Archives for October 2019

Day 1003 The Danger of Alternate Facts

Saturday October 5, 2019

396 Days until the 2020 election and 478 days until the Inauguration

We now have an administration that is sending out envoys to talk to our allies about nonsense. The things that Trump and that crew believe are easily found to be false. However, what do you do if you are a foreign official and a high level person, or person you believe to be high level, comes to you and spouts some nonsense and wants your help in the nonsense?

We have now seen the president ask for China’s help to investigate the Biden’s and now he has tweeted that we are pulling out of Syria.

What’s been the reaction? Well, the people in reality are saying that the China thing is like the time he asked Russia to help, which they did. The defense? Best summed up by Jim Jordan, “You don’t honestly think he meant it do you?” Which is to say, “Ha, ha, big joke, you got played. Ha ha.” To which I say, “Bull Shit.” He meant it.

As to pulling out of Syria? Well, now that every one of his defenders is screaming he says, “Oh I didn’t mean it. I meant we were going to move 50 of our troops.”  To which I say, “Bull Shit.” He meant it, but because he got such blowback he ducked and ran.

But that’s not what I want to dwell on. Let’s talk about Rudy. I thought it was treasonous to conduct foreign policy if you were a private citizen, or at least unlawful? Rudy has been going to various countries, meeting with high level people and saying stupid stuff. Apparently, he dumped a bunch of files packed with conspiracy theories onto a desk at the State Department, which ignored them until the Ukrainian phone call. Then they realized how bat shit crazy Rudy was and turned the files over to Congress. 

Here’s the essence of what Rudy has been doing. A right wing talking point has been that the Russian did not interfere in the 2016 election, it was the Ukrainians. Where this all started I’m not sure. Russia? Trump? Glen Beck or Fox News? The most likely candidate is Trump and the Russians. Why? Trump wants the Russians off the hook for meddling in the 2016 election. This will vindicate suggestions that he didn’t really win, and more importantly it can lead to him getting sanctions lifted on Russia.

So now the idea is to cook up something in the Ukraine. The company the Dems hired to figure out who hacked them, named Crowd Strike, is now designated to have a “secret server” in Ukraine… If they can only get to that server, then all the malfeasance will be discovered. Only problem is there is no server in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians have no idea what Giuliani is talking about. But Rudy goes and tries to get this puppy up and running. Who would you go see to do this?

In the Ukraine there are two types of prosecutors: those that actually do the job, and those that cook up charges on someone, throw them in jail and tell the poor sap that they can make it all go away for a fee.

If you are a journalist in the Ukraine it takes, literally, thirty minutes to learn this little tidbit.

Guess which side of the prosecutorial ledger Rudy went to for help with this Biden scheme? Ding Ding Ding! You are so right! The slime-ball side. Who else did he contact? two characters with a history of minor convictions. One owns a nightclub in Odessa. It has the word Mafia in the name of the club. What else do you need to know?

In order to shift all this onto Ukraine from Russia with a side benefit of freeing up Paul Manafort potentially, you need to discredit “the black book(s).”

You remember the black books? They were the ones found in the estate of the Prime Minister of Ukraine who was a Putin surrogate. They were found in a safe, near the gold plated toilet and close to the pirate ship restaurant. In it were entries showing Paul Manafort got $12.7 Million in secret payments. Rudy’s answer? The books are fake. Any evidence? No, not to them being fake. To them being genuine? There’s plenty. You know like signatures of people that can be verified. But if Rudy can sell the black books are fake then he can get Paulie off the hook on that part of his prison sentence. And he’s closer to getting Russia forgiven and back in the G7.

There’s more. So much more. But enough for now.

The most heart breaking thing I’ve seen recently was former ambassador James Melville, visibly physically upset at how the institution he served for decades and finally left, The State Department and its people, being so abused.

He mentioned how he had seen in other countries the people being inundated with lies. Lies that emanated from the top. He had never thought he’d see that in this country, but here we are.

396 Days until the 2020 election and 478 days until the Inauguration

PS A bumper sticker cry – Vote Any Functioning Adult!

Day 1002 And the Flops Just Keep Coming

397 Days until the 2020 election and 479 days until the Inauguration

A quick scan of the headlines was typical. In entertainment, people I don’t know are saying dumb things about other people I don’t know.

Trump is doing more stuff to show why he should be impeached. This time asking China to interfere.

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican who was going to be speaker until he made up a name of a country that didn’t exist and tried to pass it off as the real thing (like someone wasn’t going to check?) has called on the real Speaker to suspend the impeachment inquiry because “it lacks transparency.” When old Kevin made up the name of a country I decided right then and there that he was dumb. Not dumb like Rick Perry, who tried to polish his image by wearing smart glasses, but a different kind of dumb. This was a “I’m stupid and I don’t care” kind of dumb. Or a “I’m gonna try to appear to be smart” kind of dumb. But it’s dumb. He’s newel post kind of dumb: hard and upright, clueless and uncaring.

There’s a saying that you can’t fix stupid. The same applies to dumb, but there’s a difference. With stupid there is some cognition that what you are saying or doing isn’t quite right; with dumb any awareness is gone.

Let’s take Kevin’s request to suspend the impeachment inquiry because it lacks transparency. I get the idea of accusing your accusers of the exact thing you are doing, but here one would have to ask WTF is he talking about? Maybe, he could elaborate? 

The problem with McCarthy’s stance is that there’s nothing to be transparent about. The president did a criminal thing. He admitted it and the White House backed it up with a transcript. What would Mr. McCarthy like as being more transparent? 

The difference between dumb and stupid is knowing. Rick Perry knows he’s stupid. He gives you a little “ah shucks” wry grin when he’s caught trying to think. Kevin McCarthy has none of that self awareness. He tries to appear being smart by doubling down and that’s when he gets himself in real trouble. 

In other news, there’s a second whistle blower. This one is dealing with Trump’s taxes. Shockingly, the IRS was not completely on the up and up with Trump’s taxes. Don’t know what that all means – yet.

The questions on why the ambassador to Ukraine was suddenly let go and what the special envoy to Ukraine was doing are now starting to emerge from the swamp dreck. Rudy was going over to the Ukraine. Rudy put all kinds of conspiracy theories in Trump’s head. Not that it was all that hard. If you want to know what they were I think you can go to any of the right wing web sites to find them. Apparently, the “urgent” request that Congress got from an IG was a bunch of folders marked Trump Hotel that Rudy had assembled and stuffed with conspiracy theories. It is this stuff that Barr and Pompeo have been going abound the world asking friends and foes for help in supporting this stuff. 

Imagine you are a foreign leader and one of these three come to you asking for help with something you can look up in thirty seconds on Google and find out is nonsense, what do you do? Well, first off you try not to laugh. Then you probably try to see if they are serious, if they believe, or are they just saying something that they have to say. In the case of Rudy, I think he really believes. Pompeo? I don’t know. I get the sense that he thinks some of it is real and some is BS. In the case of Barr, he doesn’t care he’ll say whatever.

Imagine, just imagine you are a leader of another nation, or a high ranking minister and one of these clowns shows up?

There was another headline that grabbed my attention. There’s a study reported in Forbes where the city of Stockton gave poor folks $500 a month to see what they would do with it. I remember when this first started. The mayor of Stockton saw a lot of poverty and said the solution to poverty was to give people money. He decided to do a test case to see what happened. The article I read was in Forbes, which has a conservative capitalist viewpoint. The idea of giving people money would be an anathema to them. How did they report it? 

Let’s start with the headline: “A California City Tested Universal Basic Income. Here’s How Recipients Spent the $500 in Free Money.”

Okay. Not positive, not really negative, but not really revealing what was the outcome. First off there’s video box with the headline saying that this kind of program would cost $3.8 trillion a year if adopted nationwide. Then there’s the leading paragraphs. The first three describe the program: privately funded, 18 months long, 125 families, $500 a month. The mayor said he wanted to see where these folks spent that money. He thought it would show that they spent it on necessities and not drugs and partying.

Then you get two paragraphs saying that the study didn’t tell you much because of the limited scope and duration. The next paragraph quoted someone saying that people aren’t likely to change their behavior if they know the money is going to stop in 18 months and then this fellow goes on to say that it’s more about storytelling than social science. Really? So who is this guy? Oh, he’s a professor and likes to talk and teach libertarianism. In fact he’s the co-founder of a website called bleedingheartliberarians. He’s sponsored colloquy entitled “Give Brexit a Chance.” I would say this guy has an agenda, and it’s not favorable to giving people money.

But what he did finally say was that previous studies have shown that people don’t spend the money on frivolous things. 

What?

But then he throws in his monkey wrench of well of course it doesn’t measure long term effect or duration. Well duh. 

Then we finally get to what the study was trying to do and what they observed and discovered. 

First off, they weren’t trying to see if the money changed people’s behavior. They were trying to see if the money impacted their physical and mental health, which the researchers are still looking at.

Where was the money spent?

40% was taken out in cash, the researchers then queried the folks how they spent that money.

But over all here is what the article did say the people spent money on:

40% on food,

24% sales and merchandise,

11% on utility bills,

9% on auto repairs and fuel.

The rest went to services, medical expenses, insurance, etc.

Hum, it seems that if you give people who don’t have enough money to live they spend it on things to help them get out of the hole and not on drugs and partying.

Who knew?

Well, anyone who has studied basic economics could have guessed this result. One of the bulwarks of economic thought is that if you want to stimulate an economy give people money (typically it is said increase welfare  but that’s kind of a demean

ing way to say it don’t you think?)

So to the bleeding heart libertarian I would say that another way to do this would be to let industries stand on their own two feet and stop subsidizing them. What do you think? You know like the oil and gas industry that gets all kinds of government assistance. What if we instead gave that money to poor people who are struggling? 

In another interesting tidbit Rachel talked a little bit about her new book on Stephen Colbert. One interesting fact she discovered was that a resource rich country becomes poorer when that countries resources are extracted. What? Turns out the extractors pay the people in power and those folks keep the money and the people in the country get nothing.

Capitalism and libertarianism at work. Right on!

PS Here I am!

Day 1000  Bully and Intimidation

Wednesday October 2, 2019

399 Days until the 2020 election and 481 days until the Inauguration

Mike Pompeo said he’s doesn’t want the State Department people to testify to Congress because it is bullying and intimidation, and he should know. Let us not forget that he rose to prominence on one of the 3000 Benghazi hearings where he tried to bully and intimidate Hillary Clinton.

Let’s review the Impeachment inquiry, just in case you didn’t understand, or have watched Fox News where their current blond bimbo on the morning show is confused by three names (So confusing!)

Trump asked a foreign leader for help in his campaign.

The white Hose provided proof that he did it.

Review over.

No, wait. Maybe, you don’t understand the significance of that.

Asking a foreign country for help in your election is illegal. It’s the asking that’s bad.

You don’t even need a “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” thing to go on (called a Quid Pro Quo*) 

*Yeah, I know, big words, foreign words, from a dead language. So much to take in.

Meanwhile, Bernie has had an artery blockage and had to stop campaigning.

The I.G. who had stuff of urgent concern for Congress to see, which turns out to be a bunch of Trump Hotel marked file folders with conspiracy theory information in them. He’s had this since May, and now he’s decided it’s important to let someone know. I’m suspecting that it’s because he wants to distance himself from the craziness. I hope that’s it.

Meanwhile Mike Pompeo and William Barr have been going around the world trying to find anyone who will believe in some of the wacky ideas in the folders.

Ah me. Just another day in the swamp.

Trump did it. He admitted it. He gave us the evidence. He’s gonna be impeached.

399 Days until the 2020 election and 481 days until the Inauguration

PS William Barr’s new book (via Stephen Colbert).

 

Day 999 Are You Pissed Off Yet? Hang On, This Will Do It.

Tuesday October 1, 2019

400 Days until the 2020 election and 482 days until the Inauguration

Yesterday Rachel began her show with a listing of dates, facts, and headlines related to the Ukraine situation. I don’t now what you think of Rachel Maddow, some people think she’s too cute in her analysis. Others don’t like her because they think she’s too liberal. But mostly the people who don’t like here seem to not like her because she reports things they don’t like or want to hear, and these things are based on facts. Last night’s opening block was a doozy. So if you don’t like facts and the truth, please stop right now and go to, I don’t know, Fox News? Prager U? Glnn Beck? Dick Morris? or any of the other conmen and lying sack of crap places for your dose of alternate facts. If however you want to understand what is going on, not only with the Ukraine, but with Donald Trump – read on. 

Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2014 after their Ukrainian puppet was thrown out of office. This is the man who Paul Mannafort worked for and got millions of dollars under the table. He didn’t pay taxes on that money and it is part of the reason he is in prison.

Russia also seized Crimea. 

These two actions led to Russia being kicked out of the G8 and sanctions being imposed on them.

Donald Trump has been very weak and inconsistent on many things, but when it comes to Russia he has done everything possible to help them and specifically Putin.

Ukraine is in a war with Russia, 13,000 of their people have been killed in it. They need our help. We have pledged, under Obama, to not only help them but all the countries surrounding Russia. There is a package of one billion dollars in aid for those countries. This does not include Ukraine which has a separate package. It includes a very effective anti-tank weapon known as the Dragon. 

The impeachment inquiry deals with Trump’s phone call with the now president of the Ukraine. This year, the day after Mueller testified to Congress, Trump told his Chief of Staff, Mic Mulvaney to hold up the funds to Ukraine – $341B in military aid, including Dragon missiles. On his phone call Trump asked the Ukrainian president for a favor – eight times! The favor? To dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter and if he couldn’t find any, to make something up. That wasn’t all, he also wanted them to “work something out with Putin.”

It turns out that this isn’t the first time he’s done this sort of thing. The year before the Ukrainians were so worried about not getting these missiles that they stopped working with Mueller providing information on Mannafort in hopes of appeasing Trump so they’d get their weapons.

That’s not all. It turns out Trump wants to get other countries to say Russia didn’t mess in our 2016 election. Bill Barr has secretly been going to other countries to get them to agree. He was just in Italy for that purpose.

Why do this?

Well, if Trump can get other countries to agree it wasn’t Russia, then he can get the trade restricitons lifted on Russia, which is what Putin wants.

I have to ask, “Who is Trump working for?”

Not us, the American people.

Not our Nato allies.

Not the countries bordering Russia.

So who is he working for?

There seems to be only one person that I can think of.

Look at Rachel’s show from last night.

Go to:

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

and look up 

Trump fixation on exonerating Russia

And oh yes, Mike Pompeo who has seemed to not know anything about what Trump was doing on the telephone with Ukraine? Yeah, Mike was listening in on the phone call.

When asked about it Mike said he hadn’t read the whistleblower complaint. He only glanced at the first few paragraphs.

That really didn’t answer the question. Mike knew all about what the president was doing and had said because he heard it first hand.

And that stuff about the intelligence folks changing the regs on whistleblowing last month, like the right wing media is reporting? Also, not true.

Surprise.

The only thing that Trump seems to be good at is doing Putin’s bidding.

400 Days until the 2020 election and 482 days until the Inauguration