugman adds that the public doesn't find these ideas outrageous and that the filthy rich, in their view, pay too little in taxes. Krugman could also have pointed out, as we have in these columns, that these so-called radical proposals are nothing more than a return to previous tax schedules, a progressive taxation that produced far less concentrations of wealth and lower federal deficits. It was also under these tax structures that the middle classes were last invited to participate and benefit from economic recoveries. If by radical one means that the proposal is a departure from previous experience the argument falls on its face; if by radical one means a radical departure from the rapine and plunder now underway the criticism stands.

Krugman then goes on to reiterate the arguments long presented in these columns that it is the reSCUMlickans who are the extremists. It is the political wrong who have gone off the reservation. It was the political wrong who have readmitted the likes of the John Birch Society to their midst. It is the political wrong that wants to dismantle the social safety net, built in the last century as a response to the Constitutional charge to provide for the “General Welfare”. And to maintain power, it is the political wrong that must now attack our republican institutions and suppress the vote.

There are reasons Disgustus and his minions are attacking the women, for they find themselves now representing the unholy alliance of male chauvinism and white nationalism and the economic elites. This is the new conservative coalition. And they still believe, as George Wallace, Pat Buchanan and Ronald Reagan before them that they are still ascendant.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

_________________

1. Krugman, Paul. “Republicans Are the Real Extremists” The New York Times. Tuesday, April 16, 2019. Page A24
2. Ibid
3. Ibid

April 16, 2019: Soul of France, Organizing Principle, All Roads Lead To Paris

The novelist Henry Adams, grandson and great-grandson to presidents of the United States, lamented at the dawn of the last century that “All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres”. (1) Adams was comparing the paucity of modern enterprise with the inspiration of medieval culture. Indeed, it took three hundred years to build the cathedral at Chartres an effort that s not only spanned nearly 30 decades but required the communal sacrifices of, perhaps, 15 generations. What could inspire the sacrifice and instill the discipline necessary to build such an edifice?  Only the Blessed Virgin provided inspiration sufficient to bend the collective minds and hands to such communal purpose.  It was the idea that was the dynamo, because the idea gave purpose and meaning.  

In drawing the distinction between the then modern locomotives and medieval cathedrals Adams noted that “the power embodied in a railway train could never be embodied in art.” (2) Adams was lamenting the dominance of the masculine over the feminine in the emerging industrial order and in so doing giving increasing prominence of the hand and head over the heart and the soul. Noting “that neither the ancient goddess Diana of the Ephesians nor any of the Oriental goddesses was worshiped for her beauty. She was goddess because of her force, she was the animated dynamo; she was the reproduction—the greatest and most mysterious of all energies”.(3)

In medieval Europe the Virgin was the organizing principle. She embodied art because she was the animating dynamo, the origin—if you will-- of not only personal salvation but national identity as well. And it was this that animated communities throughout Christendom to erect, as with the ancients with Aphrodite and Athena, monuments to her honor. But cathedral of Notre Dame became, much more than that for, representing the greatest and most mysterious of all energies, it became the very soul of France. It has  taken its place along with the Parthenon as a monument to western civilization.

The cathedral has stood for over eight centuries during which time it has witnessed and comforted those who have suffered from many plagues. It has stood as the nation was torn through many a civil strife from wars of succession, to riots and unrest. It survived, remarkably, the French Revolution as did Chartres and other cathedrals; although Robespierre and his revolutionaries would abandoned the Christian calendar and sack the monasteries, they could not bring themselves to destroy the Cathedrals. While the Guillotine rolled through the streets of Paris, the revolutionaries could not wage war on soul of France. It was here that Napoleon crowned himself emperor and here that the monarchy was restored. The monument withstood the Franco-Prussian war and the ensuing Paris Commune as well as the World Wars of the twentieth century.

Yesterday, it burned. It will be rebuilt because it must be rebuilt; because all roads no longer lead to Rome or Athens, but to Paris. The Dynamo cannot replace the Virgin as surely as the computer and the robot cannot replace humankind. The Dynamo is the Virgin, the organizing principle, the very reason. 

_________

1. Adams, Henry. “The Dynamo and the Virgin” extracts from “The Education of Henry Adams” Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918, pp 379-390. See Baritz, Loren. “Sources of the American Mind A Collection Of Documents and Texts in American Intellectual History” 1966: New York: John Wiley and Sons. Pp 180-189. See page 187.
2. ibid. 187
3. Ibid. 184.

April 15, 2019: Meaning of Happiness, “Emerging Oligarchy,” We've Already Arrived

The New York Times published an essay by Michael Tomasky concerning this litmus test introduced by MSNBC referred to in the previous post. It involves confronting each candidate with the question of whether they are capitalists or socialists. As stated earlier, it has become vogue in the media to begin the interrogatories with this question as if there were no other than a binary choice.

Tomasky, who is currently a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, as well as a contributing opinion writer contributed a piece in today's Times congratulating South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg's handling of the question. (1)

“Pete Buttigieg,” writes Tomasky, “who's shown an impressive knack for putting matters well in these early days of the 2020 presidential race, nailed it recently when Chuck Todd of NBC asked him about capitalism. Of course I'm a capitalist, he said; America 'is a capitalist society.'

“But, he continued: 'It's got to be democratic capitalism.'

“Mr. Buttigieg said that when capitalism becomes unrestrained by democratic checks and impulses, that's no longer the kind of capitalism that once produced broad prosperity in this country. 'And if you want to see what happens when you have capitalism without democracy, you can see it very clearly in Russia,' he said. 'It turns into crony capitalism, and that turns into an oligarchy.” (2)

Precisely, although the United States has never been a purely capitalist society. It began with a largely slaveholding economy and has morphed into a rather mixed economy. Even in the heyday, as noted in previous posts, governments, state and federal, heavily subsidized and protected through tariffs major industries. But the good mayor of South Bend might have added, as regards emerging Oligarchy, that we have already arrived.

Tomasky then takes us through a brief, though incomplete, history lesson. He invokes, quite rightly, the example of Thomas Jefferson who within months of penning the Declaration of Independence was busy writing legislation in the Virginia House of Delegates abolishing the Commonwealth's medieval laws concerning “entail” and “primogeniture”, which served to keep great estates in tact upon the death of the principle, ensuring a dominance of the few landed aristocrats spanning generations.

“Was it mere coincidence Tomasky asks, “that he moved quickly from writing the founding document of democracy to writing a bill abolishing inheritance laws brought over from England?”

“Hardly,” Tomasky answers. “He believed, as the founders did generally, that excess inherited wealth was fundamentally incompatible with democracy”.(3)

Tomasky then proceeds to cite John Adams: “All elements of society, he once wrote, must 'cooperate in this one democratical principle, that the end of all government is the happiness of the People; and in this other, that the greatest happiness of the greatest Number is the point to be obtained.' 'Happiness' to the founders meant economic well-being, and note that Adams called it 'democratical'”. (4)

Tomasky even evokes Adam Smith, the political economist who founded modern Capitalism and one “whom conservatives invoke constantly today but who would in fact be appalled by the propagandistic phrase 'death tax'--in their time, inherited wealth was the oppressive economic problem” (5)

He is quite right in his reporting, although incomplete. Smith would argue that large concentrations of wealth passed from generation to generation would stifle initiative, ossify markets and strangle innovation. This is precisely what is happening in the United States as large big-box operations drive out small town merchants, killing off the old main streets and nightly vacuuming the proceeds out of town, leaving communities with only the starvation wages paid to workers. Even that isn't enough for the likes of the Walton's who build their stores on the backs of their labor force and at taxpayer expense to the tune, on average, of a million dollars a year in tax breaks and social services. The question facing any budding entrepreneur is: would you risk your life savings on a hardware, grocery store, clothing or any of a number of retail opportunities on the chance that they drop a big box down next to you and take your business? Of course not. And the numbers show. Not only has main street suffered but fewer of the young are going into business or plan to go into business than at any time in the last century. The markets are being stifled as the likes of Walmart and Amazon take over retail. This bodes ill for the greater society.

But let's get back to the founding fathers. Like Smith they would and indeed did support taxation. And, as mentioned in an early post in these columns, Madison, Hamilton and Jay argued in The Federalist Papers for taxation to be based primarily on property rather than a poll or head tax precisely because it was, for the time, the most progressive form of taxation. That is, the wealthier you were in those days the more property you owned since wealth was largely tied to land.

These points are best understood by reading Arthur Schlesinger's The Age of Jackson. Not only Jefferson and, as Tomasky reports, Adams deeply concerned with concentrations of wealth but so were the Masons and Lees of Virginia along with Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

This was no mere coincidence as any cursory reading of The Federalist Papers reveals. The founders were serious students of history and references to the ancient regimes of Athens and Rome as well as medieval experiments in republican government populate the pages. The closely studied how these republics were constituted and what they came to understand were the reasons for their failure.

And that brings us back to where Tomasky began, his reference—albeit brief—to Aristotle.

Tomasky mentions the Greek philosopher only in passing, a nod that Aristotle defined the Oligarchy implying disapproval. There was more to it than that. What he should have acknowledged is that Aristotle who was, in a manner of speaking 'present at creation,' was a democrat because he witnessed how oppressive were the concentration of wealth. What Tomasky failed to mention—because he didn't do his homework and it isn't taught in American schools—is that the Greeks invented democracy not simply to give the citizen power but to give the citizen power so as to bring to heel the Oligarchy. It was to achieve these ends—the happiness of the People—through wealth redistribution that democracy was created in the first place. This is why the rich are always, at base, anti-democratic, and this is why the lessons of history are not taught in the schools.

Please note that happiness here is not meant to be seen as the happiness of the individual. It was Adams who first laid down the dictum of “the greatest good for the greatest number” in explaining what was meant, a refrain echoed a century later back across the Atlantic by Jeremy Bentham as England struggled to rid itself of the old medieval order. It is the happiness of the “People” further underscored by the preamble to the Constitution in which the founders charged the new order with, among other things, providing for the “General Welfare”.

Tomasky is, however, quite right arguing as he does that the understanding of democracy as given to us by our schoolmarms must change. The “word has come to mean the existence and exercise of a few basic rights and principle. The people—the 'demos'--are imbued with no particular economic characteristic. This is wrong. Our definition of democracy needs to change.” (6)

Until then the Russian and American Oligarchies sleep well when they aren't up all night scheming of ways to give the screws another turn.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh'

Impeach and Imprison

_________________

1. Tomasy, Michael. “America's Coming Oligarchy” The New York Times. Monday, April 15, 2019. Page A23
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid

April 8, 2019: Binary Choice, What's In A Name, Idiotlogical Deficiency

MSNBC which, for a time, promoted itself as the voice of the 'left'--as if there were such a thing in the United States as a political left—has outdone itself by introducing a new “Litmus Test” in American presidential politics.

It began with a recent interview on its “Morning Joe” program in which Democratic presidential candidate John Hickenlooper, former governor of Colorado, was asked if he believed in capitalism or socialism. A simple binary choice. The idiotlogues have taken over.

First, whatever the qualifications of this 'centrist' former governor, this country isn't about to elect a man named Hickenlooper president of the United States. The name itself evokes consistent smirks, if not outright laughter. Besides, it rings too closely to that of Alois Hitler, Adolf's father whose original surname was Schicklgruber. What's in a name, you ask? Imagine, if you will, Nazis shouting at torchlight demonstrations or greeting each other with the salute Heil Schicklgruber! You get the point.

Nevertheless the hapless Hickenlooper was relentlessly pummeled with questions demanding to know, here and now, if he was a true believer. Withering beneath the klieg lights, the diminutive politician struggled vainly to try to explain that he believed in what works. It wasn't good enough for the panel who, upon his departure, savaged the former governor as being too ignorant and idiotlogically too deficient to be taken seriously.

This was only the beginning. So successful was this exchange that the question became the leitmotif of all ensuing interviews with the rest of the field; the first necessary bar that one must successfully navigate in order to be taken seriously. Indeed it became a mantra on Faux News as the political wrong picked up the cudgel to flog not only Hickenlooper but the rest of the Democratic field.

Poor John, he was only trying to explain to the ignorant purists that the only standard that matters is what works, and what works within the context of American Constitutional Law and tradition.

He could have shot back that nowhere in the founding documents do the words free enterprise, free markets, or, for that matter, capitalism appear; although the word regulation appears at least twice, once in the context of granting the people—through their elected congress—all power necessary and proper, to regulate commerce.

He could also tried to explain to the empirically challenged seated before him that the economy has historically worked the best under what we call a mixed economy, where markets are regulated and competition is insured by the rigorous enforcement of the Sherman and Clayton Anti-Trust Acts.

He could also have explained that there is no such thing as a free market. All markets, in order to function have to have rules. All markets have to have sanctions for failure to perform in accordance with contracts—and all sales involve contractual obligation. Even a vending machine, I learned in my high school class in business law, involves an implied contract. You put your dollar in and the vending company is expected—indeed obligated—to provide the product; and, if the machine doesn't yield it, there is liability.

He could have explained all this and reminded the assembled ignoramuses that the problem with this country is that the money writes the rules and has rigged the 'free marketplace' in such a way as to become exploitative of both man and nature. One has only to look to the financial industry as a case in point and cite the usurious interest rates charged on credit cards along with rapacious fees and penalties.

But the governor is new to this level discourse. He wasn't prepared for a battering. He thought he was introducing himself to the country in a friendly venue not realizing that MSNBC is a corporation, just like all the rest and his interrogators are simply corporate whores.

It is noteworthy that Morning Joe didn't first try this hatched job on the likes of Bernie Sanders. No, they introduced the McCarthy-style red herring by flogging a man expected to wilt in the exchange and in so doing help the Democrats form their famous circular firing squad as a way of insuring that the Democracy doesn't drift too far left. That is, to insure that the Democrats end up remaining Wall Street's favorite default position and ensuring that the party gag up nothing but more of the same. In so doing, ensuring that our Caesar Disgustus continues to stink up the public forum.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.