Day 845 Wednesday May 1, 2019
May Day! Five days to Cinco de Mayo (no four! Where’s my Cinco shirt? Get out the Margarita glasses. I think I have a cassette of Jimmy wasting away somewhere. {Oh man that’s funny. Is the “somewhere” Margaritaville or where the cassette is hiding? Get it. Oh man, hold me back.] )
551 Days to the 2020 election and 629 Days to Inauguration Day
We’ve got news tidbits and analysis to get to. First the news:
The president has passed the 10,000th lie marker with no end in sight. Remember when a president telling a lie was a big deal? Oh man, the good old days.
There’s been another hate crime shooting, maybe two. The terrorists were white guys. Surprise. Don’t know what the weapon was this time, but the deadliest mass shootings have all used AR15s. Gee, if there was only something we could do. I’m beginning to wonder if we are the stupidest country in the world because everyone else has figured it out.
Meanwhile Venezuela is blowing up. Our administration has put out statements on the situation: one by John Bolton the National Security Advisor and one by Mike Pompeo the Secretary of State. The one by Pompeo is some kind of veiled threat, I think, we think, it’s not clear. Who knows. Hopefully, the guy who it was meant for. One of the two fighting for control of the country. The other statement by John Bolton seems to be a direct message to the people of Venezuela. Weird. I mean, maybe John doesn’t know this, but the people of Venezuela speak a language that is different than ours. It’s called Spanish. So putting out a message in English isn’t going to be understood by many in that country. I know. Weird huh? Oh wait, other than “putting it out there” wherever there is, seems no effort was made to actually get it to Venezuela. That’s our National Security chief, on de ball.
Moving on, seems the administration has decided not to abide by the law. Hum. The Treasury Secretary has decided to insert himself in the middle of a matter he has no business being involved in, but there he is. He is an arrogant twit. I don’t know if you saw his exchange with Maxine Waters where he told her to bang her gavel and that he might not show up, etc.
I had a dream. Yes, I did. I dreamt that some of the police officers that took our president’s words to heart (the words about not using your hand to make sure someone you were throwing in the police car didn’t hit there head). Yeah, I dreamed that those so-what-if-they-got-roughed-up-a-bit-they-deserved-it fellows (and gals) were the ones to grab Steve Mnuchin, cuff him, and throw him halfway up onto the table for resisting arrest, then taz and drag him out of the congressional hearing and throw him in the House jail cell. Then I dreamt Maxine turned to the IRS Commissioner and asked him to produce Trump’s tax returns. It’s just a dream. Okay, okay, I did wonder what would happen if we had that guy on the team who got confused between his gun and his taser and shot that guy in the back of the head, but that wasn’t part of the dream. Or was it?
Meanwhile, in part two of the administration disobeying the law, it seems the top law enforcement official may also need to be tazzed and incarcerated. I only suggest this as a way to help straighten the confusion he seems to be having in his head. Maybe a few zaps will clear out the cobwebs and rewire the circuitry. Apparently, the Attorney General made comments and summary statements (they’re not summary statements!) about the Mueller report while trying to “land the plane” as he put it, that weren’t quite true. Not quite true? How about outright friggin’ lie? Under oath. Hum, isn’t lying under oath a crime? Why yes, I believe it is. Shouldn’t such people be arrested? Yes, I believe they should.
Okay. Barr told Congress that he did not know what Mueller’s opinion was of his, Barr’s, comments about the Special Counsel’s report. He must have forgotten about the memo he received a few days after he got the report. You know the memo from Bobby Three Stick saying, “Yo, you lying bucket of scum.” That memo. the one that was followed up with a phone call.
In that memo Mueller sent to Barr, not only did Mueller say Barr had misrepresented the findings of the report but he, Mueller, gave Barr a redacted version of the introductions and executive summaries that he and his team had written so that they could be immediately released to the public so as to clear up the fog of BS the AG had laid on the ground. Naturally, Barr did no such thing. (I mean. “Tell the truth?” Are you kidding? Come on. This is Team Trump. They never tell the truth. Scout’s Honor.)
But Willie B is in second place for the lying sack of shit award. That has to go to Chris Christie and his pals. Why? Well, this is the story that just won’t go away, and gets stinkier with time. Yeah, I’m talkin’ Bridgegate. Okay so to remind you all of the situation. The George Washington Bridge had it’s traffic lanes rerouted that caused the Town closest to the bridge on the New Jersey side, Fort Lee, to have terrible traffic problems, So bad that one person died because the EMTs couldn’t get to her due to the traffic.
Apparently, the traffic lanes were redone to purposely screw up the traffic in Fort Lee to punish the Democratic mayor of that city for not endorsing Christie for Governor. When this came out, Christie being the sad bully that he is, blamed others, denied knowing anything about it, and had an expensive inquiry done that totally exonerated him. The most damning thing in the investigation was an email from Christie’s Chief of Staff, Bridgett Kelly, that said, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
For that she is going to jail. Christie has said he knew nothing about the lane closures and that he didn’t talk to Kelley about it, and he doesn’t care to hear her side of the story, and he fired her. End of story.
Oh wait. There’s more?
Hum, well, see Kelly has a slightly different recounting of what happened. During the investigations and trials it came out that the cover story was going to be “a traffic study.” Oddly, no one that would typically be told about such a traffic study was forewarned. In fact, Kelly was specifically told not to tell those people and when they called to ask what was going on she and others were told to stonewall.
And despite Christie saying he never knew about the lane closures he was specifically told on two occasions by Kelly. She also was concerned because she could tell immediately that this would be terrible for Fort Lee, and when she was told by the governor to go ahead with the traffic study she wrote an email specifically saying that there would be traffic problems for that town. In fact, that’s the very email that got her in trouble.
Oh wait, you say. How do we know if that’s true, if that was her meaning and intent? Good question.
Well, it seems all the other players in this little game of move the traffic cones were good long time buds of the Governor and they were all in on the scam, except Bridget. She wasn’t one of the guys. Not one of the long time pals. Too bad.
So right after this whole thing blew up (the story, not the bridge) Ms Kelly got a phone call from a lawyer who offered to help her, to represent her. She knew the guy and was grateful for the offer. She had one concern. He was on a board in the State government and she thought it would be a conflict of interest for him to represent her. He assured her it was no problem. She told him just about everything she knew and had for her defense. Then days later he said he was out. He couldn’t represent her. He told the papers it was because of a conflict of interest that he had because he was sitting on a board. The very board Kelly had mentioned on their very first call. Hum, a lawyer didn’t know that to begin with and then did? Nothing to see here, right?
Oh, and there’s this teeny tiny fact. Turns out this guy and the Gov go way back. They’re good buds. So good that Christie appointed him to be a judge. So a guy who offered to be a lawyer for Ms Kelly, whom she was worried about a conflict of interest, turns out to be the Governor’s good friend and after hearing everything she had in her defense then says he can’t represent her. Oh and there’s more. the fellow who cooked up this while bridge screw up plan is also a good bud of the Governor and goes way back with him, and that’s the person to whom Kelly sent the infamous email.
So you are left with this decision. Did a woman who was on the staff of the governor cook up this whole plot or was she merely conveying a message from the governor to his long time buddy to go ahead with the plan? The “traffic study”?
The gall with which Christie tells such flagrant lies is an affront to me. This, like Trump, is gaslighting of the most flagrant bullying kind. (“No no, I didn’t cause the traffic problems on the GW Bridge, you did!”) Kelly had no motive to do it. She was carrying out what she was told to do. In this case convey a message.
Moving on, Samantha Bee had her “Not the White House Correspondence Dinner” show, roast, and banquet. Held at Constitution Hall she was terrific. My only complaint was – it was too short. One piece they had pre-recorded showed the use of a technology that allows you to paste a different face on someone else. Kind of the old lips poking through a hole of a picture of someone else to make it seem like the person pictured was talking. Except this is much better technology. Kind of creepy. Watch out, a lot of people will get fooled.
Now to the presidential candidates:
There were some biographic pieces on Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren that I saw. Both pieces reminded me what there was to like about both. Joe is a heart felt guy. Warren holds the banks and financial folks accountable.
Then there was stuff about Buttigieg and Beto. Buttigieg has surged to third place in the polls. Mainly, it is felt because he has gone on a lot of TV shows. Beto has been out campaigning and doing a lot of local stuff. He’s kind of disappeared. He’s changing his strategy, but does he have what it takes. He sounds good, but vague. Mayor Pete on the other hand seems to have thought about whatever question that has been thrown at him. He comes across as thoughtful and genuine.
I like a lot of the Democratic candidates, but Buttigieg is the only one that really makes sense to me. I’m afraid Biden has a lot of name recognition, but will fade. He’s older than most of the field and I think it’s time for a new generation to take over. Sorry Joe.
Oh boy, Bill Barr is going to testify soon. To which I say – so what?
I mean what’s he going to do? He’ll prevaricate. He’ll dodge and weave or just flat out lie.
Apparently, Mueller was really pissed at him.
I think Barr should take flying lessons. Specifically, plane landing lessons.
Do you remember the Gahan Wilson cartoon where you are looking into the cockpit of a plunging large jet. There’s a French poodle in a commanding posture and the line below the cartoon panel says, “Suddenly Fi-Fi seized the controls.” Frankly, I think we have a better shot of landing the plane with Fi-Fi at the helm.
551 Days to the 2020 election and 629 Days to Inauguration Day
PS Tacos!
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