General Michael Flynn, the Trump nominee as the Director of National Security, the man who instituted the Lock her up!” chant at Trump rallies, may now be in line to get locked up himself, and he may be bringing his son with him. If that’s not ironic, nothing is.
Flynn could have been charged with a lot more than he was, which leads inexorably to the point that he has given up a lot to keep himself and his son out of jail. So what could that be? Well, first it has to be someone more important than he was. That kind of narrows it down to Jared Kushner, Mike Pence or Donald Trump. It probably wasn’t Pence because Pence has never been part of the Trump team. He’s the easy guy to pick for the VP post. He would always be a little further Right than Trump. Maybe even the guy who keeps us from wanting to impeach Trump because you really don’t want a religious fanatic like Pence in the Oval Office.
So that leaves Jared and the Liar-in-Chief. Will Kushner fold when faced with a cell? If you really think he won’t, I have a bridge that you simply must buy. If, on the other hand, you understand that this rich punk who followed in his criminal father’s footsteps isn’t going to let a little thing like a marriage get in the way of his freedom, then you’re beginning to understand how deep the shit is under Trump’s loafers.
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Just watched Corey Lewendowski and David Bossie, two former Trump campaign officials who despite greatattempts, can’t get their noses far enough up Trump’s ass to make them happy. They have written a book about what a great guy Trump is and they couldn’t have groveled lower. So when they are asked about the attempt by Trump to deny that it was his voice on the Access Hollywood tape even after he admitted that it was, they immediately switch the conversation to the tax bill. Now you have to understand that there was no mention whatsoever of the tax bill before this moment but Corey has turned obfuscation into an art form.
It doesn’t seem to occur to either of these morons that the truth has any importance. They are exactly the plague that has infected the Republican Party, a deadly virus that allows for no truth to be expected from the Liar-in-Chief, only lies to support GOP needs, no veracity to be allowed in a world of alternate reality that is the only atmosphere in which their world of lies can exist.
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Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd has, as a means to dismiss what Robert Mueller is doing, said that he wrote Trump’s email admitting that he dismissed Comey because he lied to Pence and the FBI. He also stated that the President cannot obstruct justice because he is the President. Just think about that. Think about the absurdity of such a statement The President cannot obstruct justice. If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that the President is above the law and he can do anything he wants and will bear no responsibility for his actions. That he is, in fact a dictator and that the constitution stands for nothing.
Now, if you believe this, you can line up with Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Roy Moore and the rest of the Trump sycophants who believe he can do no evil. If you find something wrong with it you can line up with those who believe that if he is proven to have been compliant with the Russians in their hacking of our election or if he is provn to have conspired to obstruct justice that he will be open to impeachment proceedings led by the Republican Party, just like they did with Bill Clinton for the egregious federal offense of getting a blow job and lying about it.
Ryan and McConnell are heading those responsible for Trump’s freedom because as the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate they have the duty and responsibility to institute impeachment hearings for a President who has proven over and over, by his own statements and his egregious actions that he is unfit to be President of the United States. The President, just like the people he leads, must be held accountable for his actions and so far Trump’s money and now his position have enabled him to escape his just deserts for any number of unacceptable actions, starting before he was President with the Trump University scams and cheating his workers and his contractors on business deals, to his hopefully soon to be proven obstruction of justice actions. This, of course, does not even touch on his inability to tell truth from fiction, or his attacks on anyone who has not completely agreed with him on all subjects to something as inconsequential but meaningful as trying to sell his inaugural crowd as being as big as that drawn by the Women’s march.
Trump is a bloviating, bumbling incompetent liar. He will do anything to look like he is a successful leader except put in the time and effort to learn what that entails. He has neither the skill set nor the intestinal fortitude to be a leader to anyone, other than those who are so blind they cannot see.
And as if to prove that Trump’s administration and those who infest it are not only dishonest but brute stupid, I give you Paul Manafort, the creator of Trump’s campaign. As most of us know, Manafort has just been released on bail from any number of federal charges. But bail isn’t a free ride. There are any number of restrictions that go with it. In Manafort’s case they include not drinking alcohol, not being in contact with anyone Russian and not communicating anything about any of the things with which he has been charged.
So what does Manafort do? First he contacts a member of Russian intelligence and then he cooperates with this guy in writing an article pushing his innocence, which he “cleverly” decides to publish anonymously while detailing his trials and tribulations. That’s two out of three parole violations but of course he’s going to need all the alcohol he can drink to get through the trouble his latest moves are going to cause him. Manafort’s actions can only be construed as beyond stupid but then that’s how the Trump people all act. Then they lie about it.
*****
A year ago, the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln had taken over the Presidency, the Senate, the House and most of the Supreme Court, along with a majority of the governorships and a huge chunk of state legislatures. They controlled the country. They were at the pinnacle of political power. One year later; after 12 months of nothing succeeding, after an entire party has given up on any sense of principals or values, they are facing ultimate destruction.
his week the President, followed by his party, have thrown away everything that makes men better than snakes for the sake of a tax bill. They have embraced this man who has been accused by no less than nine women of having pursued them sexually when they were children. The party embraced this guy while being led by a President the people already voted for, with full knowledge that he thought it was okay to grab women by their private parts, a man who has admitted that he acted in obstruction of justice and is busy abusing the privileges of the Presidency.
But there is still a tiny part of the Republican Party that realizes what a disaster this Presidency is, what a destructive influence it is on their party, how it will demoralize the country and how it is destabilizing the world. But that small fraction, led by legislators like Corker, Flake, Lee, Murkowski, Collins and occasionally Cain are so small a group as to be pretty much helpless to turn the tide of greed, racism, misogyny and small mindedness that have overtaken our political system. And it’s not just the GOP. The Democrats are now willing to sit by, calmly doing nothing, waiting for the GOP to self-explode, rather than step up and try to make a difference.
This is extremely evident in the negotiations for the new tax bill, which despite its obvious appeal only to the top 1% has almost no opposition from the Democrats. Sure they are all voting against it, but not one Democratic proposal has made its way to the floor. Yes, this is mainly due to the GOP control of the Senate and House but that shouldn’t stop the Democrats from trying. They should be able to say: We wanted to do it this way but you, the voters, didn’t give us enough ammunition. At the very least, they would then have active proposals to put before the people as evidence that they could do a better job starting in 2018,
At any given time half the people in any country are too stupid to make a logical decision. Those people are the basis of dictatorships. Those are the people who will give up their lives to a strong man who will abuse and destroy his own population for his own aggrandizement.
In this country we have taken a different road. We give everyone the vote, without having to prove that they have the intelligence to vote the way we think is proper. That’s how Donald Trump became the president of this country. But despite Trump’s failings it’s still the better way. Trump is only one of 45 presidents in our history. It’s a country that has been, since its inception, the most successful in the history of the world. We still have the best system but we have to be very resourceful to maintain it against the kind of tragic election, which we have just experienced.
But it wasn’t just because of stupidity that Trump was elected, because stupidity has always been with us. It is also about an abandonment of values and the growth of greed. Greed has always been with us too, but until recently it was not considered a good thing. With the loss of our values we have embraced greed to an extent that allows it to flourish in our society to the detriment of the nation as a whole.
It was the need of some voters to get what they wanted regardless of the character of the man they elected to get it that led to Trump in the Oval Office. Now we are looking at another election where the citizens of Alabama are faced withthe same dilemma. Will they make the same greedy, immoral choice? We’ll know in a week.
*****
Already they’re running amok! It was inevitable. With all the female abuse revelations, it had to happen. The Puritan Police are on the move. If we aren’t careful we’ll be back in the 50’s before we know it. Some idiotic website called Care2, run by a prude named Mia Merrill has come out of the woodwork to replay The Crucible for us. Only this time it isn’t witchcraft but perversity or at least that’s what ole Mia would have us believe.
The object of Mia the miserable’s ire is a painting in the Metropolitan Museum called “Terese’ Dreaming,” by the French artist Balthus. Horror of horrors, Balthus work depicts a young girl staring off into space, but the offending aspect is that one leg is raised and we get a glimpse of her underwear. Now if this was 1917 instead of 2017 I could see the uproar but give me a break! One wonders what’s in Ms. Merrill’s head that this image brings forth such a reaction. I really thought we had gotten past this, at least fifty years ago. For an observer to be so engaged by an image, book or film, as Ms. Merrill seems to be, that observer must be enough in tune with the object in question to have serious problems in that area. I mean, look, maybe the painting isn’t bible class material but you have to be pretty screwed up yourself to be making such a stink about it. Maybe Ms. Merrill should look to her own motives and perversions before she tries to impose her medieval sensibilities on the rest of us.
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Steve Bannon, the open garbage can that walks like a man, went down to Alabama this week to pound the slimy drum for Trump senatorial candidate and child molester Roy Moore. But he didn’t really talk about Roy Moore, mainly because there isn’t anything positive to say about a guy who was twice elected to judgeships and both times kicked out f them because he couldn’t figure out how to stay within the bounds of the constitution while he was supposedly administrating it.
Bannon did talk about Mitt Romney… a lot. Why did he do that? Who knows? Maybe it was because Romney is against Moore. But everybody should be against Roy Moore. The only reason why all the Republicans have reneged on their dismissal of Moore is that they care more about getting that seat in the Senate than they do about the fact that he is a crackpot and a pedophile. Once more, led by the President, the GOP has given up their values and morals for political gain.
But back to Bannon and his attack on Romney. For some reason Bannon decided to go after military service or the lack of it in the Romney family. How could he do this when he is promoting the national draft dodger himself? Donald Trump got five draft deferrals for a bone spur while he was playing football and tennis in college and on the day he graduated 40 American kids who didn’t have a rich daddy to buy them out of the draft were killed in Nam.
Did Bannon forget this? It’s obvious that he shouldn’t want to face it so why bring up military service at all, in reference to anyone? It was even dumber than most of what Bannon has done so far. We know that Bannon has a dream of destroying the existing political order. He has said so himself. So what does that make him? In my book it makes him a traitor. In my book Bannon belongs in jail. America would be a hell of a lot better off. But the real problem for the Republicans if Moore is elected through their help will be that their party will forever be known as, thank you Chris Matthews; the Grand Old Pedophiles.
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The Idiot-in-Chief made another inexplicably stupid move this morning when he declared that we would now recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Why? Every American President since 1947 has been faced with this decision and they have all done the right thing. They have backed off it and left that decision to the Israelis and the Palestinians. Why did Trump do this now? You want a reasonable answer? There is none. Even the Jews don’t think of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A lot f them would like that, but no one actually thinks that way. This decision will cause nothing but trouble. Maybe Trump thought that by making such a stupid move he could take the pressure off the North Korean problem or the Russia investigation or any of his other real problems. That’s how the Idiot thinks. That’s his modus operandi, but in this case it will do nothing but cause trouble. He is alienating over a billion Muslims worldwide and inciting violence aimed at all our embassies in Muslim countries. It was a ridiculous move but what else should we expect from a man who has no knowledge of what he should be doing or how he should be doing it.