Trump

Thursday December 24, 2020 (1 day til Christmas, also called “Christmas Eve”)

Election Day -51

28 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Okay, well, hum Did anyone see the video of Satan and Melania leaving The White House yesterday to go to Florida? There were several interesting things to note:

– Where was Baron?

– Is Satan ever returning?

– Will he sign a Covid Relief Bill? Forget which one, will he sign?

– Did you notice the two hand gestures? The “thumbs up” and “the fist”? They are his signature rally signs. It seemed to me they were very lifeless. Especially, “the fist” which was more of a “whatever” gesture. Like – here’s the fist, kind of, eh, who give a sh*t? Goodbye.

Commentators were wondering if he was ever coming back from Florida. Is he done? Etc. 

He threw out the idea that he wanted larger stimulus checks for people. He said he wants $2000.00 not $600.00, which is great. Great because it puts McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate in a real bind. And it screws up the two Republicans running for the Senate seats in Georgia in a huge bind. I mean what can they say? Oh we were always for the bigger checks? (Yeah? Bull!) 

The history of the Republican Party from Reagan on has been to screw the average person. It has gotten worse over the years but now we are at a kind of climax. It will be sadly interesting to see how it plays out.

There’s little polling on the Senate races in Georgia. That’s because pollsters are gun shy. They were so wrong on so many races that these two, with so many variables, is not one they want to weigh in on. One pollster said that the problem they will have as pollsters and the electorate will have on January 6^th is that you are literally running against Santa Claus. Yikes. Who wants to do that? Not the pollsters.

But here’s the real danger to the country right now. The president has vetoed the military spending bill. This means the Senate and the House can override the veto and the bill passes. No problem. It’s kind of interesting that Democrats will be able to run on the mime of Republicans Wanted to Defund the Military. 

However, with the Covid relief bill of which there will be two versions: the $600 stimulus check version and the $2000.00 one. I suspect the $2,000 will be passed by the House soon and then given to McConnell to either put on the Senate floor or not.

Some Covid bill will end up on the president’s desk. The question is “will he sign it?”

Forget that he’s in Florida. Will he sign it? If he doesn’t sign then the country is screwed. The president is given ten days to sign a bill. If he doesn’t it’s called “a pocket veto.” In ten days Congress will be done. They won’t have time to override his pocket veto. There will be no relief for anybody. No $600 check, no $2,000 check, no eviction protections – nothing. 

Frankly, based on Satan’s limp fuck-it fist gesture I think he is done with being president. He will probably come back to the White House to strut around. Maybe tag a few things with a spray paint can, but that’s it. Sign a bill? Screw that!

Hey, Merry Christmas. 

PS In the lair of The Fat Cat

Wednesday December 23, 2020 (2 days til Christmas)

Election Day -50

29 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Seems my count to Jan 20^th may be off a day or two. Oh well. We are getting so close that we can calculate it easily now. Should be 28, not 29.

Will adjust here:

28 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

There. Done.

Okay, about a week ago I hit the DVR up to look for my favorite Christmas movies. They are:

A Christmas Story,

A Child’s Christmas in Wales,

Truman Capote Christmas in Cape Cod.

I only found one, Jean Shepard’s “A Christmas Story” That’s the one about the Red Rider BBgun, Ralphie and Darren McGavin as the dad. I always liked Darren. He had a TV series called “Night Stalker” which apparently was a movie too. In it he played a guy that was chasing down vampires and killing them. No one believed him and he had a beat up old car. It was kind of The Rockford Files for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer crowd.

Jean Shepard I came to appreciate much later in life. I had a high school buddy who kept telling me to listen to his radio program every Sunday night. I never did. I’d ask Peter what it was about and he’d say Jean just talked. Man, do I regret not listening now.  Besides A Christmas Story there is another movie about the 4^th of July which is outstanding, and I think maybe another. He has a story called “Wanda Hickey’s Night Of Golden Memories” which recounts his taking Wanda to the prom and he getting very drunk. Excellent stuff.

A Child’s Christmas in Wales – is a poem by Dylan Thomas. The movie has the poem being read (perhaps by Thomas?) and scenes re-enacted based on the poem. It’s lyrical as Dylan can be. Can’t find it on the DVR or Netflix. Will try Amazon Prime or whatever it’s called as soon as we locate that skinny remote.

Truman Capote Christmas in Cape Cod – is similar to A Child’s Christmas in Wales in that it is Capote recounting his spending the holiday on the Cape every Christmas as a kid. It’s lovely. Can’t find it either.

While looking for these I ran across another movie I’ve been looking for “Peppermint” starring Jennifer Garner. Garner is one of those actresses that can look really good or kind of washed out. I watched her in Alias a bit, but didn’t really connect. I think it was like listening to Jean Shepard on the radio. I didn’t give it enough time. Peppermint is a role I’ve never seen Garner play before – a kick ass MMA type fighter trained in weapons and everything else she needed to seek vengeance on the people who killed her family. It’s a large cast. Most of them are mobbed up or dirty – she kills them all. It takes place on December 21^st and there’s a Christmas tree in her house. I guess that’s why it came up under Christmas films.

Moving on to White House Shenanigans – We all wonder, “Can it get worse?” And it always does. I am way past being shocked or outraged. I’m more in the acceptance phase and the hard core determination phase, much like Garner in Peppermint, I’m out for Justice. There’s a new ad out by The Lincoln Project. It is designed for one person, and I bet you can guess who! It says that on January 6^th Mike Pence will preside over the official counting of ballots by the Electoral College and then The reign of Satan will be done for good. But will it? 

Apparently, Satan has been having meetings with any crackpot who he can cage into his lair. The partially sane people who have enabled him all this time are all of a sudden are busy and in some cases out of the country. That nutty woman lawyer who was with Rudy at press conferences is now at The White House and rumors are circulating that Satan wants her to head up a special prosecutorial investigation of Hunter Biden. Of course, he can’t do that directly, he needs Barr to do it, but Barr leaves as of today and the new toadie coming in. Will he do it? God knows. Probably.

Also, there have been meetings at the White House that have some observers “concerned.” These seem to be twofold: Satan might try to overthrow the election and he might use the military to do it. Well, at least there isn’t talk of him going nuclear or starting a war – is there? Is there? Hello? 

The latest bit of madness seems to involve Mike Pence and the idea of overturning the election via the Electoral College. What should happen on January 6^th is the delegates of the Electoral College meet in Washington. I guess in the Senate Chamber. The Vice President presides. He asks for and counts the ballots cast for President. So if I got this correctly what Satan wants Mike to do is to not accept some of the official ballots from some of the swing states, declare them no good and accept ballots from Trump supporters. Easy-Peezy. So the question is would Mikey do it? We’ll have to wait and see. To not do what Satan wants and actually do his job as laid out in the Constitution would require some act of near courage. Something Pence is loath to demonstrate. He prefers to be the sneaky, lying, sanctimonious little putz he is. Stay tuned. I’m betting several news networks will show the counting live.

Meanwhile Trump is looking to see what else he can ruin. He’s fighting with McConnell, and has demonstrated a lack of interest in the Georgia Senate races. McConnell and Mnuchin have agreed to give the American people $600, and McConnell wants it done before the Georgia runoff. That way he’s hoping to say, “See we gave you something.” This is equivalent, in my humble opinion, to Soupy Sales doing the ads for 7UP where he splashes some of the soda on the table and serves it to White Fang by brushing it off the table onto the floor with the back of his hand.

But Satan says he may veto it! Just in time for Christmas, when everything runs out either the day after or the end of the month. Nice. He says he wants to give folks $1200 or maybe $2000. Why now? Who knows? Besides that was earlier in the week, maybe he’s changed his mind? If I were Nancy Pelosi, I’d pass an addendums so quick old Mitch wouldn’t be able to get his turtle head turned around*. Then the Senate could pass it or not, but it would take away any argument McConnell has that he’s looking out for folks, regardless of whether he brings it up for a vote. Think about it.

And when Satan hasn’t been having meetings with nut jobs, or trying to overturn the election, he’s been busy selling pardons. Well, more like tit-for-tat. What’s that called? Quid pro Quo. Got it.

Let’s see he’s pardoned the Blackwater murderers. The ones who at the suggestion of Eric Prince that they are just arabs (or not Christian?) and you should shoot them in the ass did so at a traffic circle killing 17 civilians: women and children.

He’s also pardoned corrupt Congressman. Insider trading? No problem. Campaign spending on plane tickets for your rabbit? Okay. And traveling to see your mistresses, all on your campaign funds? Cool. What they have in common is they were early supporters of Trump.

Then there’s the guy from Florida who carried out one of the largest Medicare frauds in history. Over a billion dollars. Bigger than Rick Scott’s? I guess. The fellow got 20 years. Scott became Governor then Senator. That is after he pleaded the Fifth like seventy times. But that guy? He got pardoned. Where’s Peppermint? We need justice.

PS Me in my Elvis/Hunter S. Thompson sunglasses. 

* Did you hear? Someone put up “Turtle Crossing” signs near McConnell’s house in Kentucky. Me like-e.

Tuesday December 22, 2020 (3 days til Christmas)

Election Day -49

30 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

 The Ukraine Scandals: Rudy, Hunter, WTF is going on?

Yesterday, it was discovered that Rudy G is being investigated by the Feds from his old office, the Southern District. We don’t know for what, but it is guessed that if you are the personal lawyer for the president, which Rudy is, then someone “at Main Justice,” would have to have approved it. At least in normal times. These aren’t normal times. So who knows? However, the idea that someone at Main Justice signed off on this means it was the Attorney General and that is Bill Barr. Whoa. So after doing all that stupid stuff for the pres is Barr finally doing a few things a normal AG would do? Is that why he decided to leave early, but had a few projects to finish up? Like signing off on investigating Rudy?

Why might Rudy be investigated? OMG the list is kind of long but let’s run through a few of them:

1. He was involved with those two guys with Moscow connection Lev and Igor who gave tons of money illegally to Trump and the Republican party and or Republican fundraising efforts.

2. Rudy was known to have been talking to and working with a guy in the Ukraine who is a Russian agent. He claims he didn’t know that.

3. Rudy has been either conjuring up one conspiracy theory after another or getting them from right wing crack pots and or being feed this garbage by Russian disinformation sources.

4. Lev and Igor were caught trying to leave the country to go to Austria where a Russian billionaire is living. Rudy was going to follow. That billionaire was working for Putin siphoning off money from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. It got so bad that Joe Biden went over there and complained along with lots of Ukrainian citizens. Eventually, the Russian backed Ukrainian dictator was overthrown and the billionaire siphoning money from Burisma fled to Austria, but not before he got arrested in Italy. He  was held on bail. Ten Million Dollars. He wrote a check and never came back. The Russian backed dictator you will remember had a gold toilet and a restaurant in the shape of a pirate ship on a manmade lake. The restaurant was for him and him alone. He also had a safe and in the safe were notebooks detailing secret payments to people. One of those people was Paul Manafort.

5. Burisma in an attempt to clean up their image hired Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Hunter actually has a business that does consulting work. Whether he did enough to get paid whatever he got paid is a question some have asked. Also, why Hunter? This is not the only time a relative close to someone in power has made money off their elected kin. Remember Billy Carter? How about Jared and Ivanka? They made 60-80 million this year alone. What did they do for it? Most of it was foreign sources too.

I find it interesting that people are aghast at such behavior when they themselves are doing the same thing or worse. 

6. Rudy and Bill Barr have been listening to right wing Russian disinformation about Ukraine. There is this talk of the Democrats having a server in the Ukraine. Rudy and Bill went over there to find it. Just like the folks who wanted to go to the pizza parlor that was alleged to be running a child sex ring out of its basement. The fact that the pizza parlor was built on a slab of concrete and hence there was no basement didn’t deter the spread of the story.

7. More recently, Rudy has been talking crazy, but that’s another story for another day.

PS The Grand Conjunction! Jupiter and Saturn in alignment with Earth and appearing as one bright star on December 21, 2020. “You mean the red dot?” “Yes. Yes. Yes!” (Some may think I need to “get a life!”)

Wednesday December 16, 2020 (9 days til Christmas)

Election Day -43

36 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Last night Rachel outlined the many things the new guy who is taking over from Barr has done as Barr’s assistant. He has been behind most, if not all of the most egregious things that Barr has done. I’d call him the Riff-Raff of the Justice Department. One thing Satan and Barr have done is expose how fragile our democracy and our institutions are. Similarly, McConnell has demonstrated the same thing but in the congressional branch. Taken together they (Satan, Barr, McConnell) have carried out an all out assault on our institutions and our way of life as it regards our beliefs in what this nation is all about.

Although this is nothing new for the Republicans the alarming brazenness leaves nothing to the imagination. There is little or no room to suggest that they are doing anything but what they are doing. One thing about Satan is that he commits crimes out in the open. There is no subtlety to it*, other than he is committing other crimes in the background.

I forget which commentator said this but one thing Trump can do and has done is to suck the soul right out of people. How he is able to do this will be studied, I am sure, for many years. 

For those of us who cherish our democracy, our institutions, and our way of life, it makes us very aware that we need to do something to shore up those things we hold dear. Part of this effort, no doubt, will have to be to teach civics again in a very real way. No more namby-pamby BS courses. There was a guy who taught a course on constitutional law up in Boston who got to be quite famous for it. Celebrity news crews would come and do stories on his course and the questions he would ask. 

One time Dan Rather was in the class and the professor asked the question of whether a policeman seeing a crime being committed through an open door could cross the threshold to stop the crime. What if he or she only suspected? Etc. There were questions about the press and reporting. The prof would wrap up the question by explaining what the Constitution said about such things. We need more of that kind of thing. 

If nothing else these last four years have been a laboratory in learning about the Constitution, the law, and checks and balances. What I think has become apparent is that are systems are fragile and depend on people understanding the limits and “playing by the rules” and “not pushing the limits.”

However, the limits have been pushed so new rules need to be put in place to safeguard what we have.

Or we might lose it all.

In other stuff, a few Republicans are reluctantly hinting that Biden may have won. This is both at the national level with politicians and some of my facebook loving Trump supporting friends. Albeit in a kind of nasty backhanded way. I’m trying not to ask if they think that it was “a free and fair election,” and that there was no voter fraud, and that Biden won – to use the words of Satan and Kelley-Ann Conway – “in a landslide” because Joe won by the same electoral college margin as Satan did in 2016? I’m trying to restrain myself. And if there’s one thing most of you know about me it’s restraint. (Nod, nod, wink, wink)

Oh, guess what? The criminal complaint filed by the FBI in regards to Trump’s Ukraine call has come to light. Redacted of course. The FBI turned it over to main Justice, ie Bill Barr. Justice “took care of it.” I guess when you have a crime outlined chapter and verse (or should I say sited chapter and subchapter of the legal code?) The Attorney General of the U.S. can conclude “there’s nothing there”? Right? Hum. maybe the next AG can take a look at that? I’m guessing Riff-Raff will be busy trying to make sure that can’t happen. Stay tuned.

*I remember my 11th grade history teacher talking about The Charge of The Light Brigade. These men had orders and they knew it was crazy and must be a mistake, but they charged anyway. They got slaughtered. A few made it through. Why? The enemy couldn’t believe what they were seeing and thinking it some kind of trick held their fire for awhile. The first few into the gap weren’t fired upon because the enemy was on either side and didn’t want to shoot their own. Why am I reminded of this with Satan?

PS “The Bubbles” as viewed from the lawn of The Jordan Pond House, Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert Island, Maine.

Saturday December 12, 2020 (13 days til Christmas)

Election Day -39

40 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

It’s been over a month and Satan has yet to admit he lost. His suit in Texas got voted down in The Supreme Court for review 9-0. Well, two of them said that the court has to review any case of one state against the other (Alito and Thomas), but on the merits? No. There was no merit.

So why is the orange one doing this? Ah. Grasshopper. It is what he does. What he has always done. Distract. Inflame. Move on.

In the last few days the following topics have made headlines:

We are now experiencing one 9/11 in terms of deaths from Covid every day in the U.S. This death toll number surpasses not only the number killed on 9/11, but The death toll from the 1906 San Franciso Earthquake. We blew past the number killed at Pearl Harbor and are now closing in on the number dead in the bloodiest of Civil War battles. The only major death event we may not surpass in a day is the Galveston Hurricane. That may take two and a half days.

What is the president doing? Pouting, playing golf, and ignoring any crisis. He has been very focused on trying to overturn the election.  He lobbied members of Congress and states’ Attorney generals to sign on as friends of the court to the Texas case. As one reporter noted that he can obviously get people in Congress and the states to back him, no matter how silly. Imagine what he could do if he wanted to help the American people? But he doesn’t. He doesn’t care. I hope the list of sycophants is used to hunt down each one of these pathetic losers and vote them out of office.

The other headlines that have been emerging are that both the Manhattan District Prosecuting Attorney and the New York State Attorney General are investigating Trump, the Trump Organization and the Trump children for financial crimes. It’s not a complicated case. Well, it’s complicated because there’s a lot of paper to wade through but the basics are straight forward. What Satan is accused of doing is claiming his real estate was worth a lot more than it really was to get bank loans. He also claimed it was worth a lot less when he had to pay taxes and insurance. He sent documents electronically and through the mail to support these claims. All this kind of stuff is called fraud: bank fraud, tax fraud, financial fraud, real estate fraud, insurance fraud, mail fraud … wire fraud. Or as attorneys familiar with such things say, “Simple fraud.” When asked how hard it would be to prosecute this case I have heard attorneys say they could get a conviction if they were blindfolded with one arm tied behind their back.

As to people saying, “Well, it may be true and it may not…” Remember, the New York Times has boxes of documents from Mary Trump showing the scams. Scams that went on for years. Not only did he commit the criminal frauds I have mentioned he also stole from Mary Trump and other family members.

These crimes, frauds and unethical behaviors are so bad that a Supreme Court Justice resigned rather than face the prospect of having to decide or recuse himself from a case involving his son and Deutsche Bank where his son worked and where his son was the one that approved many of that banks loans to Trump. It is thought that the bank was really a conduit for Russian money to Trump. In other words the Russians (ie Putin) were directly bribing the future president.

Beside that little “problem” there is Trump’s sister who was a judge and retired early so as to not have to face a judicial inquiry into the fraud that she and Donald perpetrated on niece Mary and others in the family. I hope this gets dragged into court so we can hear sister say she was an innocent unknowing lamb. (Yeah. Right.)

Meanwhile, Congress has passed some watered down weak ass bill to keep the country from going into default for a week and McConnell is trying to blame Pelosi for not making a deal. He’s had the House legislation since May. Not make a deal? Lemme see here’s the deal he wants in a nutshell: give him everything he wants for his rich friends, give nothing or grudgingly a pittance to the people in real need. Why won’t Nancy go for it? Hum. 

Meanwhile, we are watching other countries reign in the virus, and Hawaii! How does Hawaii do it? First off they have a governor that is an engineer. Not a lot of show. He looks at data and makes decisions based on it. Then, get this, when people broke the quarantine rules he had them arrested and thrown in jail. Word got out pretty quickly that, like that ambulance chasing law firm ad, “We mean business.”

In other positive news, the dreaded flu epidemic of the winter hasn’t happened. Why? People are wearing masks!

It is also rumored (rumored? Discussed openly?) that Satan may skip the Inaugural and fly to Florida where he will hold a rally at the same time as Biden and Harris are sworn in. I think that’s a terrific idea. Why? Who wants Satan lurking up on the platform with the new administration? That’s one thing. For me, and others, the speculation is when should Satan be arrested? Should he be perp-walked out of the White House at 12:01 pm January 20^th? Or should they wait until he is at his big rally? Maybe reroute his plane to New York so he can be taken directly to jail.

Oh and surprise, surprise, Putin says he can come live in Russia. He and Stephen Segal can trade stories as they get fatter.

And finally, he did it! He managed to bring over 50 cases about the election and he lost them all! Well, not quite he got a partial on one.

I hope the lawyers who brought these frivolous lawsuits get disbarred.

PS The Scorecards: Death and Law Suits.