July 13, 2018: All Too Familiar Pattern, Defecating on Diplomatic Tables, Stench that Fills the Air

“It has become an all too familiar pattern: Our Caesar Disgustus moves among our allies, defecating on diplomatic tables, as he makes his way toward a more important rendezvous where he will kneel before the tin-horn dictator and play the skin flute.”

                     ----from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe"

He is beyond a mere national embarrassment. He is beyond a mere national humiliation. He has and is committing more than mere collusion. He is committing sedition, indeed treason.

For the second time in as many months Caesar Disgustus has gone to Europe and defecated on the diplomatic table, deeply offending everyone present—indeed perhaps even senior members of his own administration who are, after all, left with the disagreeable job of cleaning up his mess.

This time it was not only NATO, but the European Union. The NATO summit which, anticipating tRUMP's all-too-predictable boorish behavior, was approached with all the enthusiasm of root canal work. Indeed, the twit did not disappoint his knuckle-dragging followers, berating the Germans for their energy policy demonstrating at once his blinding ignorance of the subject matter. Grossly exaggerating the percentage of German natural gas purchased from the Russians, tRUMP-who can never be educated about anything, kept repeating statistics pulled wholly from the ass of his national security adviser John Bolton. No correction of the record sinks in with this clown. Instead, as the cameras roll our national humiliation continues to prattle on, butt-fuck ignorant and proud of it.

After accusing the Germans of being in the pocket of the Russians, and projecting upon Angela Merkle his own crime of being Putin's Puppet, Disgustus then went on to again question the need for the alliance and to berate those present for not contributing enough toward the joint military commitments. MSNBC had a former ambassador to NATO on the air late in the week explaining that the Europeans offer the use of military bases in Spain, Italy and elsewhere to the United States and, in fact, pay us to station our troops there. The ambassador said that it would cost us more to bring the troops home than keep them there. Then there is the joint commitment of our NATO allies to military action in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terror. It was pointed out during the television interview that the European Union spends more on defense that the entire Russian military budget, and equals that of China, the ambassador underscoring the point as a means of demonstrating that this alliance is not only necessary but powerful.

Of course, at the end of the conference, Disgustus was seen standing alone at an impromptu press conference telling the assembled that he had forced concessions from the group, getting greater commitments to military spending. No sooner had the stench of his presence left the assembly than the President of France promptly informed the world that no such agreement had been reached and that the alliance is to proceed on spending schedules previously reached with the Obama Administration.

Nevertheless, here was Disgustus standing before the world—as at Singapore—crowing about mountains unclimbed. Whatever fealty tRUMP professed to our allies in the wake, it is clear that the alliance has been further shaken. In this, he has done the work of his mentor as he prepares to go to Helsinki and kneel to service him.

Indeed, prior to the trip reports surfaced that Disgustus has offered the French certain financial incentives to follow Britain out of the European Union. The French were having none of it, but it is clear that Disgustus will leave no stone unturned in his quest to service the Russian national interest.

But he wasn't finished. Prior to his London visit, Disgustus sat down for an interview with The Sun, a London tabloid. It is interesting how Disgustus is always drawn to tabloids, but in this case, The Sun gave us some real news. The result was described by the paper as “incendiary” as Disgustus told the paper “ In an extraordinary intervention timed to coincide with his U.K. Visit, Mr. Trump said Theresa May ignored his advice by opting a soft Brexit strategy.

“And he warned her any attempts to maintain close ties with the EU would make a lucrative US trade deal very unlikely.

“Mr. Trump said:'If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of the dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal”.

Disgustus then went rabbiting on:

                *Accusing “EU leaders of destroying its culture and identity by allowing in millions of migrants

• Tearing “into London Mayor Sadiq Khan for not standing up to terrorists
• Blaming “Khan for spiraling crime in the capital
• Insisting “former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson would make 'a great Prime Minister”'
• Denying “one branding Theresa May a 'bossy schoolteacher'”
• Maintaining “he would keep ties with Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin despite the Salisbury Novichok poisonings”
• Once again “demanded Britain and other NATO countries spend more on defense
• “Spoke of his sadness at feeling unwelcome in the capital by anti-Trump protesters”
• “claimed millions of Brits backed his policies
• “told of his pride at taking his wife Melania to meet the Queen.

It remains unclear, as of this writing, if his hosts let him ride in the Cinderella coach on his way to the ball; but one thing is certain—he turned into a pumpkin (and a stinking overripe pumpkin at that) well before his arrival.

One can forgive Prime Minister May for not heeding the advice of our village idiot. After all, as videos gleaned from congressional testimony back in the '80's show, tRUMP is no stranger to stupidity. Tapes surfaced this week of our ignoramus testifying before congress telling the assembled that science declaring Asbestos a carcinogen was faulty and should be ignored, indeed berating the congressmen for their temerity in banning the substance. This was well before his much ballyhooed denials on climate change, or his embrace of Birtherism and other tin-hat conspiracies. Indeed tRUMP is a catch-basin for all the flotsam and jetsam coursing its way through the backwater of American culture dignified by a defiant ignorance that beggars the imagination. Why would anyone take him seriously?

To underscore the point, he went on blathering about how he had “doubled” or “tripled” the GDP of the country in the last 18 months, demonstrating that he doesn't have the foggiest idea of what the Gross Domestic Product of the country is. At 17 trillion dollars, the tripling of the dollar amount of goods and services, which would take 20 years for the former and 30 years for the latter, without a corresponding increase in the money supply would have resulted in catastrophic deflation, producing an economic depression the likes of which the world has never seen.

But such is the level of idiotic braggadocio that passes for informed opinion in this administration; and such is the level of press coverage that no reporter calls him out on this nonsense to his face. Instead the madness is allowed to linger, like the stench that fills the air in the wake of his every move.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

___________________

(1). Dunn, Tom Newton. “Trump's Brexit Blast” https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6766531/trump-may-brexit-us-deal-off/

May 15, 2018: The Broad Outlines, More Brazenly Corrupt, Finger on the Truth

Nick Penzenstadler, reporting last January in USA Today,(1) highlights yet another aspect of the seediness now ensconced in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In an article summarizing the paper's investigations tRUMP's business entitled “Trump sold 35M in Real Estate, Mostly to Secretive Buyers”, Penzenstadler lays out the broad outlines:

“President Trump's companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive shell companies that obscure buyer's identities, continuing a dramatic shift in his customers' behavior that began during the election, a USA Today review found.

In Las Vegas alone, Trump sold 41 luxury condo units in 2017, a majority of which used limited liability companies—corporate entities that allow people to purchase property without revealing all of the owners names.

The trend toward Trump's real estate buyers obscuring their identities began around the time he won the Republican nomination, midway through 2016, according to USA TODAY's analysis of every domestic real estate sale by one of his companies.

In the two years before the nomination, 4% of Trump buyers utilized the tactic. In the year after, the rate skyrocketed to about 70%. USA TODAY's tracking of sales shows the trend held firm through Trump's first year in office.

Profits from sales of those properties flow through a trust run by Trump's sons. The president is the sole beneficiary of the trust and he can withdraw cash at any time.” (2)

In the presidential debates of 2016 it became clear, especially in the second debate, that the country was presented with two presidential nominees who could not be shamed from the national stage. In the wake of the election the behavior of our very own Caesar Disgustus has, if anything, become even more brazenly corrupt.

It was reported last week on MSNBC, The New York Times, and several other outlets that “beginning in 2006, the Trump Organization spent $400 million in cash on various projects. The president's son Eric said they were able to do that with cash generated by other Trump businesses, even at the height of the Great Recession. That explanation has raised eyebrows of business experts.
It also contradicts what Eric and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr said in the years before the word “Russia” became radioactive for them.

'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets,' Donald Jr. said in 2008. 'We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia”'. (3)

These explanations are problematic on several fronts. First, the purpose of real estate investment—as any student of Real Estate 101 will tell you—is to “Leverage Debt”. That is, the purpose of founding a real estate management company is to purchase property for the purpose of making the tenants create the equity. One does this by borrowing as much as you can and then transferring that debt to the tenants who, over time, pay off your debt for you leaving you with ownership of the property. It is a clever way to fleece your neighbor while working up minimal sweat—made all the more attractive since the underwriting of said debt is backed by government guarantees. This is the model “The Donald” took to the outer limits when, calling himself “the King of Debt” ran several of his enterprises unto the rocks costing the New York banks upwards of a billion dollars.

The tRUMPs would have us believe that the Great Recession, coming as it did after several bankruptcies, had chastened them into fiduciary responsibility. That, on the face of it, appears laughable. Nothing in the history of the family would lend credence to any such epiphany. Indeed the reported loans of Deutchebank as well as state-run Chinese banks in the amounts of hundreds of millions of dollars lay waste such a feeble explanation.

Where then did the money come from; and where then did it go? Perhaps the answer lies, in part, in the shell companies renting and buying tRUMP properties not only in this country but abroad as well. Perhaps Steve Bannon had, for once, his finger on the truth. Money Laundering.

How much of this 400 million was being laundered by the tRUMP organization? How much of it stuck to “The Donald” for services rendered? That is, as we used to say, the sixty four thousand dollar question. For answers we will have to follow the money.

As Caesar Disgustus shits himself, defiling the very office he occupies, the stench emanating therefrom grows ever more unbearable. And, being the only one in the room who cannot smell it, prances about unabashed, totally oblivious.

'an Br'er Putin, he 'jus laugh and laugh.



Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/01/10/trumps-secretive-real-estate-sales-continue-unabated/1018530001/
2. Ibid.

(3). Editors. The New York Times. “Mr. Trump's Shadowy Money Trail. Thursday May 10, 2018. Page A26

February 28, 2018: Clueless in the Saddle, Binary Choice, Villain or Fool?

“Life often presents us with a binary choice: go right or left; it is right or wrong: it is or it isn't.

                             ----from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe"

Michelle Goldberg, writing in last Tuesday's New York Times, placed in stark relief the case against Donald J. Trump. Robert Mueller, she notes, had just indicted Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his assistant Rick Gates on multiple counts of “money laundering and conspiracy against the United States”. (1)

The Trump campaign would have us believe that this was all pre-tRUMP, but recent evidence is emerging that money laundering continued throughout the campaign.

It appears that money having dried up from Manafort and Gates' Ukraine sources following the overthrow of the Kremlin-backed regime for whom they were working and raking in millions in the process, the two—particularly Manafort—found themselves in desperate financial straits.

Nevertheless, tRUMP finds himself confronted by Manafort offering his campaign services even though he is (a) desperate for cash and (b) has done no domestic political work in the United States for a decade or more. He has no political track record save helping to prop up an authoritarian regime and he has no extensive political connections in the United States. The answer appears to be: (1), he is well-dressed and appears to be as he represents himself: a man of great wealth, and (2) perhaps more importantly, he offers to work for tRUMP for free. This is a combination guaranteed to mesmerize our erstwhile Caesar.

“Immediately, Manafort sought to use his role in the campaign to repair his relationship with (Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska to whom he owed a great deal of money) Deripaska. In April, as the Washington Post reported, he emailed an employee in Kiev about his new job, and wrote, apparently in relation to Deripaska, 'how do we get whole?' In July, Manafort offered to give Deripaska private briefings about the campaign”. (2)

Then, about this time, there is the question of the reversal engineered by Manafort with, according to a delegate on the platform committee, the explicit understanding and instructions from Donald J. Trump that the party reverse itself and abandon the support of the pro-western Ukrainian government and support Moscow.

“It's certainly possible”, writes Goldberg, “that Trump himself didn't personally connive with Russia for campaign help. Perhaps, through a combination of carelessness and miserliness, he unwittingly allowed his campaign to be infiltrated at the highest levels by both alleged and admitted criminals with Russian ties, such a scenario, however, would not be exculpatory”. (3)

Indeed, Manafort's accomplice Rick Gates has pleaded guilty, as has several other campaign operatives The question, as put by Senator Howard Baker in the Watergate hearings, is 'what did the president know and when did he know it?'.

“Perhaps Trump didn't realize that his campaign was being run by alleged Russian money launderers, that at least tow of his foreign policy advisers had entanglements with Russian intelligence, and that his campaign had a heads up about Russian plans to dump stolen Clinton emails online. None of last week's new information proves that Trump is too disloyal to his own country to be president. But the only alternative is that he is too clueless.(4)

Confronted with this inescapable binary choice, I chose the former. Caesar Disgustus will, when the dust finally settles on this wretched administration, be shown the traitor that he is. It is becoming increasingly clear that both the candidate and those about him are eyeball deep in racketeering and money laundering; that they have conspired with a foreign adversary against the United States. Caesar Disgustus' appeal to the Russians to continue to hack his adversaries is a clear indication of his acceptance of the practice and encouragement of it, regardless of the law. His responding to suggestions by the Russians that he cry foul in the event of an electoral defeat is likewise an indication of close collaboration. The myriad ties of campaigning operatives and hangers-on from Papadopoulos, to Roger Stone, to Manafort, Gates, Kushner and his own Son, reveal the level of involvement. It is impossible to believe that Disgustus didn't have intimate knowledge of what transpired. He knows he's guilty, and that's why he has gone to such great lengths to discredit those hot on his trail.

In the end, after sufficient time to wreak whatever possible vandalism, he will be shown the door. The binary question posed by Goldman offers a binary solution: Either Disgustus will replace Benedict Arnold as our greatest national villain or he will go down in history as our greatest national fool.

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

Impeach and Imprison

______________________

1. Goldberg, Michelle. “Conspirator, or Just Clueless?” The New York Times. Tuesday, February 27, 2018. Page A19
2. ibid
3. ibid
4. ibid

February 9, 2018: Act So Guilty, Clear as Vodka, Cannot Suspend Disbelief

If Trump's So Innocent, Why Act so Guilty?, read the headline atop an essay in yesterday's New York Times. There are at least a dozen reasons why.

“President Trump and Devin Nunes have been muddying the waters of the Russia investigation, so let's try to clarify those waters so that they are clear as vodka”, wrote Nicholas Kristof in yesterday's Times. (1)

First, it is a unanimous consensus among the 17 U.S. Intelligence agencies, sundry foreign services, and at least two independent investigative sources that the Russians interfered in the American election. “Twitter found that 50,000 Russian accounts fired of 2.1 million election related tweets in the fall of 2016, and in the final weeks around the election accounted for 4.25 per cent of retweets of Trump's own account”. (2)

Second, Disgustus has long-standing business ties with Russia. True enough, he hasn't been able to build that tower in Moscow, although negotiations were proceeding during the primaries and right up to the Rescumlican National Convention. But failing that it has been reported that a Russian fertilizer oligarch purchased Trump's Florida property for roughly two and a half times what he had paid for it, neither Trump nor his buyer ever took up residence and the building was almost immediately raised. Trump pocketed by some accounts about 60 million dollars at a time when, facing numerous bankruptcies, he was strapped for cash. Nothing about the deal makes sense, unless one is peering through the lense of the Russian oligarchy buying influence or, perhaps, navigating the 'useful idiot' toward nefarious undertakings There are other disturbing facts rising to the surface concerning Russian 'shell' companies buying or renting in Trump properties for the purpose of possibly laundering money.

Third, Disgustus has been overly obsequious regarding Putin. He has yet to utter a critical word.

He has described the Russian as '“So nice”, “so smart”, and doing “an amazing job”'. (3). He defends Putin at every opportunity, even downplaying the charge that Putin has killed journalists and critics.

Forth, Kristof points to the uncomfortable fact that Disgustus surrounds himself with people who have pronounced Russian ties. From Carter Page who has been under F.B.I. investigation since 2013 to Paul Manafort, the list now includes Michael Flynn, Papadopoulos, and now several members of the tRUMP family.

Fifth, Russia confided in the tRUMP campaign, sending signals that they had useful information that they were willing to share.

Sixth, tRUMP aides secretly met with the Russians. From the notorious and infamous tRUMP Tower Meeting involving Kushner, Manafort and several Russians, to Eric Prince meeting with the Russians in the Seychelles Islands, to Papadopoulos, meetings and Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions, ad nauseum, there is a pattern of communication that no one has successfully explained.

Seventh, “Trump Ally Roger Stone Communicated with Guccifer 2.0, believed to be an outlet for Russian military intelligence. Separately, Stone tweeted that 'it will soon [be] Podesta's turn in the barrel'; several weeks later, WikiLeaks began releasing emails Russia had hacked from John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman.” (4) Similarly, Rudy Guilliani made remarks concerning 'upcoming information' in advance of WikiLeaks dumps of Clinton emails.

Eight, WikiLeaks communicated directly with Donald tRUMP jr. WikiLeaks has been declared a 'hostile' foreign actor by our State Department and is widely believed to be working closely with Russian intelligence.

Ninth, Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, “who is close to Putin” (5). Kushner also tried to set up a 'back channel' using Russian communications to the Kremlin, for no doubt nefarious purposes that remain unclear.

Tenth, Disgustus and his aides continually deny any of these contacts and only own up to them when reports surface demonstrating conclusively that these contacts have occurred. While the tRUMP White House protests that it is fully cooperating with the ongoing investigations, the truth is that information is forthcoming only when the facts come under the glare of the kleig lights. “In fact, there were at least 51 such contacts, including 19 face-to-face interactions, by the count of CNN” (6)

Eleventh, Russia is still meddling. The latest reports from the Department of Homeland Security, among others reveal that nefarious Russian activity continues. Indeed, from Russian Bots boosting the 'tweets' of both Disgustus and his lapdog Sean Hannity, to “hashtags like #MAGA and #FullOfSchiff. These same Russian bots are promoting Fox News links and disparage the Russian investigation.” (7)

Lastly, “This is not normal”. Kristof says that he doubts that “there was anything so straightforward as a secret quid pro quo”. (8) But I am not so sanguine. The choice of Tillerson as Secretary of State, he of Exxon-Mobile which has huge investments in Russian oil fields, the exploration of which is hampered by existing American Sanctions. The choice of Flynn as National Security adviser, with known Russian ties, now confessing to having communicated with the Russians about sanction during the campaign and transition. Indeed he has been found sending emails during the inauguration about ending such sanctions. The change in the Rescumlican platform regarding the Ukraine, the needless and senseless war upon the international organizations and agreements that the United States has helped to negotiate and build in the postwar era....all of these appear to be connected to tRUMP's deep fealty to the Russian regime. The question is why?

Certainly, he is acting guilty; for Disgustus despite his years before the camera is not—like Reagan—a convincing actor. He cannot suspend disbelief. At base, he appears for what he is: Guilty. Why else go to such great lengths to thwart efforts to answer the question: Why? Follow the money.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

__________________

1. Kristof, Nicholas. “If Trump's So Innocent, Why Act So Guilty?” “The New York Times
   Thursday, February 8, 2018. Page A23
2. ibid
3. ibid
4. ibid
5. ibid
6. ibid
7. ibid
8. ibid

February 6, 2018: Party Like it's 1933, Crypto-Fascist, Goose-stepping In Unison

“Let's party like it's 1933"

            ----Richard Spencer, President of the National Policy Institute

      

“One People, One Nation, One Leader”

             ----Adolf Hitler

1933 was the year that Hitler came to power and Spencer head of the National Policy Institute, “sometimes described as a 'white supremacist think tank', was ecstatic with the elevation of Donald J. Trump to the highest office in the land, even provoking “an outcry with his widely covered 'Heil Trump' (or 'Hail Trump' which of course amounts to the same thing) salute after the election.” (1)

While Spencer and his crypto-fascists are still held at arm's length, last summer's “wink and nod” to the neo-nazis in the wake of the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstrate the eerily fascist overtones of this administration and the 'movement' it purports to represent. Indeed, the John Birch Society (purged from the Republican Party in the 1950's) and other wingnuts have long since found a new home and a new credibility under the Rescumlican umbrella. Spencer's exuberance, his public celebration of Trump's arrival is simply an outward manifestation of an underlying reality.

What is the definition of fascism? Fascism is authoritarian or totalitarian government in service of corporate interests. So, Hitler would suppress unions, the press, opposition parties, dissidents and minorities in service to Volkswagen, Krupp, Farber, Daimler, et.al. Creating a virtual police state in service to corporate interests.

Spencer knows the nature of the beast. Disgustus, inspired by tin-horn dictators around the world, reportedly wanted a military parade at his inauguration. Mark Hemingway writing in the “Weekly Standard” on March 1, 2016 cited a previous article in “Vanity Fair” concerining tRUMP's fascination with the German leader. I a charge first made by his ex-wife Ivana during divorce proceedings, Hemingway wrote:

“Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.

"Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?" I asked Trump.
Trump hesitated. "Who told you that?"

"I don't remember," I said.

"Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew." ("I did give him a book about Hitler," Marty Davis said. "But it was My New Order, Hitler's speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I'm not Jewish.")

Later, Trump returned to this subject. "If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them." (2)

Marina Fang writing in “The Huffington Post”, wrote this about a speech delivered by Disgustus in Ohio earlier today:

"President Donald Trump accused Democrats on Monday of being “un-American” and
“treasonous” in a campaign-style speech in Cincinnati that was actually meant to tout
the recent GOP tax bill and the economy.


“Can we call that treason?” Trump said, referring to Democrats who did not clap for him during his State of the Union address last week. “Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”
At the State of the Union address, it is typical for politicians of the president’s party to enthusiastically applaud, while lawmakers in the opposite party usually have a muted response. 
A handful of Democratic lawmakers did not attend last Tuesday’s address to protest Trump. 
Trump suggested on Monday that Democrats were “very selfish” in not clapping for him. “They would rather see Trump do badly, OK, than our country do well,” he said.
Earlier in the speech, the president claimed that he was “non-braggadocious” after bragging about his first year in office.
Interspersed with remarks about jobs and the economy, Trump brought up popular issues for his base, including the “fake news media” in attendance and the lack of players kneeling during the national anthem at Sunday’s Super Bowl, which he appeared to take some credit for.
“We’re one team, one people and one family, and we’re saluting one great American flag. And everybody stood up yesterday,” he said. “There was nobody kneeling at the beginning of the Super Bowl. We’ve made a lot of improvement, haven’t we? That is a big improvement, and on top of that, it was a good game. So a lot of good things happened. There was no kneeling before that Super Bowl.” (3)
Here you have it. Attacks on the press as “Fake News” and charges of “treason” over the most spurious charges. One team, one people, one family—soon to be “one people, one country, one leader” as the country begins goose-stepping in unison to a most certain doom. Seig Heil!

Impeach and Imprison

(1). Wolf, Michael. “Fire and Fury Inside the Trump White House” Henry Holt and Company, New York. 2018. Page 127

2. http://www.weeklystandard.com/vanity-fair-trump-kept-a-volume-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bedside/article/2001343
3. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-democrats-state-of-the-union_us_5a78b7fbe4b00f94fe93f924?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

February 4, 2018: Putin's Work, Nothing But Lapdogs, Weapon of Mass Self-Destruction

“In 2016, the Russian government engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in an American election and undermine our democracy. Russia employed the same tactics it has used to influence elections around the world, from France and Germany to Ukraine, Montenegro, and beyond. Putin’s regime launched cyberattacks and spread disinformation with the goal of sowing chaos and weakening faith in our institutions. And while we have no evidence that these efforts affected the outcome of our election, I fear they succeeded in fueling political discord and dividing us from one another.

“The latest attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests – no party’s, no president’s, only Putin’s. The American people deserve to know all of the facts surrounding Russia’s ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation must proceed unimpeded. Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”

                                                           ----Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) (1)

Indeed, the Russians are suspected of being behind not only the Brexit movement in Britain, La Pen's fascist party in France, nationalist parties in Germany, but also nascent secessionist movements in the United States. From the campaign to have Alaska declare independence and, perhaps rejoin Russia, to the online petition campaigns to have California and Texas secede from the union, the Russians have been doing their utmost to sow discord not only within the international community but within the very confines of the United States as well. McCain knows from whence he speaks. He has deep ties to the defense and intelligence communities and was the one member of Congress that Steele felt he could trust with the information that he had garnered from his intelligence network in Russia and Eastern Europe.

McCain knows the scope of this threat and, I suspect, he knows that Disgustus is guilty. Nevertheless we have seen the governing political party become nothing but lapdogs, justifying and enabling what can only be described as a clear and present danger.

Let us be clear about this. Not only did Disgustus openly invite the Russians to illegally hack emails and welcome their influence, but upon taking office one of the first acts of the administration was to eliminate entirely the funding for the only federal agency charged with protecting the cyber integrity of our electoral process, an overt action that virtually insured that nothing was going to be done and put our electoral system at further risk. Here we have an entire political party openly colluding with a declared foreign adversary to subvert the electoral system of this republic and now they are about the business of brazenly doing everything they can to shut down the investigations into their perfidy.

The Rescumlicans will do anything to stop us from revealing the truth. No act is beneath them. They have sowed discord and suspicion, destroyed the integrity of congressional oversight committees, created antipathy toward our law enforcement agencies and destroyed whatever lingering faith the public has in our representatives in Washington.

In an opinion published in “The New York Times”, Thomas Edsall wrote:

“President Trump has single-handedly done more to undermine the basic tenets of American democracy than any foreign agent or foreign propaganda campaign could.
“Trump is a political weapon of mass self-destruction for American democracy — for its norms, for its morality, for sheer human decency,” Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at Brookings, wrote by email:

So if Putin backed him, and if he did it to damage the United States, then he dropped one extremely smart bomb in the middle of Washington.”' (2)

Yes, Br'er Putin knew precisely what he was doing when he fashioned this 'tar baby' called Donald Trump and thrust him before the American people. Like Br'er Rabbit, the country just couldn't leave him alone and there appears no brier patch in which we can now get ourselves clean.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

_____________________

1. https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=12E0BD0A-B549-43ED-B42E-594EDBE182C1
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/opinion/trump-putin-destruction-democracy.html

February 2, 2018: Wall of Obstruction, Material Accomplices, Flush This Toilet.

Professor Robert Reich, concerned about the Rescumlican campaign to undermine if not end the Mueller investigation into Donald J. Trump and his lackeys, had this to say yesterday on his Facebook posting:

“In December, just before he was to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – who has authority over special counsel Rob Mueller’s Russia investigation -- sought Trump’s help in fighting off document demands from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. 
 
No such luck. Instead,Trump used the meeting to ask Rosenstein where the Mueller’s investigation was heading, and whether Rosenstein was "on my team."

 
Friends, we have a man occupying the Oval Office who has no qualms about interfering in an FBI investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. 

 
This will be another piece of evidence in the obstruction of justice count of the Trump impeachment, next year. Your thoughts?”

 

Devin Nunes is, of course, the same Devin Nunes who last summer engaged in a White House plot to divert criticism over the tRUMP administrations accusations that somehow President Obama had violated the law and illegally wiretapped tRUMP Tower,  One will recall that the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was seen jumping out of his car, after receiving a call, and running off only to report later that he had uncovered independently obtained information that he needed to rush to the White House which would exonerate Disgustus' and validate his outrageous claims. The charade was quickly revealed for what it was, for Nunes had run to the White House to get information from Bannon staffers at the White House, to deliver back to the White House. In sum, the White House ginning up 'documents', purportedly from 'independent' sources that weren't 'independent' at all. As a result of this brazen attempt to obfuscate Nunes 'recused' himself as chairman of the committee as it went about investigating the Russian mess.

It seems, however, that Nunes has done nothing of the sort. He has instead been 'cherry-picking' information that he demanded from the FBI to make it appear that the FBI and Robert Mueller have been 'conspiring' to bring the government down. He has summarized this fiction in a classified memo that the Rescumlicans, by party-line vote, decided to release to the public, over the strenuous objections of both the FBI and the tRUMP led Department of Justice. Not only did the committee refuse to allow the Director of the FBI or anyone at Justice testify as to the veracity of the interpretation or the wisdom, given that it could reveal sources, of releasing this screed but the committee voted along party lines to quash the Democratic line-by-line critique. Indeed Nunes refused to answer a question by a Democratic member of the Committee if he had consulted the White House when drawing up this fraud.  

 

The Ghost of Joe McCarthy is roaming the Rescumlican cloakrooms once again.

This in the context of the same House committee that accused two FBI agents of anti-tRUMP bias, characterizing the FBI as a 'witch hunt'. It was later revealed that not only had Mueller immediately removed the investigators upon discovery of the messages but that the emails also contained disparaging remarks about the Clintons, including daughter Chelsea, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Jill Stein, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz and a host of others.

It is becoming increasingly and painfully clear that the Rescumlican Party will do nothing to see that justice is done. The Rescumlican Party, now bereft of any sense of justice or decency, is now in the thralls of the ultimate degenerate, the penultimate authoritarian, and the Russian Agent. There is no known depth to which they will not now stoop. No gutter, no cesspool is too repugnant for them.

By selectively reporting the committee has instead demonstrated it's own bias, becoming—along with its 'recused' chairman, material accessories in the obstruction of justice. The public forum reeks from the stench and there will be no relief unless and until we flush this toilet.

Impeach and Imprison.

March 31, 2017: The Russian Connection, Useful Idiot, Threaten to Sing

The scandal simply will not go away.  No matter how mightily our Caesar Disgustus struggles to obfuscate, mislead, confuse, blame and raise wholly bogus complaints of election fraud, wiretapping, and other nefarious misdeeds by enemies’ and forces real or imagined, the scandal simply will not go away.

Of course, to listen to Disgustus tell it the “Russian Story” is an entire fabrication concocted by the Democrats to explain away, in his words, “losing an election they should have won”.  Like everything else emanating from the mouth of this man there is always a tidbit of truth.  In this case the Democrats should have won, and won hands down were it not for the machinations of forces within the Democratic Party securing the nomination of the only person on the planet capable of losing to this man; and, it is becoming increasingly apparent, forces within the Rescumlican Party reaching from the Kremlin all the way into the highest echelons of the tRUMP campaign and the Rescumlican Party working to ensure the outcome.  

But, it appears, there may be a bit more to the story.  According to several news sources it appears that as early as 2015 foreign intelligence agencies, among them Estonia, Poland, Germany, France, Israel and Australia while monitoring the activities of several principles within the murky world where Russian Intelligence, Russian political leadership and the Russian Mafia combine, were bumping into information regarding contacts between these actors and people associated with the tRUMP campaign.  It was these agencies that first brought this issue to the attention of the FBI and American Intelligence.  Other sources have also surfaced, including the famous “Steele Dossier”, put together by a former British MI6 agent and funded first by an unnamed opponent of tRUMP in the Republican primaries, and later by a Democratic operative.  Much of it today remains unsubstantiated, but much of it has been verified. There is still, however, no word on the veracity of the salacious account involving tRUMP and Russian Prostitutes involving acts of urination known as “Golden Showers”.   What we do know from all of this is that to date at least nine different tRUMP associates have been identified as having contacts with the Russians before and after the election including, it is rumored, tRUMP himself.  Precisely what was exchanged at these meetings is under investigation but, in the words of John McCain, “This is beginning to resemble Watergate and more shoes are bound to fall”.

This much we do know.  All 17 U.S. Intelligence Agencies agree with “High Confidence” (read “Dead Certainty”) that the Russians meddled in our election in order to elect one bombastic, willfully ignorant megalomaniac with a vocabulary of about 700 words and the attention span measured in nanoseconds to the presidency of the United States.  They did so, it is held, because Vladimir Putin, angered by the actions of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to question the legitimacy of his re-election, was moved to retaliate.   It wasn’t that Putin thought he could win the election, it was that by backing a man this unstable, this vengeful, this paranoid, and animated by this level of complete mendacity he had found a man who promised to shake the political process and, therefore, the legitimacy of the most powerful republic on the planet.  Here was a golden opportunity for tRUMP, win or lose, is in the parlance of Russian Intelligence, a most “useful idiot”.   It is not difficult to imagine the chaos Disgustus would now be wreaking upon the republic had he lost the election.  Can there be any doubt as to his response?  Calling the election “rigged” and “fake”, whining that the office-- which, in the mind of Disgustus, is so rightfully his—could only have been lost by having it ‘stolen’ from him.  Can there now be any doubt that having lost he would be presently barnstorming the country demanding justice and doing everything within the power of “Faux News” and mendacity itself to delegitimize the Clinton administration.  Perhaps, it is feared, there would have been armed rebellion. 

But to WIN the election!  Oh, what a delicious prospect for Putin that would be!  What better candidate could one possibly conjure who, placed at the vortex of political power, is better suited to vandalize and wreak entire havoc upon one’s greatest adversary?  tRUMP’s staggering ignorance alone would almost insure the project.  Add to this his breathtaking incompetence and the stench of his malignant personality and one has the perfect ‘useful idiot’; a vandal capable of nothing save damaging, destroying, defacing, and besmirching virtually everything and everyone about him.  For let there be no mistake about it: anyone who associates with this man is belittled thereby and reputation besmirched. 

Putin, a former head of the old Soviet KGB, knows something about personality profiling.  He also knows something about political power.  He knows that a man with tRUMP’s resources and tRUMP’s personality would make for a very toxic mix, win or lose.  And like any good geostrategist Putin, always thinking at least six steps ahead, found in our Disgustus the perfect foil—a man who, among other things, cannot see beyond his nose much less around any corner.  So, leading his idiot by the nose, Putin helped Disgustus assume the throne. 

The broad outlines are there and the details will, no doubt, be forthcoming.  All our intelligence agencies agree that the Russians interfered in our election.  They hacked into not only the Democratic National Committee and Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta’s emails but also into the electoral rolls of at least 22 states and several congressional campaigns.  They spread disinformation about Hillary on the anti-social networks Facebook and Twitter.  They may, and probably did, have done much more. 

But what isn’t emphasized in the reporting here in the States is that Disgustus, upon receiving this aid and comfort from our adversary began to change policies and ape the Kremlin line concerning elections in republican countries.  On orders from Disgustus himself, and with the Russian Ambassador looking on, the Rescumlican Party did an immediate ‘about-face’ on Ukraine, changing its platform from support of the Ukrainian nationals over Crimea to supporting Putin and Russia. tRUMP immediately, again aping the Kremlin’s line, began to warn that the election was rigged, and that the only way he could lose would be through outright theft. 

Faced with a growing chorus of questions about Russian interference and his role in it, tRUMP dismissed U.S. Intelligence, denigrated the agencies, and parroted the Kremlin line, and then set about undermining our western alliances by questioning the need for NATO, suggesting that the U.S. may no longer honor the provision to come to the aid of any member of the alliance under attack, and demanding—like some slumlord running a tenement—that the member states belly-up to the bar and “pay their fair share”.   This, of course, has served to undermine one of the great alliances that has kept the peace in Europe for over 70 years; a principle policy goal of Putin and the Kremlin since NATO’s expansions into Eastern Europe right up to the doorstep of Russia itself.  Once again, Disgustus has demonstrated by undermining our alliances—even to the point of refusing to shake the hand of the German Chancellor-- how useful an idiot he has become in the furtherance of Russian national interests.    

In the memorable words of Senator Sam Irvin presiding over the Senate Select Committee investigating Watergate: “If it looks like a horse, walks like a horse and sounds like a horse, one can reasonably assume it’s a horse.” 

As we speak, former tRUMP National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, known to have met with the Russians before and after the election and suspected of undermining Obama’s response to the Russian interference by promising reversal of policy upon tRUMP’s inauguration, has offered to sing in exchange for immunity from prosecution.   So far no one has taken him up on it.  

February 27, 2017: Orange Julius, Caesar Disgustus, No Discernable Validation

"Donald tRUMP is much more than a national embarrassment; he is a national obscenity"
                            ----from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe"

In what had to be one of the strangest spectacles to ever disgrace the republic, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held his first news conference and took to the podium not to announce new policy but to denounce press coverage of the inauguration, boldly and falsely claiming that the crowd attending tRUMP’s ascendancy was the largest in history, larger even than that attending Obama’s inauguration in 2009 or that of Lyndon Johnson in 1965.   Photos rapidly produced by the park service immediately demonstrated otherwise, including banks of empty seats lining the inaugural parade route right up to the presidential grandstand in front of the White House itself.   But tRUMP continues to contend otherwise, believing what he needs to believe, facts to the contrary notwithstanding.

Orange Julius is a serial prevaricator, which is to say, a pathological liar.  Everything coming from the mouth or computer (Twitter) of this man is either a diversion, exaggeration, hyperbole, or outright boldface lie; all designed to meet the deep emotional needs of a man with small hands and even smaller ego; a man ill at ease with himself; a man compelled to resort to petty, mean, small-minded acts of vengeance even at the cost of burying the larger Rescumlican agenda beneath false assertions and tweet storms. 

So the first press conference held by this administration was not an attempt to lay out an agenda, explain changes in policy, nor open the floor to questions and answers.  Instead Spicer simply took the floor, chastised the press for its reporting, and questioning the motives and by extension the legitimacy of the 4^th estate, and then called an abrupt end to the spectacle storming off the stage.  If the press had any intestinal fortitude it would simply refuse now to cover the White House, for whatever comes out of the White House is truth stood on its head.  We have now gone beyond spin into the nether regions and dark corridors of the deeply psychotic and paranoid alternate universe of Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and Breitbart “News”.   In the less than immortal words of former tRUMP spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway we are now presented with “alternate facts” which carry no discernable validation except in the minds of the tin hats now in the White House; “facts” which the White House now demands be taken more seriously than what the rest of humanity clearly sees as universally discernable and measurable empirical reality. 

Coming as it does on the heels of claims that 5 million illegals voted in the last election, thereby giving Hillary more popular votes despite virtually no evidence that any voter fraud, not to mention fraud at this level exist, tRUMP is emerging as a whining pre-adolescent, easily slighted, thin-skinned, and easily played.  The fact is that the ego of this little man simply cannot stand the fact that more people voted for someone else, especially when that someone else is a woman.  So, desperate to smudge the historical record he now calls for a presidential commission to investigate bogus claims of large scale voter fraud.

The White House has rapidly degenerated into a “Funhouse” house of mirrors, images of Orange Julius distorted to serve the purposes of the moment, images endlessly replicated into infinity giving the illusion of great depth when, in fact, there is no there, there. 

Welcome to the New Order, get in line, bow and genuflect before our very own Caesar Disgustus.