The Rubicon has moved

The news lately coming out of DC has been weird and wild, and a

CIA leak has set the whole town on fire.  Per the leak the story is that the Russians had hacked both the DNC and RNC computers but had only released the DNC material. Why? Because they wanted Trump to win.

This is serious as in serious as cancer serious – a foreign power is actively interfering with US elections, wars get started over less. However also per the leak the GOP leader of the Senate decided to sit on this, putting as one person put it ‘partisan advantage over the national interest’

Now a whole learned essay about be written about how putting ‘partisan advantage over the national interest’ has been a major part of the GOP playbook since Nixon sandbagged the Paris peace talks because he wanted to win in 1968 but a) We do not have the time and b) my blood pressure medication can only handle so much, but let us for the moment say this is, for the GOP, par for the course.

However between this and Trump decided to nominate the former head of Exxon and a very good friend of V. Putin  to be Secretary of State something seems to have snapped. Electors (who are the ones who actually elect the president) are ever so cautiously suggesting that maybe just maybe they want to know what the hell went on before they make Trump president.  Even GOP members of the Senate are voicing concern.

Trump of course knows no defense except attack – so he’s taken to twitter to castigate the CIA saying they were a part of the ‘intelligence failure’ leading up to the invasion of Iraq – and while the CIA did not come out of that smelling like a rose, the real failure was the Bush administration stove piping bad things about Iraq without anybody checking to see if they were true or not. Historically our intelligence failures have come from the top where they were committed to a course of action, say Bay of Pigs or invading Iraq and didn’t want to know anything that would call that action into question.

Anyway although as of this moment there are no formal plans for an investigation by Congress (both the house and Senate have ruled that out as of this writing (as a side note this is rich considering the 14 different investigations of Hillary and Bengazihi! ™ over the years.  Still there is real if muted concern on the right and outright anger on the left – and the whole idea of hacking leads to the strange disconnect between vote totals and exit polls in Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania – as of this moment only the most desultory recounts are being done and a Judge in Pennsylvania has ruled against a count there .

We could be standing on the edge of a major constitutional crisis here – we’ve never had the winner of a presidential  election that could have had the aid and comfort of a foreign power – I say could as, well despite knowing in my bones that this is what happened, one does need some little thing called ‘proof’ before things go really pear shaped.

Already there is talk of a Newsweek article that talks about  how the ruler of Turkey is trying to put the screws to Trump to surrender an expatriate cleric what has been linked to the recent failed coup – he has no interest in returning as he would be either tortured and short or tortured and hanged neither prospect appeals – but the ruler of Turkey is said to be dangling approval for some Trump project in Turkey in exchange for the return of the cleric – which would be a massive violation not only of the law but the whole idea of office of president. 

We have not crossed the Rubicon – and we are still sure that it will not be crossed but the sound of that little stream is a bit louder every day so who knows.

Peace out.

 

Hoping like hell i'm wrong about this....

Watching the lurches over the last couple of weeks and putting on my paranoid hat I had this bad brown acid trip:

How World War 3 starts.

Trump is sworn in, there are ugly scenes at the event (not that this is really germane to this story but it’s part of the background)

Within a few months of this, a major terrorist attack involving multiple targets hits the United States, casualties are heavy and the Trump admins is caught flat footed.

In response the Trump Administration begins the registration of Muslims in the us (at first immigrants and the citizens) at the same time putting boots on the ground in Syria and eventually bombing Iran which ignites the middle east – Iran being a somewhat tougher nut to crack than Iraq (which was a basket case by the time we invaded)  and the bloody mess in Syria cause first mission creep then full scale US military involvement in the region on the scale of the Iraq war – And it’s a mess, there is no specific plans on ‘winning the war’ just a lot of bellowing about taking gloves off and the like.

Iran not only continues to survive under the attacks but manages to land a few blows here and matters get worse – more troops and planes

And then as the US is looking to be completely involved in the middle east – China says quietly to North Korea – do what you want – which involves an active invasion of South Korea – which the US military stretched and heavily involved in the middle east we have no reserve to send – and things get really bad fast – and then China hits Taiwan and we are forced to try and get on a real war footing only to discover that that can’t really be done today – so the Trump administration will be faced with the choice do we nuke China or not because of Taiwan and risk world war 3 – my grim guess is yes and in our case the answers to the Fermi Paradox  will be that we have done blown ourselves up before we could communicate with other civilizations.

Peace out.

Gad I hate being right - Rant 12-8-16

Well it’s been long enough since the solid stone bummer that was this election was for the Professor to at least get some of his groove back. My stress eating is no longer making me nervous and the whisky isn’t vanishing from the bottles are quite the pace it had been.  I still can’t entirely answer as to where all the gin went but we need to let that pass.

Now all of us are having to deal with the disaster in front of us, we are being told mostly by folks who really should know better that yes this was a contentious election and yes folks are upset about the result but it’s time to come together and move forward.

Right.

Last time I heard that was when W was elected and with him we got 9-11, The Iraq war, Katrina, and a global financial meltdown.

Somehow I don’t think we are going to as lucky this time.

Meantime in my own Facebook feed I am finding the silence of the folks who were fond of quoting Jerry Garcia about how the lesser of two evils is still evil. They have grown very quiet as of late as the example of what pure evil pulls into view.

It’s going to be disaster and if the republic survives its’ going to be a miracle.

And we brought it on ourselves.

Not, as a lot of the media are saying because we ignored the economic distress of the Trump voter but because of Karma –

Because Nixon didn’t end his days in prison, because they didn’t impeach Reagan for Iran Contra,  because Newt was not exiled from political life for using impeachment as means over tuning an election, because they didn’t prosecute W and company for war crimes, because nobody at wall street went to jail,  the worst in our political system became emboldened and understood there were no consequences to what they did, and ran amok.

While the idea of moving is on is noble, you do need the other side to at least admit they were wrong first otherwise you empower them, as they have done.

And now we have Trump – and even now the establishment is making dithering noises . we are doomed, war with Iran feels certain, the economy well that’s doomed as well.

I think we won’t have to worry about climate change since I don’t think we are going to survive long enough for the real effects to be felt.

We are soooo doomed.

America as dysfunctional family.

One of the institutions that are enshrined in the American mythos/dream what have you, is the family. It is often presented as the non plus ultra, the repository of all vultures and just plain wonderful.

Of course real families are not all like that, many real families are dysfunctional with problems including Drug and Alcohol abuse, physical violence, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse that can scar psyches and lives for years.

One of the persistent behavior patterns all dysfunctional families are that they build a wall of denial around the family, things must appear normal to the outside world. 

And the one great sin here is if one of the family members, by action or speaking, lets the world know that things are not fine that Dad is drinking or Mom hits the kids or gets hit or someone has been abused by an uncle all hell breaks loose. But it’s the person who speaks up is the one silenced.

Which brings us to a couple of weeks about when during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner at the start of an exhibition football game one of the players on the 49er’s sat on the bench.  When asked why he said it was in protest. His protest was that unarmed black people were being killed by the police without reason or without any consequence to the officers.  It was a symbolic act saying that this country is not living up to its ideals with respect to its black citizens especially when it is gunning them down for little or no reason. 

And all hell broke loose – you would have thought he’d publicly advocated Satanism, was wearing a leather coat made from the skin of babies all the while pissing on the graves of the unknown soldiers.  There were demands that he be cut from the team. That he be made to pay a fine. His shirt meantime has been bought in large numbers by folks and set on fire (videos posted on you tube of course) and filled the airwaves with angry statements about how he has dishonored the flag and the brave men and women who died defending it.

Now let us remember what he did:  he did not stand up for the national anthem.  Id’ posit that from the intensity and vicious nature of the response the fellow has touched a nerve, and a guilty one at that. Someone who for example sat during the national anthem to protest government suppression of evidence of UFO’s would at most get called a few names and laughed at. 

The anger – and it is real – is not because what he said wasn’t true –but it is precisely because it is true and strikes a blow at what has  been described as white brittleness about race.  The level of hysteria attached to the response and their attempts to silence one man argues for a deep and pathological level of denial about the role of race in this country.

Our original sin keeps on giving.

Rant 6-6-16 - Above Ground Burial

 

The Professor has noted stories flitting here and there in the corners of the net about the possibility of Elizabeth Warren being named Ms. Clinton’s VP candidate – there are several practical reasons why this is a bad idea – one if Warren resigns the current sitting Governor  of MA he gets to appoint a new Senator – and we don’t need yet another GOP senator right now what with one and probably a lot more Supreme court justice spots to be taken care of – and there is of course no certainty that the following election will give the seat back to the Democratic Party.

The Professor hates the idea not just for the reasons stated above but because, being the cynical monster that he is suspects that there is an ulterior motive for this, namely to get Ms. Warren out of the Senate where she actually doing some good in reigning in Wall Street’s outsized influence on all policy and even more importantly has embarrassed several Wall Street executives when they testified in the Senate. And you can’t have that at all

Reid who the stories mention as being the driving force behind this idea has proven himself if nothing else very sensitive to the feelings of the donor class and especially Wall Street. I’m sure he’s been given an earful of how mean Ms. Warren is to them and how it may make then not like folks like Senator Reid to the tune of millions of dollars. This has left Reid with a conundrum – how to get rid of Ms. Warren without looking like he is getting rid of Ms. Warren. Sponsoring a primary opponent would give the game away and besides she is popular and she isn’t due for election in a while…what to do?

Well there is a position in the Federal Government that has absolutely no power and is in charge of nothing.

Vice President.

Seriously aside from Dick Cheney the office is pretty much a huge nothing burger consisting of standing next to the president looking attentive when they are making an announcement and going to meetings and funerals of foreign dignitaries that the president doesn’t want to talk to. I’m sure Reid thinks this is a perfect place to put Warren where she can’t cause any mischief or embarrass the important people.

My father once told me about a practice some companies do when they wanted to get rid of someone but they couldn’t just fire them or let them go they would give them a job where they had nothing to do all day – and after a time as there were driven people they would quit. It was called above ground burial.

Ms. Warren I hope I’m wrong but it feels like they are building your political career a tomb.

 

 

 

Rant 5-27-16 - the Madness begins....

As the holiday weekend approaches The Professor notes with that his grim suspicion about the results of the engineered social panic are Trans using bathrooms – and the Professor feels the pedantic need to point out they have been using bathrooms for decades – Christine Jorgenson returned from Sweden in the 1940’s for mercy’s sake – are coming true – a self-appointed bathroom guardian has attacked a farther brining his 5 year old daughter into men’s room of a Walmart in Utah – because he didn’t want his daughter going alone into the ladies room – the kids just 5 for mercy’s sake. 

Guy in the rest room freaks out and starts a fight – turns out dad was bigger and a better fighter. The clown who attacked the man is in now in police custody.

This country is depressed the Professor more and more each day.

Meantime – I didn’t quite get a good look at the story as the internet was getting stroppy or just not functioning in the proper manner – a Michigan man has pulled his two sons out of school because a Trans kid was using the boys’ room.

Michigan being the land of the Michigan Militia it’s not shocking this happened – of course his utter panic about bathroom screams that all sorts of issues  that it is probably best a sane mind not delve into too deeply least one becomes tempted to use a ballpoint pen as a lobotomy tool to stop the horror.

The article has him ranting about the shame and humiliation this has caused his children – remembering what it was like to be a child I can assure him that the one causing them shame and humiliation is you my dear sir. They have to watch you having this sort of brain meltdown about something they probably haven’t given a single thought to.

While it is amusing in a grim way to note the increase in hysteria about bathroom use – considering that America is awash with frightened people with guns who are being whipped up in to a hate frenzy by either genuine nut cases (for example  suspects the gov of North Carolina is one of these) or cynical hacks who see this as a way to get the rubes to the polls this year – say Ted Cruz about whom not enough bad things have been written yet – the real danger here is that one of these nut jobs is going to be armed and we are going to end up with dead people. 

As a side note - For Sanders to debate Trump is utterly utterly insane. No good can come of it at all .

 

Rant 5-18-16 - And as punishment for our sins – Donald Trump shall be come President.

As the primary season comes to an end –with each side on the democratic race calling each other increasingly angry names… I noticed a Clinton ally said that Sanders needed to take his defeat ‘like a man’ which is pretty bloody insulting but their follow up complaint about Sanders ‘working the ref’s’ (i.e. leaning, squeezing bribing whatever the Super delegates) rings a bit false seeing as they, along with the utterly corrupt and useless DNC moved heaven and earth to make sure Mrs. Clinton was going to be the Democratic Party’s choice before a single primary vote was counted. The complaints that Sanders is trying to game a system that they previously rigged in their favor is a bit rich. Anyway as it winds down and the News from the GOP is that despite all their huffing and puffing most of the GOP is rushing and elbowing each other aside to kiss Trumps ring , a dreadful idea has taken hold of the Professor’s mind and refuses to go away , it’s horrible and it is gradually sucking the joy out of any part of the Professor’s life.


The thought? Simple, Trump’s going to win this thing.


The Professor doesn’t even like writing that down, in a weird fear that doing so will, as does measurement in a quantum event collapse the various probable outcomes that might happen into a one ugly certainty.


My reasons for concern – and these were out there even before the latest polls came along which didn’t help – are several


One – Clinton is not a natural campaigner – she doesn’t get that Mick Jagger rush of being in front of a crowd and she is going to have to deal in the general with a man who unless there are some health issues we don’t know about will campaign like an energizer bunny which leads us to


Two – She’s not a strong candidate, zeitgeist is trending against her technocratic little bit here and little bit here approach to governing. These days the feeling is more things are fucked up and bullshit and things need to be changed – not tinkered with but changed. She’s very much moderation small steps and reaching across it isle (which is I’m sorry in this day and age is insane) which won’t work. My sense is that folks will accept small steps in the pursuit of a goal but right now making the small steps the goal in and of themselves is just going to fly


Three – the Press loathes her and loves Trump – face it he’s good copy and he puts buns in the seats when he’s on the air. One the other hand they detest her, there is a huge amount of good old boy sexism in the DC press corps and they have hated the Clintons since they got here. As a result they will take every foul and ugly rumor about her and transmit it as gospel truth no matter how many times it’s already been proven false. Vince Foster will die again a thousand times between now and election day…it’s depressing as hell but it’s a real thing that will have to be dealt with.


Also personally I think those speaking fees are going to bite her hard – she got annoyed when Sanders mentioned them but she ain’t seen nothing yet boyo – I think Trump is going to make Goldman Sach’s her running mate. Of course it’s arrantly hypocritical from Trump to do that but neither he nor the press will care. If anything is shows a real lack of judgment on Hilary’s part. She knew she was going to be running for president in when she made them. As best I can tell  the defense is that since she has not overtly pulled strings on behalf of Wall Street it’s okay –  it’s not a bribe unless zoning laws are changed.


  But the main reason isn’t rational, it’s the sense that Karma is coming to get us – W was a horrible president and we did horrible things (we were doing horrible things before as well but leave that for now) to other countries and people because we were the strongest and had panicked. And for that sin along with the official use of torture still blackens our soul as a nation we will pay– that O did nothing to balance the books didn't help. This is a Karmic debt that needs to be paid by this country – we could have taken care of it ourselves but chose not to and it be collected for us – with the additional Irony of Trump who’s slogan is make America Great Again will be the agent of its downfall.