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.