A question of why 7-30-18

Yes it's been awhile but better late than never. 

It’s interesting that as the sock that is Trump’s Russian connections continues to unravel there are more than a few folks self-identified as being on the left (there doesn’t seem to be a test you just say I’m on the left and that’s it) who continue to cast aspersions on the validity of the Mueller investigation either that there’s nothing there or that the Democratic Party needs to stop fixating on it. That this is the same advice given to the Democratic party by such lefty stalwarts as David Brooks makes one suspicious of just how good the advice is but that is for another time. The most recent version is by one mister Jonathan Chait in NY Magazine Why Are So Many Leftists Skeptical of the Russia Investigation? This is taken down with typical brilliance by Brother Driftglass.  

May I suggest a reason this kind of gibberish exists and why it’s still printed?

There is a moment in Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (you have Science Fiction I have spy novels) where George Smiley talks about a manoeuver by the Mole that “made everyone wrong who was right”  If, again nothing has been proven but lord it’s pretty suspicious since every closet the Feds open has a Russian in it, if the turns out that the only reason Donald Trump is president is because the Russians with varying degrees of assistance from the national and local GOP organizations and groups like the NRA hacked the vote so that Trump won by kicking people off the rolls and by actual gimmicking of the vote totals then Chait and the rest’s narrative is shattered

The narrative that it’s all Hillary’s fault she lost, that she fixed the primaries, that she as a neoliberal tool, that she was an awful candidate,  and  only if the DNC had listened to them, then, then would they have won the election. All this marvelous preening and indulgence in Clinton bashing would end if it turned out She was robbed and they would look like fools. And that more than anything else they fear. They worship at the shrine of the savvy and this would make them look absurd.

They can’t have that so the urge is to bend over backwards until the top of their heads hit the floor is massive. They pretend that there are either reasons to doubt the investigation or that the Democratic Party shouldn’t pay that much attention to it.  

The phase useful idiot comes to mind here.  They don’t seem to be actually tools of Putin (Greenwald notwithstanding) but as they try to protect their egos they end up protecting Trump and Putin.

To again quote Tinker Tailor “it would be beautiful in another context."

/14/17 – Happy Bastille Day and just how bad is it?

Trump has returned from France and yes, Lafayette we apologize. He engaged in more weird talk and creepy woman ogling but since he didn’t manage to start a war it could have been worse.

Meantime his son- the other stupid one, brains do not seem to be in great supply in this clan, seems to have left out that a man identified as a former Soviet Counter Intelligence officer was at the meeting. This makes things very interesting as this man – who has dual Russian US citizenship is rather falls within the working brief of our intelligence agencies as the FBI puts it ‘a person of interest’ so it’s quite possible there is a tape of this meeting out there somewhere

Meantime while the GOP frantically tries to move the goal posts – (there are getting to the point where they will start demanding to see a cancelled check and then bitch about the once said canceled check shows up) and I’m wondering just how bad is it- how far down does the rot go.

I’m afraid it’s pretty deep – and that it’s going to be quite a while before we find out how bad it really is. I think this in the end is going to make Watergate look indeed like a second rate burglary.

Why, because not only do I think we are going to find out that the Russians worked with the Trump campaign in order to get him elected, we are going to find out that various state gop organizations such as say Michigan and Ohio Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were also in on it and helped the Russians hack the vote so that Trump won. It’s going to turn out – I think – that the sans the hacking of the vote never mind the rest of the nonsense involved, Hillary won and won big.

Furthermore I think right now the major players of the GOP know this and won’t do anything because it’s bad for their side, they are okay with foreign intervention as long as it’s on their side.

And the Trump is totally dependent upon Russian money – indeed in the end he’s only a money launderer nothing else, a Gatsby on meth for the 21^st century.

Of course if this is all true its going to be hard to deal with – one that it happened is bad enough, two that it was done with the willing cooperation not only of Trump’s people but of the GOP establishment in their nihilistic pursuit of power, and three they are going to dig their heels in and hid behind their base and insist they did nothing wrong or at worst the other side did it to.

This is a crisis that the founders never dreamed of – you  can impeach a president but you can’t impeach and entire party and that, in order to preserve the Republic as Cicero used to say long years ago, is pretty much what is needed.

It’s not just Trump, they are corrupt all the way down. I’m not sure we have the will to fight that.

7-12 - meantime...

While the rest of the world is now wondering just how dump Donald Jr. is – and really as others have pointed out if you have to spell out in an e-mail that you have stuff from the Russian Government that will hurt Hillary you are dealing with a fool.

The mind does boggle elementary tradecraft to borrow John Le Carre’s phrase would at least include not leaving a paper trail of any sort but if communications are needed then at the very least a simple replacement code could be worked out ‘Fur Coat’ for Hillary say or something like that. Not “Oh the Russian Government has bad stuff on Hillary and are willing to share, Great what time can we meet?”

It’s daylight madness and implicates not only Donald Jr. but his Brother in law and the former Campaign Manager and as others have noted quite possibly Donald as well as after this meeting went down he gave a speech threatening/ promising to have bad stuff about Hillary.

Well that story is moving so fast I’m not sure who has the time and ability to keep up with it and link all the threads together into a coherent whole – better and smarter men and women than I for sure.

Anyway as this cut-rate spy novel lurches along I found myself interested in a weird little hashtag campaign climate change lies or some such – (the actual hashtag isn’t really important) when in climate change denying types launched their gibberish onto twitter and of course ended up being answered back by a lot of people who pointed out they were lying or had no real grasp of science.

All well and good –still I’ve always been wondering just why these folks are sooooo insistent that climate change isn’t real a hoax or whatever it made no sense to me

 But as I was reading the tweets that were denying climate science a theme emerged. It really wasn’t the change in climate that these folks were railing against their most venomous barbs were launched at the responses to climate change all of which they insisted were merely a back door socialism and that’s when it hit me.

Simply put It’s this” There is no market based solution to Climate Change , in order to at least lessen the impact of climate a large amount of fossil fuels will simply have to stay in the ground. Even if there is a demand for them. Government is simply going to have to made decisions about how much CO2 gets pumped into the air, nobody else is capable of doing that effectively.

Which is what drives them mad in the end, it’s not the actual even in this case climate change it’s the cult like worship of the free market as the be all and end all of humanity that they are defending.

Oh yes it’s why they hate Gov supplied health care as well.

 

 

Scenes From Crazy Town

I honestly can’t keep up – there is so much wrong going on that one is reduced to bullet points.

·         The latest report is that there the Russian election hacking attempts included 39 states. This begins to raise the idea that nobody in DC wants to face. That the Russians affected the vote totals giving the election to Trump. Which of course means a) we have a REAL crisis on our hands as something like this is far far outside anything the founders could imagine and b) Hillary actually won which means all those stories about how it’s all Hillary’s fault she lost are wrong wrong wrong.

·         Linked to this after Labor’s much better than expected result in the recent snap election, there were a spate of stories that pretty much said “nah nah Bernie would have won”. This is of course debatable given the above story.  And alas if true, the point it makes is that misogyny is so pervasive in the US that a Male Socialist Jew would have a better chance of winning than a woman. 

·         Trump held his first cabinet meeting which after he gave a quick speech saying how wonderful he was had the cabinet all say how wonderful he was.  It was something that would not have been out of place in North Korea. It was crazy and creepy at the same time. Honestly one expected each cabinet member to say “Donald Trump is the kindest, bravest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.” After which Jeff Sessions shot the Sec of the interior at trumps command – no but it’s that level creepy.

·         Trump has pretended there are tapes of his conversations with Comey, there are none. He’s also said he’s willing go under oath. He won’t.  Not that being under oath would stop him from lying but again he won’t it’s just him spouting bullshit.

·         I have no idea what is going on with Qatar – Trump says one thing the Sec of State says another and nobody knows what’s the deal

·         Newt Gingrich and others are saying that Trump should fire the recently appointed Special Prosecutor.  Trump may or may not do this, he’s gotten away with a heck of a lot in his lifetime so he might try this – still taking Newt’s advice about anything given his track record is not a good idea. Of course the real reason Trump will fire him, if he does, is that he’s guilty as hell.

·         Folks are puzzled that Trump has never asked anybody a single question about Russia’s interference  in the election including James Comey – the reason? Well someone somewhere noted that the guilty never ask questions, they know.

·         The idea that the President is out of his mind is flowing into the mainstream these days – one weird thought I’ve had is that Trump keeps pushing because he wants to get caught. He knows he is of control but he can’t stop himself. 

·         Sessions will appear in front of the Senate and not say anything.

·         Megan Kelly is not turning out to be a good hire – which is not a shock. She’s gotten into hot water with her interview of Alex Jones . My response is why? Who the hell doesn’t know about Alex Jones and his instance that the killings at Sandy Hook were fake?

·         The Senate is trying to kill people, sorry enact in the dead of night it seems a version of Trumpcare that will kill people.

Welcome to crazy town everybody. It can only get worse yes?

 

 

 

 

5/17/17 - A completely evil thought.

The Professor is not a good person at least in his own mind. He doesn’t do things like kick dogs or rob widows and orphans or anything like that but he is aware that his thoughts go into very dark places that a decent persons mind would not go.

And here is a very bad one

As Trump’s presidency is showing about as much seaworthiness as the Titanic, the GOP is now faced with a major problem. What to do? The latest revelation that Trump asked Comey to end the Flynn probe – which fits in very nicely with Trump firing Comey over ‘the Russian’ thing is the real thing obstruction of justice a criminal offense that nicely fits the whole “high crimes and misdemeanors” section of the Impeachment articles.

But here is the problem – Trump although already a disaster that looks very likely despite their disparate attempts to game the system so only white people vote to remove control of the lower house and lord knows even the Senate might come into play given enough disasters; but despite that Trump remains popular with the 27% the hard core of racists fascists and fools that make up the rancid base of their party. Trump is despite everything is still their guy. There has been some loss of support but nothing that would allow any GOP congressmen to take on Trump and not pay for it by being forced into a primary fight – holding onto their – to quote Mel Brooks ‘phony baloney jobs’ is the most important thing in their lives nothing else matters not honor not loyalty not country, their job is their god.  So right now, initiation of impeachment proceedings would be nothing but political suicide on their part.

It is possible that further down the road Trump’s failures and erratic behavior and dodgy links to Russian intelligence and mobsters might just weaken his support among the 27% or someone might sensing a chance try to undercut Trump with his base to gain power. If that did happened Trump would find out very very quickly that he doesn’t have a friend in the world and he’d been out of there so fast his head would spin.

However, as long as the troglodytes are in Trump’s camp that isn’t going to happen.

So the GOP is caught on the horns of dilemma – either Trump stays in office and wrecks their party or he’s removed by Impeachment or Article 25 and the base savages them in the primaries for ‘betraying Trump’ and the party is wrecked.

In short, there are no good answers.

However, there is a way out that would be manna from heaven for them.

Trump could die.

It’s not impossible really, he’s 70, not in good health and has gained a lot of weight and aside from hitting a golf ball doesn’t get much exercise. Therefore, the chances of him simply popping off are not all that bad.

And it would be manna from heaven for the GOP they could mourn the loss of the leader and his potential, even better he could be presented as a martyr to liberal media and since, let’s be honest here, the news of Trump’s death would be greeted on the left with at best a profound absence of sorrow to quote John Kenneth Galbraith to dancing in the streets, it would allow them to claim the moral high ground and lambaste the evil of the left.

In addition,  the Vice President, because he isn’t Trump would get a pass from the beltway media who have found their adversarial relationship with Trump to be very painful as they would rather simply be courtiers and mouthpieces.

And the Democratic Senators and Congressmen would feel at least a bit constrained in their actions and comments in opposing any legislation that would be pushed by the GOP as a way to ensure President Trump’s legacy.

It really is a win win here for the GOP

Again, the only problem is that he doesn’t quite seem like he’s going obligingly drop dead for them.

Which leads one to the evil thought – given all the advantages that Trump’s demise would accrue to the GOP is it possible that they might decide to hurry it along as it where? Yes, it is murder, but hell, they’ve shown no great respect for human life anyway, what’s one man’s life with so much at stake?

And yes, I think they are capable of it.

And what that depressing thought I need to take shower.

5/12/17 A time of Maddness

The Professor has more than once suggested that there is something seriously wrong with the way the president’s brain functions, however as the fallout from his firing the FBI Director grows ever more negative we are witnessing via the magic of twitter a man have a mental breakdown in public.

After undercutting his own people’s story on why he fired Comey in the first place , and pretty much admitting that he fired Comey because of the Investigations  regarding Russia –

As a darkly humorous side note here – the Guardian, a news source that I tend to value, as it, unlike the NY Times it does not (often), mush mouth  controversial subjects by using the ‘shape of the earth opinions differ” story template where they simply quote both sides and leave it at that. However after the election of D Trump, The Guardian decided that we good liberals were too close minded and that exposure to the thinking of the right would broaden our minds.  To date I had not clicked on this feature – for one that the right wing at this point has ‘thoughts’ other than for example “say something to piss off  libtards”  and “teh gays are bad”  is debatable and two in the modern media it’s almost impossible NOT to hear what the right thinks – Brother Driftglass has long pointed this out many many.  So I have not partaken and have let my mind stay in my bubble as they would have it.

However today I looked at the tab with some interest because this week’s piece of conservative thought was  on the firing of Mr. Comey and what made this amusing in grim way was simply that since these pieces were written Trump opened his mouth and admitted that the story given out and that these learned conservative scribes had twisted themselves into pretzels to support was bullshit.  If there was ever a damning indictment of the right wing pundits as nothing but hacks and trimers without a single ethical or moral standard to their name this is as good an example as any.

Anyway back to the madness.

The story that is surfacing now is that Comey was ushered into the great man’s presence some days after Trump took office and at a private dinner was asked , as if Trump was some sort of gangland boss or duke, to swear loyalty to him. Comey said that his loyalty was to the truth and this apparently that did not sit well with Trump.   And then after he testified in the Senate Trump fired him first citing one reason and then another before admitting he fired him because of Russia.  (As a side note one should Note that Comey probably swore an oath to defend the Constitution which he should have mentioned to President Two Scoops when asked where his loyalty lay.)

As this has blown up – Trump has tweeted a threat to Mr. Comey saying he’d better keep his mouth shut – which along with other deranged tweets has even the GOP wondering about the man’s mental stability.  Of which in my judgement he has none.

At this moment one does have to marvel a bit about this speed of all this – the man has been in office less than 120 DAYS and already the word impeachment is being said not in the usual (curse you Newt Gingrich) political manner but as a serious possibility down the road.

One has to feel a bit for the underlings working in the White House these days not so much the aides and officials but the assistants and secretaries one has to imagine the atmosphere can’t be good. One is tempted to call to mind a certain bunker but at least by this point Trump is not losing a war – well in some ways its early days yet there .

So as the weekend comes into view and one assumes that the president flees  somewhere to play golf – New Jersey may be out as it is expected to rain this weekend – official and unofficial Washington and the well the republic need to figure out what to do . As tempting as impeachment sounds the politics as long as Trump’s base of hateful monsters support him means for anyone in the GOP to break ranks will be political suicide as would invoking Article 25 although in this case one can say that’s more likely. But to do nothing is to leave the executive branch of this country in the hands of crazed lunatic who may be in the grip of a mental break down and/or dementia in addition to his basic evil tendencies.

As the Professor has a dark mind – it’s quite possible someone in the GOP will say ‘can no one rid us of this troublesome president?” and something just might happen – the man is 70 and massively overweight; for him to die overnight of stroke isn’t outside the realm of chance. But if that does happen one should  be suspicious of the timing.

One hopes it doesn’t come to that. But one fears it might

5/10/17 – dark dark days

For some reason I always remember that today is the anniversary of the start of the  German attack on France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark in 1940 ending the phony war with a bang.

Meantime here in the present – things are moving faster than some z grade blogger with other things on his mind can keep us with however the firing of Comey as head of the FBI – this coming after more a little bombshells of testimony over the last few days coming from Ms. Yates Former acting Attorney general who basically told Trump that Flynn was a mole at which news Trump did..nothing until the news got out into the public and even now he insists Flynn did nothing wrong.

That and the confirmation that there were and are investigations of the contacts between Trump’s people and the Russians, no details included as these are classified but Subpoenas had just gone out for some of Flynn’s associates.

This is the background against which Trump decided to have his own version of the Saturday Night Massacre by firing Comey – the news about the subpoenas came out afterwards as does news this morning that Comey was seeking more funds for the Investigation and about oh an hour ago a report came out that oh yes Trump is being investigated and one of the things he’s being investigated for is asking the Russians in a speech to hack Hillary’s computer and find the 50,000 emails that never existed.

And the response of the GOP who impeached Bill Clinton for a blow job?

Crickets.

Of course one really these days expects nothing else from that craven lot who just finished the first part of making sure people die because they can’t afford medical care because money is more important than anything.

But I digress.

What we have right now – is a President who has fired the director of the FBI because he was investigating the ties between Trump’s folks and Russia.

It’s all dispiriting and dark – but one does wonder what on earth is Trump hiding? What considering that his zombie like base shown no indication that they have changed their mind about anything is the secret that he is willing to risk the cries of impeachment that are gaining strength about the country? Willing to risk a constitutional crisis to hide. – yes Trump is probably too stupid to have any idea what that is but not everybody around him are that stupid. They aren’t bright but not all of them are as brick stupid as Trump is.

So what is it? Considering the hideous nature of his base one could waggishly conclude that he’s hiding massive conurbations to Planned Parenthood and that has special homes set up for illegal immigrants and poor people and stray dogs and cats.

But that surely isn’t it.

The only think that I can think of is that he is in hock to the Russian mob big time and has been for years –which gave the Russian government the leverage they needed to climb on board his election campaign because if they spill what they know – he goes to jail, goes directly to jail does not pass go, does not pass two hundred dollars.

This at least is my quiet prayer.