3/15-3/21 (Year II, Days 55-61): Good news, America, we have survived another seven days of
Donald J. Trump. I think I speak for almost all of us—except for Sean Hannity
and his loyal see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, think-no-evil fans—in saying
recent news developments have been wild. True, the employment picture across the
country is bright, particularly in the field of high-priced lawyers. You could argue
Trump is keeping the legal community in business all by himself.
Good job, sir!
There has, of course, been another school
shooting in Maryland and so far, the big Republican idea to deal with the
problem is to study the effect of video games on the thinking of young
Americans.
Also: right-wingers believe the key to
addressing the problem is to insult students who are protesting, just
because they are the ones getting shot and bleeding all over the school. Recently, a Maine Republican running for office had to drop out of the race after it was revealed he had labeled two leaders of the student protest movement as: 1) “a skinhead
lesbian;” 2) “a bald faced liar.”
Still, you can’t say Donald J. Trump doesn’t have great ideas about how to make America Safe Again. In a speech yesterday in New
Hampshire, he talked about the opioid crisis and argued again for building a
border wall. We’re going to have that wall—and “keep the damn drugs out.” Trump
also pushed the idea that Congress should pass laws to allow for the execution
of big time drug dealers.
I suppose you can argue we need a big,
beautiful wall to keep the drugs out and we need to execute drug “kingpins,” too. I, for one, might add that we should build the wall around many of the biggest
pharmaceutical companies, the ones that mass produce the pills and secretly pay doctors to push their
prescription. And if we’re really serious about executing people, how about John
Kapoor, the billionaire founder and CEO of Insys, a company that was a leader
in pushing legal opioids for years. Last October, Kapoor was arrested on charges of racketeering,
conspiracy and fraud.
Or, how about Dr. Michael Kostenko? Kostenko wrote more than 40,000 prescriptions for
opioids in just two years. In one especially busy week the West Virginia doctor
managed to write 325 prescriptions and dispense 19,000 pills.
Since our topic is courts and the justice system, we should note that the Big Orange Buffoon continues to keep state and federal courts humming. Friday morning, March 16, Michael Avenatti, lawyer
for the porn actress Stormy Daniels, appeared on Morning Joe to talk about pending legal action involving his client
(real name: Stephanie Clifford) and Donald J. Trump. When asked by hosts on the
show, “Has you client been threatened?” Avenatti answered succinctly, “Yes.”
Had she been threatened with physical harm? “Yes.” Had threats come from
Trump himself? Avenatti responded with a wry smile, “I am not at liberty to deny or
confirm that.”
Instead, he said Ms. Clifford would answer such
questions in an interview with 60 Minutes
scheduled to air March 25.
In the meantime, the Treasury Department slapped additional sanctions on Russia for meddling in the 2016 election.
Yet, for some odd reason, Trump has never felt
the urge to call out Vladimir Putin by name. In fact, he has often offered kind
words. Twice in the past, he defended Putin from charges of being a
“killer.” During a December 2015 talk with the hosts of Morning Joe, before the Buffoon decided
the two hosts were lowlifes (see below), then Candidate Trump insisted Putin was a
better leader than President Obama.
When Joe Scarborough noted that Putin
“kills journalists that don’t agree with him,” Trump showed not one bit of concern.
“He’s running his country and at least he’s a
leader, unlike what we have in this country. I think our country does plenty of
killing also, Joe, so you know.”
In February 2017, Bill O’Reilly labeled Putin
a “killer” again, this time in a Fox News interview (the only kind the Buffoon will
now do) with the newly sworn in leader of the Free World.
Trump replied, “There are a lot of killers.
We’ve got a lot of killers. Well, you think our country’s so innocent?”
Think about that response for a moment.
Then throw in the fact Trump has said he
believed Putin never meddled in the 2016 election because Putin told him he did not.
Then throw in the fact that Trump—just on
Tuesday—called Putin to congratulate him on winning re-election.
Then add this: Putin wins elections because
he blocks leading opposition candidates from running.
Putin also orders agents in Great Britain to
assassinate his enemies using nerve gas.
Finally, consider how fishy this looks if you realize how happy the Big Orange Buffoon is to insult any American who criticizes him in any way .
Just a few examples should make the point.
The insults have included: news anchor Chuck Todd, a “sleepy son of a bitch”
(also N.F.L players who protest against Trump); “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz; “liberal
clown” Ariana Huffington; “dummy dope” writer Harry Hurt III; “crazy Bernie”
Sanders; “Sloppy Steve” Bannon; “gym rat” Senator Ben Sasse; news anchor
“Psycho Joe” Scarborough; “sleazy” Congressman Adam Schiff; “major loser” Cheri
Jacobus, a GOP consultant; “low-life” correspondent Lisa Belkin; “low-I.Q.”
Mika Brzezinski (also Maxine Waters); “dumb as a rock” CNN host Don Lemon;
“disgusting” Alicia Machado, former Miss Universe winner; Katie Tur, a reporter
who “should be fired” (also Jemele Hill); Senator “Jeff Flake(y);” “the very
foul-mouthed” Senator John McCain; the “very cowardly” F.B.I. director James Comey
and the dozen or more “liars” who accused him of sexual assault during his
campaign.
Friday night, the 16th, we saw
again the scant respect Trump has for the rule of law. Just 26 hours
before he was scheduled to retire and begin collecting a pension based on two
decades of service, F.B.I. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was summarily fired. True, you could question McCabe’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal; but you
could hardly deny this was a vindictive political move, ordered by Trump,
carried out by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and intended to punish a law
enforcement official who blocked the Buffoon’s path to untrammeled power.
(McCabe will almost surely win a battle over denial
of due process when he takes this matter to the courts.)
That same evening, Michael D. Cohen, Trump’s personal
lawyer, was filing an unprecedented legal brief in federal court. What Cohen
was seeking was to block a legal action filed on behalf of Stormy Daniels in
the California courts and transfer matters to federal jurisdiction.
Incredibly, in his filing Cohen identified his client as both Donald J. Trump and “David Dennison.”
You can’t make this up!
The President of the United States, to use
the Buffoon’s official title, is operating for certain legal purposes under an alias!
So, let’s recap. The Wall Street Journal first broke the story that Cohen paid $130,000
in hush money to Stormy—twelve days before the 2016 election. Cohen now claims,
variously, that Trump knew nothing about the hush money—that he, Cohen, paid
out of his own pocket and never used campaign funds, which would be illegal—and that to raise cash he took out a home equity loan.
That may be one of the dumbest cover stories
you’ve ever heard. But for a time it looked like gagging the porn star (legally
only) was going to work. The parties to the settlement, a tightly-written
non-disclosure agreement (NDA) included “Peggy Peterson,” whom we soon learned was
Daniels, and a mysterious individual identified only as “David Dennison.” And
that NDA stipulated a penalty of $1,000,000 any time “Peterson” broke her
silence about her affair…with...um...“Dennison.”
It was obvious to anyone who didn’t make
a regular habit of watching Tucker Carlson’s nightly dog and pony show, who “Dennison” was;
but now Donald/David and his lawyer were claiming that Ms. Clifford had already violated the NDA twenty times,
meaning she had accrued $20,000,000 in damages to this point.
It’s a free country—so far. That means you
have every right to watch Fox News and lap up all the crap they peddle. You can believe Trump is truthful and Andrew McCabe
is a liar. You can believe Trump is truthful and James Comey is a liar. You
can believe Trump is truthful and Stormy is the liar. You can believe
the porn star has no proof and Cohen and Donald/David only want to keep her
story out of the public eye because…
Oh, hell!
There’s no logical explanation for why they
would squeeze a porn star for $20 million—except that she has
plenty of proof and its damning.
The situation the man in the Oval
Office found himself in did not improve over the following weekend.
Saturday morning, March 17, the Orange
Buffoon slept in late. His first tweet did not issue till 10:00 a.m. and his
heart barely seemed in it. “Happy #StPatricksDay” was all he tapped out.
You could argue, I suppose, that he was showing rare restraint because he did
not refer to Ireland as a “shithole” country.
True. He did warm up by lunch and continued attacking the rule of law. Tweet #2 for the day was as
follows: “As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no
collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out,
however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest
levels of the FBI, Justice & State. #DrainTheSwamp.”
Like the cornered rat he clearly feels he is, Trump
kept squeaking. Tweet #2 followed: “The Fake News is beside themselves that
McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of
dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also
under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much
more!”
Finally, he let loose with a furious blast: “The
Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and
there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier
paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for
surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”
Sunday morning, Trump was up early and tappity-tapping
again. At 7:02 he tweeted: “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when
asked “have you ever been an anonymous source...or known someone else to be an
anonymous source...?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly on
@foxandfriends.”
(At this point, it seems clear, if the hosts
on Fox & Friends claimed bagels
were sentient, Trump would tweet he agreed.)
At 7:22 Trump denied in yet another tweet that
notes Andrew McCabe says he took after meetings with the president actually
exist. Keep in mind, this is a man who can insist he never had an affair with a
porn star—but if she has evidence and
spills it he’s going to take her to court for $20 million. Trump’s tweet denial
read: “Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when
he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda,
probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake
Memos?”
Finally, at 7:35 the Orange Buffoon came
completely unglued: “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some
big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently
added...does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!”
That was it with the tweeting for the day. Trump
climbed into a limo and disappeared down the road, headed for one of his
private clubs to spend Sunday afternoon playing yet another round of golf.
The Big Orange Buffoon started Monday the
same way he ended Sunday, tweet-raging about the Mueller investigation. First,
he assumed fans were watching Fox News every morning, just as he does. Tweet #1
came at 7:16 a.m. and appeared to bend time: “
Tweet #2 came an hour later, but lacked specificity:
“
One was left to ponder. Did he mean the “witch hunt”
involving Russians or the “witch hunt” involving the porn star?
Hard to know.
Certainly, we can assume his mood did not improve as
the day progressed. The stock market took a tumble after it was revealed
Facebook was duped
into allowing a data-mining operation to steal the personal information of
50,000,000 users. What was the name of the company that did the duping and mining?
Cambridge Analytica! Who used that firm during his or her campaign for
president?
No, not Hillary Clinton!
It was Donald J. Trump.
Christopher Wylie, who helped start the company
before turning whistle blower, explained how stolen data could be used in a
political campaign:
Cambridge
Analytica will try to pick at whatever mental weakness or vulnerability that we
think you [for example, the potential Trump voter whose data has been mined]
have and try to warp your perception of what’s real around you. If you are
looking to create an information weapon, the battle space you operate in is
social media. That is where the fight happens.
And what kind of sleazy rats run Cambridge? Naturally, there
had to be at least one Russian-American, Aleksandr Kogan, involved. Professor
Kogan lied to Facebook, the site now claims, and wedged a digital foot in the door.
Channel 4 News in Britain, where Strategic Communications Laboratories Group (SCL), the parent
company of Cambridge, is located,
recently began investigating SCL/Cambridge business practices. An undercover
reporter “posing as a fixer for a very wealthy client” from Sri Lanka was sent
to seek assistance from SCL Chief Executive Alexander Nix.
Here’s how Nix
explained [punctuation follows British practice] company methods:
In one exchange,
when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they
could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian
girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.
In another he
said: “We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his
campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing
recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet.”
Offering bribes
to public officials is an offence under both the UK Bribery Act and the US
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Cambridge Analytica operates in the UK and is
registered in the United States.
…Mr Nix told our
reporter: “…we’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows,
and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive relationship with
you.”
Along with Mr
Nix, the meetings also included Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA
Political Global, and the company’s chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler.
Mr Turnbull
described how, having obtained damaging material on opponents, Cambridge
Analytica can discreetly push it onto social media and the internet.
He said: “… we
just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then
watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote
control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because
the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that
out?’.”
Mr Nix also
said: “…Many of our clients don’t want to be seen to be working with a foreign
company… so often we set up, if we are working then we can set up fake IDs and
websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university,
we can be tourists, there’s so many options we can look at. I have lots of
experience in this.”
In the meetings,
the executives boasted that Cambridge Analytica and its parent company
Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) had worked in more than two hundred
elections across the world, including Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic, India
and Argentina.
Monday night a spokesman for the company denied that
any illegal activities had actually occurred.
Tuesday, Nix was dismissed from his job by his own board of directors.
And, just for fun, who do you think worked
with Cambridge on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, possibly in an illegal fashion,
to shape the 2016 election? How about one-time Trump campaign manager Cory
Lewandowski?
Not to mention—but, yes, him
too—“Sloppy
Steve” Bannon.
That was just one batch of bad news for the Buffoon but danger signs continued to multiply. Senators Lindsay Graham
and John McCain, who do have principles, warned him not to fire Robert Mueller.
“If he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his
presidency, because we’re a rule of law nation,” Graham said. Congressman Trey
Gowdy, famous for leading the Benghazi investigation and no friend generally of
Democrats, said if Trump was innocent he “should act like it.”
Even cowardly Republican leaders began sniffing enough
shit to realize it might be time to start distancing themselves from the Trump Manure Pile. Senator Marco Rubio said Andrew McCabe “should’ve been allowed to
finish his job through the weekend” and not fired late Friday night. Speaker of
the House Paul Ryan mustered up a fragment of courage and had a spokesperson
say: “As the speaker has always said, Mr. Mueller and his team should be able
to do their job.”
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell came out of hiding long enough to
tell reporters that, yes, Mueller should be allowed to finish his work.
Tuesday, March 20, Trump’s only tweet for the
day was in celebration of an event I am willing to bet most Americans who do
not personally own pitchforks did not know was real.
“Our Nation was founded by farmers,” Trump tippity-tapped
on his trusty iPhone. “Our independence was won by farmers. And our continent
was tamed by farmers. Our farmers always lead the way -- we are PROUD of them,
and we are DELIVERING for them! #NationalAgricultureDay”
I waited anxiously all afternoon and evening,
praying the Big Orange Buffoon would tweet again. Perhaps: “Our farmers produce
asparagus and Brussels sprouts and other foods I hate. I did not boink a porn
star! NO COLLUSION!”
I thought that would be cool.
When Donald J. Trump finally sat down for
dinner later—almost surely eating alone, because you figure Melania has to
be fuming—we also knew that a Playboy Bunny had filed suit asking the right to tell the
story of a ten-month affair she claims to have had with Citizen Trump in 2006.
During the campaign she had been prepared to
sell the story when the National Enquirer
swooped in and bought up the rights for $150,000. But the company that owns the
magazine never intended to publish it because, let’s face it, that magazine has
very high standards of journalism.
I’m joking!
The owner is a friend of Donald J. Trump and
this was standard practice at the National
Enquirer, to help friends, using what was called “capture and kill” to bury
the story and keep the Bunny quiet.
Now the Bunny insists other promises made as
part of the deal were not kept and she should have the right to take back her
tale (tail!) and make it public.
Also, her new lawyer claims Michael D. Cohen
(yes, that guy again) was “secretly
involved” behind the scenes, possibly in cahoots with the Bunny’s own lawyer at
that time, in an effort to insure her affair was hushed up.
But wait, there’s more!
A New York judge also ruled on Tuesday that a defamation case filed
against Trump, on behalf of Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, can proceed. A defense
motion seeking a dismissal or continuance until after the Buffoon left office was
rejected. This means Trump could end up being deposed and may have to answer
questions under oath. Zervos’s case looks strong at first glance because then
Candidate Trump insisted during the campaign that all the women who had accused him of sexual misconduct were
“liars,” that all of their claims were “false stuff” and “total fiction.”
So it could come down to Trump’s word vs.
Zervos’s and Trump’s word vs. the words of a dozen other accusers.
I think it’s safe to say, Donald J. Trump and his good friend David Dennison both have to be worrying.
P.S. The Playboy Bunny is scheduled to do an interview with Anderson Cooper on Thursday night.
