Trump

Day 846 Thursday May 2, 2019

550 Days to the 2020 election and 628 Days to Inauguration Day

I am struck by the weird amount of lying and willful disregard for the truth that is all around me.

It’s hard to know where to begin. R. Kelley a singer who has had many close calls with the law, most of which deal with his relationships with underage girls, claimed he didn’t show up for a court appearance because he “has a learning disability.” The disability? He can’t read.

Then there’s William Barr’s testimony yesterday in front of a Senate committee. The amount of parsing in legalese and the amount of lying, bold faced lying, was incredible. Barr didn’t take this or that for what it was. Didn’t know what Robert Mueller’s thoughts and feelings were about Barr’s actions in regard to Mueller’s report when all along Mueller had talked to Barr, sent him letters and made very clear what his thoughts were. It’s incredible.

Even more incredible was the willingness of the Republican Senators to go along with the sham. Chuck Grassley trying to equate the fact that the Dems paid for oppo research from an American firm that hired a British specialist that talked to Russians is not engaging in communications with Putin’s buddies or the Russian intelligence or their cutouts. Lyndsey Graham (initials L.O.G.) opened up the hearing by wanting to look at Hillary Clinton’s emails and the other Republicans piled on. When Joni Ernst was questioning even the newscasters cut away to talk about something else. Maybe it was because she sounded like a 15 year old mall rat? I don’t know. I finally had to turn it off when Ted Cruz did his usual bit. He thanked Barr for his service to the country, noted his exemplary career before this, and that Barr answered “the call to service” and came back to government. I wanted to puke. Barr’s exemplary career includes being the mastermind behind one of the greatest coverups in U.S. legal history: the pardoning of the criminals involved in Iran-Contra. He also did the same thing before with summarizing a report, even used the same phrases, when he was in the Office of the Inspector General, covering up the stuff that Wu had written excusing the torture the CIA was doing for Cheney as “enhanced interrogation.” This is not some dedicated patriot, doing the will of the people, or for that matter representing them. This is a small minded craven toady, who will sell himself out for god knows what, I can’t figure it out. I guess he missed being in the middle of a shitstorm that he creates.

Then there are the 10,000 lies of Trump.

There’s Jared Kushner repeating Russian propaganda talking points.

And the really big issue to me is that the Russian elected this man as president of our country and no one is talking about that, because it’s so far out of the realm of possibility or proof that those who support Trump or are diehard Republicans are willing to say things like: “Well, we don’t know that,” or “There’s no proof.” etc.

Yeah? We know that the Russians in their social media attack reached 129,000,000 Americans. Do you think that changed 72,000 votes? I do.

There’s the outright gaslighting and the Republican Senators seem to be caught in a Stockholm Effect and desperate to hold on to whatever they can.

It makes we wonder when did the indians who allied themselves with Cortez think that wasn’t such a good idea? Or the Carthaginians who didn’t resupply Hannibal? Ot the Romans who didn’t come to the aid of the general who tried to get them to defend themselves against Attila? Or the Christians in Europe who didn’t come to the aid of Constantinople? The list goes on and on, but the point is the same. You may have differences with people close to you, but ignoring them you do at your peril.

Imagine if FDR hadn’t teamed up with Stalin and Hitler had won WWII?

Yeah, Stalin was a bad dude, but Hitler was worse. 

History is littered with people not acting in their own best interest. Our nation is suffering from that right now, and it seems to be getting worse. Ignoring of basic facts. OMG. I got my Mumps vaccine yesterday, and to think that there are people who claim to be educated that think vaccinations are bad. The willingness and gullibleness of people still astounds me. When people do not look at the facts or are willing to believe untruths masquerading as fact I find it disheartening and realize we need to more to educate and inform. We are facing tidal waves of deceit and deception coupled with a willingness to believe that which is false but “feels right (or good or something)” 

Neil deGrasse Tyson said about science that it is the search for the truth. I like that.

The search for the truth.

That is what I strive for and I hope others will too.

550 Days to the 2020 election and 628 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Mini-Eggs

Day 845 Wednesday May 1, 2019

May Day! Five days to Cinco de Mayo (no four! Where’s my Cinco shirt? Get out the Margarita glasses. I think I have a cassette of Jimmy wasting away somewhere. {Oh man that’s funny. Is the “somewhere” Margaritaville or where the cassette is hiding? Get it. Oh man, hold me back.] )

551 Days to the 2020 election and 629 Days to Inauguration Day

We’ve got news tidbits and analysis to get to. First the news:

The president has passed the 10,000^th lie marker with no end in sight. Remember when a president telling a lie was a big deal? Oh man, the good old days.

There’s been another hate crime shooting, maybe two. The terrorists were white guys. Surprise. Don’t know what the weapon was this time, but the deadliest mass shootings have all used AR15s. Gee, if there was only something we could do. I’m beginning to wonder if we are the stupidest country in the world because everyone else has figured it out.

Meanwhile Venezuela is blowing up. Our administration has put out statements on the situation: one by John Bolton the National Security Advisor and one by Mike Pompeo the Secretary of State. The one by Pompeo is some kind of veiled threat, I think, we think, it’s not clear.  Who knows. Hopefully, the guy who it was meant for. One of the two fighting for control of the country.  The other statement by John Bolton seems to be a direct message to the people of Venezuela. Weird. I mean, maybe John doesn’t know this, but the people of Venezuela speak a language that is different than ours. It’s called Spanish. So putting out a message in English isn’t going to be understood by many in that country. I know. Weird huh? Oh wait, other than “putting it out there” wherever there is, seems no effort was made to actually get it to Venezuela. That’s our National Security chief, on de ball.

Moving on, seems the administration has decided not to abide by the law. Hum. The Treasury Secretary has decided to insert himself in the middle of a matter he has no business being involved in, but there he is. He is an arrogant twit. I don’t know if you saw his exchange with Maxine Waters where he told her to bang her gavel and that he might not show up, etc. 

I had a dream. Yes, I did. I dreamt that some of the police officers that took our president’s words to heart (the words about not using your hand to make sure someone you were throwing in the police car didn’t hit there head). Yeah, I dreamed that those so-what-if-they-got-roughed-up-a-bit-they-deserved-it fellows (and gals) were the ones to grab Steve Mnuchin, cuff him, and throw him halfway up onto the table for resisting arrest, then taz and drag him out of the congressional hearing and throw him in the House jail cell. Then I dreamt Maxine turned to the IRS Commissioner and asked him to produce Trump’s tax returns. It’s just a dream. Okay, okay, I did wonder what would happen if we had that guy on the team who got confused between his gun and his taser and shot that guy in the back of the head, but that wasn’t part of the dream. Or was it?

Meanwhile, in part two of the administration disobeying the law, it seems the top law enforcement official may also need to be tazzed and incarcerated. I only suggest this as a way to help straighten the confusion he seems to be having in his head. Maybe a few zaps will clear out the cobwebs and rewire the circuitry. Apparently, the Attorney General made comments and summary statements (they’re not summary statements!) about the Mueller report while trying to “land the plane” as he put it, that weren’t quite true. Not quite true? How about outright friggin’ lie? Under oath. Hum, isn’t lying under oath a crime? Why yes, I believe it is. Shouldn’t such people be arrested? Yes, I believe they should. 

Okay. Barr told Congress that he did not know what Mueller’s opinion was of his, Barr’s, comments about the Special Counsel’s report. He must have forgotten about the memo he received a few days after he got the report. You know the memo from Bobby Three Stick saying, “Yo, you lying bucket of scum.” That memo. the one that was followed up with a phone call. 

In that memo Mueller sent to Barr, not only did Mueller say Barr had misrepresented the findings of the report but he, Mueller, gave Barr a redacted version of the introductions and executive summaries that he and his team had written so that they could be immediately released to the public so as to clear up the fog of BS the AG had laid on the ground. Naturally, Barr did no such thing. (I mean. “Tell the truth?” Are you kidding? Come on. This is Team Trump. They never tell the truth. Scout’s Honor.)

But Willie B is in second place for the lying sack of shit award. That has to go to Chris Christie and his pals. Why? Well, this is the story that just won’t go away, and gets stinkier with time. Yeah, I’m talkin’ Bridgegate. Okay so to remind you all of the situation. The George Washington Bridge had it’s traffic lanes rerouted that caused the Town closest to the bridge on the New Jersey side, Fort Lee, to have terrible traffic problems, So bad that one person died because the EMTs couldn’t get to her due to the traffic.

Apparently, the traffic lanes were redone to purposely screw up the traffic in Fort Lee to punish the Democratic mayor of that city for not endorsing Christie for Governor. When this came out, Christie being the sad bully that he is, blamed others, denied knowing anything about it, and had an expensive inquiry done that totally exonerated him. The most damning thing in the investigation was an email from Christie’s Chief of Staff, Bridgett Kelly, that said, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

For that she is going to jail. Christie has said he knew nothing about the lane closures and that he didn’t talk to Kelley about it, and he doesn’t care to hear her side of the story, and he fired her. End of story.

Oh wait. There’s more?

Hum, well, see Kelly has a slightly different recounting of what happened. During the investigations and trials it came out that the cover story was going to be “a traffic study.” Oddly, no one that would typically be told about such a traffic study was forewarned. In fact, Kelly was specifically told not to tell those people and when they called to ask what was going on she and others were told to stonewall. 

And despite Christie saying he never knew about the lane closures he was specifically told on two occasions by Kelly. She also was concerned because she could tell immediately that this would be terrible for Fort Lee, and when she was told by the governor to go ahead with the traffic study she wrote an email specifically saying that there would be traffic problems for that town. In fact, that’s the very email that got her in trouble.

Oh wait, you say. How do we know if that’s true, if that was her meaning and intent? Good question. 

Well, it seems all the other players in this little game of move the traffic cones were good long time buds of the Governor and they were all in on the scam, except Bridget. She wasn’t one of the guys. Not one of the long time pals. Too bad. 

So right after this whole thing blew up (the story, not the bridge) Ms Kelly got a phone call from a lawyer who offered to help her, to represent her. She knew the guy and was grateful for the offer. She had one concern. He was on a board in the State government and she thought it would be a conflict of interest for him to represent her. He assured her it was no problem. She told him just about everything she knew and had for her defense. Then days later he said he was out. He couldn’t represent her. He told the papers it was because of a conflict of interest that he had because he was sitting on a board. The very board Kelly had mentioned on their very first call. Hum, a lawyer didn’t know that to begin with and then did? Nothing to see here, right?

Oh, and there’s this teeny tiny fact. Turns out this guy and the Gov go way back. They’re good buds. So good that Christie appointed him to be a judge. So a guy who offered to be a lawyer for Ms Kelly, whom she was worried about a conflict of interest, turns out to be the Governor’s good friend and after hearing everything she had in her defense then says he can’t represent her. Oh and there’s more. the fellow who cooked up this while bridge screw up plan is also a good bud of the Governor and goes way back with him, and that’s the person to whom Kelly sent the infamous email.

So you are left with this decision. Did a woman who was on the staff of the governor cook up this whole plot or was she merely conveying a message from the governor to his long time buddy to go ahead with the plan? The “traffic study”?

The gall with which Christie tells such flagrant lies is an affront to me. This, like Trump, is gaslighting of the most flagrant bullying kind. (“No no, I didn’t cause the traffic problems on the GW Bridge, you did!”) Kelly had no motive to do it. She was carrying out what she was told to do. In this case convey a message. 

Moving on, Samantha Bee had her “Not the White House Correspondence Dinner” show, roast, and banquet. Held at Constitution Hall she was terrific. My only complaint was – it was too short. One piece they had pre-recorded showed the use of a technology that allows you to paste a different face on someone else. Kind of the old lips poking through a hole of a picture of someone else to make it seem like the person pictured was talking. Except this is much better technology. Kind of creepy. Watch out, a lot of people will get fooled.

Now to the presidential candidates:

There were some biographic pieces on Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren that I saw. Both pieces reminded me what there was to like about both. Joe is a heart felt guy. Warren holds the banks and financial folks accountable.

Then there was stuff about Buttigieg and Beto. Buttigieg has surged to third place in the polls. Mainly, it is felt because he has gone on a lot of TV shows. Beto has been out campaigning and doing a lot of local stuff. He’s kind of disappeared. He’s changing his strategy, but does he have what it takes. He sounds good, but vague. Mayor Pete on the other hand seems to have thought about whatever question that has been thrown at him. He comes across as thoughtful and genuine. 

I like a lot of the Democratic candidates, but Buttigieg is the only one that really makes sense to me. I’m afraid Biden has a lot of name recognition, but will fade. He’s older than most of the field and I think it’s time for a new generation to take over. Sorry Joe.

Oh boy, Bill Barr is going to testify soon. To which I say – so what?

I mean what’s he going to do? He’ll prevaricate. He’ll dodge and weave or just flat out lie.

Apparently, Mueller was really pissed at him. 

I think Barr should take flying lessons. Specifically, plane landing lessons. 

Do you remember the Gahan Wilson cartoon where you are looking into the cockpit of a plunging large jet. There’s a French poodle in a commanding posture and the line below the cartoon panel says, “Suddenly Fi-Fi seized the controls.” Frankly, I think we have a better shot of landing the plane with Fi-Fi at the helm.

551 Days to the 2020 election and 629 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Tacos!

Day 841 Saturday April 28, 2019

555 Days to the 2020 election and 633 Days to Inauguration Day

It’s been a week since my last screed and it seems like forever. I’ve been busy with a Mayan workshop and then symposium. It’s been refreshing to be away from the maddening madness. I started my re-entry last night where I scrolled through Facebook posts for longer than I’d like to admit. Then I got an email from one of my right wing friends’ buddies who asked the question, “Isn’t there someone better than Trump to represent the right’s values?”

I have to ask, “What are those values?”

I see none. Whatever “they” have claimed to stand for they have proved in the face of Trumpism that they don’t. Tax cuts? Only for the wealthy, we have to pay the rest. Fiscal responsibility? Please. Steve Mnuchin just had to borrow another $1,000,000,000,000.00 to make ends meet for this year, and that goes on top of the  $1,000,000,000,000.00 he borrowed last year. 

Conservatism as in “conserving out resources”? Once again Trump is letting every oil and gas man drill wherever they want and to throw their sludge in our rivers. Chemicals? Dump in the river, cover them up. Forget about it. 

So what are these right’s values? 

In a stunning display of the right’s values the courts in Kansas held up a woman’s right to say what goes on with her body. For them individual rights trump some religious nonsense, which has been getting foisted off on the general public under the name of pro-life, which should really be called pro-death and personal destruction, but somehow pro-life sounds better.

The right is really good at putting labels on things, like “right to work.” This little goodie means “We have the right to fire anyone for any reason and there ain’t stink you can do about it.” 

Then there’s the old “socialism” yell. As far as I can figure out if there’s a suggestion to help the public it’s socialism. This isn’t my idea. It’s Harry Truman’s. 

Well, that’s all for this week. I’ve got to get ready for a workshop on the glyphs of Ek Balam. After four or more years of looking and studying this stuff it’s starting to make sense. Which means I will be able to go on and on and on about them if you ask me.

555 Days to the 2020 election and 633 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Maya at the Lago glyph 

Day 833 Friday April 19, 2019

563 Days to the 2020 election and 641 Days to Inauguration Day

The president of the United States committed multiple crimes.

Of this there is no question.

The only question is what are we going to do about it?

Cut it., spin it, lie about it, do whatever you want, but the truth is the president of the United States committed multiple crimes.

In an act of war he conspired with the other side. There’s a term for that, let me think, what is it? Treason. Yeah, that’s it. Treason. Benedict Arnold was found guilty of treason for being in the same room with a man from the other side. Here we have a president who since becoming president has met secretly with the head man from the other side, has met with that man and not revealed anything of what he said, who has on many occasions taken that man’s position on various issues to the detriment of ourselves and our allies.

We were attacked by a foreign adversary and  the man who is now our president aided and abetted in that attack, along with some of his long time associates. 

His campaign chairman’s job before he became campaign chair was to help a Russian oligarch. How did he help him? By helping to install people that were friendly to said oligarch into positions of power in various foreign countries where this man had financial interests.

This chairman also shared polling data with this man via an intermediary. He specifically told the intermediary that the campaign needed help in four states to swing the election, and the Russians provided that help.

As to the president’s involvement there are 180 pages of criminal behavior and charges outlined in the Mueller Report. One hundred and eighty pages!

This does not include any of the stuff that is direct threats to national security in the form of counter intelligence stuff. That’s in a separate report we know nothing about. These one hundred and eighty pages does not include any of his financial crimes that’s all been referred out to various other prosecutorial groups. There are twelve or fourteen redacted other possible investigations that are prosecutable according to the redacted Mueller report.

This is just the broad brush of what we have learned from the redacted Mueller Report as it relates to the president.

In one of those legal jiu-jitsu type logic arguments the big one the Mueller Report makes is startling. Here we go. The Office of Legal Consul (OLC) wrote a memo saying you can’t indict a sitting president. Okay (but there seem to be some reasons you can, like if that president were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue.) 

Because you can’t indict a sitting president you shouldn’t even charge him with a crime. All you can do is say, “look at this criminal behavior.” 

What you could do, if the case warranted it, is to say the president is innocent of any crime.

This is not what the Mueller Report said. What it said was it could not exonerate him (the president) and – oh, by the way – here are 180 pages of crimes relating to my purview of “Did the Russians try to influence the 2016 campaign?” that I found. Maybe you folks in Congress should take a peek and decide if he should be impeached?

If Bill Clinton was brought up on charges relating to a defunct land deal that was not illegal and six blow jobs and lying about that, then what do you think about Donald Trump conspiring with a foreign adversary secretly and in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue?

The talk now is that Mueller is an institutionalist and he stuck to a very narrow definition of the law. Great. Meanwhile a bunch of yahoos led by a person who acts in every way possible like a crime boss is running our country into the ground.

The question some people are asking is why hasn’t this case against the president been investigated like you would a typical case against a crime boss? Why wasn’t he forced to testify under oath? Why weren’t his kids questioned? etc. etc. etc.

The redacted report from beginning to end is damning, and yet, here we are.

Some people are outraged that the Attorney General lied about the report. He lied on a key point. He said that the reason the president was not charged had nothing to do with the OLC memo. It had everything to do with it. It was the only reason the president was not charged by Mueller.

I wonder if William Barr can read. I wonder why he so desperately wanted the job of AG? Did he want to be back in the limelight? Did he want everyone to be reminded of his past misdeeds?

In the pantheon of shameful legal minds William Barr has elevated himself up there with Wu, the guy who said torture is okay because it’s not torture.

I’m trying to decide which analogy fits Trump better when it comes to criminal behavior:

Is he like Pigpen, the Peanuts character who is trailed by clouds of dirt and debris? But in the case of Donald it’s criminal behavior, legal suits both by him and against him.

Or is he more like a massive black hole, spinning at near light speed throwing off energy in huge waves and bands? Except with Donald it would be anyone coming close to him gets sucked in, torn apart, and throw out along with other debris in swaths of criminality, immorality, and unethical behavior.

It’s hard to say.

563 Days to the 2020 election and 641 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Yesterday I attained Number One status. I am so proud. (My order at McDonald’s was #1. Let that sink in. Yeah, baby. I’m back. #1 woot woot. I think I’m ready to declare myself a social influencer. Quick, I need to jump into the bathroom and take selfies of myself (Hey, isn’t that redundant? “selfies of myself”? I guess I’ll have to put it out there to my fans and favs and find out. Meanwhile, let me just mention that I’m wearing a black t-shirt that is oh so cute. Don’t you wish you could see it? Too bad. I’m not in the bathroom taking selfies, isn’t it? 

OMG! What is happening to me? Pogo – help me! What? You can’t? No one under 30, no 40, even knows who you are? …) )

Later.