Trump

Day 776 Thursday February 21, 2019

620 Days to the 2020 election and 698 Days to Inauguration Day

I grew up on the Beatles. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” went to #1 the week after I started listening to the radio. The week before it had been The Trashman with “Surfin’ Bird,” popular recently because it was part of a dance along app. (“Well a bird bird bird, bird is a word, Everyone knows about the bird!”)

The Beatles dominated the top 40 and the album charts. They sold albums that didn’t have their top 40 songs in them. It was an amazing run. I had no idea. I thought it was normal. I just read that Ariana Grande has equalled one of the Beatles feats by having three songs in the top ten at the same time. 

I bought the cd versions of Rubber Soul and Revolver the other day. Both for me were transitional albums. By that I mean I listened to them a lot, but they didn’t hold the sway that Sgt Peppers did. There were songs on each album that were different, very different from what music was being played on the radio. And not different in the sense of weird, “I’m gonna mess you up,” but song that showed a different kind of music than we had heard. They seem to have been lead ups to Sgt. Pepper.

Then there’s Jefferson Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow.” That album stands alone. It two most famous songs: “White Rabbit”* and “Somebody to Love” were brought over to the band by Grace Slick who had developed the songs with her old band The Great Society**.

* Some call this “The go ask Alice” song.

** This name was a play on Lyndon Johnson’s social programs of the same name.

The Airplane had this one beautiful album. They were more of a folk band before and more of a psychedelic  band after. “After Bathing at Baxter’s” was a followup album that was good but never caught on. The band then morphed into Jefferson Starship and those songs seemed loud and confused with no one taking the lead and everyone making noise. But Surrealist Pillow had songs of quiet beauty and powerful emotion. “Today” comes through today as a shimmering quiet clean piece of work. It has been said that Jerry Garcia played lead, but that’s been debated. Marty Balin’s voice is sweet and plaintiff. He never seemed to have gotten his due. He died in 2018. 

The Rubber Soul cd is a compendium of both the mono and stereo version of the album. In a lovely tribute they included the original record sleeve. This sleeve had pictured other albums by Capitol: 30 covers on one side and 20 on the other. Wayne Newton, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Junior, Bobby Rydell, Wanda Jackson, Buck Owens, Beach Party Bingo, the Beach Boys, The Kingston Trio, Cilla Black, The Lettermen – some names have endured, some have faded. It gives you a snapshot of what was hot back in December of 1965. A period of great transition and great promise was on the rise. 

In so many ways that opportunity was squandered. Lost to drugs, hubris, naiveté. 

We may be on the cusp of another great wave. I am hopeful, but fearful that once again the football may be snatched away. 

The same messages of deception, division, and fear are being promoted by old and new actors. The Republicans are screaming socialism once again, as they have anytime a program to help the mass of people is suggested. (They love socialism for themselves: the rich, but everyone else can go screw.) These messages are being aided and abetted by new actors: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran  are some of the names we hear.

There is also the trend that has been pointed out that the rich are a combination of the inherited, the self-made, and the criminal. These seem to meld at a certain point, as the Panama Papers revealed. It doesn’t matter how you got your money, but once gotten there is a desire to keep it at all costs.

There was a book out a few years ago that speculated that the world was moving toward a division of the super rich and everyone else. This super rich class would be made up of criminals and those who had amassed wealth via stock ownership, not labor. this seems to be coming true. Unless we act.

There are positive signs on the horizon. Elizabeth Warren’s idea of taxing the super rich at 2% of all their accumulated wealth is very popular. So is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ suggestion to tax income of over $10 million at 70%. Yes, the Republicans and their super rich dark money people are screaming and scheming, aided and abetted by Russian trolls bent on driving divisions in the ranks.

I was surprised to hear that Bernie Sanders entry into the 2020 race generated so much financial support. He raised close to $6 million from 263,000 folks at an average donation amount of $27. Wow, that says alot about something. I’m not quite sure what. We’ll have to wait and see. 

Andrew McCabe is on the book tour talk circuit. What he has said that he didn’t put in the book is as startling as what is in it. As Jim Comey said before him and he repeated, the Trump organizations mirror a mobster’s organization more than anything else. I think there is a simple explanation for this – it is. It is a mob organization. It has ties and may even be controlled by the Russian mob headed by Putin. McCabe has stated that the government and the criminal mob in Russia are the same thing. There is no difference. 

Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out in his show last night that no one has come out and disputed anything that McCabe has said. They have made carefully worded statements, but there is no disagreement with what he has said. They have called him a liar because he was accused of lying, but that’s the best they can do. Of course Trump has lied about McCabe for years. Conflating and suggesting things that are easily provable to be false. There is nothing off-limits for Trump. He has attacked McCabe’s character, his family, his wife, his motives, and his actions. All have been shown to be untrue. 

Oh and speaking of Trump, he released a video showing his building the wall. It didn’t take long for it to be pointed out that this was an Army Core of Engineers repair of existing wall with funds approved a long time ago. But maybe we should let the president continue to say he’s building the wall. Then he can at some point say the wall is finished and we can all say hooray and good job. Maybe W’s old banner of “Mission Accomplished” is still hanging around. 

Michael Cohen is due to testify in open hearings. He won’t talk at that hearing about Trump and Russia. That only leaves Trump and hush money payments, Trump and shady business dealings, Trump and OMG so much.

Meanwhile Roger Stone will be in court. “Well, yes your honor, I did post a picture of you with cross hairs of a gun site near your head in a picture. I’m a bad boy. I said I was sorry. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do. I’m really sorry. Can’t you see how contrite I am looking? What? Listen they did use gestapo style tactics. They didn’t? SOP? Really? Hey, how about I’m sorry and I’m stupid? No? Jail time? Now? I said I was sorry and that I’m stupid. You agree? I still have to go to jail? Yes, your honor.”

I suspect when Trump is sentenced it won’t be like that but more like when the Duke rape case prosecutor or the Joe Paterno assistant coach got sentenced. They stood there in disbelief, not seeming to realize what had happened. 

Stay strong. Stay focused on the task at hand. 

620 Days to the 2020 election and 698 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Rubber Soul Record Sleeve 

Day 774 Tuesday February 19, 2019

622 Days to the 2020 election and 700 Days to Inauguration Day

Yesterday the news shows were repeating parts of Andrew McCabe’s interview on 60 Minutes. They dissected it and looked at it from many different angles. Please if you haven’t listened to the interview I urge you to find it and listen. It is stunning. A buddy of mine sent me Seth Abramson’s seventy odd tweet thread on this topic. Abramson is a lawyer and person who says what seem to be some rather “different” views on things. Oftentimes they in retrospect turn out to be true. I say “in retrospect” because often at the time he is first saying them they appear to be crazy. We however are living in crazy times. 

Abramson’s through line on McCabe’s interview is this: remember all the talk about rouge FBI agents in New York leaking stuff to the press about Clinton? Yeah, well if that’s true then put that together with the pressure Comey and then McCabe were under because of this and yeah there was chaos at the FBI and it was caused by Trump’s cronies, not the other way around.

Here’s the link to the Abramson tweet thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1097539215800352768.html?fbclid=IwAR0lO6AL5uAeL4OrSHSp9r1sUXDRzffqUCAdYofyqCOBcW5_To0O3h9UO_I

I don’t know if that will work for you all, but give it a try, I have to move on.

There are new shenanigans in the Roger Stone and Paul Manafort stuff. In the case of Roger Stone to say that this man lives in an alternate reality gives a bad name to alternate reality. Fantasy yes. Dark fantasy – even better. I’m beginning to suspect that Stone is angling to get off on an insanity plea. That would make sense. What did Roger Dodger do? He posted a picture of the judge that is going to hear his case with crosshairs near her head. Then he took it down and reposted the picture cropped without the crosshairs. And yes, there was a bunch of Roger incendiary babble next to it about the judge. Maybe, he’s trying to get a change of venue by later arguing that this judge can’t possibly be fair to him because of all the garbage Stone has said about her?

Meanwhile in the Manafort sentencing, which is only for the crimes he was found guilty of in his first case and that the sentencing guidelines suggest 19 1/2 to 24 1/2 years but because there are aggravating circumstances (and no mitigating ones) the judge should consider more severe penalties we have this same judge from the Stone case weighing in. This has to do with the fact that Manafort was not living in a fantasy world but instead constructed a huge lie or set of lies relating to his client Konstantin Kilimnick. Kilimnick is linked directly to Russian military intelligence. Manafort apparently, according to the judge, constructed an elaborate story to try and shield Kilimnick from any wrongdoing and to try and explain away his own criminal actions. The judge said in open court, to his face, that he is hiding something. That something is the heart of the Mueller probe and he, Manafort, isn’t being truthful.

What is it that Manafort is hiding that is so damning that he is willing to shield a Russian GRU agent, and spend the rest of his life in prison? (I leave it to the avid reader at cogitation time to reflect and arrive at an answer.) We don’t have much time. It’s already past seven am and Barnes and Noble opens at nine. I’ll be at the door.

Andrew McCabe 60 Minute interview – Part II:

(AMC is Andrew McCabe)

(SP is Scott Pelley)

… from Part I …

AMC: “But anyway that night in the Oval Office was not reality. 

“The version of events that I quickly realized he wished me to adopt.

… Part II …

“Hum, as he went on talking how happy people in the FBI were he said to me, ‘I heard you were part of the resistance.’ “

SP: “What did he mean by that?”

AMC: “Well, I didn’t know. So I asked him. ‘I heard that you were one of the people that did not support Jim Comey. You didn’t agree with him, and the decision he made in the Clinton case. And is that true?’ 

“And I said, ‘No sir, that’s not true. Um, I worked very closely with Jim Comey. I was part of that team and a part of those decisions.’ ”

SP: “You had the sense that you had given him the wrong answer.”

AMC: (immediate reaction) “Oh, I knew I had given him the wrong answer.”

SP: “You weren’t trying to hang onto this job?”

AMC: “I wasn’t willing to lie to keep it. 

“I didn’t know when I be out of a job. I thought it would be pretty soon. I just put my head down and got to work trying to stabilize the people around me and doing things I felt we needed to do with the Russia investigation: getting cases opened, and getting a special counsel appointed.”

SP: (Aside) After Comey was fired McCabe said he ordered two investigations of the president himself*. They asked two questions.

One) Did Trump fire Comey to impede the investigation into whether Russia interfered with the elections?

and

Two) If so, was Mr. Trump acting on behalf of the Russian government?

AMC: “I was just speaking to the man who had run for the Presidency and won the election for the Presidency. Who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, ourr most formidable adversary on the world stage. And that was something that troubled me greatly.”

SP: “How long was it after that that you decided to start the obstruction of justice and the counter intelligence investigation of the president?”

AMC: “ I think, the next day.”

622 Days to the 2020 election and 700 Days to Inauguration Day

*The “himself” refers to the president, not McCabe. ie it wasn’t McCabe himself that ordered the investigations but rather McCabe that ordered the investigations of the president himself.

PS Andrew McCabe and CBS’ Scott Pelley

Day 773 Monday February 18, 2019

President’s Day

623 Days to the 2020 election and 701 Days to Inauguration Day

Agenda: Interview with Andrew McCabe Part I

But first, a few random thoughts:

I was so impressed with the 60 Minutes interview with Andrew McCabe that at first I thought I’d copy out some of the things he said verbatim. As I began to listen once again to the interview I couldn’t pick out what to cut. I have therefore put up the first several minutes of the interview in this screed: word for word.

Andrew’s book comes out tomorrow Tuesday. I would urge everyone to buy it. At least that way he’ll get some money for retirement after the Disater-In-Chief fired McCabe one day short of getting his pension because Trump is a mean petty little bitch.

It also is interesting to me how the books about what is going on and what has gone on are, like the Mueller investigation, spiraling closer and closer to Trump. It’s almost like with each passing day, and each passing hour the sword of justice is getting sharpened. I wonder if he feels the heat? Probably not. He’s inured to such. But pretty little Ivanka? Or dopey Jared? Or the Trump boys? Yeah. I wonder when they’ll squeal like little pigs?

And Now:

Interview with Andrew McCabe Part I

Scott Pelley (SP): “Tonight you will hear, for the first time from the man who ordered the investigations of the president. Former Director MacCabe is about to describe behind-the-secenes chaos after president Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey. 

“In the days that followed McCabe says that law enforcement officials discussed whether to secretly record a conversation with the president and whether Mr Trump could be removed from office through invoking the 25^th Amendment. 

“McCabe is a life long Republican who had a sterling 21 year career at the FBI, serving as head of Counter Terrorism and number 2 under James Comey. 

“But he was fired last year for allegedly lying to his own agents about a story he leaked to Newspapers. *

“Not since Watergate has the FBI been drawn so deeply into presidential politics.

“Andrew McCabe was pulled into the center of the tempest on May 9, 2017 when he was summoned by the president hours after Comey was fired.”

Andrew McCabe (AMC): “I’d never been to a meeting in the Oval Office before.

“Um, I’m a career FBI agent,

“Um, a government worker.”

SP: “Oval Office was above your pay grade?”

AMC: “It certainly was.

“And the president immediately went off on an almost gleeful description of what had happened with the firing of James Comey, and then he went on to state that people in the FBI were thrilled about this.

“That people really disliked James Comey. That they were very happy about this. That it was a great thing.”

SP: “He was telling you what the reaction inside the FBI was?”

AMC: “He was. It was very different than the reaction I had seen immediately before I came to the White House.”

SP: “Which was what?”

AMC: “People were shocked. We had lost our leader. A leader who was um respected … liked by the vast majority of FBI employees. People were very sad.

“But anyway that night in the Oval Office was not reality. 

“The version of events that I quickly realized he wished me to adopt.”

 623 Days to the 2020 election and 701 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Andrew McCabe on 60 Minutes

*To be clear, McCabe did not leak to the newspapers. Part of his job was to talk to the press. The Wall Street Journal was about to run a story that had errors in it. McCabe worked with them to correct their story and he did so through all the proper channels. The White Hose and the president are lying.

Day 772 Sunday February 17, 2019

624 Days to the 2020 election and 702 Days to Inauguration Day

Tis a good day to reflect. 

The president gave a long rambling (speech?) dialogue in the Rose Garden. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been real quiet of late. It has been revealed that she has been talking to the Special Counsel. The right is going after AOC with a fervor usually reserved for Hillary Clinton. Why? Why attack AOC? Well, it’s understandable. If you listen to what that young woman says and not what the right wing says about her, one will find that she is factual, cogent, and saying things that make sense. This, in the estimation of the billionaires and lunatic Republican party, can not stand. If it did imagine what would happen?

People could actually be able to see doctors and pay for their visits. A single health event would not bankrupt them. Prescription drugs would be brought down to reasonable prices. A person wouldn’t have to work two jobs just to pay their rent. Everyone would pay their fair share in taxes. The negative side of this for the Republicans in Congress is this: They would no longer be able to make massive amounts of money via insider information and legislation to favor companies that support them or that they bought stock in. They could not take “dark money” without someone finding out. They could no longer rig elections by limiting who could vote, where they could vote, or how the voting districts were made up.

It’s scary. I know. On both sides of the aisle.

As to Trump’s Rose Garden wall speech. Well, what can one say? He’s basing policy on a metaphor, which is not based in reality (ie facts.) He has now moved to saying things that have moved way beyond lies to outright fantasy. If one goes back and looks at things he has said previously, this is nothing new. When his casino in Atlantic City first opened half the slot machines weren’t working. His explanation? “They were getting so much use they broke down.” This was a total fabrication. He has managed to surround himself with a small group of yes people, who allow him to indulge in these lies and fantasies. The only question seems to be can he distinguish reality from what he purports? Evidence suggests it is highly unlikely. This allows him to be easily led, as it seems Putin is doing. The only time I have seen him get a smack of reality was when the U.N. members laughed to his face. Then he got a wry smile and for a few seconds seemed to come face to face with a truth. “Well, I didn’t expect that reaction,” was what he said. But therein is the problem with Trump. He doesn’t understand basics of how most people function. He doesn’t understand humor, or empathy, or sadness, or why someone would not like him after he has disparaged them publicly for years and then calls them up and asks for something. “Why would they be upset?”, “Why are those people laughing?” (Oh, it must be funny.) “Lock her up. You like that? Okay, we’ll use it.” These are all examples of a person who can not discern for himself and must depend on others to understand, what for most of us, is obvious. It’s sad. Having a person like this in charge is dangerous.

We are now coming to a climax. Will the Republic survive? Can we keep it? Our democracy hangs in the balance. 

Will good people come to the fore? Will those sitting on the fence, uncertain of what is going on, weigh in? Will some who have allowed themselves to be soiled and stained by this plague stand up and do what is right? 

It remains to be seen.

624 Days to the 2020 election and 702 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Nagas! (I mean, “SNAKES!”), Angkor Wat