/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.  

 

 

5-2-17 The President’s Delicate Condition

It’s interesting that the word ‘senile’ or some variation therewith has finally been broached in the beltway media following the President’s weird and disjointed interview with some AP flunky that ended up with Trump spinning a fantasy that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the civil war.

As many people noted AJ died sometime in the 1840’s which would have greatly limited his political effectiveness in 1861.

It was a bizarre note in a bizarre day where Trump wandered all over the place with ideas about North Korea “I’d be honored to meet him” the murderous leader of the Philippines “he’s got very high approval ratings” and some nattering about breaking up banks and gas taxes.  (like any of this is going to happen)

Some folks were saying that Trump was probably saying with regard to AJ that he, Trump, could have brokered a deal to prevent  the civil war, reflecting his own sense of himself as a great man who could crack heads together and let everybody know what’s what.

Possible yes, however,  his comments were disordered and flew about the room touching on many subjects including his election win that this point, if it was his point, was hard to discern.

As a fallout from all this, Joe Scarbourgh who is suffering some regret for his letting Trump spout  away on his show before the election Morning Joe, al la Dr. Frankenstein suffered  for his role in bringing this monster to life has mentioned the word ‘dementia’ in connection with Trump. He’s the first to do it, but another story quotes several White House staff and other folks saying Trump’s been ‘acting crazy’.

So the magic words are out there – whereas before folks have been tiptoeing about it, the sense that the president is not all there and probably barking mad to boot is being spoken aloud by people who are not scruffy little bloggers like my humble self.

I’m sure there will a push back on this – indeed the AP flack has already tried – and failed – to explain away Trumps verbal meanderings.

But ladies and gentlemen, the ugly truth is that the President is mentally incapable of doing the job, first we are going to have to face that and then deal with it.

 

5/1/17

First happy May day:  “arise ye prisoners of starvation, Arise ye wretched of the earth”  From one of the English versions of the Internationale.

Anyway as we have passed the 100 day Mark, the Professor is beginning to fear that we really to long to go to stay lucky.  At lunch time today Trump gave a scattered and incoherent response to a question about North Korea.

It hurts too much to bury too deeply into the word salad but the essence is that  he’s saying be afraid – right now of North Korea but I think he’d be happier if we were all afraid all the time.

As the days go by,  Trump  more and more reminds me not of the German leader most people think of but the man in charge of Germany before the First World War: Kaiser Wilhelm the Second .

Granted the parallels are not exact, history does not repeat itself exactly (although someone said it often rhymes) however reading about The Kaiser’s actions before the war and his combination of unstable personality  and massive insecurity can’t help but see they are very much alike in their bombast, their reliance on threats, and their waffling when they encounter any real push back.

The problem of course is that the Kaiser’s bombast helped pave the way for the First World War – and my humble terror of the day is that Trump’s bombast is going to get us involved and a massively serious war in Korea with consequences to the world nobody can really foresee other than it will be very very bad.

The concern is that neither NK or Trump can allow themselves to feel or act weak so both sides have been pushing, and  if we are unlucky (I’m not even saying very unlucky just unlucky) we could end up with one or the other side doing something stupid because of this terror of seeming weak.

Frightened people with guns are very very dangerous.

 

The Buck is nowhere to be found.

The Professor is by nature a man of peace and someone who has been and remains uncomfortable with the militarization of such things as baseball games and other sporting events and the deification of all things military. I am glad to see that the New York Mets for example have stopped wearing camouflage jerseys on Monday home games.  And I find the requirement that the start of each season be marked by a flyover of some sort of aircraft mystifying. 

However I don’t question the members of the military love of country and their willingness to prove that by making the ultimate sacrifice if necessary i.e. dying in the service of this country.

Which brings us to today. Some weeks ago a raid was launched into Yemen a country that has various terrorist cells along with many many very very poor people.

The raid by most reports was a massive bust – they never got to where wanted to be, civilian casualties were heavy (30 by some counts) and along with the US wounded a navy seal one Chief William Owens.

Navy Seals are in the tired phrase “the best of the best’ commandos supreme who are used in this sort of raid – and the loss of one is a big hairy deal.

As the story unfolded, the raid had been in the planning stages under Obama who had nixed it as too risky without better information. Then Trump, wanting to prove what a decisive president he was as opposed to the calculating Obama pulled the trigger on the raid which as noted did not turn out so well.

At first the Trump people were claiming it was a wild success but that story once the cost was known was dropped. Yemen was apparently not informed about the raid and has made it quite clear it wants no more raids or drone strikes on their country. Now with the father of the dead seal making ugly talk about how the raid was botched Trump has stepped forward and bravely said ‘it is the general’s fault”

Apparently Mr. Trump is unaware of the saying “the buck stops here”

Or is an utter coward not fit to shine the least serviceman’s shoes.

And as such is trying to weasel out of his responsivity. Sir you are the President of the United States, you are the commander in chief you gave the order, it’s on your shoulders. But because you are nothing but an old spoiled rich man’s man baby son who has never taken responsivity for anything in your life, you’ve opted to the standard CEO response: It’s x’s fault not mine. Seriously when was the last time you hear a businessman accept the blame for anything? Ever?

Sorry it won’t fly – you don’t get to be saluted by the Marines when you get out of your helicopter just because, you have a vast responsibility on your shoulders and god spare us, you are so obviously not up to the task.

Oh yes, on a practical matter you just tossed the Military under the bus. Is there a single group in DC you can’t alienate? You colossal worthless fool.

Go to hell okay?

Taking to the Russians

The news these days remains it mad froth but meantime, like the solid bass line that would ground a Frank Zappa guitar solo, more and more weird things about the Russians are coming out.

The latest is the news that both the White House Chief of Staff whose name I can never quite remember well enough to type tried to get the head of the FBI to say publicly that there was nothing to the Russia Story (which is rather illegal given the circumstances) and Mr. Spicer seems to have arranged some phone calls from the head of the CIA to reporters to tell them there was nothing to the story although nobody seems to have details on why there was nothing to it. It’s not clear just yet whether Mr. Spicer broke the law or stretched it but my word it surely does not look good. 

All this froo fra and attempt to put a lid on story about the connections between the Trump campaign and Russia and just what they were are of course making it worse,  and one can be pretty sure that neither party thought to do this all by himself. Trump one assumes has told them to do these.

But why? Why risk having the story get more legs by trying to squash it? It does give one pause – Trump is a sitting president he’s in charge of the Dept of Justice and he’s gotten an absolute troglodyte in as Attorney General who about as likely to launch any sort of investigation as he is to admit he’s racist baboon (no insult to the Baboon’s intended).

Meantime both houses of congress are under GOP control run by a pair of small brained ideologues who wouldn’t care if Trump put slot machines in the oval office and was chopping the heads off of bunnies in the rose garden as long as he signs the tax cut bill (once they figure out what it is, they are not skilled men these men).  So one can pretty sure no probes will be forthcoming form them.

So, one wonders, why the panic? Why stomp all over the city insisting in louder and more hysterical voices that there is nothing to the story? Which can only make more people think that there is a there there.

Two hypotheses come to mind – one is simple stupidity – these are not bright people we are talking about and doing something stupid like this simply because they are unable to understand how this would play out is a logical conclusion.

The other one, which I think is more interesting, is that whatever is being covered up is absolute dynamite something so toxic that all support for him would vanish in an instant. Knowing just what sort of horrible things Trump has done that the GOP iare perfectly okay with, one does have to wonder what it could be.

You just can't keep up

Not a bit. On any given day there is enough madness flying about to last as the saying goes a month of Sundays.  Between the decidedly mixed signals being sent to Europe:  “We Will honor our EU commitments” “The EU must die!” and the continuing drum beat of spooky stuff out of a spy novel involving Russia (the covert peace plan that would allow Trump to undo the sanctions that a close Trump associate did or did not deliver to one of the presidents of Ukraine- the Russian appointed one) , the mystifying claim of first terrorist attacks and then a rising crime rate in Sweden caused by refugees,  the invite than canceled invite to the annual right wing hate fest called CPAC  to one alleged human being  Milo Yiannopoulos who creeped the world out to point where not only did he get uninvited to jabber to CPAC, Simon & Shuster killed his book deal (no word if he had to give the money back).

The times are simply just too crazy to cope.

And it’s only been a month.

Today apparently Trump has decided that Anti-Semitism is bad.  Not that he’s going to do anything about the white nationalists in his organization  (which isn’t very organized) including one Steve Bannon. But he has spoken about it and for his followers, that is enough. Deeds are not needed only words.

We are in trouble folks.

 

Quick thoughts from a couple of days 2/14 & 2/15

2/14/17

Happy Valentine’s Day

One keeps trying to write something and one keeps finding oneself hopelessly behind the stories as they lurch into the sunlight the after the other to dance their little dance and then be replaced by a newer and more grotesque grotesques.

This morning Mr. Flynn the National Security advisor quit mostly because his lies about his ties to Russia and folks had proof and that things were getting a little hot so someone needed to be tossed to the wolves. Thus exit Mr. Flynn.

The right is falling all over themselves to say “well things happen and let’s just move on here”.  Which is actually pretty much par for the course in DC – when proof emerged that W had blown off a briefing paper titled “Bin Laden determined to strike the US” and that he had the rest of the establishment had lied about WMD’s (poison gas actually) and this was treated as while mildly interesting, it was not dire enough to warrant anything actually being done about it.

Now we have Flynn leaving and they are saying well okay that’s it.

No it isn’t.

When Obama bum rushed some number of Russians out of the country and imposed even more sanctions on Russia for their interference in the US elections, Flynn  bowled several people over in order to get to a phone so he call Russia and reassure them that once Trump was president things would be fine. Flagrant violation of several laws this was and of course he lied about it. This is what got him canned.

About this time Trump tweeted some sort of mash note to Putin saying how smart he was for not responding to what Obama did. The timing is weird as hell one must say.

And here’s the thing – what the hell made Flynn do that? Did he just get the idea to contact the Russians on his own or did someone –say,  Trump for example – tell him to make the call.

If the later we are in deep deep waters.

In one of my stupid on-line comments I suggested watching this unfold was something like watching a John Le Carre novel from the outside – we’re not seeing what is going on inside the intelligence community or inside the white house or Congress.

2/15/17

Well coming as not much of a surprise, per various news reports Flynn wasn’t the only one in the Trump Camp with links to the Russians, no names yet but it doesn’t look good and the FBI is per the Times investigating – which does raise the uncomfortable question of hey why were these contacts kept under wraps with you gabbed about emails? (The professor also notes with grim amusement that the same folks who praised the little creep who runs the FBI with being a  hero for leaking about the Emails suddenly find leaks ‘a concern’. The professor has not had much amusement lately so he’ll take what he can get.

Meantime one of the websites I cruse comes in interesting story. Trump once Flynn’s corpse was safely stowed away under the Bus took to Twitter to complain about all the leaks that had come out of the Intelligence Community. Bad Intelligence community Bad, the tweets said.

Anyway per this story the intelligence community is really really really angry at Trump now. I suspect that Flynn’s quick and brutal fall from grace was a warning from the Intelligence Community which it would seem Trump did not take.  Hence the Intelligence Community is now really pissed and one of them sent an email to this former NSA staffer John Schindler saying per his quote “he will die in jail”

I don’t think he meant Flynn.

To quote Betty Davis  “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be bumpy flight.”

 

 

The President is barking mad.

I had been naively hoping that we could get two weeks into the new administration without a constructional crisis.

Said crisis is that the DHS has decided to ignore, the judges suspension of the Muslim travel ban order.  The Professor will call it that under the looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck rule. This is a duck. Rudy G maybe not remembering that other folks pay attention to what folks say on Fox News came out and said this is a Muslim ban. 

It’s not quite a full blown crisis just yet as the order merely suspended but did not overturn the order. A ruling on the constitutionality of this order has not been made.

Meantime Bannon who is as evil a little creep as I have ever seen making Grima Wormtongue seem principled has been put on the National Security Council which  folks are calling dangerous even crazy…

This brings me to the main part of this ramble.

The Professor has seen more than his share of insane behavior – a long ago moment at some Thanksgiving dinner when a guest insisted that his dog was talking to him in the night comes to mind – as he went on, it became clear that he mentally had left us far far away, and any attempt to drag his attention away from his frustration that while he knew his dog was taking to him, he couldn’t understand what he was saying was going to fail. And so the conversation dropped away until there was a moment of very heavy silence at which some brave soul started talking about sports or something and with palpable relief, the rest of the party jumped on the bandwagon.

I was reminded of this incident as I watch with mounting fear and horror the news and the new president’s ongoing war with reality.  He has left us, there may be moments of lucidity here and there but for the most part the new President while he may be sleeping in the White House is living in cloud koo koo land.

In what may be the most disastrous interview on tape (I date myself yes but there doesn’t seem to be a current version of this expression, the Professor would appreciate any suggestions along this line) Trump ranted about illegal voting and the size of the crowd. Both topics that have turned into major embarrassments solely due to Trump not being able to shut up about them.

We are also informed that the new President has been upset and unable to ‘enjoy’ his presidency due to the negative coverage of the crowd side compared to that of Obama’s swearing in. And that he’s upset CNN is being so hard on him considering his relationship with the president of NBC who has something to do with CNN but I forget what.

While it has only been less than two weeks, the Professor feels a need to state this in as plain fact. The president is insane – at a reality denying level that reminds one of a man in a bunker, but he at least had been in power for some time, was being poisoned by a quack doctor and was in the process of losing World War 2.

Alas our system does not have a quick and easy means to remove a president who is barking mad- there is impeachment and it is a mark of how bad things are is that it is being talked of already.

These are indeed frightening times.

 

DER TAG

By the time I finish writing this Trump will be officially President of the United States. Reports indicate that after this Trump is going to take weekend off which means a couple of things – that if something blows up this weekend the country will be caught flat footed, but on the other hand he can’t start to do any real damage until Monday.

Trump is a disaster on many levels and there are a lot of folks to blame for it, but recent news has come out that shows that while the director of the FBI was writing congress to say they may be found more e-mails, he resolutely refused to tell anybody that the FBI were also investigating Trump and his people for having direct contact with the Russian Government. That bit the director kept silent about.

So today we have the inauguration of man that both Russia and the FBI helped to make president, with a nice assist from the major news media who couldn’t let the emails alone and thought trump was good for ratings.

And let’s not forget the purges of the eligible voting lists and the various vote id acts that were designed by admission of the clueless NC legislator to prevent folks likely to vote democratic from voting.

And a last fuck you and go to hell must be given to those who all during the election said there was no difference between the two – or that if anything Hillary was worse – hope you are enjoying your righteous purity right now because a lot of innocent folks are going to suffer.

As for the folks who are now disappointed with Trump because he is doing what he said he would do, well sorry there is no real hope for you.

So we now have as president a thin skinned lunatic with more ties and obligations to Russia that Bill Haydon (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and looks to do more damage – between ideological claptrap for example, repealing the ACA without giving the slightest thought to a replacement and willful stupidity and ignorance regarding China, the middle east, Europe and North Korea – and the economy where wall street is looking to resurrect the leverage casino and never mind that anti-vaccine and climate change deniers are inside the hen house, the acceptance of racists  – honestly it’ll be a blessed miracle if the Republic survives two years never mind 4.

What can be done? I hope something but the already the press is trying to make the crazy town world of Trump normal,  the democratic party has too many people who would rather make nice because while they may object to some of his plans, they agree with the idea, they would just be nicer about it. The resistance to Trump needs a Churchill willing to call a spade a spade and not care how upset the beltway media is that he is not trying to play nice. It also needs a press who does not look at Trump as a ratings machine or a clown but looks upon as a fraud as a dangerous conman.

But I’m not sure what good marching in the streets is going to do – millions marched against the Iraq war and we got the Iraq war – unless this loathing of the man can be turned into political power, it’s not going to do anything and will be marginalized by the media as Occupy was.

I will march and I will work but to be honest, I think we’re doomed. My hope is that not too many people get hurt, but sanguine about that I am not.

Peace Out