Rick Kinnaird

Day 939

August 2, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 939 Friday August 2, 2019

460 Days until the 2020 election and 542 days until the Inauguration

I haven’t been writing much because I’ve been busy. We are on a cruise on the Rhine River and associated places. Wi-Fi connectivity has been, at first non-existent for me, because the ship couldn’t handle a mac. Now that I’m on, Facebook wants to send an authorization code to my phone, which is useless because the number they have isn’t set up for international calls. So no Facebook. I’m just posting to my website for now.

I’ve been getting bits and pieces of information, mainly from Shelby mentioning things she sees on Twitter and the occasional news item off google.

The best item so far has been Don Jr.’s comment that the next Democratic debate should be held on Comedy Central. Trevor Noah commented, “If what you say, I love it!”

Matt Taibbi wrote a piece ripping the Dems and the media for making Mueller the hero. It’s interesting that he says this, but he seems to duck the big point that there is credible evidence that Trump obstructed justice on at least ten occasions. He also gives no credence to any collusion between Trump and his people and Russians. One can make a case for this, but only because both sides fumbled, not that they didn’t want to collude. There also has been no analysis as to how many votes were changed due to a barrage of false propaganda. Nor has there been much to verify if votes were changed by hackers. There is now talk that this will definitely happen in the next election and the Republican efforts both locally and in the Senate are doing everything they can to muddy the water and to prevent accountability. It seems the Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are more than willing to conspire with whomever: Russians, skinheads, Christian conservatives, whomever as long as they can stay in power.

Therefore the moniker “Moscow Mitch” is fitting. He apparently doesn’t like it. A lot of money has been raised under a go fund me of that name to defeat McConnell. He’s not happy about that. Then again he’s pretty quiet about all the Russian money being invested in his state to get control of voting machines and media outlets. I mean – no collusion, right? And even if it is, so what?

Pop quiz – name something Mitch McConnell has done in his some forty odd years in the Senate that has helped you? How about wonder boy Paul Ryan? John Boehner?

I come up with zero. I can think of lots of grandstanding and blocking of what I would call common sense solutions, but stuff to help you or me? I got nothing.

460 Days until the 2020 election and 542 days until the Inauguration

PS The Rat House

Day 933

July 31, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 933 Saturday July 27, 2019

466 Days until the 2020 election and 548 days until the Inauguration

Dateline Amsterdam

Yesterday we visited Anne Frank’s House.
If you plan on going get tickets two months or more in advance because they sell out.

At 8:30 on the morning of, they release the last 25% for the day. (It’s says 9am but the queue starts at 8:30, by 9:00 am it is several hundred long. You may get dropped too. I did when I was #6. Then again I got timed out. Finally, I got tickets.

Everyone from America should visit the Anne Frank House. It is where she hid with her family and four others. There was a bookcase that served as a door to the secret annex. It is where she wrote her diary, which her father found upon returning from the concentration camps. He is the only one of the eight that survived, 120,000 of his country folk did not.

It is sad. It is poignant, and it is happening again. It is happening in our country. We are rounding up “the others,” putting them in cages, starving them, humiliating them, torturing them.

What Anne wrote has become the face of the holocaust. The house is the embodiment of the suffering and the hope. How close they came to making it. D-Day had happened. When they were discovered they were put on the last train to what ultimately became their deaths.

It started out slowly. First, they were identified. Then they were restricted. Then they were taken.

Through all this, as I went from room to room and I listened to the stories, I could see the face of Stephen Miller. He is the new Goering, the new Goebels, the new Eichman – the new face of evil.

466 Days until the 2020 election and 548 days until the Inauguration

Day 932

July 26, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 932 Friday July 26, 2019

467 Days until the 2020 election and 549 days until the Inauguration

One thing Trump and the Republicans have done is really make me learn about our form of government, both the history and the documents and debates.

When Justice Stevens died I was reminded of my first brush with this sort of thing. It was his dissenting opinion on the DC gun law. It you want to understand the second amendment read his opinion. If you want to see an example of legal “argle-bargle” read Scalia’s majority opinion.

Mueller and his report are fascinating in that here is a report and a man who do not waver. You want to know what he thinks on the subject he was charged to investigate? Read the report. You want to know what he thinks on the matter? Read the report.

Does he think the president should be impeached? Not his call.

Does he think Congress should impeach the president? Not his call.

Was Trump guilty of Obstruction of Justice? Not his call.

Can a sitting president be indicted? No.

Can a president be indicted after leaving office? Yes.

For crimes he committed while in office? Yes. (Thank a Republican for that answer> Backfired!!!)

etc. etc. etc.

The case for impeachment is interesting. Originally, the founding fathers were only going to put in bribery and treason as reasons for getting rid of a president, but they also realized that there could be other reasons to get rid of a president and not wait for the term to run out. They debated how to word this. They didn’t want a political hit job, nor did they want it to be necessarily be a crime. They had examples of what would and would not constitute a reason to get rid of a sitting president. This was not vague. It might be a crime, but it had to be grievous – a high crime. It could be behavior that endangered the country – not a crime but a misdemeanor or maybe not. Was it criminal? Was it political? Yes and no. It was both and it was neither. It’s kind of like jumping over a line on side to the other: political/criminal/neither/misdemeanor/egregious.

The question then comes up as to what is the duty of Congress in regards to impeachment? There are three areas the Constitution says Congress has the power to act: Bribery, Treason, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors. If the President commits any of these three violations does Congress have a duty? Yes. They must investigate. It is not political. It may be criminal. But it is the duty to protect “We the people.”

The question is, in this case is it impeachable?

Much of what Trump has done can be argued that Trump did not do any of these things. Stupid, incompetent, did not know it was a crime can be argued. If he obstructed the investigation into Russian interference, then we are in the territory of impeachment proceedings.

One can not say we shouldn’t investigate because he’s our guy, nor can they say we should investigate because we don’t like him. This should not be political or criminal, yet it is both while being neither. It is a higher calling. One that neither opponents or supporters are willing to address.

This does not bode well for our country as it was constituted many years ago.

Meanwhile the leader of the Senate is rushing to get more lifetime appointments of conservative judges shoved down our throats. Trump has filed paperwork to try and prevent New York State from seeing his taxes. What ever happened to the Secretary of the Treasury refusing to hand over the IRS stuff on Trump to Congress?

Don’t you wonder if Trump is such a brilliant businessman and such a great scholar (he went to the best schools) then why doesn’t he want to crow about it? (Okay, it’s obvious. The guy was enrolled at the best schools. Did little or nothing while there. Lost tons of money in various business deals. Got into criminal activities like money laundering. Also had a penchant for lying, cheating, and fabricating falsehoods. He keeps slipping out of it. Will he slip out of the biggest con of his life? He might. Don’t count him out. )

467 Days until the 2020 election and 549 days until the Inauguration

PS The Night Watch with scanning robot

Day 931

July 25, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird 1 Comment

Day 931 Thursday July 25, 2019

468 Days until the 2020 election and 550 days until the Inauguration

The Mueller Testimony

I think we should play Mueller Ball!

Take his answers: Yes, No, True, I do not agree with your characterization, I am not going to answer that, if it’s in the report I support it, and silence. Then match them up to the questions.

Most interesting to me was the Republican puffery and strutting, which Bobby three stick listened to and didn’t comment on. Sometimes it was followed by a question, which he answered in one of the ways listed above. He did not offer opinion, only answers, very interesting.

The “clean up” Congressman for the Republicans went on and on about how “after spending millions of dollars” and enlisting people who donated to Democratic campaigns they found no collusion, no indictments, etc. Mueller said nothing. Then the Dem response listed all the indictments, uncovering of crimes, and people sent to jail. I think the Republican clean up guy was very careful in how he worded what he said they didn’t find.

Much of this is old ground: collusion is not a legal term, Mueller did not believe a sitting president could be indicted, he wasn’t going to talk about Roger Stone, or FISA stuff, he never asked anyone their political affiliations, he got people who were best for the job – period. Apparently, the Republicans were sleeping during his opening remarks or they have very short attention spans and needed to be constantly reminded of these things.

One Republican went on about how many times the Mueller Report quoted The Washington Post and The New York Times. This person then made comment about Fox News, I think in the context that they were never quoted. Hum. Proof, I guess in that person’s mind of bias. But then I never heard that Fox News had investigative reporters, only opinion people and a few newscasters. Well, I guess if David Pecker gave them something or Jeff Epstein then they had investigative stuff, but it hardly would make it into a factual report. FACTS! Damn there’s that pesky concept (concept?) coming up again.

Then there was the stuff raised about various people on the Mueller team contributing to Democratic causes. Nor did they mention that Mueller is a life long Republican. Interestingly, they did not compare that to Ken Starr and his folks. I’d sure like to know how many of his team were Dems of Repubs. Somehow, I think that Starr’s folks were not only Republican but were vetted with their desire and express purpose of going after the Clintons and dragged the thing out for as long as they could, looking for anything they could find.

Another thing that Mueller kept pointing out was that “It was in the report,” this meant that if you wanted to know what was in the report you would have to READ. The other thing that came out of this was that if you wanted to understand the report you would have to THINK. I know that these two concepts (reading and thinking) are very passé. I mean if you can’t goggle it or watch a YouTube video is it worth doing?

Let me walk through something that one of the Congress people did to try and help those who are reluctant to do either of the above (ie read and think).

There is a law known as Obstruction of Justice. There are three parts to the law. In other words, three things have to be present for one to be brought up on charges that they obstructed justice.

In the Mueller Report there are not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, not eight, not nine, but ten – count them TEN cases where one Donald J. Trump met all three of the components of Obstruction of Justice. Ten Times!

If anyone else was found to have obstructed justice, even if they had not committed a crime they would be brought up on charges and if found guilty go to jail Just ask Martha Stewart.

The evidence against Trump is not only a slam dunk, it is a slam dunk with eyes closed and one arm tied behind the prosecutor’s back.

One can only hope that on the day Trump leaves office as he gets ready to board Marine One (that’s the President’s helicopter) that he will be arrested and charged.

There are two other remedies: Mike Pence could get the cabinet to rule Trump is incompetent, or Congress can impeach Trump and the Senate could vote to remove him from office. Both of these options require people to do what’s right, to have courage of their convictions and a love for the country over personal and political affiliation. Anyone want to take that side of the bet?

Okay then. Get the rhinestone encrusted handcuffs ready.

468 Days until the 2020 election and 550 days until the Inauguration

PS Bansky

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" Banksy — Banksy

Day 929

July 23, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 929 Tuesday July 23, 2019

468 Days until the 2020 election and 550 days until the Inauguration

Today we take an inside look at the software that runs Mike Pence. First off, I gotta say I’m never sure if it’s Pence or Pense. One suggests he thinks as from the French “penser” (“to think”) or is it as in the Cockney “not worth two pence.” It turns out it’s the later.
At any rate, what many people don’t know is that Mike Pence is really an animatronic doll. This explains how he can stand for hours behind the president with that stupid half smile on his face, as if he’s in awe of that idiot. It also explains why he says the same things over and over regardless of the subject matter.
In truth, Mike Pence was an experiment by a disgruntled engineer working for Steve Wozniak who left the Chuckie Cheese animatronics lab in disgust when they wouldn’t put any pervert mice characters into the line up.
The mouse, FinkRat, was going to be a jive talking hipster, “Hey Baby, How Ya Doin’?” but the management got scared that the mothers of the children wouldn’t like it. I think it was the ass grab gesture that he built into the robot (a la Papa Bush) that really did it (“Ho? What’s that? You mighty fine! You know dat?”) that finally killed FinkRat.
This engineer dropped from sight for many years. There were rumors. He, or what looked to be his prototypes, were seen at various political rallies. Cheering lustily and holding up signs with ridiculous sayings on them. Then came Mike Pence. His latest incarnation of evil. (Later versions are believed to be Stephen Miller.)
I, fortunately, have gotten hold of one of the early versions of the firmware for the Mike Pence Animatronic Doll (MPAD). Many of these features are still seen in the current version. Take, for instance, his answer to the questions of whether Donald Trump is racist and whether or not he (Trump) is/was opposed to the crowd at his latest rally yelling “Send Her Back!” in answer to the hate Trump stirred up around the four Congresswomen known as “The Squad.”
The following is provided with translation and motivational subroutines:
“Oh, the president could not have been more clear” – Call Obfuscation and Prevarication functions) [this is going to be a whopper!]

“He made it very clear that he rejects this kind of talk” [oh boy, he loved it.]

“and I think if you listened to he said.” – Call Head_Nod Routine with pseudo ‘like I care’ look [I have no idea what he said but I don’t need to because the same thing is hard wired in and needs no capture speech and spit back routine.]

“I don’t think he could have been more clear.” [more hardwired.]
#################

Speaking of Stephen Miller…
His uncle has written a piece that explains how Miller’s grandparents escaped Soviet Jewish extermination attempts and moved to the U.S. with $8 in their pocket. Once here they worked hard and his relatives founded a company that became listed on the American Stock Exchange. So how did Stephen become such a racial bigot? Interesting question, have you ever noticed that Stephen’s head looks like one of the characters in Sponge Bob Square Pants? No? Next time you’re in the pizza parlor where they show Nic take a look… Back to Stephen…
I wonder if Stephen, like the classic closet gay or fire and brimstone preacher who both vehemently deny attraction to those of their sex (only to be discovered later with a young boy), is trying desperately to deny his heritage? “If I stomp on immigrants maybe no one will know I’m an immigrant?” Could that be what’s going on?
Or is he just an animatronic experiment that went horribly wrong?

I’m not judging. I’m just putting the question out there.

I too have become more sensitized and gotten a software upgrade of sorts. I realize how it is unfair to ask, “When did you stop beating your wife?” as a question. Rather it should be, “When did you stop beating your spouse?”

I have evolved.

We are all one. Well, except for …

468 Days until the 2020 election and 550 days until the Inauguration

PS STOOPAH!