Archives for February 2019

Day 764 Saturday February 9, 2019

632 Days to the 2020 election and 710 Days to Inauguration Day

I didn’t write a screed yesterday as I was otherwise involved. I was preparing a 20 minute talk for my niece’s first grade class. How exhausting; how rewarding. But I’m back at it today, and it seems there have been a number of HUGE things that have gone on. However, overhanging all of this is the question, “If Donald Trump is not a Russian asset than what is he?” The evidence seems overwhelming. I can argue that he is either knowingly or unknowingly doing their bidding. I suspect both. He is parroting the Russian propaganda lines that only come from Russia. In other words, you aren’t hearing what he’s saying anywhere else. Is this what Putin is mentioning to him in their hours long meetings? Is Trump so dumb that he is this easily led? (Yes, of course. He’s demonstrated that by referring to stuff as fact that are really only in a movie.) Is he knowingly doing the other stuff for the money? (Yes, again.) So I conclude that he is both knowingly (for the money) doing Putin’s bidding and unknowingly (via what Putin tells him and parroting it) doing The Kremlin’s bidding. 

Okay, topics for the last two days:

– Jeff Bezos reveals that The National Enquirer and its parent company AMI tried to use extort and bribe him,

– The House committees gear up,

– The mess in Virginia’s top Dems gets worse,

– John Dingle dies

– Jackie Robinson dies

– Lower tax returns are starting to hit home

Let’s start with Jeff Bezos, reputedly the richest man in the world. Putin may have more, but much of that is hidden from view. The National Enquirer ran a story a week or so ago saying that Bezos was having an affair. this led to the separation and upcoming divorce from his wife of twenty five years. Jeff hired investigators to find out how the Enquirer got the information. Then the Enquirer came to him and told him to stop his investigation or they would reveal more photos of a damaging and salacious nature. They put it in writing via an email. 

Jeff was having none of it. He turned down their offer and published what they had sent him. As I understand it he only published the descriptions of the photographs, as well as, the emails from the National Enquirer/AMI. One of the most striking things about the emails was AMI’s insistence that this was in no way political. Jeff therefore concluded that it was political, and he had evidence to show that it probably was. Mainly, the level of detail they had of his emails. Bezos doesn’t believe he was hacked as much as he thinks “a government entity” obtained his emails. Speculation is that it’s the Saudis. Newscasters are showing the cosy, yet unexplained, relationship between AMI and the Saudis, and – wait for it – Donald Trump. It was hard to understand why AMI put out a slick magazine puff piece on Saudi Arabia and MBS last year. It had to cost a lot to produce. Who paid for it? 

David Pecker, head of the National Enquirer, is a buddy of Trump’s and Pecker has been trying to make inroads into Saudi Arabia business-wise. It seems Trump may have introduced Pecker to MBS. 

Bezos owns The Washington Post and it’s no secret that the president and MBS don’t like the Post. 

To make matters weird, it turns out that the brother of the woman Bezos has been having the affair with is a friend of Roger Stone and Carter Paige. Nice. Was this all a set up?

We’ll have to wait and see.

Oh, and here’s the juicy stupid part. Pecker, The Enquirer, and AMI had signed a non-prosecution agreement with Mueller. In it they have to not only tell everything they know, but if they do any criminal activity for three years from the signing of the document then all bets are off and they are criminally liable. Wow. As one newscaster said, “They didn’t even make it a month.” (The agreement was signed in September and the Bezos stuff started shortly thereafter.)

But if you are the Enquirer this may not have seemed illegal, and it may not be, according to some legal folks. This seems to be the way the Enquirer does business. It may be more of an extortion racket than a “news” publication. I couldn’t understand why they would stay in business, because according to reports last year they lost a ton of money. Maybe, they make that back on their off-the-books extortions? Or maybe they are getting funded by large right wing conservative billionaires wanting to dig up dirt or make up stories about people they don’t like? We don’t have to go far to see all the terrible headlines they put out about Hillary over the course of the election, while doing none on Trump. Oh, that’s right, Pecker showed Trump the articles on Hillary before they ran and Trump approved them.

On to the House committees, there are so many. Elijah Cummings is doing something, I forget what exactly, but suffice it to say Trump won’t like it. The House Intelligence Committee turned over all their “official” transcripts to The Special Prosecutor. This will allow the Special Prosecutor to bring charges against people who lied to that committee. Apparently, many of them did. Stunning, I know. How do they know they lied, because the people on the committee had the intelligence communications! Stunning. One name that keeps popping up as lying is DT Jr.

On the Judicial Committee they had Matt Whittaker testify to them yesterday. I couldn’t watch it. Both due to my other commitments and to the “it will make my skin crawl” effect I thought it would have on me I stayed away. Apparently, Matty-boy did not disappoint. He stayed true to form. The one time I turned on the TV and they were interviewing a legal commentator who said, “Whittaker is way over his head.” I turned it off. The clip that was shown over and over again was Whittaker telling the chairman of the committee that his five minutes were up. Yeah, that’s right, the guy being questioned, was telling the chairman how to conduct his committee, and how he the chairman was out of line. The gall that takes is amazing. Even more amazing to me was when an roar went up from the gallery over that comment Whittaker looked around in dumbfounded surprise. He didn’t seem to understand, maybe it was just a show – of ignorance. Nadler, the chairman, just smiled. Not sure what happened next.

The consensus of people I listened to about the hearing described Whittaker as arrogant from the start, defensive,  weak, unprepared or lacking knowledge – take your pick, and he had a few tag lines he kept repeating: “I understand this is important to you”, “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.” Rinse and repeat. 

When he was questioned about the children in cages he seemed out of his element. He was blank. No empathy, no understanding. 

On to the mess in Virginia: The governor has a picture on his med school yearbook page that shows a person in blackface and a person dressed up in a KKK costume. Northam says he did a Michael Jackson impersonation with some shoe polish on his face. Whether the person in the picture is Northam is unknown because he has both apologized for the picture and said it wasn’t him. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant Governor has been accused of sexual assault at the Democratic Convention, and the Attorney General, the next in line, says he dressed up in blackface once. While the various Democratic candidates were busy screwing themselves up in knots of righteousness about Northam and saying the Lieutenant Governor, a black man, should take over, it came out that said LG has been accused of rape in 2000 when he was at Duke.

The howls for the LG to step down are now deafening. What about Northam and the AG? Doesn’t seem so bad now. The problem for the Dems is that if they get rid of all three the next in line to be Governor is a Republican.

The real mess here seems to be that we, as a society, have not dealt with the issue of what goes on behind closed doors. There is no protocol, no etiquette, no set of manners for what is and is not acceptable. The blackface? Well, let he or she who has not done something when they were younger, which is now seen as stupid, throw the first stone.

John Dingle died. Served in Congress thirty terms. Won every election. Started when Eisenhower was President. Was a 14 year old page on the House floor when FDR gave his famous “Day of Infamy” speech.  Has tons of really good legislation attached to his name, and – I am told – had a wicked twitter feed.

Jackie Robinson – the man who broke the color barrier in baseball, both as a player and a manager died on the same day as John Dingle.

 

I hope we will see the likes of men like them again.

And perhaps the thing that may have the biggest political impact are the tax returns. The tax cut was billed as helping the middle class. The reality is quite different. It was a huge giveaway to the ultra rich and big corporations. There are all sorts of deductions that the average taxpayer was accustomed to taking. All those have been swept away, and folks are just starting to realize it as their refunds are smaller this year than in previous years. The Republicans to hide their dirty deeds changed the amount of withholding so folks wouldn’t realize how bad it was through the mid-terms. Now they are filling out their forms and learning that the deductions they took before are not allowed and they are seeing in black and white how much they owe. To add insult to injury their refund checks are being delayed. Turns out the IRS is so understaffed they don’t have enough people to do the actual work. One person reported that when his daughter asked a “When will I get my refund check?” she was told they’d get back to her in 12 weeks.

Typically, when you are going to screw people over like the Republicans did, you try to ease in slowly. They couldn’t do that because they gave away so much money they had to get it from somewhere – right away. 

Other little tidbits: Jeffery Epstein, the serial sexual predator who enlisted 14 year old girls in a sex services ring, who got off with a very light sentence? The guy who let him off is being investigated for malpractice or something like that. Donnie Deutsch related meeting Epstein once. They were talking over some kind of business deal. Epstein asked him, “What kind of girls do you like?” Apparently, this was part of Epstein’s modus operandi. Whether they can get Epstein on anything else is remote, but there are supposedly a lot of powerful men: Republican and Democrat, that may be ensnared.

Donald Trump, after his State of the Union, immediately went on the road holding rally after rally to sell his ideas and message to the country … Just kidding. He had no ideas to sell. He went back to the White House to watch TV and tweet.

632 Days to the 2020 election and 710 Days to Inauguration Day

PS “What are you looking at?” “Me? Nothing. Wanna play?”

Day 762 Thursday February 7, 2019

634 Days to the 2020 election and 712 Days to Inauguration Day

Oh boy. The president’s most memorable comment from his speech last night was a threat in the form of a bumper sticker “No Legislation if there’s an Investigation.”

I guess there will be no legislation. 

Because boy oh boy are we gearing up for a doozy of a year of investigations. There’s Mueller and the feds in New York. Now there’s Maria Butina’s alleged boyfriend. I say “alleged” because we know from intercepted communications she complained to her Russian handlers about having to be intimate or even around this guy. I don’t know why she would feel that way. Was it that she’s in her twenties and he’s in his fifties? Is it that she’s quite attractive and he looks like a complete doofus? Or is it that he’s been making money by scamming people for his adult life? Yeah, that just came out in the indictments against him. The scams all followed the same pattern: send a form letter, ask for money, promise a lot, cash the check, move on. Three scams were mentioned in the indictments: wheelchairs, old folk health care, Bakken oil field real estate. Said boyfriend has been mentioned as an operator in Republican circles in North Dakota. But local Republicans also call him a big phony. Yeah, but they still took his money.

Okay, that’s all the known and small stuff. Hey, one guy indicted on a bunch of stuff that’s a Republican. Not a bad day for the Grand Old Party. Oh wait, there’s more.

Adam Schiff is now in charge of the House Intelligence Committee. He’s a Democrat, a former prosecutor and he’s chairman of the aforesaid committee. For some reason he wasn’t happy about the way the Republicans handled their investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election. I guess closing your eyes and putting your head in the sand and then saying you saw nothing is not his style. 

His reconstituted investigation is more broadly defined than before and he has outlined five “threads” of investigation:

1. The scope and scale of the Russian government’s operations to influence the U.S. political process, and the U.S. government’s response, during and since the 2016 election.

2. The extent of any links and/or coordination between the Russian government, or related foreign actors, and individuals associated with Donald Trump’s campaign, transition, administration, or business interests, in furtherance of the Russian government’s interests.

3. Whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage, financial or otherwise,  over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his associates.

4. Whether president Trump, his family, or his associates are or were at any time at heightened risk of, or vulnerable to, foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion, or have sought to influence U.S. government policy in service of foreign interests.

5. Whether any actors — foreign or domestic — sought or are seeking to impede, obstruct, and/or mislead authorized investigations into these matters, including those in the Congress.

Let me translate this to more simplified terms:

1. Did Russian interfere in our election?

2. Collusion

3. Bribery

4. Blackmail

5. Obstruction

To think the president is named as a target and also his friends, family, and associates, and members of Congress shows how deep this corruption may go. 

While the Democrats are tying themselves in knots over whether a person wore blackface thirty some odd years ago at least one is keeping his eye on the many balls of things that have, and can, really hurt our democracy.

(Note: I copied the five threads directly from The Rachel Maddow Show’s broadcast of last night. I wonder if Fox thought to report any of this?)

634 Days to the 2020 election and 712 Days to Inauguration Day

PS “In the jungle, the mighty jungle …” 

Day 761 Wednesday February 6, 2019

635 Days to the 2020 election and 713 Days to Inauguration Day

My reaction to the State of the Union address, while it was going on, was, “Is he still talking?”

Not being able to listen to his voice for more than a few seconds at a time we tuned in every so often. He seemed to go on forever. When he was done the commentators really didn’t know what to say. They were left scrambling to describe what they had just heard. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put her finger on the most important thing about it and that was that she heard nothing specific. There was no policy, no detail. 

Then there were the absurd things. We can’t have partisan investigations. Right. Tell that to Hillary who had to endure how many investigations into something she had nothing to really do with what happened at Benghazi? Or tell it to Bill, who was being investigated for, along with Hillary, a land deal that went bust that had nothing to do with the illegal stuff their partner did years later. Ot tell that to Hillary who kept a private email server and was only discovered because it hadn’t been hacked like the one at the State Department, and all the while the people doing the investigating were using private email servers.

Okay, no partisan investigations, just oversight and letting the wheels of justice do what they are supposed to do – bring crooks to justice. Oh wait, what if there is a partisan investigation? There will be no legislation? Is that a threat? 

Same old, same old, from the school yard bully.

Stacy Abrams gave a wonderful rebuttal. She brought up every day working people’s issues. She brought up founding principles. She, like Ocasio-Cortez, is a breath of fresh air in a stale and roomful of mostly vapid vain people.

635 Days to the 2020 election and 713 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Nothing Need be Said (it’s obvious)

Day 760 Tuesday February 5, 2019

636 Days to the 2020 election and 714 Days to Inauguration Day

In this screed I will reveal how and why the Patriots won the Super Bowl and why Democrats should let Ralph Northam alone, and the latest Trumpian news.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl because “they put more points on the board.” That’s the why. Stunning. I know. But you’ve come to expect such in depth hard hitting analysis. How they did it is even more interesting and it comes down to three things: they don’t make mistakes, they have one play, they wait for the other team to err. Two of the three items are pretty obvious so I won’t expound. The third, the one play, is interesting. It’s the play Tom Brady has used over and over again, and they typically use it on the final drive to win the game. 

Gronk is split left. There’s the little tough wiry guy on the right who is going to run to the center of the field by going out and cutting sharp left. Currently, that guy is Edelman. There are two other receivers: one is to the right and runs to the outside at an angle looking for the ball over his right shoulder, the other blocks in the backfield and then break off to receive the ball is Tom gets in trouble. That’s it. That’s the play. Who gets the ball depends on how the defense is covering the receivers. If they are playing man-to-man then Tom will throw to Gronk because he’s bigger and stronger than most people and has a high probability of getting the ball. Defenses will try to hide the fact they are playing man-to-man for this reason. More than likely they are playing a zone defense and typically that defense is “cover 2.” 

In this defense two men called safeties are far back to prevent a deep ball. One is closer in on the side where more receivers are located at the beginning of the play. This is called the strong side and this player is referred to as the strong safety. The other player is a little farther back and has the responsibility of being the last line of defense and is the defensive signal caller, having to recognize the offensive formation and call adjustments appropriately. If the defense lines up this way, which Tom can recognize due to the safeties being back a bit more and the outside two defenders being split out with the receivers then he knows he’s facing Cover 2. The weakness of this defense is that there is an open area in the middle of the field. This is where the wiry tough little guy comes in. He cuts across the field and Tom passed the ball to him for a gain of six or seven yards before he gets popped hard. This used to be Wes Walker. When Wes was playing that position he told Tom to throw him the ball in practice as hard as he could so he, Wes, would know what to expect in a game. It’s a tough position.

As the play develops, that is after the ball is snapped, Tom has a few split seconds to see who is double covered and who is single covered. He throws to the single covered man or the completely open person, which can happen if someone gets confused on the defensive coverage. Brady also has the ability to accurately pass the ball when he has to into double and triple coverage, but he rarely takes the chance. Most of the time he doesn’t need to do it. On the big pass play to Gronk he recognized Cover 2 and kept the defensive players guessing where he was going to throw the ball by looking to the right side of the field for as long as possible. Only at the split second before releasing did he look to his left and where he knew Gronkowski would be. By then it was too late for other players to get to the tight end in time to help out. Catch, Completion. First Down in the Red Zone. Touchdown to follow.

This is Brady’s bread and butter play. Although he’s been using it ever since he started playing football, teams still can’t stop it. 

Every quarterback seems to have a signature “go-to” play. I watched Matt Ryan live, then of Boston College, beat Clemson with a looping long pass to the left corner of the end zone. A few weeks later he did the same play against Virginia Tech. The next year while playing for the Falcons he did it again. Other quarterbacks depend on running either to the side or straight up the field. Although this may advance the ball it’s easy to get hurt and not a good strategy for a long life expectancy in the game.

Okay, on to the latest. Only one or two legal things and two stupid things concerning our president, but first.

Let’s talk about Ralph! Northam “the embattled governor of Virginia.” Okay. There’s a photo in his med school yearbook and it’s not good. It’s racist and it’s on the same page as he is on. Is it him? Did he know about it? Did he act in a racially insensitive way 33 years ago? The answer is “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” He hasn’t helped his case by seeming to say all three. He’s kind of a milk toast meek guy. Could he have done or not done any of the things alleged? Yup, I think so. Here’s what I don’t understand. Why do Democrats, both black and white, rush to show how offended they are? It can be about race or sexual abuse. Look what happened to Franken, they piled on before he even got a chance to defend himself. And what did Franken do? It seems nothing like what was alleged. Who did the accusing? A woman linked to the dirty trickster Roger Stone. In this case the people bringing up this stuff are linked to Roy Moore and maybe Corey Stuart. 

I mean really? Is all you have to do to get rid of an opponent is to find a photo from thirty years ago? It’s not enough to say you’re sorry, or it’s not you, or you’ve done some insensitive things in the past. And what about the people piling on? I sure hope they haven’t done anything stupid in their lives.

What happened to all the talk about sticking together? Are you going to let a small band of feral right wing haters pick off some of your weak? Give me, and him, a break. 

Hey, I know, let’s dress someone up to look like an MS-13 gang member (tattoos on the face, mean look) and have him photoed near your opponent. 

Ever onward. Trump’s inauguration committee is under investigation. Why would anyone do that? Oh, he got tons of money. Had a smaller crowd and unknown low paid performers so where did the money go, and where did it come from? Some came from Russians wanting a ticket to the ball. Some got paid to Melainia’s personal fashion person to arrange the inauguration, but she didn’t do that, and that money went to pay off someone. Was it the Russian hackers that Cohen went to Europe to pay off?  I forget. So other than money coming in from people who shouldn’t have been giving money and money going out to pay out bribes or for services rendered for illegal activities that undermine the fundamentals of our democracy there really isn’t much to see here. Except, wire fraud, bank fraud, illegal contributions and three of four other charges. Moving along.

The Trump University is still under investigation and they were mentioned recently too. I forget why.

And the Mueller investigation is chugging along. Oh yeah, the stuff the FBI seized from Cohen is the basis for a lot of this and is now being corroborated by the stuff seized from Stone.

Don’t you love Trump and Stone going on about Nazi tactics? I mean Mr. “it’s okay to remove your hand when you shove them in a police car” and Mr.”there’s going to be civil war if Trump is impeached” are saying the FBI over reacted. Really? Wait a second. Florida has a “stand your ground law” right? Roger Stone has been known to advocate violence toward the government and advocated the carrying of a weapon right? So if you were an unpaid FBI agent and you wanted to make sure you would return from a raid of a person who advocated such positions and hung out with others who advocated even more violent positions what would you do?

My only question on Stone is, as one person asked, “will he fold like a cheap lawn chair?”

It remains to be seen.

At least he’s not facing El Chapo. Man. That guy burned one of his adversaries with an iron for three days and tortured him and then threw him gasping for air into an open pit and buried him alive – nice guy. 

Meanwhile, it’s been revealed that not only does Trump show up late to the office, but once he gets there he does nothing. Most of his day is spent in “Executive Time.” Watching TV, calling buddies on an unsecured cell phone, and tweeting. The intelligence community has tried to get him to read their reports by dumbing them down to one or two pages, and including lots of pictures. It’s still too much for the old man to do. And – get this – they were told not to tell Trump things that he has disagreed with publicly, because it will make him angry. Oh no, let’s not tell Donnie de truth, it might make his little bitty head explode. 

OMG! Gag me with a spoon. Where’s the iron? Start digging the pit. I got a inductee.

636 Days to the 2020 election and 714 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Shelby and Stone (not Roger!) and Moon (not Roger!)