We all knew that eventually proximity to Trump was going to cause Good Ol’ Gal Sarah Huckabee Sanders some problems. While I speculate one day the criminality she’s been part of will come back to haunt her I didn’t think she’d figure deeply into the Mueller Report, and she didn’t.
None the less, her talking out of both sides of her mouth was one of the first stories to ruminate through the headlines when the report, or what we’ve been allowed to see of it, dropped. Seems Sarah’s Christian values don’t include even the slightest guilt about lying unless there’s jail time involved.
And her lies werent to mitigate Trump’s insanity, she was burnishing it.
The Mueller Report showed her to be an Enabler rather than any of the authors of the Anonymous New York Times “White House Resistor” article, where the idea was to stick around at the expense to your own dignity just to keep Trump from blowing up the world.
When James Comey was fired for not dropping the Flynn Investigation Sarah had a series of May 2017 pressers (remember when we had pressers?) where she simply lied to the American People. Her repeated lie, which she’s since told some more lies about, was that her phone was ringing off the hook with grateful FBI Agents thanking her for Trump’s firing of Comey. I’m not sure why they thought she would want to hear it. I guess she took the (fictional) calls in between high 5-ing all the other FBI Agents she claimed stopped her to tell her how glad they were their boss had been fired amid a torrent of abusive comments about the Bureau itself.
When in front of Mueller Sarah actually told the truth. These were pure lies made up from whole cloth. Obviously she was parroting her boss.
Cries she be fired are now pretty universal. The Fox White House guy may even be on board with that one, he has to listen to the lies too, right? But this is how Trump likes it.
By the third week of April we’ve had 4 Pressers all year, in no regular order. This begs the question – what exactly does Sarah do these days?
Lets just say for a moment that we had a compromised president who just divides Americans. Throw in the fact Trump is a bad-hearted guy who has shown great Fealty to Putin. Put all this together and some uncomfortable facts sort of show up to beg an answer.
I still think Trump is some sort of spy with a codename from the Kremlin like ‘Agent Orange.’
First, in a world where Trump is Putin’s Pawn, which may in fact be THE REAL WORLD, the Mission of the Kremlin’s US Asset, Agent Orange, has gone better than anyone could have imagined.
Putin is a Super Criminal
At this point lets pretend we’ve reached the part of the movie where Putin says “you may as well know my plan, since you won’t live to tell anyone, anyway, Mister Bond.” and make some predictions on his next moves.
Putin’s shown pure mastery in manipulating the worlds media and governments. Shoving a rival nation down and to the right has been his signature move for about 10 years. Once the discourse becomes toxic and chaotic he seeds in just enough money to bring the worst political actors to prominence, like say the NRA, and allows them to spread his political poison and maybe self-destruct.
Behind the facelift it’s hard to auger what Putin is thinking. Doubtless he’s smart and he loves to spin the Roulette Wheel of chaos betting on Red all the way.
Will he continue to aptly outmaneuver and control the whole world for the foreseeable future? My prediction is – probably. Its something we should try to fight together.
Its comforting that he’s just one guy and just can’t keep it up forever. Best case scenario is he starts to focus more internally and improve Russia rather than continue foreign policy. We can only hope. He’s probably more likely to continue breaking legs to sell wheelchairs. He will shove the world down and to the Right every time.
Trope Time!
Ex KGB Agent Vladimir Putin is, in fact a Real Life Bond Villain. And not a one movie villain either. Trump’s the movie one Bad Guy who at the end is revealed to serve an even Bigger Bad Guy. We’re talking like 2 more movies of slowly sifting through henchmen to get to the ‘Big Bad” that is Vladimir Putin.
The movie Tropes for Putin Would be “The Man Behind the Man” and “The Big Bad” and for the Hell of it throw it “Star Trek Villain” for his campiness and claiming he’s emotionally moved by un-villian-like Ice Dancing ! The fact is that the world deserves a more impressive villain. As great as he is at manipulating us its crude and violent and his piano game is sub-par for a movie villain. Then again this is the real world and he’s pretty much running it, so we get the villain we deserve not the one we need.
Here he is butchering something along the lines of “Katrina Had a Little Lamb”. No Bond Villain has ever been this bad at an instrument.
We should probably be afraid. Because Hollywood didn’t write this and Putin isn’t a farcical character packing some kind of Golden Gun just waiting to be dispatched by one of Q’s gadgets with some pithy humor. He’s a real Super Criminal and has probably 20 to 30 years left to live. And, surrounded by his oligarch “Dragons” he will likely remain in power for most or all of it.
Real World Aside – Childless Putin seems to have no succession plan. That may save us down the road.
What Would a Movie Villain Do?
Let’s indulge ourselves in the possibilities!
One possibility is we’ve reached the point where the Kremlin’s best move, if Trump really is under their influence, would be do nothing. Putin’s enemy, the United States is destroying itself. Maybe just let it keep going for the time being. It’s a self feeding fire now anyway. We should acknowledge Putin might have lost the ability to do a whole lot to make things worse anyway. So he may just sit back and have a smoke.
But there’s another, more interesting and dangerous course of action Putin could take as well. One that assumes Putin is an addicted gambler at this point and isn’t ready to walk away from the tables yet. Maybe it would be fun for him to drop The Mueller Report on us. Or, even more likely, release some of his own dirt on Trump and blame it on the Democrats?
It’s a perfect gambit when you recall the Enemy here is the Truth and Reality. Assuming Putin has part or all of the Mueller Report, and lets face it he created some of the events in it, he could just drop it on us. This would forever call the report into question just because of the source. It would likely take a while for anyone to figure out who really dropped it, so there would be Partisan warfare in the US Government over it. Its obvious Trump’s first instinct will be to blame the Democrats before he ever suspects Putin would punk him….again.
Then, eventually, when it gets connected to the Kremlin the whole report really becomes suspect. In the end there’ll be more than one document claiming to be the “Real” Mueller Report. Expect a few fakes. The media will buy it every time. No matter which version you read there’ll be doubt in its very fiber.
It could put us into a destabilizing scenario where all outcomes benefit Putin. So maybe the real question is; “Can Putin NOT play a game he’s sure to win” or even “HOW will Putin play a game he can’t lose?”
It’s very possible he’s reached the moment where he releases a scat of frauds and lies on us to really muck things up.
It’s not like he has a track record of failure manipulating, well, all of us. Til Facebook and Twitter find a way to sniff out his bots and fake accounts (like say trying harder) we have the Putn in our phones and on our computers and thats a small victory for him right there.
Vladimir Putin is the most powerful and dangerous person alive. This knife fights not over but boy has the US ever taken a bunch of puncture wounds to the body!
Was it all just a dream? Did we just imagine the world was once a far more decent place where the guilty were caught and punished? Perhaps so but the dreams have darkened and the waking up consists of screaming in fear these days. How did we get here?
Apparently the flaws in our system have just been piling up in a quantum manner while our risk averse leaders have ignored problems or made them worse. Right now we’re dealing with the seemingly straight forward but actually completely inappropriate Barr Letter.
Whether Barr is allowed to draw conclusions or make decisions on prosecution in this matter is somewhat nebulous. It’s going to be the rest of Trump’s term to determine if any of the things that happened this weekend were legal. The Watergate and Whitewater Special PROSECUTORS had the latitude to draw conclusions and present sealed indictments right to the House Judiciary Committee. Why’s this time different?
Describing the piece of paper Barr gave the American people and the media as a letter is generous. The four page summary of Mueller’s work is more of a memo, but we’ll leave that alone.
It Was A Set Up
The media got played on this one. The Trump people know how to lie and they excelled on this occasion. Knowing that this day was coming they opted for the easiest con of all- Punk Us with a fake release of a non Mueller Report and let the media self-discredit.
The media went straight into Shiny Object mode like we’ve seen so many times and became hypnotized on the Memo/Letter as though it were a report. They had spent 2 years preparing for what seemed to be a timebomb of a story and the teams of pundits were sitting around with the most deadly thing of all; just a little bit of knowledge.
Rather than blast Attorney General Barr for making conclusions he possibly had no right to make they just reported on the letter like it was a bunch of conclusive facts. It’s almost like they set themselves up to fail. Why no one really started talking about the questionable nature of the letter/memo for a whole day is something we all need to wonder about.
The Mueller Report remains a mystery. We need to see it and soon. The American People paid for this report. Trusting it to Barr is UnAmerican.
No one has elected Barr into the Executive Branch, something Trump likes to point out about Mueller. He doesnt have the authority or the Integrity to be sole interpreter and Guardian of the Mueller Report.
Congress needs to act now to release the Mueller Report, more or less in full, in the next 30 days.
Well sooner or later it was going to come front and center in media coverage and this week it seems to have happened. Donald Trumps behavior both as a regular citizen and as president is a lot like the that of a Mob Boss in his personal leadership style. In some pretty obvious ways, Trump and his crew seem hung up on the first 2 Godfather movies while enjoying the success and popularity of the third film; which is mostly considered a contemptible mistake that never should have been made or ever be viewed.
First voiced by some when James Comey got canned in a bizarre, unprofessional way, including Comey himself, it’s now undeniable.
It’s as if Fredo were the Don in The Godfather movies. Most of the time Trump sounds like Fredo Corleone. Be it self-pitying whining or ranting about respect to taking a public beating for what amounts to, as Moe Greene would put it; “banging cocktail waitresses two at a time! No one at the tables could get a drink!”
There’s also no trace of any, shall we say ‘comparatively reassuring’ Michael Corleone-Like Traits. Trump lacks the capacity for a successful negotiation, or to even just run a crooked casino, without failing hugely.
If anything other than merely Fredo; perhaps Trump is Sonny, Fredo and Connie Corleone all rolled up into one. As dumb as Fredo, as angry as Sonny and as vain as Connie.
Like Fredo he’s incompetent and a spineless traitor who doesn’t understand the implications of his actions.
It’s all too accurate, It’s disturbing that Trump can’t speak like a chief executive, but its terrifying that he keeps talking like a mobster.
Driving all of it home, the president and his associates frequently use analogies from the movies in their personal speech and tweets, like when Roger Stone told someone to “Pull a Frank Pentangeli” as a way of telling him to lie to congress.
Dealing with Michael Cohen, in what might be judged to be Witness Intimidation or the way he went to the mattresses in an unneeded and deeply unpopular Government Shutdown, the truth was right out there staring us in the face.
Live on TV or documented on Twitter he’s called people rats and other mob-like stuff that makes him sound as brutal as he does dumb.
And it’s not as if the rest of them are any smarter. It seems that the internet has deemed that Don Jr is the most Fredo-like of all and he’s meme-king on that one. It’s not like he’s any dumber than Trump himself, but he fits in better I guess if you give Trump the distinction (and dignity) of Vito. I personally can’t. Vito Corleone the character was much smarter than BLOTUS Trump.
In the end it will likely be old-fashioned RICO Laws that will have Former President Trump, whenever that happens, and the rest of his Crime Family doing a stretch in some New York State Pen thanks to the Southern District of New York.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 23: Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump attend the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C Groundbreaking Ceremony at Old Post Office on July 23, 2014 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images)
Trump’s huffed and he’s puffed and seemingly blown the house down (and Shut the Government Down) over his incessant ranting about a wall at the Southern Border.
Maybe there’s a case some parts of the Border need to be hardened, but we’re not really talking about that. Trump wants a HUGE and extensive concrete barrier (most of the time) along the entire border. While he’s occasionally made allowances for natural barriers, mostly he wants a huge wall. The whole “Beautiful Steel Slat” thing seems a dicey compromise Trump simply wont be able to abide by. So let’s disregard it for now.
As usual we hear more from Trump’s Hype-Men about the terms he’ll accept to end the Trump Government Shutdown than we get from Trump. It’s become an exercise in Ideology just reading into his Tweet-stream, which is the Diary of a Madman.
He’s not going to get his border wall from sea to shining sea for a bunch of reasons. One reason, however, really jumps out.
No one ever mentions the huge problem that’s staring anyone who looks at a map of the US-Mexico border right in the face.
So what’s my beef with a Border Wall?
The Walls Unfixable Problem
So whats the issue? These visual aids start to get it across
Mexico is STILL a short Boat ride Away
Even assuming the Wall ends up being what Trump promised – A Giant Solar Panel Encrusted slab of ‘beautiful’ concrete in the middle of the desert extending deep underground to prevent tunneling; it won’t help. Why? Because that still leaves an ocean to sail up north on both coasts.
It’s two big problems, or if you want to think in the simplest terms; the same problem twice. Specifically it’s thousands of miles of coastline that simply can’t be secured. What’s the answer to that? Mines?
Just look at all that ocean, on both coasts, much of it being in the somewhat naturally ‘protected’ (from ‘open ocean’ conditions) Gulf of Mexico. Quadrupling the size of the Coast Guard would seem the first thing we’d need to do for any kind of control. That sounds expensive because it is!
Boats will be the new main way people will enter. What are we gonna do when that happens? Piracy charges? We’d need to actually catch them first (fat chance). Forget about deploying the army at the border. This would probably require a Carrier Task force off both coasts to have any effect on the influx from the sea! In other words its impractical and very, very expensive.
We have ENORMOUS coastlines on BOTH oceans with Mexico. So the problem with the wall is NOT LADDERS, but BOATS. Or even rafts if you will, especially on the Gulf of Mexico where sailing is generally easier.
Boats are Plentiful and Easy to Make
Boats are probably the first ever form of human conveyance. They were first created at least 8,000 years ago. So making one is no big deal. Just look at some of the pictures of the Boat Exodus from Cuba in 1980 to see how loose the definition of “Boat” is.
Typical 1980 Cuban Mariel Boatlift raft
Most any boat from the lowliest skiff on up can sail the Atlantic or Pacific seaboards ( Or meander in the Gulf for awhile) and dare the Coast Guard to catch them. The Gulf of Mexico will encourage even the leakiest of tubs with enticingly (and often deceptively) easy sailing conditions.
The simplicity of just sailing to a piece of secluded coastline and disgorging people will be obvious. Lots of people will do it. That will mean there will be a whole lot of boats of every kind making this desperate journey at any given moment. The cost of naval interdiction is obviously far beyond that of just catching people on land at the border’s edge. It’s also obviously harder and more dangerous for all involved.
So there’s a pragmatic argument to be made that a Wall is tactically useless. If we build it and people take to the sea it will be an ongoing Human Tragedy of untold proportion. A lot of people will simply go to sea and never return or be heard from again. Others will die and wash up on the shores of California, Louisiana, Florida, the Carolinas and everywhere else. And the media will be there.
Tragedy will Inevitably Ensue
You won’t be able to get away from the pictures of crowded boats, loaded to an unsafe manner, covered with women and children. Some of these WILL sink and we may not be able to rescue everyone every time. Sooner or later some terrible image, like the iconic pictures of a drowned Syrian child washed up on a Turkish shore, will surface and the whole Wall concept will be exposed as the fraud it is. It’s Strategically Unsound and Tactically Flawed.
So the pictures will be horrific. We’ve seen some of the awful images of the unfortunates fleeing places like Syria across the (relatively calm) Mediterranean. Drowned children, poorly maintained boats drifting powerless with no country wanting to rescue them.
So the Wall would absolutely raise the cost of Border Enforcement. We will need dozens more fully crewed Coast Guard Cutters on each coast to even make a dent in what will be a conveyor belt of boats.
Refugees Fleeing Syria via the Mediterranean
A Wall won’t cover the oceans. Even the Atlantic Wall in France’s Normandy, was breached in a single day. Because you can’t really build a Wall at the water’s edge from Mexico to Canada.
Even the goddamned Love Boat stopped in Mexico! It’s an Un-Overcome-able flaw in any plan for a Wall.
Look for a new word along the lines of “Sea-Coyotes” to describe the people who will set these boats loose.
The Southern Border Wall is simply an inherently flawed concept. You can choose from any number of negative analogies to describe it. It’s bad out of the gate. Its doesn’t pass Logical Muster. Its falls apart under any analysis.
The best way it say it is “That stupid idea won’t work and will cause more problems than it solves”
Repercussions with the United Nations?
Whether or not the Wall would be in fact an Apartheid Wall is a topic for a future post. So will the humanitarian crisis at sea that will begin to occur if this Wall madness continues to any kind of fruition.
At some point we could be looking at getting sanctioned for being Inhumane to Refugees. There’s plenty of countries out there (Russia, Iran, China) that would love to hang that on us.
Remember that debate performance where Trump was wildly snorting and yelling? Okay, trick question, its most every time he talks in public. After that first debate though, even Carrie Fisher, who knew what she was talking about, said she was sure that Trump had been snorting drugs. Assessing it all with her usual “Takes one to know one” honesty.
While she guessed it was coke, and that still could’ve been in the mix, it was likely Adderall that had Trump speeding out based on new information.
The latest person to add fuel to the fire on this one is a former Apprentice Production Assistant turned comic Noel Casler. His accusation? That Trump can barely read and the idea of reading the cue cards terrifies him. We’ve heard exactly this before from the SNL people who endured a walk on by Trump. So what’s Don’s coping method? Snorting a few rails of amphetamine, of course!
Casler’s pretty funny, but the Trump riff starts at about 3:30
Noel correctly points out that Trump’s doing a drug invented by the Nazi’s to make people meaner and hyperalert.
After breezing over the wikipedia entry for Adderall I can tell you it absolutely IS considered a form of methamphetamine and is supposed to be used for people with ADHD, a concentration deficit. You may wanna steer clear of this even if its one of your options. It’s tricky stuff.
The really interesting parts were the effects of overdosing or just messing around with it the wrong way. Increased Apprehension? Sounds like Trump. Psychosis is in there too. We’ve seen like 3 psychotic breaks from reality from this president just this week on Twitter.
And as far as not being able to read? Too many people are saying it now. Maybe he can’t concentrate to read? It looks like a good bet right now.
Seeing as how it’s now well-known Hitler was also a huge fan of a methamphetamine (and Trump’s a huge fan of Hitler) it’s even more likely that Trump simply does a few blasts before a rally.
Thinking its likely he uses a different dosage when he’s reading off the teleprompter at other, usually official events (rather than rallies). Is he emotionless and monotone cause he’s so high or is it from withdrawal from the meth? At the teleprompter moments he’s just distant and emotionless. Hard to tell where his mind is a lot of the time when he’s doing inappropriate things, like treating a soldier like a butler throwing his coat at him at the National Cathedral when he arrived at the George HW Bush state funeral (where he was asked not to speak).
If he were high sometimes it sure would explain a lot.
Another interesting thing associated with abusing the stuff is it messes up your circulation. Especially the extremities. This brings to mind how it took about 5 minutes for Macron’s thumbprint on the back of Trumps hand to go away. remember that? Its a good bet French Intel services told Macron to crush Trump’s bigly hand a little so they could see if this happened. And as you can see the media caught on right away (or got tipped off by the French) and got this great, revealing picture.
I’m guessing most foreign governments are operating under the assumption the presidents on drugs.
It’s just days until the much talked about Mid-Term Elections. All expectations are the president and the Republicans are going to take a beating and I don’t think they will let the results stand.
On election night we’ll see upsets. They will eventually be nullified by Trump who WILL make many false claims and possibly not seat the new congress.
In hotly contested races like the Florida and Georgia governor races rest assured voter suppression and outright racism will rear their ugly heads. Trump may try to nullify these elections as well. I just don’t see BLOTUS allowing Andrew Gillum to be Governor of Florida under any circumstances. Trumps far too much of a bigot AND he’s likely committed a slew of crimes there.
As I look ahead I see mostly darkness. This is not an invitation or a suggestion NOT to vote, definitely VOTE. It’s also not a claim at clairvoyance. Its just a couple of sort of likely worst cases.
The issue is that Trump is hateful of the will of the American People and will show that if put on the spot. Hot off an October with at least 1000 verifiable falsehoods and lies from the president it would be naive to think that a huge dose of bad news will elicit anything but a full-blown, divisive and extended meltdown from Trump.
Trump won’t suddenly change when it looks like the Democrats will back Mueller and maybe even make it impossible for him to remain president. He will lie and make delusional statements about millions of illegal votes and just act like he always does. Like a deranged idiot deprived of much-needed electro-shock therapy.
What Just Might Go Down
In the week after Election Night there will be a spate of lawsuits from loser on both sides. It also brings to mind the reality we will see one of the most cruel, destructive and damaging lame duck sessions when this current horrible congress finally all get on the same page and stick it to the American People. Sure, the Jeff Flakes of the world will pretend to feel bad about it, but as we’ve seen he only cares about having cover for what he does rather than doing whats right.
And if too many elections are settled in the GOP’s favor under a cloud you gotta ask yourself if people in New York and New Jersey would even consider allowing some disputed ultra-Trumpist having a hand in their fate. Californians also fit that bill.
And then we could see Secession here and there. One possibility is 3 to 5 regional republics with varying (if any) relationships with the Federal Governments Remnants. Another, further flung possibility would be 50 little fiefdoms. If this happens god help Mexico as the Texas Republic will likely declare war on them within 30 months of independence.
The idea of several regional republics really doesn’t seem so bad to be honest. Imagine the Red States in Flyover America forced to come to terms with their own bad governing ideas? Because a Republic of the Northeast would be pretty well set up to prosper without them. Though these states are believers in Federal Socialism, how much more money would New York and Massachussetts have if they didnt have to subsidize loser job deserts in other states? And Missouri forced to self finance? A humanitarian disaster could happen there.
The idea New York simply makes a bid to join Canada sounds crazy now. In fact most of this post would have been considered Science-Fiction 500 or 600 days ago. A whole bunch of mostly bad things have happened over that course of time though and America’s falling down and to the right.
The fact is if sufficiently bungled (and we have some great bunglers in power now) the Mid-Term could result in the break up of our Union. No matter what happens we’re sure to have an extra angry, extra dangerous Trump ruminating over the concept he could get a Comeuppance for the first time ever. He’s gotta be in deep fear of that. He has never had one and never come to terms with any mistakes or personal flaws he has.
Were he anyone else he would have been forced into a mental institution years ago. It took the accumulation of fame and ill-gotten cash to insulate the guy from reality,. This despite him being a self proclaimed news-junkie and self purported authority on Fairness.
While Putin will love this no matter how it happens, he really wont be happy til he gets 50 little fiefdoms. This would still include the possibility of a reunion of the old Confederacy or some kind of malevolent New Confederacy with the policies of 1980s South Africa.
I guess the most ironic thing about either scenario is it could truly make of Trump what he falsely said of Obama – he could end up being a president NOT born in the United States. How? Well for one thing should the nation splinter theres just NO WAY New York aligns with Trump.
While the original post on the evils of Sarah Huckabee Sanders is comprehensive; the way the national discourse has fallen off the table recently with a spate of violent attacks coming from the political right. The recent horrific Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre was front and center for a singularly bad day for America’s tas peyer paid designated liar, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
SHS sat most of the month out, but the October 29th presser was the first in 26 days as the Trump Administration continues to do business in closed rooms with locked doors in the dead of night.
Always evasive of soap and direct answers, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has probably reached felony level complicity in the Trump Criminal Enterprise.
Mostly we see her now when things are incredibly bad and White House comments are long overdue. For some reason this has no impact on the angry indignance with which Sarah goes about her infrequent pressers.
Shame is never gonna set in to these horrible pressers or the woman who runs them with Goebbels-like dissonance. We can stop expecting the administration to start to learn or to start leading. This is it folks. We have the most corrupt and incompetent Administration this side of Ancient Rome.
As always the presser started 25 minutes late, much like Mein Kampf recommends.
Looming over the October 29th presser was a spate of recent hate crimes most people who don’t watch Fox News more or less blame the president for inspiring.
The atmosphere was first charged by the 14 (and counting) devices mailed out by a Florida Trumpist nicknamed the #MAGABomber by Twitter based on his targets. Driving around in his home/ bomb factory / vanifesto he had managed to empty out the CNN building and credibly attempt to kill former presidents Clinton and Obama among many others.
just one window of #MAGABOMBER’s Anti-Left, Pro Trump ‘Vanifesto’
All the people and institutions targeted, like california rep Maxine Waters, CNN and Right Wing Whipping Boy George Soros, were frequent Trump targets.
Next an old school Nazi Anti Semite shot up a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed eleven innocent worshippers and wounded many others. The shooter made some social media posts that showed he was moved to action in part by the presidents xenophobic obsession and repeated rants regarding a group of immigrants apparently following the harvest north Trump’s classified as a Democratic Party Funded Immigrant Caravan designed to swing the midterm election. They’re currently about a thousand miles from the US Southern border. More on the so called caravan later.
In a macabre twist, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor was among those killed. Thats where the United States is at just about 500 days into President Trump’s inept and criminal administration.
It was another new low for angry Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The Trumpire Strikes Out
On to today’s Ministry of Information Dance of Dishonesty!
Sarah outright lied and claimed the president had won the popular vote with 63 million votes when he in fact lost by over 3 million votes. Shades of Spicer in the shrubs on that one!
It didn’t get much better. One positive, she managed to stop herself in the middle of starting to pick her nose. After that you could tell something was stuck in her simuses and adding to her overt irritation.
Trump had thrown out some horrible tweets about people who were MAGABomber targets to start the day and made then some off the cuff, stupid, uninformed statements and hard to swallow denials getting into his helicopter. So the clouds were well seeded.
Hemmed in by insensitive statements by her boss that sort of blamed the victims at the synagogue; Sarah didn’t bother to do much more than deny reality and say false things when confronted. No one was buying.
The idea the president felt the Synagogue lacked a Good Guy With A Gun and was asking for it hung in the air after Trump made off-hand observations that were first darkly un-American and second sort of dissed the victims with the implication they were reckless not having an armed guard and therefore sort of played a hand in their own deaths.
The shooter for the record, was super well armed. More well armed than my character in ‘Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Ghostlands‘ avatar. He had 2 pistols and an AK-47. He wounded 3 cops in a gunfight while massacring 11 American citizens and then held SWAT at bay for some time. So the idea an armed guard or anything short of a machine gun nest could have stopped the guy is laughable and plain old sick.
In her chrome-a-key green sure to be parodied dress Sarah sounded like the ambassador from a hostile and rude Star Trek race. The only solution for Gun Violence was hardening schools and places of worship. It’s just asking for it in Trump’s world if you do anything without armed security (or go around not packing heat).
On the #MAGABomber topic she just lied and pretended the idea that he supported Trump was a media fantasy despite the social media posts and threats going back months the MAGABomber had verifiably made.
Humility was in short supply when asked if she is simply lying or out of the loop and a back and forth with CNN’s pundits was answered with rudeness and dismissive comments as always.
Justifying Illegal Dictator Moves and Spreading Fear
The president has been lying and spreading fear with repeated assertions the migrants from Central America were ISIS concealing terrorists in the ranks. This is what motivated the Synagogue shooter, who kind of liked Trump, he just thought he was too muted in his anti-semitism.
This invited questions about Trump suspending or plain violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which pretty much forbids the president from using Federal Troops to enforce Domestic Policies within the United States. Sanders was simply evasive and made some false claims about the act not applying. To be clear to suspend Posse Comitatus the “caravan” as the right has dubbed it, has to be classified an Invading Force.
Maybe enough racist governors let him deploy their National Guard Units, but it’s really unclear what Trump would want the military to even do, open fire? As far as deploying the Army? Seems to be specifically prohibited. It would probably be met with great resistance by any officer forced to command such an expedition.
It’s an issue that should go away as soon as the midterms end. Trump really likes talking about this and the Fox News Feedback Loop makes sure he keeps seeing it though, so who knows?
And at the 23 minute mark Sarah declared she was out of time and stormed off.
Updated – I’m still pretty shocked I was wrong about this. A delay of even one more day probably would have killed all chance. It’s still hard to believe they didnt just find someone else. Here is the original post, which can still get shoved back into being more correct than it is right now
As I predicted the Kavanaugh Hearing was a complete disaster for Republicans. For starters, they pulled the plug on the much vaunted “Having a woman ask terrible questions for them” tactic when the relative reasonableness of the questioning worked fine for accuser, Dr Ford, and was never going to clear Kavanaugh.
So that was a 2-fer on predictions. It was a disaster and they couldn’t stick to their plan. Fair enough, no plan survives contact with the Enemy. The real measure of any strategic situation is how you handle a setback. The GOP just couldn’t.
Trump’s Gettysburg
Between a laugher of an insincere speech from Lindsey Graham, who seized control of the hearing (in a way that may not have been in order) by shouting like a man in the depths of an Ether Binge. It was a Trump-loving Social Suicide of sorts. He had good reason to panic. The Caveman was unfreezing right in front of the nation and the world on TV. He was becoming self aware and paranoid (revenge from the Clintons?).
The Q & A with Democratic Senators showed Kavanaugh was an anger driven egomaniac whose attitude was right in line with a would-be rapist became impossible. Graham called an audible with an outburst worthy of the Young and the Restless over the mistreatment of Kavanaugh over a woman they all claimed to believe to a degree.
UPDATE – Kavanaugh seems to have plain ol’ lied about having no connection to Yale and was, in fact, a ‘legacy’ enrollment. Also- Yale’s pretty much disowned him.
With questions about hedonism and drunkenness it at times sounded like an intervention. Certainly when Kavanaugh made a series of baffling statements about his drinking.
Attacking people who asked any question he disliked, he really sounded like a drunk in denial. Ranting he only drinks beer was a constant refrain as he challenged and abused the Democrats like an angry idiot with no sense of appropriateness. Imagine a guy this angry with a few (dozen) in him?
The preposterous calendar he should have burned shows his poor judgement. The easy to interpret slang for any former 80s teen shows Caveman Kavanaugh drank til he puked all the time and boasted to himself about sex.
Some sleazy quotes that makes you wonder if the Yearbook committee had any kind of adult supervision, paints a cave painting of a gross, pornographic obsessed alcoholic Kavanaugh sort of Rape-Walking his way through high school puking all the time from extreme drunkenness….from beer though!
Swearing he was sure he absolutely remembers everything no one could actually adhere to – that he’d never forgotten anything while drinking- was sort of a laugher as was Kavanaugh’s Drunk Uncle moments of shouting about how much he likes beer. I wouldn’t have faulted him for simply saying “No one who has ever drank can say they remember everything just due to pure human memory. My first beer was forty years ago.”
While that wouldn’t have been great, but it would have been true and relatable. More relatable than the priestly image of studious dignity Kavanaugh presented of himself when he was introduced by Trump as the nominee weeks ago. It woukd also have been far more believable than the ‘heavy drinker with a weak stomach who puts ketchup on spaghetti’ line he tried to tell Senator Whitehouse, who didnt bite and questioned Kavanaugh’s quoting him out of context or completely fictionally and then returned to drinking related questions.
He saved exceptionally high levels of disrespect for female Senators like Feinstein and Senator Amy Klobuchar. The Klobuchar exchange was so ugly that Caveman Kavanaugh apologized after one of the many breaks.
The idea Kavanaugh might be a rapist was left hanging in the air but now it had company. New questions about state of mind, whether a man who cries and screams over little basketball in front of the senate and the nation on live TV, has the intellect or attitude for the Supreme Court Bench.
His list of crazy grievances were a channeling of Trumpist Insanity that makes you wonder if arrogant Kavanaugh’s privileged world view isn’t too narrow-minded and intolerant to sit in judgement of anyone.
At the end of all things, after a nationally painful elevator pitch to a hapless Jeff Flake by two impassioned sexual assault victims just bought too much to the surface for Flake not to make me a prophet yet again by helping the Democrats punch in a running Touchdown in the form of a week’s delay for a FBI investigation (which the White House already seems to be trying to sabotage).
The vote to approve the Caveman for Supreme Court seemed a done deal until Flake’s moment of clarity bought the nation some time for the downfall to be complete and the flaming wreck of a man that is Kavanaugh to simply crash and explode behind a hill offscreen. It was as dramatic a moment as any we’ve seen under this whacked out administration.
It doesn’t matter how narrow the Investigation is, the punked polaroid pictures of a drunken Kavanaugh from all ages of his life have started to surface and a lot of them look very real. Then there’s the other accusers that the FBI apparently won’t talk to, who will be on TV telling their story.
On the employment front- while still on the DC Bench for the moment, he probably isn’t allowed on campus while Harvard mulls over whether they will let him continue to work there. So there’s something of a validation there. I’m pretty sure the DC Circuit job is an extremely endangered species in future Right Wing Satellite Radio host Brett Kavanaugh’s life.
UPDATE – One Job Lost Already
Slammed by Yale as Unfit, now our Unfrozen Cro-Mag buddy has also been FIRED from Harvard! Outcry form students was part of it. Technically he quit (while hugely in debt BTW). No one was going to take part 2 of his class and be subjected to even academic Judgement from serial drunk anger addict. There’s people looking for money back and credits for being subjected to the guy in the first place and they might get it. Presumably he’s gone for lack of integrity/ being a drunk/ being a danger to students. The DC Bench job will be gone in less than 12 months. I doubt hes ever allowed to see another case. Maybe he keeps his law license, but disbarment for a short period of time is looking likely. OR- he might still get jammed onto the SCOTUS bench, but it would be temporary. Captain Caveman will have about 6 weeks of safety before calls to impeach
Was this Hearing Trump’s Pickett’s Charge?
Historians might just call the stalled Kavanaugh Nomination the High WaterMark of this rebellion.
The Trumpian waters may have crested. For a moment a Rubber Stamp Justice on the Court seemed a sure thing, but then it exploded and now is a zombie at best. Kavanaugh will be surely fail to make the cut after any investigation. If the investigation looks terrible it’s likely Flake’s conscience comes back into play. After all, there are other terrible conservative judges who aren’t drunken assholes who would just get the gig.
I think the stipulations put on the Kavanaugh vote have doomed him, justifiably so, to not get on the Supreme Court. It may be remembered as the Picketts Charge of Trump’s Presidency. As I said, a high watermark that will not be reached again.
Like Robert E Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Trump likely remains dangerous, but Historians may well point to the failure of this nomination, now i would say assured, as the moment things started going against him. He’s not winning anymore and he may mor be able to Un-Lose. Lee never really menaced the North with an invasion again. You could also analogize it to Stalingrad too I suppose as Trump is something of a Nazi.
I would be great if Saturday Night Live, returning tonight, brings back Horatio Sans as Drunk Uncle/ Kavanaugh for tonight’s 275th season premiere of SNL
UPDATE – well i was wrong on SNL but Matt Damon CRUSHED it as a raging, “water” swilling, ‘Bad Will Hunting’
Bob Woodward really dropped a potentially administration ending book on us today in the form of his inside history of the Trump Administration so far, “Fear.”
Here’s what the book tells us- President Trump is a serial liar who may not even know what reality is. He dwells in a state of criminal semi-insanity akin to End-Times Nixon.
Dim and distant, Trump’s allowed to amuse himself (in his very few work hours) on a few fictional policies that everyone tells him are great. He also manages to advance a couple of actual narrow-minded assertions (calling them ‘ideas’ seems wrong) here and there just because his “Governing by whacked out Tweet at 4 AM” style is so overwhelming there’s no way to contain him.
How crazy is ‘the president’ right now? Well he’s already tried to order another world leader whacked (Assad of Syria). That’s right, the president ordered a Mob Style “Hit” on Assad in a wild call to Defense Secretary Mattis. After telling Trump he was all over it Mattis simply hung up and ignored him. Stunningly this pays off as Trump never follows up or seems to have recalled what he ordered. So its Ad-hoc governing at its very worst right now.
If Woodward’s to be believed, and lets face it he SHOULD be, killing Assad and invading Syria would be the second time Trump’s ordered a country invaded and nothing has happened. (I’m assuming we’ve all heard of the half assed Dark Ages Warlord strategy that led to an ignored order to invade Venezuela).
Then there’s the knee -slapper about how back in January Trump’s lawyers pantomimed Trump’s clueless rage filled performance in a mock Robert Mueller interview for, of all people; the actual ROBERT MUELLER! This was their strategy? Sketch Improv couldn’t come up with anything more bizarre! Great crisis management there!
Other goodies in the book include just what “The Best People”; the Trump Cabinet; think of their boss. “Moron” was, unsurprisingly, in the mix. So was “Fucking Idiot” of course, and a bunch of references to pre-middle school behavior and intellect. And of course he regrets saying racism was evil in one of his many flubbed reactions to Charlottsville’s violent White Supremacist Riot last year.
It’s General Mattis who really skewers Trump, CBS puts it like this-
“Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly told associates that Mr. Trump had the behavior and the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader.” Current Chief of Staff John Kelly said in a meeting that Mr. Trump was an “idiot“.”
With a level of believability of Tillerson-ian proportions Kelly has denied he called the president an “Idiot”. Just another Trump Administration lie.
Kelly is a Quote Machine and should sing for a Punk Band! He also said; “He’s gone off the rails! We’re in Crazytown! I don’t even know why any of us are here! This is the worst job I’ve ever had!” (MY exclamation points, but like I’m wrong?)
Gary Cohn, a Cabinet level economic adviser (now gone on his own volition), saw a document on the president’s desk he simply judged too complex and inflammatory to allow Trump to see. He was probably right! Thinking on his feet he just grabbed it and tossed it “to protect the country” from the president’s reaction.
The book further tells us that one third of wife beater Rob Porter’s job was simply listening to a nonstop crazy rant all day. And then he had to try to de-fang the crazed unininformed ideas as “less then great.”
This is something we’ve also heard was a job Porter’s current punching bag Hope Hicks was stuck doing. The fact is listening to Trump on an angry destructive rant is also Ivanka and Kellyanne’s only real jobs. My guess is they just aren’t as good at getting yelled at and Trump’s an uncorked fire hydrant of Violent Stupidity they just can’t contain.
So now, according to what we glean from Woodward and (many) other sources, with the insulation stripped away by scandal and in Hicks case, apparently built up loathing, we’re all Trump’s Crazy Rant Beta Tester’s.
And the feelings are mutual. Trump openly disparages people in front of other staff. He apparently hates everyone around him and just verbally assaults people all day while tearing down their colleagues. Great for morale!
If the Trumpists are to be believed it’s all a pack of lies but Woodward sure captured Trump’s tone and spirit in the quotes and actions he details. I’m sure it’s mostly if not completely true.
An that’s maybe the craziest part of this book. No one credible doubts a word of it. Trumpist pawns point to the stock denials, but this books no hoax.
Its not even that different from what we heard in Fire and Fury months ago. In fact “What’s new?” might be the Trumpists best defense. They can point to years of reptilian behavior by their hero to back this one up.
The idea that Trump is a completely incompetent, erratic, rage-a-holic with no respect for his staff is not at all hard to believe. It would be the idea he ever showed courtesy or restraint that would actually be news at this point.
The President is way past 25th Amendment Territory if the book is even partly true. People grabbing things off the presidents desk because it would set him off? So that, by extension means if you want to light his fuse you can just put something on his desk to piss him off. There’s a term for this; it’s “Easily led.” or “Easily Manipulated”. That’s highly disturbing even if the presidents first instincts weren’t violent and criminal, which of course they are.
If you saw today’s Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS Approval hearings you know this congress wont do anything about it. Kavanaugh just scowled most of the day as the Republicans upbraided Democrats for asking that one million pages of documents from just Kavanaugh’s time as W Bush White House Counsel alone be released to be reviewed and considered. No Such Luck. Look for Kavanaugh to be shoehorned in with Pence casting the 51st vote. That’s how the most Corrupt Least Transparent White House in History does things. Like a bunch of highly incompetent, extremely angry criminals.
So that’s where we’re at. The Corner of “Oh No!” and “What The Fuck?”
One thing Trump said is true- the world is laughing at us, especially our so called leaders.
Last nights special election in Ohio if not for the Green Party’s whacked out candidate, Joe Manchik. I watched video of the guy and it was like an Un-Funny Seth Rogen Bit. He definitely owns a dry herb vaporizer and is the most stoned person currently on earth if you’ve seen him try to express himself. Useless as a politician, but probably an unwitting pawn of Putin. I say unwitting because I think Putin’s too professional to let this flake know anything. I mean- look at the guy! He claims to speak 19 languages including Esperanto and Sheet Music! COME ON! If you voted for this guy its time to think over your views. Did you see him at all? He’s nuts.
In an official campaign skype conference with some sort of ‘media’ in a supposed bid to be a congressman? ThisHAS to be Putin Punk-ing us!
Unwitting Kremlin asset Joe Manchik
The Ohio 12th Congressional, ruby-red for all but 4 years since 1935, is too close to call a full day out. The Republican guy, Balderson, ran as a Trumpist and even said some stupid stuff about the character of people from a part of his own district. One of the most disturbing Trump rallies yet was even in play to help Balderson out but he couldn’t put it away. He currently has a lead about 1,700 votes over my fellow Irish American Democrat, Danny O’Connor.
Quick cultural note- Dont look for O’Connor to back off on a recount. When Irish people get angry or lose in a competition we feel slighted in; we fight back, hard. The pipes havent played for Danny Boy O’Connor yet. He may still prevail.
The Green Party- Sketchy Spoilers
Unqualified Green Party weirdo flake and dab enthusiast Commie Joe Manchik picked up 1,127 votes
In a race separated so the few votes siphoned off by the Green Party are probably gonna end up determining what happens, really hurting the Left again. It’s a consistent pattern since they gave us George W Bush, the loser of the actual election and started to make this dangerous stuff look normal. It’s not normal. The Green candidate proves that in this election more than ever.
We Can’t allow these flakey likely traitors play spoiler anymore. I’ve rescued one Green already. He’s happy with The Working Families Party and doesn’t miss sketchy Jill Stein’s weird ideas.
The Green Party’s been looking sketch for some time. I think they’re probably as bad for America as the NRA.
To those still voting Green I say- What The Hell? This party has lost its way long ago and is most likely a Left Wing arm of Putin’s campaign to divide America. Please, you need to just stop blowing up elections and getting half assed semi illegitimate presidents elected by splitting the Left
To all on the political Left I urge you- vote Democrat in 2018 and we’ll run these fascists out of out government and impeach Trump
As evidence I have only the entirety of everything Jill Stein says, seemingly purposely divisive. She’s only hanging out with what we can call a pretty much admitted Kremlin spy, Flynn , at the infamous dinner where Flynn led the standing ovation, in his general’s uniform, for Putin.
Jill Stein is possibly a Russian asset and a traitor. It’s hard for me to believe anything else, really
Oh and seriously, don’t donate any money to these clowns. It’s basically like giving it to Putin. Another alternative Left party with some better ideas, like the Social Democrats or the Working Families Party, which seem much more authentic, will fill the void. They also play much nicer and work with the actual Democrats, pulling the whole party in a progressive direction. The Greens just want to pull us apart.
We don’t need these sketchy maybe traitors stirring the pot anymore. Personally I agree with the German Film Look Who’s Back in the assertion that were Hitler to somehow come back he’d like the Green Party right off the bat.
Corrupt and inept EPA Commissioner Scott Pruitt is finally a former Cabinet Member. It only took 14 probes Federal Probes steadily bearing fruit to end him. Here’s the original post as written just hours before penultimate Trump Survivor Pruitt went down! (Or in this case, had his resignation accepted)
We’ve heard a new tale about Scott Pruitt’s outright bizarre behavior at the EPA every week, or occasionally, a couple of times a day. The hits have literally kept coming. There’s no less than 14 Federal Corruption probes right now per CNN.
Today he was FINALLY canned with no real reason given aside from the media being blamed for reporting all his antics. He was called an excellent guy and with no apology the adventures of Baron Pruitt von Munchausen in DC came to an end.
But we can STILL wonder if he’s crazy, especially since, in Trump’s world, stocked with exactly NO friends, people keep returning. Watch for Pruitt to join Shadow Secretary of State Hannity soon in Trump’s Shadow Cabinet of Un-Approvable Security Clearance-proof deplorables. Probably as Shadow Attorney General.
Pruitt’s Craziness
A Cone of Silence, Pruitt’s weird assertions about him and god, a bullet proof desk and a bunch of high living scandals. Throw in some naked old fashioned corruption, like trying to get his wife a franchise from Chik-fil-a. Today it was crazy half baked idea to give him Jeff Sessions job as the nations Attorney General. It all adds up to non stop crazy!
Maybe we should stop and ask ourselves- are these the actions of a sane person? With a crazily bloated security staff and some petty love of driving around with the sirens on blowing lights in a too big motorcade like a Stalin Era Commissar? Going out to the best places every night to dine then retiring to sleep on a used Trump Hotel mattress in a plush but near free crash pad in DC he gets right from a lobbyist?
You dont have to be a rocket scientist to point at the moon and you dont need a psych degree to say Pruitt does a bunch of really crazy things!
I’m wondering if Pruitt maybe is just mentally ill. How is it now being discussed on CNN? It’s time for one of the people on the panels discussing him to include some kind of clinical psychiatrist. OCD maybe explains some. Schizophrenia maybe some more. I dont know.
Of course I’m not a doctor; but you dont have to be a rocket scientist to point at the moon and you dont need a psych degree to say Pruitt does a bunch of really crazy things! The proof is all over the place.
Think about the things we know are true alone. Even then, its too crazy! As far as speculation? I think he’s using that Cone of Silence to ‘talk to god’ because he thinks god’s talking back! And he possibly hears other voices too.
This is not the way a sane person, even a corrupt sane person, acts. It’s too off the wall (to use a clinical term).
Trump’s Rudolf Hess.
Wonder who will distinguish themselves now that Pruitt’s out of there? Ryan Zeinke is a walking human meltdown, maybe he rides that horse of his into some trouble next. Outside Betsy DeVos and Pence-y no one is more hated (well, maybe Elaine Chow for giving comfort to turtle boy mcconnell)
time Trump sounds like Fredo Corleone. Be it self-pitying whining or ranting about respect to taking a public beating for what amounts to, as Moe Greene would put it; “banging cocktail waitresses two at a time! No one at the tables could get a drink!”
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