Archives for October 2019

Day 1113  A few minor points 

Tuesday October 15, 2019

386 Days until the 2020 election and 468 days until the Inauguration

There has been a talking point by Republicans that the impeachment inquiry is sour grapes for the Dems loosing the 2016 Presidential election. To which I say, BULL.

Let me say this and then let me present the evidence: the current president is a money launderer for the Russian mob. He acts in Russia’s best interest, and his own, NOT the United States of America’s. He has carried out crimes and has been unfaithful to the Constitution and his office.

Among his crimes and misdeeds are: Obstruction of Justice (10 counts), Criminal Conspiracy, RICO, violation of Campaign Finance, Coverup of Campaign Finance, Paying off people for their silence, accepting money from foreign governments (emoluments), accepting money from national interests (emoluments), nepotism, money laundering, failure to pay taxes, bribery, extortion… 

Most of these things he has done in plain sight. Many he admits to doing.

One can also argue that his policies have hurt this country. None is more striking than his turning his back on the Kurds. To keep the peace in that area cost us little, one thousand troops, sixty on the front line. He pulled them back. Who does this benefit? Russia, Assad in Syria, Turkey, Iran and ISIS. 

Turkey has sent in Arab militias that are raping and killing women. Raping and Killing. That is what president Trump has unleashed on the most dependable ally we had in the region.

Moving on – sort of. The Republicans have trotted out Ken Starr, who says he’s seen nothing impeachable. Oh boy. This is a guy who wandered around in the Clinton administration for two and a half years, demanding all sorts of documents and wasting time and money when the evidence was clear from the start. The evidence being that the Clintons were involved in a land deal, which went bust. Years later their partner in said land deal committed financial crimes which had nothing to do with the Clintons. This wasn’t good enough for the Republicans and they kept the thing alive until Bill had an sexual relation with a 21 year old intern, which only came about because the Republicans caused a government shutdown and only the interns were working in the White House. When Starr’s report came out he barely mentioned the land deal.

Now the Republicans are attacking the process. The evidence is clear. It comes directly from the White House. None of them are disputing that.

Now we get to Rudy Giuliani and his “clients.” Let’s just look at the facts:

– the two clients are Russian born,

– have no discernible jobs

 – yet somehow they were able to make donations of $325,000 to the Trump campaign (illegally)

– and get their picture taken multiple times with Trump. Also with Don Jr. and with Rudy (plus video)

– they were trying to leave the country to go to Vienna Austria.

– Rudy was also going to go to Vienna.

– Vienna is where Dmitri Firtash lives. He’s the guy that is mobbed up with the king of the Russian mobsters and has been getting millions, no billions, of dollars, from the Russian gas going through the Ukraine. What does he do with all this money? He keeps officials in the Ukraine, and politicians wherever he can, corrupt. How does he do that? He siphons lots of cash their way.

So let me conclude this little piece by speculating that Rudy’s two “clients” are really in the business of laundering money for Russians and corrupting politicians and bureaucrats.

Please, if any of those of you who have said this impeachment inquiry is about sour grapes on the 2016 election have any evidence, share. 

(Articles and evidence from The Blaze, Prager University, Brietbart, AmericanThinker, NRA, among others are not considered by this author to be evidence but rather disinformation.)

Meanwhile a shoutout to Maria Yovanovich, the over 30 year foreign service officer who took an oath to the Constitution and, unlike Rudy or Donald, took that oath seriously and appeared before Congress and told the truth. Not only that but she walked in the front door, and released her opening statement to the press. Rudy’s henchmen, I mean clients, wanted her gone because she was actually opposed to corruption in Ukraine. How can you siphon money off if people like that are standing in the way? What to do? Why make a big donation to a U.S. Republican Congressman and ask for him to write a letter badmouthing Yovanovich, which he did. Trump on his infamous phone call to the Ukrainian president said she was a “bad woman.” Now Trump says he doesn’t really know her. Yet, he sent a message to her through Pompeo’s second in command that she should come home from Ukraine “on the next plane.” Hum, and shortly thereafter Rudy is on a plane to Ukraine to met with crooked prosecutors and his shifty clients to try and cook up something on Biden, a man who also stood by Ukrainians wanting to root out corruption in their country.

Why, I’d have to conclude that at a minimum Rudy at Trump’s direction was carrying out illegal activities. Not only was he trying to get a foreign power to interfere in our election but he was trying to clear the decks of honorable people so the gravy train could keep flowing.

Anyone want to step up and defend Rudy? To deny what I have written?

386 Days until the 2020 election and 468 days until the Inauguration

PS Come on. I dare you.

Day 1112    What Did You Expect?

Monday October 14, 2019

387 Days until the 2020 election and 469 days until the Inauguration

All the adjectives to describe Donald Trump that I have heard by those outside his circle of sycophants are what we are seeing on display day after day, but they are being generous and kind in their descriptions. I am not. He is stupid and mean. He is naive and gullible. He is narcissistic and a socio or psychopath – take your pick.

What has he accomplished as president? Has he made us safer? Has he made us stronger? Has he helped spread our values around the world? Has he made this* a better place? 

* “this” being the nation or the world.

What are the effects of what he has done? 

Are the institutions that make our democracy work better off because of him?

It was scary at first. He’s easy to imitate in voice and many have done that. 

Many wondered what would happen when he took office.

Wonder no more.

The only thing that seems to continually surprise any of us, is just how bad he can be.

The Kurds are the icing on the cake. This is the second timt they have been royally screwed over by a Republican president. Remember George H. W. Bush and the gassing of the Kurds that he let happen? Yeah. Tough talk, no action.

Reminds me of the Republican debates where Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee and the rest of those yahoos made those chest beating pronouncements how they wouldn’t have made the deal that Barrack and Hillary made with Iran. That they would have been tougher. So we got Mr. Art-of-the-Deal himself as president and what did he do? He pulled out of the deal. What do we have instead? Nothing. Why haven’t any of those chest beating Republicans stepped up to help Donald cut a new deal? 

Then there’s the climate change stuff. He pulled out of that. What do we have? A warming planet and no plan.

There’s the stuff about Hillary’s private email server. After how many investigations they found like what? Nothing much. Meanwhile the very Republicans that bitched about the private email server are using their own and sweet titted Ivanka has been using one for White House business and said she didn’t know you shouldn’t. Not that she stopped mind you.

Okay so what’s the effect of the president’s actions in regards to the Kurds? Hum. Where to begin? Let’s see. Lemme look into my cracked crystal ball. (It lights up. You can put your hands on it and watch shadows on the walls. Bought it from a Saudi guy. Cheap. Good deal.)

– The only real folks in the middle east who would fight for us our getting slaughtered.

– The prisoners they hold, ISIS fighters, will probably get free. Thus allowing the reconstitution of ISIS in the Middle East.

– This will only help Russia and Turkey. Turkey is a NATO ally, but not the most trusted one.

– The Kurds, what is left of them, will have to turn somewhere for help and that will be to Assad and his regime thus strengthening Russia’s position in the Middle East.

– The U.S. position in the Middle East has been permanently damaged. Well, not permanently, only for my lifetime and those of the next several generations.

But let us step back and look at the bigger picture. What has Trump done to our government?

– Most of the key administrators are “acting” not really confirmed.

– He has hollowed out The Department of State. Attacked the FBI, the CIA,  and the rest of the intelligence community. He has destroyed farms and farmers with his trade policy, if you can even call it a policy. He has hurt our manufacturing, and plunged our country into hugely needless debt.

– His immigration policies are cruel.

– His Justice Department is making a mockery of Justice.

– HHS? Oh that’s Mike Pence’s baby. Pence and his “Indiana mafia” have hollowed out that department, spreading his nutty religious beliefs deep into that organization. Any organization around the world that helps women and their reproductive rights is a target. If your organization helps women with abortion consoling you are denied money. So what if you are fighting AIDS or malaria or ebola? The effects on poor women in this country and around the world have been devastating. Take Texas for example, they now have one of the highest rates of STDs. They also have more poor women having babies that don’t want them. Let’s wait 18 or so years and see how that plays out in crime statistics. 

Trump’s border wall? The little bit that was built as a test case has become a tourist attraction for climbers. The wall that can’t be climbed? Last I heard the record was 12.87 seconds. 

In an interesting factoid, in the last month Trump has made over 800 tweets versus Chrissy Teigen who made 263. Hum. Let’s think about how long it takes to make 800 tweets. At a minute a tweet that would be 13.3 hours. If it takes five minutes a tweet that 66.7 hours. So, to physically put your thumbs on the keyboard to type 800 tweets will take, I’m guessing, between 13.3 and 66.7 hours – just to physically pump them out. What about time to think about them? Is that twice or three times as long? That would be 26.6 to 133.4 hours at the low end and 39.9 to 200.1 hours at the high end.

Then there are all the court cases against Trump. Last week he lost in court five time in one day. That’s a record. One was on revealing his taxes. One was on the wall. Three were on immigration. This does not count his letter to the House Intelligence Committee saying they weren’t going to comply with the requests or subpoenas. The weirdest, saddest, most pathetic(?) (it’s hard to know what adjectives to use) was (were) the arguments the lawyers put up as their reasons. 

Then there’s this wacky stuff in Ukraine and trying to get something on Joe Biden. I mean when you got your siblings and their spouses running around the world snatching as much money as they can from whomever they can and you want to go after the former Vice-President’s son for sitting on a board of a gas company? 

Then there’s his time at his resorts playing golf. I read somewhere that the U.S. government has spent the equivalent of 568 years of his salary protecting him on the golf course.

Okay so let’s make a monthly time budget for the prez. The average month is 30.42 days long (365/12).

That’s 729.999 hours (30.42 x 24) Oh what the heck, let’s call it 730 hours. 

How many hours do you spend sleeping, eating, bathing, getting dressed. Sleeping (7), eating (67 minutes), showering (9 minutes), dressing (There have been four Supreme Court cases on this, but my googling found no figure I could use. Let’s go with 20 minutes a day). The total time is 7+67+9+20 = 103 minutes a day or 52.22 hours washing, eating, dressing, (103×30.42/60), and 273.78 hours sleeping (9×30.42) for a total of 326 hours.

So we’ve got 730 hours in a month less 326 hours you have 404 hours left after sleeping and dressing, eating, and washing.

Let’s take out the tweeting. Physically tweeting takes between 13.3 and 66.7 hours. Thinking about it takes between 26.6 to 133.4 hours at the low end and 39.9 to 200.1. Best case (ie least amount of time is 39.9 hours; worst case is 267.8 hours. (Let’s call it 40 hours and 268 hours respectively.)

So from the 404 less 40 or 268; you have 364 or 136 hours left in the month to do the people’s business. But wait! Ya gotta play golf right? And there’s Fox and Friends! And Hannity.

Let’s do the golf first. Eighteen holes of golf takes between 3 to 4 1/2 hours to play (at 10 minutes a hole for pros and 15 for amateurs)  Trump is reportedly going to play 80 rounds of golf this year or 6.6 rounds a month (It is reported he plays every five days versus Obama who played every 12 to 13 days.) Let’s say it take him four hours to play. That’s 26.6 hours (4×6.6).

After the tweeting we have somewhere between 364 and 136 hours left in the month to do something. Less 26.6 you have 337.4 to 109.4 hours left.

Wait! There’s Fox and Friends and Hannity! 

OMG. If I take the high end of tweeting time leaving Donald 109.4 hours in the month to do something, that would mean he’s running the country on a daily basis of 3.6 hours a day, and some of that is while watching TV.

Wait, this ain’t working (that should be in a song!)

According to published reports Trump spends nine hours a day in “Executive Time.” That means he has nothing planned and screws around waiting to see what will come up. He’s making phone calls, watching TV, and tweeting during that time.

So let’s look at it from the nine hours a day in Executive time standpoint.

That’s 273.78 hours a month  (9×30.42)

Take that away from the 404 and you have left 130.22 hours left to do something planned. Oh wait, there’s the golf! (-26.6) 103.62 hours left!

Oh wait, there’s the rallies! Ten in 2017 and 40 in 2018 or one every other week. How long does it take to get to a rally, do it, and return? Ten hours? Maybe six at a minimum, twice a month. Let’s knock off another 12 hours. so were down to 90 hours in a month he could actually do something for the American people. Or about three hours a day.

At best he could send three hours a day on average doing something for the people, but he’s got ceremonies to do. Like giving medals to former crooked Attorney Generals. There are the ceremonies with heads of state, like Finland.

I frankly don’t see that he has time to do his job, and the little time he does spend on it he seems to screw up.

387 Days until the 2020 election and 469 days until the Inauguration

PS Yes, I do. (Fart in Yoga Class.)

Day 1009 What’s Up with Rudy and Ukraine?

Friday October 11, 2019

390 Days until the 2020 election and 472 days until the Inauguration

Okay let’s review.In 1994 Ukraine elected Leonid Kuchma. He’s the old guard Communist and Soviet choice.

In 2004 his term ended and Viktor Yanokowych was elected. Also, an old Soviet hand. He was corrupt, skimming off from everywhere. He was into illegal chicken smuggling and mixing bad meat with good, very gross, like him. Putin sent lots of money to Yanokowych’s party. In the next election the Russian friendly precincts turned out for Yanokowych, like 127% turnout!

A western friendly guy named Viktor Yushchenko ran against Yanokowych and he lost by a slim margin, but when you got 127% turnout against you I guess it’s to be expected. There was a rerun and Yushchenko won biggly. Putin was pissed off.

The Kremlin hooked up with some industry and crime bosses in the Ukraine who would do Putin’s bidding. Their point man was Dimitry Firtash, a multi-bilionaire with no qualms.

After a few small business deals he got into the brokering natural gas biz. He had an aptitude for dealing with all the right kinds of people, including organized crime bosses. This included Semion Mogilevich the boss of bosses of the Russian mob, who had stuff going on around the world and was on the FBI;s Most Wanted List. There was little Mogilevich wasn’t involved in: prostitution, gun smuggling, extortion, drugs, murder … the usual. With Mogilevich’s help Firtash built a $5 billion dollar buisness. 

Ukraine was buying a ton of natural gas from Russia through Gasprom, the Russian government controlled gas company. To keep Western democracy at bay, especially near the Russian border, Putin’s strategy was simple. Corrupt the local neighboring countries gas and oil folk so they were dependent on Russia. Putin allowed Firtash to skim huge amounts of money off the transfer of the gas. This had the benefit to Russia of having a corrupt guy in their corner in Ukraine and allowed organized crime to run rampant.

Firtash made $800 million in 2007. For what? He did nothing. Firtash and a few others had plenty of money to spend to keep the place corrupt, and that was the point. This included money to Yanukovych’s party.

But they needed outside help for the international outrage and condemnation – enter Paul Manafort, which cost them like $75 million for a decade. Manafort was busy setting up off shore businesses to launder money into the west via real estate deals. One of his off shore businesses was managed by an ex-con named Brad Zackson, who learned the trade at the knee of one Fred Trump.

Manafort never closed any deals, but he did help Viktor Yushchenko win a plurality in 2006. However, the prime minister at the time was a woman named Yulia Tymoshenko who won on an anti-corruption campaign. She made it her political running point in the 2010 campaign that she would end the sweatheart deal with Gasprom and RosUkrEnergo that had siphoned off $800 million in a single year.

Mannafort drove her approval ratings down to 20%. In 2010 Yanukovcych won a narrow victory. The first thing Yanukovcych did was to get a prosecutor to lock up Tuymoshenko. She had a lot of sympathy in the U.S. so Manafort cooked up a PR scheme to discredit her in the our country. He employed a fancy law firm and got a social media smear campaign going. They even managed to smear the Clintons in this!

The law firm Manafort used, known as Skadden, looked like it had done the work almost pro-bono, only $12,000 and their report was supposed to be impartail. Greg Craig worked there. He refused to say how much they were paid. Federal prosecutors said it was a bit more, $4,657,568.91 by their count. The firm also provided training to the folks going after Tuymoshenko. (Who was convicted on BS charges and was spending 7 years in jail and fined $194 million.) Somehow if you ar paid close to $5M it’s hard to say you were impartial.

Firtash was now able to continue his gas deal. In the years 2012 and 2013 he made $4B. Nice work for doing nothing.

The new prime minister and Putin’s boy, Yanukovych did what any good lackey would do, he reneged on things Putin didn’t like. You know, like that silly closer ties to the West stuff. The people revolted. Putin offered lots of money. F*ck you. Yanukovych threatened the crowds of protestors, F*ck You, the crowds grew. He threatened to shoot. They wore armor of pots and pans and the crowds grew. It got cold and the crowds grew. “Freedom is for us. We are not afraid to die.”

Oh Sh*t!

To make it even worse Ukraine was increasing it’s production of oil and gas, and looking at fracking. Soon they would not need Russian gas, and there was talk about them becoming an exporter of gas. This was a real kick to the stomach of Putin. Late in February 2014 the former chicken smuggler and current prime minister turned tail and ran back to Russia.

Joe Biden had been to the Ukarian many times giving them support from the Obama administration. Putin took Crimea, then eastern Ukraine. Obama froze the assets of a lot of the Ukrainian oligarchs. The oligarchs were people who when Ukraine got free of the Soviets, seized the country’s assets for themselves, not for the people. 

Now Rex Tillerson got involved. Remember, he was president of Exxon/Mobil and had concluded a huge deal with Russia at the tune of $500B. He and his company routinely ignored the United States government requests. He and the rest of big oil were famous for going into a country, cutting a deal and giving a ton of money to the leaders of that country. That money never found its way to the people. The result being that when a country has its gas and oil extracted they, the people, get poorer, while their leaders become obscenely wealthy. Exxon/Mobil would call upon the U.S. government to help them if they couldn’t persuade a country or group to go along with whatever deal they were trying to finalize, but if the U.S. government asked them not to do something they ignored it. 

So now we get to Hunter Biden. He was hired by a gas company, named Burisma, with questionable business dealings, which included money laundering. They were trying to clean up their image and hiring the son of a well known politician was part of that attempt. They also hired a former president of Poland and Cofer Black. Cofer was in the Clinton administration and had a group tasked with going after terrorists in Afghanistan and that area of the world. He kept getting bigger and bigger budgets, but that money seemed to go into layers of management and not finding terrorists. Later he went to work fo Blackwater founded by Erik Prince, Betsy De Vos’ brother. Then we was part of W’s administration and famously warned them about bin Laden. He said he bring ‘em home in body bags and there would be “flies on their eyeballs.” He was nicknamed “Mr. Flies on Their Eyeballs” by W. Recently, he was on Mitt Romney’s presidential team. 

Burisma in trying to clean up their image was casting a wide net to do so: Republican, Democratic, and international figures were pulled in. All the reporting and evidence on Hunter says that he did nothing wrong. It might have been a bit questionable to take the money, but a lot of folks close to well connected people get such gigs. You know like Jared, Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr.

Is there or was there corruption in Ukraine? You bet. In fact, there are two types of prosecutors in the Ukraine. One type, drums up phony charges on someone and offers to forget about them for a fee, and the others are real prosecutors that are trying to catch bad guys, root out corruption and do their jobs – legitimately. Of the first group of prosecutors, they also have another side, they just don’t do anything about the corruption. 

Joe Biden was Obama’s point man on the Ukraine. He made numerous trips to help the legitimate folks trying to make their democracy work. One prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, wasn’t prosecuting anyone for corruption. Joe Biden added his name to the international group of people calling for Shokin’s ouster. The person who followed, Yuriy Lutsenko was no better.

All this was before Hunter Biden was hired. Rudy Giuliani is jumping up and down saying that the Bidens are corrupt and that Joe got rid of the prosecutor who was investigating the gas company that  Hunter was working for. Well, yeah, prosecutors have investigated Burisma, but for things before Hunter was on board. The prosecutors did nothing with the investigation and brought no convictions, not for Burisma or anyone else. Because of that Joe Biden along with many others called for their replacement.

If you are a reporter and you land in the Ukraine and try to run down Rudy’s claims; it takes less than 30 minutes to discover that Rudy’s claims are crap and that Rudy is dealing with the folks that are the ones that  drum up fake charges on people. So yes, there is still corruption and Rudy is working with those that are fostering it.

Rudy got leads to three of these crooked prosecutors from two other individuals with shady and criminal pasts. Whether they are the same two who got arrested at Dulles airport I’m not sure, but they are of that type of character.

I have to wonder how two thugs like that managed to get involved with Rudy and the Trump folks. They have no visible means of support, ie they have no jobs. Yet, they were able to funnel at least $325,000 to the Trump Campaign – illegally. They also got multiple pictures taken with Trump, Rudy, and Don Jr. yet, Trump says he doesn’t know them.

When they were caught at Dulles they had one-way tickets to Vienna. Why Vienna? Well, that’s where Dimitry Firtash lives. Rudy was going to go to Vienna too. So is it possible that Rudy and these two were going to meet with Putin’s bag man from Ukraine? Turning over the Magic 8 Ball it says, “Signs Point to Yes.”

390 Days until the 2020 election and 472 days until the Inauguration

 

PS Horny Goat Weed now available at your local supermarket. Buy One Get One Free!

Day 1007 Shame and Dishonor. What did you expect?

Wednesday October 9, 2019

392 Days until the 2020 election and 474 days until the Inauguration

Question: When did Trump ever do anything not in his self interest?

Fact: Trump has a huge twin tower in Istanbul. (That’s in Turkey. FYI.)

Fact: He has admitted when it comes to Turkey he has a conflict of interest. (His twin tower.)

Fact: Trump had a phone call with Erogan of Turkey.

Fact: Hours after that phone call Trump tweets withdrawal of U.S. forces from border with Turkey.

Fact: The Turks have bought huge amounts of Trump properties and the Trump Tower Istanbul is one of Trump’s biggest money makers. That’s according to Trump so it’s probably a lie.

Conclusion: Trump, who knows nothing about history and cares little to learn, sold out our allies for his personal profit.

What the Kurds should have done was cut a deal for a Trump Tower Northern Syria if they wanted real protection.

I have not felt this physically ill since Trump won the presidency by cheating. What will the cost of this latest action by Trump be?

We are already seeing it. The Kurds will be slaughtered. The ISIS fighters they had imprisoned will be freed. The Kurds, those who are left, will side with Assad and the Russians and Iran. The Middle East will be in even more chaos and everything we have been fighting for and struggling to achieve will pretty much be lost. 

Good job mr. president.

Who knew we could sell out our allies so cheaply? 

It’s amazing that he finds a way to go lower, but here we are. 

We have watched as he committed crimes in plain sight.

We have watched as he lied.

We have watched now, in real time, as he let’s our position in the Middle East, and invariably in the world be lessened and the influence of those who want to do us harm strengthen. The hell that this latest tweet will unleash will consume his presidency and we will not see the end of it in my lifetime.

Please impeach him, remove him from office, and put him in jail for the rest of his life. He is a traitor to the war on terror.

392 Days until the 2020 election and 474 days until the Inauguration

PS Trump Tower Istanbool (as he likes to say.) Oh sorry, Towers. I stand corrected.