May 15, 2019: Scion of Greed, Kleptocracy At Work, The Jolly Roger

When it comes to naming the scion of greed the countenance of one snot-nosed little son-of-a-bitch named Martin Shkreli leaps immediately to mind. One may recall that in 2015 as head of Turing Pharmaceuticals he acquired Daraprim. “The drug's most prominent use as of late 2015 was as an anti-malarial and antiparasitic, in conjunction with leucovorin and sulfadiazine to treat patients with AIDS-related and AIDS-unrelated toxoplasmosis...The price of a dose of the drug in the U.S. market increased from US $13.50 to US $750. per pill, overnight, a factor of 56” (1)

This outraged followed previous behaviors.

“In May 2014, Shkreli had difficulty accessing public markets for capital, but received a $4 million series A funding round and a PIPE deal valued at $10 million underwritten by Roth Capital Partners. After obtaining the financing, Shkreli was able to acquire rights to market tiopronin (brand name, Thiola) a drug used to treat the rare disease cystinuria and Chenodal and subsequently raise the price of each drug substantially, with Thiola subsequently being marked up about 20 fold, from $1.50 to $30 per pill (patients must take 10 to 15 pills a day), and Chenodal about five fold. Retrophin did not lower the price of these drugs after Shkreli's departure.” (2)

There are other examples. He was hauled before Congress but refused to answer any questions other than confirm his name.  After receiving a tongue-lashing from outraged Democrats (the ReSCUMlickans were in control of the body), Shkreli was released to quickly return to rapine and plunder.

The real outrage is that he was finally sent off to prison...but for securities fraud! Yes, you can pluner the public but by god the capitalist is sacrosanct. Shkreli had finally gone too far—committed the capital sin—ripping off the stockholders.  In America, you can put the health of millions at risk but by god you don't mess with shareholders.

This is the state of the American health care system. I bring this up because this week yet another outrage was brought to our attention the editors of The New York Times.

“At first blush,” wrote the editors, “the news that Gilead—the company that makes Truvada, the medication that prevents H.I.V. infection—will donate enough of the drug to treat 200,000 patients a year through 2030 seems like unequivocally good news. Some 40,000 Americans are newly infected with H.I.V. Every year. Reducing that transmission rate is the key to eradicating the virus in the United States...

“But, as drug policy experts regularly note, such donations have a long history of doing more for drug makers than for patients.” (3)

Indeed as the Times points out, the tax breaks for the donation will amount to an estimated $1 billion on a product that costs around $10 million to produce. (4) So much for enlightened self-interest or disinterested benevolence.

“A month's supply of Truvada costs roughly $6 to make and sells for more than $1,600 in the United States, according to the PrEP for All Collaboration, an advocacy group...Owing partly to those prices, only about 18 percent of the million or so at-risk Americans who need the drug have access to it, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation...

“...As the Washington Post has reported, Truvada was developed largely with taxpayer dollars. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention holds a patent on the medication, and the Justice Department is investigating whether the company owes the federal government back royalties on the patent, which experts say could amount to as much as $1 billion...

“Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have resisted calls to sue the company for those royalties, saying that such a lawsuit would be expensive and time-consuming and would ultimately not make much of a dent in the drug's price. They're probably right. But the prospect of such a lawsuit should have given the government considerable leverage in its negotiations with Gilead.

“Mr. Trump appears to have used that leverage poorly. Regardless of how much access to the drug is increased by the new donation, most Americans who need Truvada will still be charged thousands of dollars a year for the drug, which citizens of most other countries get for a small fraction of that price. Those other countries made no investment in the development of Truvada, but most have access to generic versions of it. Gilead has managed to keep its rivals from introducing generics to the American market through a combination of lawsuits and private deals with would-be competitors.” (5)

It is evidently lost on the Department of Justice that making deals with would-be competitors in order to restrict access is price-fixing and a violation of anti-trust laws.

Clearly Disgustus, who had pledged to eradicate H.I.V., is no negotiator. Not only did the administration fail to bring legal action on the patent rights, but the government has failed to prosecute Gilead on charges of price-fixing. Disgustus didn't even employ the threat of such action in order to bring compliance.

The whole system is outrageous. This is what happens when profit governs the nation's health care system.  This is what happens when the government fails to protect the people by not enforcing laws long on the books against price-fixing.  This is what happens when Capital is allowed to form cartels controlling the marketplaces in the pharmaceutical, insurance and medical industries.   Here is yet another example of a product developed at public universities, at public expense, the patent for which is somehow found under the control of Corporate America. Why the people, who paid for the creation of this product, are not reaping the rewards is a national outrage. Here is yet another example of how we allow corporate greed not only plunder the marketplace but the public domain as well. The Kleptocracy at work, with the great kleptocrat sitting on the throne, overseeing his den of thieves. The ship of state has taken down the Grand 'Ole Flag and has run up the Jolly Roger.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

_________________

1. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
2. Ibid
3. Editors. “Gilead's Gift Horse” The New York Times. Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Page A22
4. Ibid
5. Ibid

May 14, 2019: Lots of Piggies, Dirty Little Secret, Enter The tRUMPs

“Everywhere there's lots of piggies

living piggy lives

you can see them out for dinner

with their piggy wives

clutching forks and knives

to eat their bacon”

              ----George Harrison “Piggies”

When one thinks of tax havens one conjures images of the Cayman Islands, Switzerland or, perhaps, Ireland. But the biggest tax haven in the world is the United States, where “there is 'little appetite' for helping foreign governments retrieve money laundered within its borders”. Indeed, bowing to pressure from the banking industry, the United States stands alone in refusing to join an agreement forged by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development requiring banks to “report foreign accounts to the tax authorities in the account holders' home country”. (1) As a result, Franklin Foer, writes in The Atlantic:

“This obstinacy stood to subvert everything the country had done to lead the fight against dirty money: while the U.S. can ask almost any other nation's banks for financial information about American citizens, it has no obligation to provide other countries with the same. 'The United States had bullied the rest of the world into scrapping financial secrecy...but hadn't applied the same standards to itself.' (2) A Zurich-based lawyer vividly spelled out the consequences to “Bloomberg” 'How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour...That 'giant sucking sound' you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.” (3)

In 2010 when “USB admitted to hiding 20 billion in American money” the problem became to big to ignore, almost, anyway. Congress moved to pass the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), wherein foreign banks cannot hold American cash without notifying the IRS—failure to comply risks hefty fines. Congress did nothing, however to close the loophole in the Patriot Act dealing with foreign money finding a haven here.

“Here was anti-corruption leadership at work—and U.S. waffling on display”, writes Foer. “According to one powerful strain of American exceptionalism, the nation boasts superior financial hygiene and a bedrock culture of good government. Indeed, the U.S. government has devoted more attention to money laundering than perhaps any other nation on the planet. But the bar isn't very high, and the vigilance has its limits. In 2011, the Obama administration sought to collect more information about foreigners' bank accounts and to share it with the relevant home countries. But banks—along with their lobbyists and intellectual mouthpieces—worked furiously to prevent the expansion .“ (4)

The closest the nation has come to real regulation was embodied in The Patriot Act, legislation following the attacks on 9/11. Banks are now required to report suspicious activity, suspicious money transferred from abroad. And Banks face serious criminal charges for ”failing to establish sufficient safeguards against the flow of corrupt cash”. (5)

But there is a catch, there is always a catch. “Every House district in the country has real estate, and lobbyists for that business had pleaded for relief from the PATRIOT Act's monitoring of dubious foreign transactions. They all but conjured up images of suburban moms staking FOR SALE signs on lawns, ill-equipped to vet every buyer. And they persuaded Congress to grant the industry a temporary exemption from having to enforce the new law.

“The exemption was a gaping loophole—and an extraordinary growth opportunity for high-end real estate. For all the new fastidiousness of the financial system, foreigners could still buy penthouse apartments or mansions anonymously and with ease, by hiding behind shell companies set up in states such as Delaware and Nevada. Those states, along with a few others, had turned the registration of shell companies into a hugely lucrative racket—and it was stunningly simple to arrange such a Potemkin front on behalf of a dictator, a drug dealer, or an oligarch. According to Global Witness, a London-based anti-corruption NGO founded in 1993, procuring a library card requires more identification in many states than does creating an anonymous shell company”. (6)

The dirty little secret is that the United States has long been a haven for money-laundering and recent developments in the explosion of organized crime—particularly foreign organized crime has made New York, along with Los Angeles and Miami cesspools for money laundering. This is because, like London and elsewhere, high-end properties purchased by shell companies are the preferred avenues for skirting the reporting requirements and not only keeping the source of the money hidden from view but legitimizing future transactions—thus 'cleaning or laundering the money' by future sale of the properties.

All of this is known. What is telling about Foer's report is the link between these real estate transactions and the wholesale plundering of the Russian Federation by the Russian oligarchy. What happened in Russia after the fall of Communism was plunder on an unprecedented scale. “When Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman studied the problem in 2015, he found that 52 percent of Russia's wealth resided outside the country.

“The collapse of communism in the other post-Soviet states, along with China's turn toward capitalism, only added to the kleptocratic fortunes that were hustled abroad for secret safekeeping. Officials around the world have always looted their countries' coffers and accumulated bribes. But the globalization of banking made the export of their ill-gotten money far more convenient than it had been—which, of course, inspired more theft. By one estimate, more than $1 trillion now exits the world's developing countries each year in the forms of laundered money and evaded taxes.” (7)

Enter the tRUMPs.

“In 2017,” Floer tells us, “Reuters examined the sale of Trump Organization properties in Florida. It found that 77 of 2,044 units in developments were owned by Russians. But that was likely an incomplete portrait. More than one-third of the units had been sold to corporate vehicles, which can readily hide the identity of the true owner. As Oliver Bullough remarks, 'They might have belonged to Vladimir Putin, for all anyone else could know.' Around the time that Trump took up occupancy in the White House, the PATRIOT Act's 'temporary' exemption for real estate entered its 15^th year.” (8)

And it isn't just in Florida where tRUMP engages in highly suspect business operations. Statistics for Trump Tower show similar behavior even after he was elevated to the Oval Office. Then there were properties in Panama and Azerbaijan. It is a violation of the RICO statutes, governing the prosecution of organized crime, to deal with known criminals in any business transaction. And ignorance of the law, or the nature of persons with whom one is doing business is no excuse. One is expected to know one's business partners. Disgustus and his organization have violated this law in several jurisdictions. But that isn't the end of it.

The deal usually goes like this. Disgustus and his family put up no money but the name goes on the building. He gets a cut for that. But his real value is that his organization manages the place and it is in the management, the purchase agreements, that one finds the real meat of the matter. For in exchange for the prestige and the money, Disgustus and his family receive the money from the crime syndicates and make their theft whole.

One must ask, in view of the revelations of The New York Times that Disgustus lost over a billion dollars in the 10 years leading up to the fall of the old Soviet Union, just where he is getting his money? How is it that in the wake of such a colossal failure we find him paying cash for his acquisitions? Where is he getting his money, and to whom is he beholden? Is it mere coincidence that the plundering of the Russian Federation began in earnest just about the time that the Russians came to the rescue of America's biggest loser? I'm sure the Russians were desperate to find someone, anyone, to help stash half the country's wealth. And so, the search began for a pliable “useful idiot.”

This, too, is the legacy of the Generation of Swine.

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

Impeach and Imprison

_______________

1. Foer, Franklin. “How Kleptocracy Came To America” The Atlantic Magazine. Vol. 323. No. 2. March, 2019. Pp. 86-95. See page 91
2. Foer is here quoting Oliver Bullough Moneyland:Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back.
3. Op. Cit. Page 91.
4. Ibid. Page 90
5. Ibid. Page 88
6. Ibid. Page 88-89.

May 10, 2019: Decade of Losses, King Of the Losers, Financially Embattled Thousandaire

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that from 1985 through 1994, our erstwhile business tycoon cum 'president' lost over a billion dollars. (1) In a front-page article, Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig tell us that:

“By the time his master-of-the-universe memoir 'Trump: The Art of the Deal' hit bookstores in 1987, Donald J. Trump was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars on troubled business deals, according to previously unrevealed figures from his federal income tax returns.

“Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that took hold in 1990. But 10 years of tax information obtained by The New York Times paints a different, and far bleaker picture of his deal making abilities and financial condition.

“The data—printouts from Mr. Trump's official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form 1040 for the years 1985 to 1994—represents the fullest and most detailed look to date at the president's taxes, information he has kept from public view. Though the information does not cover the tax years at the center of an escalating battle between the Trump administration and Congress, it traces the most tumultuous chapter in a long business career—an era of fevered acquisition and spectacular collapse.

“The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of 46.1 million from his core businesses—largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling 1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

“In fact,” continued Buettner and Craig, “year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer. The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. Compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991—more than $250 million each year—were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.” (2)

The numbers give lie to the myth moving Tony Swartz, who wrote The Art of the Deal to say that the book should be reclassified as fiction. Indeed, Disgustus has again taken to Twitter tweeting that the Times piece was a 'hit job' . Disgustus, always playing the victim, finds himself turning The Art of the Deal into The Art of the Squeal.

Gail Collins, writing in today's Times was having none of it. Referring to the same article published in The Times yesterday, she observed that Disgustus “during his 'Art of the Deal' era...was pretty much the national champion for financial underachievers.” (3) Noting the years 1990 and 1991, she quipped : “well, you can't deny he was a record breaker.” (4)

Collins then went on to describe tRUMP as “a financially embattled thousandaire” to which she reported, “he took great offense”. (5) These were the same years, it should be noted that tRUMP biographer David Kay Johnston published an article in which he told the reader that he probably had more wealth than tRUMP. Disgustus brought legal action but Johnston demanded through legal 'discovery' that tRUMP demonstrate otherwise. The case was dropped.

“However,” observes Collins, “it's become increasingly clear that even the cynical version of Donald Trump as a businessman—undisciplined self-promoter who bought and sold things just to convince himself he wasn't a useless nothingburger living off his rich dad's money—was maybe an overestimation.

“Which can be sort of unnerving, given his current job.” (6) Indeed.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

_____________

1. Buettner, Russ., and Craig, Susanne. “Trump Tax Figures Show A Decade of Huge Losses; Core Businesses absorbed over $1 Billion in Red Ink From 1985 Through 1994.” The New York Times. Wednesday, May 8, 2019. Pages A1 & A14-15.
2. Ibid. Page A1
3. Collins, Gail. “Donald Trump, King Of the Losers” The New York Times. Thursday, May 9, 2019. Page A23
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid

May 4, 2019: Working Class Hero, Despising The Heartland, When Smith-Blarney Speaks

“Keep you doped with religion

and sex and TV
and you think you're so clever
and classless and free
but you're still fucking peasants
as far as I can see

A Working Class Hero is something to be
A Working Class Hero is something to be”

                         ----John Lennon “Working Class Hero”

“Who really despises the American heartland?”, asks economist Paul Krugman in The New York Times. (1) The Republicans, that's who.

Oh yes, 'liberals' like Bill Maher routinely denigrate the 'flyover' states, claiming that all one sees from the height of fifty thousand feet are vast empty spaces. Farms, says Maher, are so boring. Maher isn't alone. Books like “What's Wrong With Kansas” have been painted the plains as the modern home of the Flintstones as the 'liberal elite' struggle to understand what is happening in America.

While denigrating the great Heartland, liberals fail to understand that it is from this America that gave birth to the very ideals and institutional reforms that they hold dear. What's happening in the

Heartland is that it has been left behind. Liberals, failing to come to grips with what has happened in the last half-century, are perplexed and deeply frustrated. A frustration that boils over, on occasion, into statements embodied in the remarks of comedian Bill Maher. 

But for true contempt, as Krugman points out, one must turn to the conservatives. Conservatives, always representing Wall Street and the moneyed interests have long held those that create the wealth in contempt. One has only to consult their tax policies—taxing work at higher rates than wealth—as evidence of this. Accordingly, they routinely disparage those that sweat for a living, from the urban working class to the farmers of the Midwest and South. As an example, Krugman presents tRUMP's nominee to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Stephen Moore.

“'If you live in the Midwest, where else do you want to live besides Chicago? You don't want to live in Cincinnati or Cleveland or, you know, these armpits of America.' So declared Stephen Moore, the man Donald Trump wants to install on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, during a 2014 event held at a think tank called, yes, the Heartland Institute.

“The Crowd laughed.

“Moore”, continued Krugman, “is an indefensible choice on many grounds. Even if he hadn't shown himself to be extremely misogynistic and have an ugly personal history, his track record on economics—always wrong, never admitting error or learning from it—is utterly disqualifying.

“His remarks about the Midwest, however, highlight more than his unsuitability for the Fed. They also provide an illustration of something I've been noticing for a while: The thinly veiled contempt conservative elites feel for the middle-American voters they depend on.” (2)

“This is not the story you usually hear”, notes Krugman. Indeed it is the liberals that are held to hold the heartland in contempt, a charge going back to the late sixties moniker “limousine liberal” and reinforced by “a story line pushed relentlessly by Fox News and other propaganda organizations, relying on out-of-context quotes and sheer fabrication.” (3) It is a charge that has become so pervasive that, noticed Krugman, the liberals themselves have come to believe it.

“Conservative contempt, by contrast, is real. Moore's 'armpit' line evidently didn't shock his audience, probably because disparaging view about middle America are widespread among right-wing intellectual and, more discreetly, right-wing politicians” (4)

Krugman makes it clear that the crisis is real. In what he calls the Eastern Heartland the very real social and economic crisis has translated persistently high unemployment “among working-age men” into “a surge in mortality from alcohol, suicide and opioids--'deaths of despair,' in the phrase of Anne Case and Angus Deaton.” (5) Indeed, comedian Bill Maher noted over a year ago the correlation of tRUMP support and areas of the country with the highest drug use.

Declining opportunities lead to social disruption as the metropolitan coasts are favored over rural America. One need look only to West Virginia, where disinvestment in the region has led to the highest opioid use in the country. A state that, like Alabama, gave tRUMP his highest majorities. Indeed, comedian Bill Maher noted over a year ago the correlation of tRUMP support and areas of the country with the highest drug use. It has come to this: it now takes the infusion of massive dose of opiates, along with fundamentalist religion and Faux News to hold up this “working class hero”; to mask the fraud that is our Caesar Disgustus and the ReSCUMlickan appeal to the working classes. We are still fucking peasants as far as they can see.

Incidentally Moore and Herman Cain have withdrawn their nominations to the Federal Reserve Board. Evidently Wall Street is beginning to fear the consequences of imposing ignorance on the system and vandalizing the financial system is apparently a bridge too far. When Smith-Blarney speaks even, it seems, this administration listens.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

______________

1. Krugman, Paul. “Armpits, White Ghettos And Contempt.” The New York Times. Friday, April 26, 2019. Page A27.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. 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 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.

March 28, 2019: Would a Dick, Before the Priest, Flogging The Children

Whatsoever our Caesar Disgustus sayeth of another, that he himself would be.”

                   ----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

Observing the behaviors of our Caesar Disgustus, comedian Bill Maher noted that his actions seem animated not by questions of policy and judgment but by asking the simple question “What would a dick do?” Maher then listed several policy reverses instituted by our prime ignoramus that make no other sense. Why call, for instance, for the return of coal? Why insist that we once again turn to asbestos? Why reverse regulations on Monsanto banning use of chemicals that cause brain damage to children? Why insist that we once again put lead in bullets? Why? Because he can. He can be a dick, and that is all he can be.

And now we find, after taking a 'victory lap' in the aftermath of the summary of the Mueller Report, that he once again simply cannot help himself. Crowing about the “witch hunt”, and “presidential harassment”, he simply could not leave well enough alone. Instead with the ink still drying on the attorney general's four page summation, our Disgustus once again goes after the signature Obama piece of legislation: the Affordable Care Act.

Gail Collins writing in The New York Times observes: “But then he took off on the worst victory lap since—well, do remember that baseball player who celebrated his grand slam home run by leaping in the air and fracturing a leg?” (1) That about sums it up. He simply cannot leave Obama alone.

The last thing Congressional ReSCUMlickans want to do is return to the health care fiasco. Vowing to make the ReSCUMlickans “the party of health care”, about which he has now famously declared himself to be the resident expert, once again our intrepid Disgustus is walking all over himself as he lurches forth snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Mitch McConnell is not amused, basically informing the White House that they are on their own. McConnell, who has been burned more often than he cares to recall as one agreement after another vanished before his eyes as the White House moved goal posts, has no stomach for this telling tRUMP that he can deal with the House Speaker.

“Republicans in Congress began desperately leaking the news that they had tried to talk their alleged leader out of the idea. The Democrats were almost swooning with joy. Really, Trump could not have made them happier if he'd announced that he planned to unveil a new tax cut called Help for The Greedy Rich” (2)

Meanwhile the administration has reversed position and is now backing challenges to the constitutionality of Obamacare currently working through the courts. This latest stratagem is reportedly the brainchild of the White House Chief-of-staff who, with the support of other idiotlogues in this maladministration won the day over the strenuous objections of attorney general William Barr. Barr should have resigned.

It seems to me that we do indeed have a constitutional question here and it is not about the legitimacy of the ACA. It is about the failure of this administration to faithfully execute the laws. It seems to me that on its face the administration is bound to defend any act of congress in the courts and failure to do so is a violation of that oath. But then, we are in the grips of graduates of schools of law that have no understanding of constitutional questions.

So once again, private “Bone Spurs” quick on the heels of his Department of Education eliminating funding for the “Special Oympics” and severe cuts in school lunch programs and other help for the needy, picks a fight with the weakest, most vulnerable members of society. Confronted with real wealth and real political power Disgustus drops to his knees like an altar boy before a priest. Then, when vespers are over he seeks a playground and begins flogging the children.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

______________________

1. Collins, Gail. “Bad Times in Trumpville” The New York Times. Thursday, March 28, 2019
   Page A25
2. Ibid

March 7, 2019: Back To Oz, Cowardly Lion, Paper Tiger

“Somehow, our Caesar Disgustus always takes us back to Oz”

                             ---from The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

It's unavoidably pertinent. However one construes it, from whatever avenue one approaches it, when one confronts tRUMPworld a collage of images evoking a return to Oz dance in one's head. The wizard with his false and overblown facade, a mere manipulation of a common carnival barker. The flying monkeys doing the bidding of evil. The dark tower walled off from civilization. And, of course, the Tin Man with no heart, the straw man with no brain, and the lion with no courage.

The lion has made his appearances in this drama, most recently in the meetings with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung-Un, where obsequious behavior became manifest embarrassment to our allies and humiliation to our nation. But it doesn't end with his fawning over every tin-horn dictator on the planet. Take his trade negotiations.

“According to multiple news organizations,” observes economist Paul Krugman, “ the U.S. and China are close to a deal that would effectively end trade hostilities. Under the reported deal, America would remove most of the tariffs it imposed last year. China, for its part, would end its retaliatory tariffs, make some changes to its investment and competition policies and direct state enterprises to buy specified amounts of U.S. agricultural and energy products.

“The Trump administration will, of course, trumpet the deal as a triumph. In reality,” concludes Krugman,.. “its much to do about nothing.” (1)

The “deal,” Krugman points out, doesn't begin to address the systematic Chinese theft of intellectual property, nor does it do much to stop the hemorrhage of dollars flowing out of the U.S. due to the trade imbalance.

“If this is the story, it will repeat what we saw on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump announced was the 'worst trade deal ever made.' In the end, what Trump negotiated...was very similar to the previous status quo. Trade experts I Know,” writes Krugman, “when not referring to it as the Village People agreement, call it 'Nafta 0.8': fundamentally the same as Nafta, but a bit worse.”(2)

So as the new deal is concluded and we likely end up with a warmed over status quo, what is the impact? According to Krugman, our intrepid Caesar has made a hash of it. Disgustus' unfailing belligerence has done lasting damage. It is Krugman's judgment that:

“The whole world now knows two things about us. First, we're not reliable—an agreement with the U.S. is really just a suggestion, because you never know when the president will invent some excuse for breaking it.” This is a lesson driven home by the scuttling of the Iran nuclear accords, despite all parties—including tRUMP's own government—reporting that Iran is in full compliance. The same can be said with his unilateral announcement that the U.S. is pulling out of Syria, although he has once again, it was reported recently, changed his mind yet again. None of this waffling is lost on the world. “Second,” continues Krugman, “we're easily rolled: the president may talk tough on trade, but in classic bully fashion, he runs away if confronted”. (3) Just like the Cowardly Lion.

Citing the specious trade dispute tRUMP has had with Canada—our most reliable and stalwart ally—Krugman makes the point that America can't be trusted. What do you make of a nation that would do that it it's best friend?

“Meanwhile,” continues Krugman, “the sudden retreat in the confrontation with China shows that we talk loud but carry a small stick. It would be one thing if the U.S. had changed course on the merits. But backing down so easily, after all the posturing, tells the world that the way to deal with America is not to bargain in good faith, but simply to threaten the president's political base, and maybe offer some payoffs, political and otherwise.” (4)

Finally, Krugman notes that the administration, by blocking appointments to the appellate body enforcing WTO trade rulings, is undermining the World Trade Organization which enforces compliance. This threatens to render moot a recent ruling in our favor over Chinese agricultural subsidies.

Every day, in every way, our Cowardly Lion is about the business of transforming the United States into a paper tiger. You don't come to a knife fight carrying a little stick.

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

Impeach and Imprison

_______________

1. Klugman, Paul. “America the Cowardly Bully” The New York Times. Tuesday, March 5, 2019. Page A26.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid

March 3, 2019: Savaging The Schools, Educated and Informed, Paying Attention

A friend of mine, Deb Del Zoppo, posted this on Facebook.  As a resident of Michigan she is appalled by what Betsy DeVos is proposing to due to our public schools. Here is what she had to say:

The school voucher system proposed by Education secretary Betsy DeVos does not mean you can choose any school you want your kid to go to. It means the public education program will be dismantled. Pay close attention when voting during the midterm elections!

If your child has an IEP (individual education plan for students with special needs), kiss it goodbye.

If you have a job in special-education, if you're a special education teacher, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, a para, a teacher's aid, or an ESL (English as a second language) teacher, you'll go first.

House Bill 610 makes some large changes. Inform yourselves. This bill will effectively start the school voucher system to be used by children ages 5-17 and starts the defunding process of public schools. The bill will eliminate the Elementary and Education Act of 1965, which is the nation's educational law that provides equal opportunity in education. ESSA is a big comprehensive program that covers programs for struggling learners, advanced and gifted kids in AP classes, ESL classes, classes for minorities such as Native Americans, Rural Education, Education for the Homeless, School Safety (Gun-Free schools), Monitoring and Compliance, and Federal Accountability Programs.

The Bill also abolishes the Nutritional Act of 2012 (No Hungry Kids Act) which provides nutritional standards in school breakfast and lunch.

The bill has no wording whatsoever protecting Special Needs kids, no mention of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). Some things ESSA does for Children with Disabilities:

-Ensures access to the general education curriculum.
-Ensures access to accommodations on assessments.
-Ensures concepts of Universal Design for Learning.
-Includes provisions that require local education agencies to provide evidence-based interventions in schools with    consistently underperforming subgroups.
-Requires states in Title I plans to address how they will improve conditions for learning including reducing incidents of bullying and harassment in schools, overuse of discipline practices and reduce the use of aversive behavioral interventions (such as restraints and seclusion).
Please call your representative and ask him/her to vote NO on House Bill 610 (HR 610).

Thomas Jefferson and the other founders of this republic knew the importance, in a republic, of an educated and informed electorate.  For these reasons Adams wrote into the Massachusetts constitution--which is still in effect--that the state must support education, and must be the underpinning of Harvard and other universities.  For these reasons Jefferson prided himself most for his role in establishing the University of Virginia.  For these reasons the founders gave us the First Amendment's Press Freedoms.  This administration is working day and night to erode and, finally, destroy the safeguards of these institutions.

Thank you, Deb, for your enlightened post.  You've done your homework, now we must do ours.

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

Impeach and Imprison. 

March 1, 2019: Hare Kushner, Abundance of Caution, Stinking Turd Beneath

“Hare Kushner, Hare Kushner,

Kushner, Kushner, Hare Hare”

In Sanskrit, Hare (pronounced Hari) in here used in “the vocative form of Hari, another name of Vishnu, meaning 'he who removes illusion'. Another interpretation is he “He who is all-attractive, ” (1) as in Kushner playing Ken to Ivanka's trailer trash Barbie.

The New York Times, in a front-page story, reported today that our Caesar Disgustus overruled his own government and granted security clearances to his daughter and son-in-law. Jared Kushner had been flagged by intelligence officials as well as Don McGahn, then serving as White House legal adviser. When the family complained, whining that they were being “targeted for petty reasons”, Disgustus went to his chief-of-staff and ordered that they be granted clearances. (2)

“It is not known precisely what factors led to the problems with Mr. Kushner's security clearance. Officials had raised questions about his own and his family's real estate business's ties to foreign governments and investors, and about initially unreported contacts he had with foreigners.”(3) The Times does not get specific here, but the article is alluding to reports that United States foreign policy has appeared, at times, to hinge upon favorable treatment of Kushner in his quest to secure funding to finance that huge debt on the property at 666 Fifth Avenue. Kushner, aping his father-in-law, bought the property in 2007 at about twice what it was worth, just as the real estate market was about to tank, leaving him “under water”--that is, owing much more than the property is worth—to the tune of well over a billion dollars. This alone would have flagged any application for access to top-secret information. Add to this his participation at the tRUMP Tower meeting with the Russians during the campaign, as well as initially unreported meetings with the Russian ambassador and with officials of a Russian bank under U.S. Sanctions, and it is no wonder that authorities balked.

Initially, reports The Times, “Mr. Kushner...operated with a provisional clearance as his background check proceeded. In an entry to Mr. Kushner's personnel file on Sept. 15, 2017, the head of the personnel security division, Carl Kline wrote, 'Per conversation with WH counsel the clearance was changed to interim Top Secret until we can confirm that the DOJ or someone else actually granted final clearance. This action is out of an abundance of caution because the background investigation has not been competed.” (4)

The question of the Kushner's clearances were raised when it was revealed that former presidential aide Rob Porter was working with a temporary clearance, as were several others, nearly a year into the administration.

“In May 2018, the White House Council's Office, which at the time was led by Mr. McGahn, recommended to Mr. Trump that Mr. Kushner not be given a clearance at that level. But the next day, Mr. Trump ordered Mr. Kelly to grant it to Mr. Kushner anyway...

“The question of Mr. Kushner's access to intelligence was a flash point almost from the beginning of the administration. The initial background check into Mr. Kushner dragged on for more than a year, creating a distraction for the White House, which struggled to explain why one of the people closest to the president had yet to be given the proper approval to be trusted with the country's most sensitive information” (5)

Indeed, it has.

So Jared takes his wife into the oval office and whine that the were being unfairly treated. Jared's clearance, following the Porter scandal, had been downgraded from Top Secret to merely 'Secret', which, as former security expert Malcomb Nance has observed, meant that he couldn't function as plenipotentiary charged with negotiating, among other things in his vast 'portfolio', peace in the Middle East.

When ordered to upgrade Jared's credentials, both Chief of Staff John Kelly and White House Legal Counsel McGahn balked, agreeing to issue the orders but then filing statements that they were ordered to do so.

There is only one reason that one puts such notations in the files and that is to cover your ass.

The question is “ what in Jared and Ivanka's files warrants this 'abundance of caution'?” Could it be the attempts to reach out to foreign governments and banks—some of which are sanctioned by the U.S. government—in order to find funding to keep the Kushner real estate 'empire' afloat? What about the patent licenses issued by the Chinese government to Ivanka and her brands? There are other questions, what was Jared's role in moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and what was the personal pay-off? What really lies behind the U.S. Cessation of aid to the Palestinian Authorities? What was the pay off? We need to know the answers to these and many more questions.

“A recent report by NBC revealed that Mr. Kline had overruled two career security specialists who had rejected Mr. Kushner's application based on the F.B.I.'s concerns...Mr. Kline was acting on the directive sent down by the president, one of the people familiar with the matter said.” (6)

Of course both Disgustus and his larvae have denied any involvement, and Jared remains transfixed as sphinx. Boldface lies. Why are they lying? What are they trying to hide?

The only defense appears to be a combination of demonstrable gross incompetence and the constitutional inability to tell truth. It was revealed that in yet another unprecedented discovery in which the White House had failed to do due diligence, Kline overruled others and granted security clearances to over 30 other White House aides.

The pungent odor wafting from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue exceeds anything in the American experience. Kushner and trailer trash Barbie are helping us brush back the flies swarming about, to reveal the stinking turd that lies beneath.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

_______________

1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_(mantra)
2. Haberman, Maggie., Schmidt, Michael S., Goldman, Adam., and Karni, Annie. “Trump Forced Top-Secret Clearance for Kushner” The New York Times. Friday, March 1, 2019. Pages 1 & A15
3. Ibid. Page A15.
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid

January 19, 2019 Pride and Prejudice, Spite and Malice, The Lady Says No

The federal government has now been under a partial shut down for nearly a month. In what began as an act of pride and prejudice—an attempt to build, like some modern Hadrian, a monument to himself, and fund that enterprise by naked racist appeal; Disgustus now finds himself trembling before the likes of Limbaugh and Coulter while stories of families being evicted, workers unable to buy groceries or medicine haunt the news. The bastard 'president', finds himself alone performing unnatural acts upon his cheeseburger as he twits away his presidency.

Famously captured on tape telling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he would happily take the credit for closing down the government unless he got his wall, Disgustus now finds himself boxed into a corner, his support bleeding and, in his words, taking a beating.

Indeed according so a recent Gallup poll, Disgustus has now lost the support of a majority of white voters who do not have a college education. Confronted with the spectre of the loss of the 'great unwashed', Disgustus took to the airwaves earlier in the month addressing the nation from the oval office.

Many in the media, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC among them, openly questioned whether the networks should broadcast the speech, noting that little would be added to the discussion and much would be added to the level of misrepresentation by this White House. Some suggested taping the speech and then interrupting Disgustus on the replay with fact checks setting the record straight. Nevertheless, the networks broadcast the speech.

It was bad enough that the media gave Disgustus the national stage, but not content with presenting a shit-storm of lies Disgustus, taking to the internet before the speech made an appeal for campaign contributions. As reported by Lawrence O'Donnell in the aftermath of Disgustus' performance, Trump made an appeal for contributions to support the wall, but in the footnotes the money was to go to the re-election committee. So here we have our bastard 'president' using an oval office speech in order to solicit, by invidious means, campaign contributions. Another norm of decency shredded as this clown further defiles the office.

This dispute is ostensibly about building the wall. Disgustus presents it as a barrier holding back the brown hordes threatening our southern frontier. Those familiar with its origins speak of the wall as a means of reminding candidate Disgustus to mention immigration on the campaign trail. When he discovered that mentioning a wall brought a roar of approval, it became a stock item in his stump speech. Later he added the proviso “and Mexico will pay for it”, because he quite rightly ciphered that the Generation of Swine is not about to pay for anything.

The President of Mexico was having none of it, telling tRUMP and then the world that Mexico isn't about to pay for any 'fucking wall'. That left Disgustus trapped in a corner with his pants down.

Hemmed in by Mexico's obstinance on one side, Coulter, Limbaugh and his rabid base on the another, and the resistance and disgust of the Democrats and independents on another, Disgustus has become a cornered rat looking for some way out.

So he called the Democrats to the White House to 'negotiate', beginning the meeting declaring that he wants 5.7 billion dollars for this monument to himself. The lady said no. Disgustus, not familiar with such a rebuff, declared the meeting over and stormed out the room. Pelosi, emerging on the White House Lawn, told the nation that the 'president' behaved like a petulant child, having a temper tantrum and, reminding the nation that federal workers cannot simply call daddy to fund the household until this storm passes, suggested that perhaps the Disgustus intransigence had something to do with his inferior sense of masculinity.

A few days later, Disgustus, still searching for an exit, called together a delegation of House Democrats in representing conservative districts hoping to peel them away from the Speaker. It didn't work. The Lady said NO!

Then came the shot across the bow when early this week Speaker Pelosi sent a letter to Disgustus disinviting him from appearing in the House Chamber to deliver the State of the Union address.

“The Communique was at once excruciatingly polite and brutally dismissive, driving home how the power dynamic has shifted on Capitol Hill” wrote Michelle Cottle in The New York Times, “if anyone has the chops to manage Mr. Trump's brattiness, it is Ms. Pelosi.

In a tit for tat, Disgustus took away military aircraft in which members of Congress were to visit Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It was a transparent bit of retaliation for Ms. Pelosi's taking his big television moment away from him—not to mention a blatant attempt to drag the speaker down into the sort of cheap playground tussle at which the president excels.”

As Ms. Cottle notes, Speaker Pelosi is no stranger to the male ego; the chauvinist braggadocio and the insecurities it betrays. She was dismissed as an “airhead” by Democratic Leadership when she early in her career sought the leadership of the national party. She struggled with and finally transformed the 'boys club' that has been the United States Congress. She is nothing like the moronic neophyte presently occupying the Executive Mansion.

“This time around,” Observed Ms. Cottle, “Ms. Pelosi is aiming not merely to rein in the out-of-control president but, in the process, to deflate his cherished image as Master of the Universe. She has mocked Mr. Trump's obsession with what she terms his 'manhood' and gone all in with the grandmother-wrangling-an-unruly-child shtick. What he paints as strong leadership and holding his ground, she dismisses as a temper tantrum. Rather than outrage or disbelief, Ms. Pelosi's most common response to Mr. Trump amounts to one long, exasperated eye roll.” (1)

The adults have, like rats jumping ship, left the White House. But the adults have arrived in the people's chamber of Congress; and the adult in the House has spoken. The lady has seen a thing or two. The lady has been around the block. The lady knows how to read the wind. The lady knows how to count heads, and the lady demonstrates that she will not respond to intemperance; she will not respond to petulance; she will not respond the temper-tantrums. This isn't about the wall, it is about having tantrums when one doesn't get one's way. Lady said “No”.

Go ahead big boy, try and flog grandma. See what that gets you.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

________________

1. Cottle, Michelle. “A Game of Spite and Malice”, The New York Times. Friday, January 18, 2019. Page A22