Rick Kinnaird

Day 852 Wednesday May 8, 2019

544 Days to the 2020 election and 622 Days to Inauguration Day

WARNING This screed is rated NVM (Not Very Mature).

I would guess it is at the level of a 13 year old boy, who doesn’t think his parents or any adult is around that would tell him, “That isn’t very nice” or “Don’t do that.”

I take as my role model the young man who said to Ted Cruz, “You Suck.”

Okay, so I think I’ve set the bar of expectation at about the right level. Certainly, we can limbo lower, but why bother?

Before I descend to my pre-pubescent self let’s consider what made Rachel very squeamish last night. She clearly doesn’t like to talk about sex. It makes her squeamish. But there were some questions in her opening story that were left open, and I would like answers. Not enough that I want to go looking for them, but enough to raise them. The story involved Jerry Falwell Jr. In a no surprise to me story Falwell had racy pictures of himself that someone had and was trying to blackmail him with them. 

Okay, stop right there, Rachel. You hinted that they were pictures of Falwell and his wife, but you didn’t say that. You said something like “the kind of racy pictures that a husband and wife would want to keep between themselves.” So? Was it Falwell and his wife? Or was it Falwell and someone else? In a husband and wife like situation? 

Then it turns out Falwell turned to Donald Trump or at least to Michael Cohen and asked him to take care of the situation, which he did. Except he kept one picture and he said, “it was disgusting.”

Wait. What? A husband and wife like picture that was disgusting? I can understand an intimate picture that you didn’t want others to see, but disgusting? Sounds to me like Jerry Junior is into more than racy stuff with his wife. 

And that is, of course, the no surprise part of this story to me. There’s that “holier than thou” sanctimonious self righteous part of these evangelists that I find hypocritical and disgusting, not the sex part.

Well, I hope we learn more.

Moving on down…

The New York Times or as Donald Trump likes to say, “the failing New York Times.” Turns out they aren’t the only ones failing. They published a story that says over ten years Trump lost $1.1 billion dollars!

Rachel couldn’t fathom how someone could lose that much money for so long. She said that’s over 100 million a year for ten years running. She’s wrong (well, not really). It’s 110 million a year for ten years. I guess she can conceive of someone losing ten million so why bother bringing up that trifling sum when you are losing an order of magnitude more each year. Besides, losing ten million a year for ten years is only one hundred million.

The numbers that the Times obtained were from Trump’s late 1980s and early 1990 returns. This when he was publishing The Art of The Deal and burnishing his reputation as the big real estate mogul. The Times also reported that during this time Fred Trump was making money, a lot of money. And Donald? Donald was losing money, a lot of money. In fact, the only lose Fred showed during that time was the investment he made in his son’s business. 

It turns out that Trump may have lost more money than any other person filing with the IRS during that time. Wow. Maybe Trump should have starred on The Biggest Loser?

So for all you Trump fans and supporters out there, here’s a big shout out. You’re guy is a LOSER.

“No he’s not.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Not”

“Snot. LOSER.”

Hey, I think we should go to the next Trump rally and have everyone make a “L” with their thumb and forefinger and put it up to their forehead.

Then chant “LOU”  “SER”  in a low moan. Kind of like those vo-ven-swellas at the Brazil Olympics. Just a constant drone of “LOSER LOSER LOSER.”

Nothing overly dramatic.

Then the press can shout questions at him when he’s walking to his helicopter, “Hey Donald, Did you really lose one point one billion dollars?”

“Mr. president how did you lose one point one billion dollars?”

By the way, I think I have the answer to that last question. It’s simple. He’s stupid.

Once we see his grades we can confirm that fact.

“Hey Donald, Are you a stupid loser?”

I think it comes down to this. He did the same stupid stuff over and over.

We know that his dad, Fred Trump gave him at least $413 million. So he had to have lost all that and double. That’s talent.

Fortunately, for Donald, reality rarely enters his sphere. He does what he can to make sure it doesn’t. He listens to Fox. He installed folks in the IRS and Treasury that don’t believe the president should show his tax returns. In fact, putting the IRS Commissioner* in place was a higher priority for Trump than Attorney General.

*that’s the aforesaid “he doesn’t believe the president should reveal his tax returns” guy.

We also have other things to keep reality at bay. There’s the Trump-o-meter, which is really just George Orwell’s 1984 “double speak” in an updated name. We now also have the Barr-o-meter, which is similar, yet slightly less reliable than the Trump-o-meter. (Make sure to pronounce it “Bar” “OH” “meter.” You wouldn’t want to let it get confused with the scientific instrument that tells you changes in atmospheric pressure. 

However, speaking of pressure, I’m betting it’s getting pretty intense over at the White House and in the Trump orbit, but isn’t it always? 

Trump’s personal lawyer has gone to prison for crimes he committed to aid Trump and Cohen says he’s got more to tell.

There are now 700 prosecutors that say the case against Trump as laid out in the Mueller Report is strong enough to get indictments and convictions. 

Elizabeth Warren has called for impeachment proceeding to begin against Trump. (and someone has asked for them against Barr.) Warren is being joined by other Senators. At least John Testor from Montana has said some stuff along those lines. (whether it’s the “I” word, I’m not sure.)

The former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, is being cleared to testify, despite Trump trying to block it.

Various banks have been subpoenaed by House oversight committees and are co-operating in handing over documents. There’s been a temporary halt while Trump sues to block it, but no one thinks even with our currently rigged judicial system that he has a chance.

The State of New York is getting ready to pass legislation to allow the Congressional oversight committees to have access to their state tax records on Trump, if they so desire.

I’m reminded of a Beatles tune. From their first album.

“It won’t be long,

It won’t be long.

Yeah.

til you belong to me.”

I think they had a different idea in mind, but the lyrics fit.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

We just didn’t know how big a loser he was.

And what we know only covers ten years.

And those figures are from twenty years ago or more.

My god he could have lost another 1.1 billion every ten years and that would bring his total up to $3.3 billion.

“Well, you know he’s a business man…”

“No he’s not. He’s a LOSER.”

“He’s made a lot of money…”

“No. He’s lost a lot of money because he’s a LOSER.”

Makes me wonder if his defense of why it took him so long to pay off the women he was having affairs with was because he had to scrape together the money?

I have an idea. Here’s a way out for Donald and Mikey Pence. 

Why don’t we let a real billionaire buy him out?

Mike Bloomberg, who is worth an estimate $39 billion could buy out Trump.

It would be pocket change for him. Here’s how it would work. Pence resigns. ( Either that or we find the racy pictures of him and Mommy. ) then Bloomberg is appointed VP. It wouldn’t be much of  switch. The VP is name Mike, Eazy-Peazy. Then Trump resigns and Bloomberg becomes President.

Or…or, Jeff Bezos buys out Trump, both Donald and Mike resign and Nancy becomes President.

I like that better.

544 Days to the 2020 election and 622 Days to Inauguration Day

PS This should be titled either: “Decisions Decisions” or “Wine into Water”

Day 851 Tuesday May 7, 2019

545 Days to the 2020 election and 623 Days to Inauguration Day

Yesterday, was a day of strange yet seemingly normal. Let me explain. Or, at least, let me give you the data points, because when you get right down to it, that’s all I have.

 

In a week from today I leave for my trip to Indonesia. On the way I’m stopping off in Hong Kong where my friend Hubert has said he will take me to the highest cocktail lounge in the world and we will pay a ridiculous amount of money to have a cocktail. My friend, dean, wants me to facetime him while I am there, because, I believe, he has a mission for my alter-ego, Bryce Holliwell. 

Indonesia is home to the largest Buddhist temple in the world – Borobudur.  This is kind of crazy in that the nation is almost all Muslim, and no one really knows what happened to the folks that built the temple, Maybe they do, but there is some uncertainty. Richard Haliburton is to have said, “After you’ve seen Angkor Wat, Borobudur looks like a red brick Baptist church on a corner in Kansas City.” I mean after such a quote, I gotta go see if he’s right.

My guide on the trip is a fellow who has a course on Buddhism, which is available via The Great Courses and I am now at lecture 17 of 24. ( I have to semi-quote our president, “Who knew Buddhism was so complicated?” )

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has just opened an exhibit called “Awaken” which has for its subject Tibetan  Buddhism. Now that I am reading the title it is actually, “A Tibetan Buddhist Journey Toward Enlightenment.”

Being a member of the museum I can go on Monday evenings to see the exhibit. I went alone. Not my intention, but the way it worked out. I mean, how perfect? I am studying Buddhism to get ready to go see the largest Buddhist temple in the world and here is an exhibit on all that and I’m most of the way through a course on Buddhism. I can maybe piece together a little bit of my disparate knowledge on this subject by having a look see at the museum? Good plan, right? (Right.)

Yesterday, was the day that a lot was supposed to happen in regard to the ongoing investigations of the president’s behavior and finances. 

The exhibit at VMFA is laid out like a meditative journey as outlined in a mandala. A mandala for most of us is that brightly painted circle with a square inside it. You often see pictures or videos of Buddhist monks creating mandalas out of colored rice grains or colored sand. After weeks of work it is swept away. The VMFA exhibit begins with our approaching the mandala. Mandalas are laid out with the four cardinal points guarded by four beings, which guard the center, the central point.

The Mueller Report has been handed in to the Attorney General, who has released it to Congress and the public in a redacted form. We now have some idea of what for the last two years the Special Prosecutor has been investigating. This despite the Attorney General creating a false narrative and mischaracterizing the report’s central points and conclusions.

After approaching the Mandala and found worthy to continue by the corner guardians we can continue on. We enter the mandala. This is the outer edge of the exhibit. It features a large banner depicting fire and lightning bolts, and black nothingness. There are corpses and strange creatures (or beings?).

After the redacted version of the Mueller Report was made public there were lots of questions created by it, and by the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his testimony to Congress. Simultaneously to that four different Congressional committees have made requests for documents and information in regard to the president’s conduct, behavior, and finances. These requests have been delayed, denied, and obstructed. Yesterday, a report surfaced that one of the big name Russian oligarchs has bought into a company that produces voting machines used in U.S. elections. Microsoft has announced that it is releasing software to help strengthen electioneering software. Meanwhile, the Senate’s majority leader refuses to bring a piece of legislation to the floor that would strengthen the voting systems in our country.

After viewing the strange creatures on the outer edges of the Mandala the exhibit continues with a walk within the palace walls There are the four cardinal directions. Each direction is marked by a different color and different guardians. Here we see many of the Buddhist teachers, both in painted scroll like paintings on the wall, and sculptures in the center of the hallway.

The fight between the administration and Congress continues. There has been talk about subpoenaing the Attorney General and what would happen if he did not comply and what Congress, mainly the House as the Senate majority leader has joined the White House in resisting any investigation or oversight of the Executive branch. Also the Treasury Secretary has inserted himself into a process he has no business being in the middle of, but because he is the boss of the chief of the IRS, who by law is to hand over any tax returns he is asked to give to the head of the House Ways and Means Committee, and because the Treasury Secretary has decided to instruct the head of the IRS that he, the Treasury Secretary, will make that decision when it comes to the president’s tax returns and whether to turn them over, we are heading to another legal crisis in this regard. The question may ultimately be decided in the courts, which the head of the Senate in concert with the White House and various right wing “conservative” judicial groups, mainly The Federalist Society, have been packing the courts with not only right wing legal minds, but also unqualified by most people’s standards, right wing fanatics. It is hard to say how the courts will rule, because to rule against the rule of law, which the Executive branch and the majority leader in the Senate will want them to do, will mean that the judges have to turn their backs on everything they have claimed to be for. Will they do that? Will they tie themselves in legal Constitutional knots to please a sociopath? It remains to be seen.

Inside the palace walls a mandala has a three by three arrangement of rooms that one would navigate in a clockwise arrangement until arriving at the center. There are banners, statuettes, and equipment such as drums, cymbals, horns, axes, spikes and other objects to be used in the practice of enlightenment. Two were particularly striking to me. One a silver encrusted conch shell trumpet and another a tea pot made out of a human skull. I’m not sure how or what either one has to do with the practice of Buddhism, but one thing has been made clear to me in my very limited time studying this religious tradition (that is the term typically used, rather than “religion.”)

There are many different types of Buddhism and many are in direct opposition to another form of it. Maybe that’s too harsh, but it seems that way. I’ve just started learning about the tantric practices, a term I had always associated with sexual massage, but here it may incorporate that but it seems to stress a faster way to reach enlightenment. The Tibetan model of Buddhism is very different from much of what I have already studied.

Our government is being tests. Our laws and traditions are being stress tested like never before. A week or two ago the president said he wasn’t concerned who in his administration testified to Congress or what paperwork they were given. He said he didn’t care if the full Mueller Report was released, because it completely exonerated him and showed that no crime had been committed and that there was no collusion and no obstruction. Yet, now when Congress is asking for that self same report and for people associated with it to testify the president is fighting in court to block them. He is also fighting the release of his tax returns, which he said he would release.

As I go further into the exhibit, I am aware of sounds. What seems like chanting. Kind of waves of “OM.” Or is it something else? I’m not sure. I am vaguely aware of all this. I gaze upon several beautiful wrought female forms, very physically attractive figures. There’s a serenity about the figures and a sexualness as well. Around any figure whether it is a metal sculpture or a painting there are lesser figures. By that I mean smaller figures. Some are beasts, some are human like forms. There is much I don’t understand. Some of the beasts have multiple arms, three on a side. They seem to be guarding the way. As I move on the chanting is more pronounced. More continuous, less wave like and more a constant buzz.

Yesterday a letter was released signed by over 400 former Federal prosecutors which said that the findings in the Mueller Report on obstruction of justice are enough for any prosecutor to seek an indictment. The only restraint is the OLC (Office of Legal Console) memo that says not to indict a sitting president. However, former Federal prosecutors say they feel certain they could bring an indictment and get a conviction. One has gone further than that and said he could do it “in his sleep.” The evidence they say is overwhelming. Another prosecutor who worked on the Starr Commission that looked at Bill Clinton’s obstruction of justice has said that of the ten counts laid out in the Mueller Report he thinks he could indict and get convictions on four and probably eight of the cases. Furthermore he says that in Clinton’s case the underlying thing he was trying to cover up, to obstruct, was not a crime. In the case of the President it is a crime. In fact, his long time personal attorney began serving his three year sentence for crimes he committed at the behest of the president and for the benefit of the president, not himself. He did not benefit in any way. The president is named as an un-indicted co-conspirator. Just like Nixon was so named in his impeachment case.

Is impeachment necessary? That question is being asked more and more.

The sounds of the exhibit are now continuous. It’s not louder so much as it is continuous, like a constant buzzing, but with a strum and almost a beat. It’s transcendental. By that I mean, mind altering in a distant and indirect way. Much like trying to look directly at a distant faint object in the sky, you are better off seeing it peripherally. This sound is better experienced peripherally. By not being fully focused on it, I can experience it better.

The news says that we are close to a reckoning, my words not theirs. The question is what will those committee heads do that are being told by word or shown by deed that this administration has no intention of complying with Congress’ requests, demands, and subpoenas? Will Congress take the next step? Do they have a choice? What about impeachment? Is this a viable option? 

I am in the central chamber. Here the sound is constant. There’s a plaque on the wall. The mandala is shown all in white shadow, except for the center square. Above it says, “You are here.” I turn to see a fearsome many armed, many legged creature. On closer inspection I see there are representations of human heads around it’s neck, strung together. It is supported on one side by a row of tigers standing side by side. On the other are pigeons, side by side. The tigers and pigeons are of the same size.

It is the 34 armed deity Vajrabhairava. (Only the Welsh have longer more complicated names.) This deity was in a dual with Yama, the god of death. He defeated death by holding up a mirror. By holding up the mirror we confront our deepest fears and this allows us to conquer them.

Soon we will learn if our leaders in Congress will force the administration to comply with the law and our Constitution or not.  Everyone needs to help, to give them strength and the will to do so. To do otherwise, would mean the end of the republic as we know it. Democracies are fragile things. In history they don’t last long. Two hundred years is typical. We are on borrowed time unless we realize that we are. We need to face the truth.

As I leave the central chamber I am in a wide hallway – all white. The sound is gone. At the end is a sculpted standing figure. It is backlit in white light but I can clearly see it’s peaceful nature. I walk down the corridor toward the figure and exit to one side where I am face to face with a giant metal reflecting surface, a mirror. A young woman is standing to one side of the mirror. She is arranging her hair and adjusting her look.

I leave this area and come to a sitting room where there is an all white representation of a mandala on the wall.

545 Days to the 2020 election and 623 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Vajrabhairrava

Day 849 Sunday May 5, 2019

547 Days to the 2020 election and 625 Days to Inauguration Day

Let’s talk presidential candidates. There have been several that I’ve seen recently that I’ve liked, and several that worry me if they win. Most interestingly, there was a poll that showed a bunch of the leading Democratic candidates beating Trump, which is very encouraging. I do have to wonder why it is even close.

The two most worrisome candidates to me are Biden and Bernie. Both are old white men. I think the country is ready for a different look, like a younger white man! No, well yes, but how about a woman? Or a young gay white man? Biden seems to be running because it’s his last shot. He’s going to be savaged for being touchy feely and not that bright. Bernie is already being ripped for being a socialist, which is crap, but hey. Clips from an old show he did as mayor are being aired. Kind of wacky, but that’s the point of the clips, I guess. Imagine if we got Trump’s outtakes from the Apprentice? Bernie is also being ripped on his voting for gun rights. I don’t see Joe or Bernie doing well in the general election. They’ll do well enough to beat Trump, I hope, but so will a lot of candidates.

Moving on, we’ve got the senators who are running for president that questioned Barr. The star from that was Harris with second place to Klobuchar and Cory Booker finishing out of the money. Both women showed Barr to be a lying legal idiot, but in different ways. Harris would make a great AG, but she hasn’t defined herself as to what she would specifically do as president. Her rhetoric is very high minded. Klobuchar got Barr to say she should ask Mueller directly for Trump’s tax returns if Mueller did look at them as underlying evidence. Barr didn’t know. It’s hard to know if Barr read any of the Mueller Report, because on any specific item he didn’t know, other than when he twisted something for the president’s benefit.

Klobuchar, like Harris, hasn’t defined herself well enough yet. However, she does have a record in the Senate of accomplishment and I do like her comment that she “has grit.” She can back that up by her staying in her seat in the Senate until she got the I 35 bridge repair bill appropriated. 

Then we get to Michael Bennet. The senator from Colorado. He’s quiet. He’s a reader. He’s done a lot in his career in a short amount of time. His record shows he can take on a job that he has little background in and be very successful. He comes from a family with a long career in public service. His dad’s resume is off the charts in this respect and Michael’s isn’t shabby either. I first noticed Bennet when he rose to address the Senate floor after Ted Cruz, the great debater, tried to slime the Democrats with an “if only they (the Dems) would vote for this we could get something done” argument. Bennet rose to say first that he usually didn’t criticize his colleagues across the aisle, but he reminded everyone and Ted Cruz in particular that it was Cruz who shutdown the government while his state was underwater. Where people lost their lives, their homes, their businesses. This was not how Bennet saw they in the Senate should be working. 

What did Ted Cruz, the great college debater who couldn’t even handle a young boy telling him “You Suck!” on the campaign trail, have to say? Nothing. As far as I know, because there aren’t any clips of his response. I do want to point out that during the shutdown after Cruz led the effort to shutdown the government and then went out to the WWII Memorial where he and some of his supporters vandalized the police barriers by hauling them off to the White House to blame Obama that I personally called the Park Police, who at that point weren’t getting paid and reported the vandalism and trespassing. I still don’t know why he wasn’t arrested for that crime. (“Lock Him Up!”) 

Bennet was interviewed the other night and I liked what I heard. He’s quiet. He’s direct. He’s focused on what needs to be done and how to do it. He realizes that there is no point in trying to negotiate with the tea party or the Freedom Caucus, and that they have to be defeated at the polls and overwhelmed. He points out that Congress has done little in ten years and it is mainly due to these folks who are in the tea party, freedom caucus, and right wing Republicans who refuse to negotiate and say as Newt Gingrich did “my way or the highway.” It’s time for those folks to hit the highway. Bennet summarized all the accomplishments of Congress for the last ten years: Obamacare (good), Trump tax cuts (bad), and Dodd-Frank (didn’t specifically say but I assume “good”). That’s it. Boom. He has simple direct ways of solving some of our problems. He says the country faces two big challenges: increase economic mobility and opportunity for people and the other is restore integrity in government. He has the chops to do it.

Then we get to Buttigieg. I caught a little bit of him on Donnie Deutsch’s new show. Deutsch was trying to bait him. I’m not sure about what but, wow, what a response! Mayor Pete said (and I’m paraphrasing) “I’m not going to get into an argument with Donald Trump about who was serving their country better when I was packing my bags for Afghanistan and he was getting ready for the seventh season of The Apprentice. Nor, am I going to argue with him about who represents traditional marriage values better.” 

In two sentences Mayor Pete decimates Trump on military service and marriage.

I’m thinking that if we took all the Democratic candidates running for president and put them in the cabinet what a great team.

Preet Bharara was on Chuck Rosenberg’s new podcast “The Oath.” There were two things he said that really struck me. He spoke of people’s suspicion of experts and government. Both he and Chuck discussed the time they took the oath to defend the Constitution and they spoke of the effect it had on them. How privileged and special they felt. They spoke of the best job they each had – assistant prosecutor. In that job they get to try cases, higher up they go to meetings.

The sense I got from these two men talking was the great responsibility they felt to doing the best, most fair, job they could.

When I listened to Chuck and Preet, and when I listened to Michael Bennet talk about restoring dignity to government, I heard men talking genuinely and heartfelt. Men who cared about government, about people, about justice, and fairness, and responsibility. 

Unfortunately, none of these characteristics are the things that the current president and his flunkies care about.

547 Days to the 2020 election and 625 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The Apple Store like you’ve never seen it. Open and no one in it!