Rick Kinnaird

Day 585 Monday August 27, 2018   993 Days to Go

Would you like a job in the White House?

Order my handy guide from Amazon entitled “Would you like a job in the White House?”

Okay, I haven’t written it yet, but that’s all you need to do.

Create a title on Amazon that you think would appeal to Jared and you’ll get a call.

Trust me on this.

That’s how Peter Navarro got his job as “The Trade Guy” for Trump. He’s the one who has these economic ideas that trade wars are good, which is interesting because he started out as a progressive Democrat. He ran for public office many times and lost. The main reason, people who know him think that he lost is that he’s an asshole, and he doesn’t hide it very well. This therefore makes him more qualified to be a Republican. 

Oh, sorry, I didn’t finish how he got the White House job on trade. It seems Jared was looking for someone to do trade, so he went to Amazon and looked up authors on China and trade. Navarro has written several books on the subject, so Jared hired him. The fact that his ideas are debunked by any credible economist of course has no bearing on the White House vetting. “Look – China! Trade! Tariff! Good!” Okay let’s hire the guy. 

In 2016 68% of people didn’t like foreign trade deals, be they on the left or the right. Great. What did they prefer? Mumbles. That’s what. Trade is one of those topics where you can always find facts to back up your beliefs or to show the other person is an idiot. 

John Oliver pointed this out in his last show. Trump was in South Carolina saying they were going to tax all those German cars that were flooding into the country, like BMW. He was no doubt unaware that just north of where he was speaking is the largest BMW factory in the world. i.e. Cars made in America. Trump put tariffs on steel and aluminum, thus allowing the steel industry and the aluminum industry to hire more people – like 23-28,000 more Great! The down side being that the tariffs cost the importation of such products to rise and therefore the people who make things out of steel and aluminum to charge more. So the people who make nails for instance are going to be laid off because they can’t compete. How many jobs are we talking in steel and aluminum related products? 437,000 jobs. So while Trump can crow about the 28,000 jobs he created he’s kind of quiet about the 437,000 jobs he’ll destroy. 

And what about farming? Oh geez. He’s hard on immigrant labor, had tariff wars with Mexico and China over farm products thus the farmers in America have their stuff rotting in the fields but it’s okay because they got no where to sell it anyway. 

Meanwhile, the translators in Afghanistan who fought along side American troops are being denied access to the U.S. This allows the Taliban more time to find them and hunt them down  and kill them. Problem solved.

Meanwhile “Our Cartoon President” TV show has the quote I like best for the beginning of the week. Don Jr. saying, “If the Democrats take the House in the next election then all these felonies will be for nought.” Love it.

On to John McCain. He died this week. There’s a lot to like and not like about him. He was a patriot. He was always trying to make our country a better place. I didn’t always agree on his choices or his ideas, but I never doubted that he was trying to make the world a better place. Certainly he wasn’t the brightest or best organized, and his military career has a number of problems, but I never thought he wasn’t trying to do his best for this country. It’s sad to see what our political landscape has become.

Watch for my new book on Amazon, “How to Shutdown a Special Counsel Investigation.”

I’ll be expecting a call from the White House within days of my putting it on Amazon.

993 Days to Go

PS The latest mug in the collection. Van Gogh’s Daises, Arles, France 1888

Day 584 Sunday August 26, 2018    994 Days to Go

 

Intercepted Phone Conversation from the Naval Observatory Circle, Washington DC, home of the vice-president of the United States.

{Woman #1 voice on telephone]  “Yes, I know. Isn’t it exciting?”

{Woman #2 } “Do you really think it’s going to happen?”

W #1 “Well, I don’t know but last night Mike said, ‘Mommy, any day now you’ll be the First Lady.’ ”

W #2 “Has Mr. Trump been hitting on you?”

W #1 “No, silly. He means he may become the president!”

W #2 “Wow! For real?”

W #1 “Uh huh. Gotta go. The little man is home.”

On to reality.

Well, reality as we know it.

And to not quote Mr. Giuliani, “Reality is not reality.”

John Oliver had a great piece on his show about economics. It’s entitled Econ 101. This to point out what anyone who was even partially awake in a basic econ course knows: when you impose a tariff the people who pay are the people in your country. In other words it’s a tax on the people! This is an concept that is missing in the current administration’s thinking. A more sophisticated analysis (which ain’t saying much) is to take this a step further and to look at what happens in a trade war brought on by tariffs. Okay, here we go: Country 1 imposes tariffs on Country 2; Country 2 responds by imposing tariffs on Country 1. What happens? The people in each country have to pay more for the goods, trade decreases and, as economists love to say, “The system becomes more inefficient.” The conclusion is that BOTH COUNTRIES LOSE. However, this is a concept that the Obama administration knew and understood and this administration being anti-Obama must do the opposite of what they were doing, hence a trade war with China.

So you ask the economists, “I’ve heard the Chines are cheating economically somehow, and if tariffs aren’t the answer what is?”

The economists would respond, “You are right grasshopper, China does cheat. The way to get them to stop is to get everyone together to work as a unit against them. This is the only way.”

“Then why don’t we do this?”

“We did. It was called TPP.”

“What happened?”

“The great president Trump came in and threw out all the things the even greater President Obama did. The included TPP, and to make sure there was nothing left Mr. Trump also pissed off all our trading partners. Now, China is free to run the table, which they are doing with great gusto.”

“Really? How?”

“Ah, well you see they decided to invest over a trillion dollars in projects. Actually, one thousand projects of a billion dollars each. We in the U.S. decided to give a trillion dollars to people who don’t need it, won’t spend it, and hate to do their fair share.”

“Is that all?”

“Oh no, grasshopper, the Chinese have developed a missile that can sink our air craft carriers. It has a range of 800 miles. Our navy has moved our air craft carriers 800 miles away from the Chinese coast. This allows the Chinese to freely have influence over that area. Plus with all their projects they are developing around them they are having a much greater influence, while the U.S. influence has shrunk.”

“Is that all?”

“With the Chinese? No, there is more, but there are bigger concerns here in the U.S.”

“Like?”

“Well, for instance students no longer come here to study and do research. All the research is being done by companies all over the world, not in our colleges and universities. We no longer educate the best and brightest in the world. It is very sad.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

994 Days to Go

PS Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?

Day 583 Saturday August 25, 2018 995 Days to Go

OMG! I didn’t know how prophetic I was; nor did I know how soon my prophesy would come true! I am, without a doubt, a man among men. I give myself an A+ for such a fantastic job!
Surely you are wondering what has caused this surge in modesty? Aren’t you? No. Well, too bad, I’m gonna tell you anyway.
Remember yesterday I speculated that Rep. Duncan Hunter’s wife would soon not be his wife? Well, truer words were never spoken. They showed up yesterday in court to face charges. They came separately and they each had their own lawyers. They didn’t look at each other.
Rep. Hunter claims this is a witch hunt by the Dems. The 47 page indictment says otherwise. CNN reported the thirty most outrageous things the Hunters did with the campaign funds, and they didn’t even get to the most salacious! (I mean, come on, how did you miss those tidbits CNN?)
The indictment lists two hundred items where the Hunters spent campaign finance funds on personal items, such as golf outings, clothing, food and drink, vacations, and car rentals. The treasurer tried to get Mrs. Hunter to itemize her petty cash expenses, She said, “That’s silly.”
They over drew their personal accounts 1,100 times for a cost in overdraft penalties of over $37,000! That is some Dem witch hunt.
The other day Hunter blamed his wife, said he didn’t do it, said she was the campaign manager, and she did it. The question at the time was, “Why would he throw his wife under the bus?” Or at least why so quickly?
Hum, maybe this is it:
Item:
33) On or about June 21, 2011, in Washington, D.C., DUNCAN HUNTER
spent $162.02 in Campaign funds for a personal stay at the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel with Individual 14.
Or maybe it was this item:

181) On or about March 23, 2016, in Washington, D.C., DUNCAN HUNTER spent $865.63 in Campaign funds for a room at the Liaison Capitol Hill while Individual 7 visited from San Diego.
Hum, maybe “Individual 7” and “Individual 14” are democrats and trapped him! Yeah, that’s it.

Wait here it is:

7) “Individual 7” lived in the San Diego area and became close friends with
MARGARET HUNTER in around 2015. She and MARGARET HUNTER socialized
together in the San Diego area and occasionally on family trips out of town.
and:

14) “Individual 14′” “Individual 15′” “Individual 16′” “Individual 17′” and “individual 18” lived in the Washington, D.C. area and had personal relationships with DUNCAN HUNTER. In addition, Individual 16 worked with DUNCAN HUNTER. .

So let’s try the current Trump defense for Rep Hunter:
“It’s no big deal.”,
“It’s not a crime.”,
“Everybody does it.”,
“It’s a witch hunt.”,
“It’s a democratic witch hunt.”

Okay, here’s my next prediction:
We will move from the above reasoning to the Jimmy Swaggert defense (explanation?):
“I’m a weak man! The Devil made me do it! (And the Dems, of course.)”
“I have found Jesus, (under the bed at the Liasion Hotel).”
“I am seeking forgiveness and I am getting therapy at the Harvey Weinstein/Michelle Bachman Center for Perverts and Prevaricators.”
“Yes, I know it looks bad. The fact that my wife overdrew our account 1,100 times and cost us over $37,000, but it wasn’t me. I’m an innocent lamb (in God’s eyes???)”

Oh boy.
And get this – It’s too late to take his name off the ballot in November, and
He’s likely to win!

995 Days to Go

PS – Me, Not Happy with You!

PPS – The Liaison Hotel? There’s a place named that in Washington DC? Yeah. What would one do there?

Day 582 Friday August 24, 2018 996 Days to Go

What a week!
It’s hard to know where to start. But I’m gonna start with Mike Pompeo. There are video bits of him as a Congressman saying all kinds of wacky things that were attacks on the government institutions and those running it. Now he’s been in the administration. First, as I forget, then Secretary of State, now head of the C.I.A.
Can you imagine what it must be like to wake up and find out that your boss, the president has asked via tweet that you look into something? And that something is a phony story that Fox News reported that is straight out of a white supremacist website and playbook. It takes what, one google search to find this out? Maybe, he picks up the phone and asks some underling what the deal is and they give him the information. So you’ve got one of the best information gathering agencies in the world at your fingertips and you’re boss is listening to some BS ginned up on a white nationalist website and regurgitated on Fox. What do you do? And, how does that make you feel?
Speaking of feelings, how about Jeff Sessions? The Kebler Elf stood up to the blowing and bellowing of the big bad wolf. Then he went and had a meeting with him, and neither one brought up all that crap. Some have asked why doesn’t he resign? Reason, he is carrying out his agenda. It happens to coincide with Trump’s a lot, but remember it was he who gave Trump his first immigration foreign policy speech and talking points when Trump came to Alabama as a candidate. The thing was written by super racist Stephen Miller. So Jeff the racist gets to do as much as he can to advance this terrible awful mean spirited agenda of his, Trump, and Miller while he’s the AG. But he does end up having to defend the Department of Justice, and that’s hard to do when you have a boss who doesn’t understand what the DOJ is for, and thinks it should be an arm of his personal domain.
Then you get to the downright – silly if it weren’t that they are running the country – stuff. Trump doesn’t like flippers? He’s known a lot of them during the course of his career. Really? Which begs the question of what kind of businesses have you been in that there are lots of people cutting deals with prosecutors to avoid prosecution?
This was revealed on an interview on Fox News with some blond chic asking softball questions until Donald took over the interview. He thinks pleading to a lesser sentence should be illegal. Hey, Jeff how ‘bout that? And then Donald said something like, “just because some one is facing five or ten years in jail they flip.” Wow. The thing that gets me about all this is that Trump is such a pussy he’d be crawling up the steps of the Justice Department if they threatened him with jail time. And as to loyalty? When has he ever shown loyalty to those who stood by him, committed crimes for him, or worked for him? He’d throw you under the bus so fast you wouldn’t have time to look up and see the bus.
In the Manafort trial we’ve gotten to see the jury sheet: eight counts – GUILTY, ten counts – G 11, N 1 No Consensus. Were it not for one juror Manafort would have been found guilty on all eighteen counts. What now?
He’s got his next trial in September. This is the more serious one and there’s a lot more evidence too. The prosecution has seven days left to say whether they will retry the ten counts and the defense has thirty days from the end of the first trial to file for a mistrial on the eight counts.
Let’s say both sides decide to go forward: prosecution with a retrial and defense with a mistrial. This would all be going on while another trial is going on. And because Manafort is now a convicted felon the penalties for him go way up in this next trial.

But this is mostly old news. There are some strange bits still floating around, like that fat faced f*ck who was a Republican finance person or fund raiser who paid 1.6 million to keep an affair quiet. Interestingly, the name used was the same name used on the agreement that Donald Trump had with Stormy Daniels. So was it really he that had the affair with her, or was it “David” the Donald? Somewhere in the Cohen stuff there was an illusion to money paid to women, which would mean more than the two we know about, perhaps? And this fat faced guy has been doing scut work for Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Hum.
Speaking of Stormy, her lawyer is now saying the way is clear for him to depose Trump – interesting. Even more interesting is Stormy is coming to Richmond, where we could see her perform in September! Some women I know of were thinking of going down to support her. They’re on the fence. I was pretty gung ho about the idea, because Ms. Daniels is one of the few people who would know, actually know, if when it comes to Donald if there “is a problem down there.” I’m the kind of guy who would ask. I went on line to find out where she was performing. A place called Paper Moon. So far, so good, then I read the reviews. Not on good one: the girls are ugly, the waitresses surly, the bathrooms disgusting, and beer warm and hugely overpriced. There wasn’t one good review. Hum, maybe I’ll pass. Too bad. I was looking forward to Ms. Daniels terpsichorean routine.
In another head scratching laughable routine Representative Duncan Hunter said that he never did any of the things alleged. He’s been busy working for the American people. (I guess from that Italian vacation he took on the campaign’s dime.) He said it’s all his chairman’s fault. He had nothing to do with it. That person is his wife! She went on that Italian vacation with him. (Or should I say was his wife? No, not yet.)
Speaking of crystal ball fortune telling with a high degree of accuracy for the week – the winner is Mika Brezezinka for correctly predicting that when Cohen was indicted Trump would run to Fox News and have an interview. She hoped they’d ask tough question, but knew better. What happened? Trump ran to Fox news and gave a bizarre interview where the woman lobed a few softballs and then he took over and admitted to crimes and lied and asked silly questions of himself. The best was about Jeff Sessions where Trump said Sessions never got control of the Justice Department and that he, Sessions, recused himself, and he, Trump, would never have given him the job, which he only did out of the fact that Sessions was loyal, and then he recused himself, “What kind of man does that?” and “If I had known he was going to recuse himself I would have never given him the job.”
Oh boy, like many of Trump’s statements, they demonstrate a lack of understanding of the law, logic, timelines, regulation, professional ethics and courtesy. He even went on to say that two of the charges against Manafort weren’t crimes. “A lot of people say so.” Those people being Fox News pundits. I have an idea for the president why not ask lawyers? You know like the lawyers at the Justice Department? As for Sessions recusing himself, he didn’t necessarily know that he would have to recuse himself until he got to Justice and talked to – wait for it – lawyers. They would have explained the law, the regulations, the ethics and so on to old Beauregard.

We are looking at all this and has anyone jumped up and down on the sofa (like Tom Cruise) and said, “Hey, the president of the United States was having affairs with women!” Where’s the outrage from the Christian Right, from Mike Pence, from the Republicans who were so worried about Bill Clinton and his improprieties?

On the day that Michael Cohen was pleading guilty what were the Republicans on the hill doing? Scheduling a person to come talk to them about Hillary’s emails.

I feel certain there may be another recipe lurking in the 30,000 emails. If I were Hillary I’d say to Donald, “I’ll show you mine (personal emails) if you show me yours (tax returns).” Oh wait, never mind, when the Dems take the House. I predict on the stroke of mid-night Maxine Waters will be demanding Trump’s tax returns.

996 Days to Go

PS Spider!

Day 581 Thursday August 23, 2018 997 Days to Go

Every once in awhile I have to take a step back and breathe. It’s been an awful 581 days, but before I get to that let me tell you about “The Dreams That Stuff is Made of.” It’s a compendium book of the original papers of the men and women that began to figure out the atom. Stephen Hawkings has written intros to each section, explaining what the papers you are about to read are addressing. It starts at the beginning of the twentieth century with the problem known as black-box radiation, which is trying to explain why metals when heated glow red and then, if heated more, glow white. It turned out that they couldn’t explain what was going on using regular Newtonian physics.
Something new had to be introduced. Notably the idea that a metal didn’t heat up uniformly, but instead lots of little pieces heated up, and they did so in steps, not continually. In other words, atoms would have jumps in energy absorbed or given off. These amounts were referred to a “quanta” or it was said that the atoms did jumps in “quantum,” and hence the beginning of quantum physics. A world very different from our everyday world.
It was Neils Bohr who figured out the earliest model of the atom and it’s been refined since, but he gets credit for the basic idea. Otto Geiger (of Geiger Counter renown) and Ernest Rutherford worked on the age old question of whether matter could be divided in ever smaller amounts. They bombarded gold foil with energy particles and watched the splattering to deduce where the negative and positive charges inside the atom were positioned. They discovered that the positively charged pieces were all in the center of the atom, but how could that be? Things of the same charge repelled each other in the larger world. They didn’t know. It wasn’t until the 1920s that an explanation was brought forth.
Think about that. It’s been less than one hundred years for our basic understanding of the atom, and we still don’t understand all of it. Einstein’s break out paper on special relativity was published in 1905.
The first street light* in the U.S. was installed in 1934. (*incandescent) I went out early this morning before the sun was even hinting at coming up and looked at the stars. The ones I could see. The ambient light blocks most of them. Damn street lights.
DeTocqueville had said that America was in a race between its vitality and its unseemliness. How true!
Today we see that more starkly than at other times. We have created energy from nuclear fusion but we haven’t figured out what to do with the residue. The world is pockmarked with places no longer safe for us as humans, but it will be okay in 10,000 to 28,000 years! That’s longer than we have been viable as a species. What are the chances that we will be here when those first spaces become safe? How many more will we create in the meantime?
Politically, there are some folks who are hoping for Brett Kavenaugh to become a Supreme Court justice. Why isn’t clear to me. His views aren’t just conservative; they are odd, oddly dangerous. He seems to want to have us return to “the good olde days.” Which good old days are not clear to me. But certainly he and Neil Gorsuch, who shouldn’t be on the court, want to repeal Roe v Wade. Many alive today don’t remember the days of rusty coat hanger abortions, or they think it’s not true, or something. But it was very true in my lifetime. I still remember the collective sigh of relief when this simple medical procedure was made legal.
Kavenaugh has said that the case against Nixon may not have been properly adjudicated. So what good old days does he envision? Does he want to get rid of Brown versus Board of Education? Do we want to go back to segregated schools? Betsy DeVos is working hard at doing that. How about getting rid of the fair housing act? That way people like Fred Trump could once again sell only to whites.
When I moved to the DC area the folks who sold me their house showed me the original title to the place. There were two large paragraphs of covenants listing all the types of people you were not allowed to sell to: Jews, Arabs, Negroes, were at the top of the list. Do we want to return to those days?
My mother told me the “funny” story of Sidney Poitier looking at real estate in my home town. His agent wanted to show him a friend’s house. I remember my mom saying, “of course they’d have to let the neighbors know.” I asked why, and got the “You know” answer. (I had no idea, but guessed it had something to do with his being black.) It turned out that his entourage of three cars pulled in the driveway of the place. He took one look at Bill, the guy who owned the place, sitting on the patio. He was all hot and sweaty from doing yard work and Poitier signaled the lead car to keep going. (“Whew” crisis averted.)
We are still in that race with ourselves.

In current news:
Remember those two guys? One pleading guilty to eight counts, and the other being found guilty on eight counts? That was the day before yesterday. Yesterday we got new cases and different players.
The State of New York had filed a civil case against The Trump Foundation, Donald, Don Jr, Ivanka, and Erik for not really running a charity foundation, but rather using the foundation as their personal piggy bank, and later to help fund Dad’s campaign. In fact, there’s even a note signed by Donald explicitly written to tell the foundation to pay off a campaign debt (or was it personal? I forget. It was only $100,000 what’s the big deal?) That seems to be the current excuse out of the White House, “It may be illegal, but everybody does it. No big deal.” Except, not everybody does it, and it is a big deal.
Speaking of which in the day before yesterday’s indictments Rep. Duncan Hunter who along with his wife were indicted for using his campaign fund to pay for all kinds of personal expenses like trips to Europe and the like was asked for comment. He seemed to be at the wharf of the yacht club when he spoke and you’ll be glad to know that he cleared it all up. Yup. Turns out its the Democrats are out to get him. It’s all a plot by the Democrats. I guess Dunc it was the Democrats whispering into your wife’s ear to put those golf shorts on the campaign fund account and you’d say, as she suggested, that it was some golf balls for wounded vets? Is that how the Justice Department got you?

So now the State of New York wants to speak to Michael Cohen because the civil suit against the foundation may become a criminal one. That could mean jail time for the board of directors of said foundation. That’s the Donald and his oldest three kids. (Tiffany had the good sense to get off the stage as soon as possible, and isn’t in on the scam.) The treasurer of the foundation, Trump’s long time accountant, may be off the hook too, because he didn’t know he was the treasurer until investigators told him. So if this case wins as a criminal case and Don and the kids are convicted they could do jail time and that ain’t something the President of the United States can pardon. Aw too bad. The NY AG also sent the information to the taxing authorities, both state and Federal (See, if you take in money and you claim to be a foundation, but you really aren’t you owe taxes. It’s a difficult concept for someone like Trump to understand because he doesn’t pay – period.)

This brings me to another point. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in “The Great Gatsby” – “The rich are different from us.” He went on to say how they casually ruin people’s lives and just go on.
There seems to be this hidden or veiled understanding between rich people. Mainly, that the rules don’t apply to them. They shouldn’t have to pay taxes because they are rich. Or as Nancy MacLean put it in her book “Democracy in Chains” there are the “takers” who want to take away their money. Translation: voters who authorize taxes. This attitude and behavior manifests itself in all kinds of hidden off-shore accounts, and shell companies, and tax dodge schemes. It’s a uniting principle of the rich. Be they here in the U.S. or in Russia. “We shouldn’t have to pay because we are rich. Let others pay. Not us.”

In other legal news Trump’s security team is being sued by protestors who were attacked by the big goon named Schiller that Trump had hired for years and two others on his security team. Five protestors were attacked by Schiller outside Trump Tower. The tape shows Schiller walking off with one of the protestor’s signs. When the protestor tried to get the sign back Schiller slugged him. Trump said at the time that it was disgusting what the protestors were doing. (Doesn’t he have any other line?) Yes, it certainly was disgusting. They were protesting that Trump called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers – disgusting. The protestors were of direct Mexican heritage. The tape shows this guy who is about two thids of Schiller’s size trying to take his sign back. Schiller slugs him in the neck. Hey, but Schiller says it was self defense. Watch the tape. Poor Keith Schiller, after grabbing a sign away from a person half his size he then slugs him. I’m sure Schiller felt threatened.
The case is going forward and the three security people and the Trump organization are named.

People who have been prosecutors (there seem to be a lot without jobs. Oh that’s right Don fired them) say that the way Trump and the Trump organization act is familiar. It reminds them of how a mafia family acts.

997 Days to Go

PS The Truth