4/10/18:Trump wakes up angry as he often does. He
can’t manage to kill the Stormy Daniels story. His personal lawyer just got
raided. His pal, Vladimir, is causing problems in Syria.
Naturally, his first order of business is to tweet: “Apr
10, 2018: Attorney-client privilege is dead!”
As usual, Trump doesn’t have his facts straight. This much is
true: The F.B.I. did seize documents and records involving communications
between Trump and Cohen. Now special agents at the Bureau will have to peruse
these materials and make sure attorney-client privilege is not undermined.
Unfortunately, if you’re the president, attorney-client privilege is not protected in cases when attorney and
client are conspiring to commit fresh crimes.
Next, Trump decides to watch a tape of Lou Dobb’s performance
on Fox Business Network, Monday night.
“This is now a man that has to be brought under control, it
would seem to me,” Dobbs says, not in reference to Cohen or Trump, but Special
Counsel Mueller. “Frankly, I can’t imagine, because each of us has to come to
terms with our own heart and conscience – I would fire the SOB in three seconds
if it were me.”
Yes, Lou, we know you would. It’s increasingly clear. You’re
ready to thrust out your right arm and salute.
Get your armband ready.
BLOGGER’S NOTE (6/9/2022): We know now that Cohen
will be indicted not long after this raid. We know he will be convicted on
eight felony counts and sentenced to prison. We know an unindicted
co-conspirator will be named in that indictment, labeled only “Individual 1.”
We know now who “Individual 1,” was: Donald J.
Trump.
We know the only reason Trump wasn’t indicted and
placed on trial at the same time was that he was the President of the United
States, and Department of Justice policy holds that a sitting president cannot
be indicted while in office.
8/17/18: The president revokes the
security clearance of John Brennan, former head of the C.I.A. According to
White House Press Secretary Pinocchio Sanders, all is right in the world.
Brennan, she tells reporters, has been making “wild accusations” against the
Trump administration.
“An
attempt to stifle free speech.”
Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican, calls it the kind of move you
see in a “banana republic.” But most GOP leaders are silent or mildly
supportive. Sen. John Kennedy says Brennan was being a “butthead.”
The president is clear about why he does it – and why he
plans to revoke the security clearances of others.
Brennan is a critic.
Sean Hannity and the usual sycophants support the move. Lou
Dobbs, clearly in need of anger management therapy, shouts,
John Brennan…has lost his
security clearance. And the Swamp hates that. President Trump took away
Brennan’s clearance because of Brennan’s “erratic conduct and behavior.”
Brennan has been publically attacking Mr. Trump even while he was still
director of the C.I.A. Viciously so. And Brennan has broken with tradition and
civility: He is the first former intelligence agency head to absolutely
politicize his public service, trying to monetize that service, to inject
himself into Presidential politics, and to recruit the heads of other
intelligence agencies to attack the President of the United States.
Trump’s attempt to punish critics may not bother Dobbs. It
bothers quite a few former C.I.A. officials and leaders in U.S. intelligence.
First, a dozen former top officials at the C.I.A. sign a letter criticizing the
move.
They warn:
We feel compelled to respond in
the wake of the ill-considered and unprecedented remarks and actions by the
White House…We know John to be an enormously talented, capable and patriotic
individual who devoted his entire adult life to the service of this nation.
The president’s decision,
…has nothing to do with who
should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech. You
don’t have to agree with what John Brennan says (and, again, not all of us do) to
agree with his right to say it, [emphasis added], subject to his obligation
to protect classified information.
The signers include C.I.A. Directors who served Ronald Reagan and
every other president since, save Trump. (You can read their letterhere.)
5/27/19:Just an ordinary day in
Trumpistan. NPR reports that Infant’s Tylenol and Children’s
Tylenol are identical. Yet the company charges three times more for the
Infant formula.
Which is…identical.
(One is reminded of how often restaurants serve a type of cheap fish but charge for
a more expensive dish. So that, instead of getting halibut, you get carp. Okay,
that last is a joke, but only a bit of a joke.)
More proof that you can always trust Big Business
to do what’s right. Therefore, we should get rid of all government regulation.
*
A U.S. SENATOR (admittedly a Democrat, a species
of politician I rarely quote in my blog), Amy Klobuchar, says that during the Trump
inauguration, her colleague, Sen. John McCain kept reciting the names of dictators to her,
“because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation, he
understood it.”
She
continued: “He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.”
*
IN OTHER NEWS, Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) criticized the
president for retweeting an edited video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) put together for the perpetually angry Lou Dobbs to use on his show.
No one, least of all the President of the Unites States, Hurd
warned, should “disseminate information that you know is ultimately doctored.”
The Hill
explains:
Last week, a video went viral on
conservative social media outlets that slowed down audio of a Pelosi speech to
make her appear to be slurring her words. Shortly after, Trump tweeted a
different clip of Pelosi initially aired on Fox News’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight”
that spliced together several verbal pauses.
Wednesday morning, the president flicks on the television,
because, let’s be honest, watching TV is what he really loves best. When he
tunes to his favorite network, he can’t believe his eyes. Fox is letting Democrats
appear on air and Fox is letting them…wait for it…
…speak!
Trump explodes, grabs his phone, and starts to tweet like a
man possessed. (The man also loves to tweet.)
Once again, we must quote him in full to capture the sense of
his spleen:
Just watched @FoxNews heavily
promoting the Democrats through their DNC Communications Director, spewing out
whatever she wanted with zero pushback by anchor, @SandraSmithFox. Terrible
considering that Fox couldn’t even land a debate, the Dems give them
NOTHING! @CNN & @MSNBC....
...are all in for the Open
Border Socialists (or beyond). Fox hires “give Hillary the questions”
@donnabrazile, Juan Williams and low ratings Shep Smith. HOPELESS &
CLUELESS! They should go all the way LEFT and I will still find a way to Win -
That’s what I do, Win. Too Bad!....
....I don’t want to Win for
myself, I only want to Win for the people. The New @FoxNews is letting millions
of GREAT people down! We have to start looking for a new News Outlet. Fox
isn’t working for us anymore!
*
I suddenly realize, I’ve got to help. So I send this out to you:
A
FRIENDLY LETTER TO THE MAGA FOLKS
Dear Trump fans:
Did you realize your favorite, orange-tinted authoritarian
has tweeted 1,606 times, as of this morning, telling you to tune in to Fox News? In
other words, your president has been feeding you propaganda. It’s not as bad as
Kim-Jong-un, requiring people to clap whenever he appears. Trump has shown no
inclination to order journalists bumped off like his pal, Vlad. But Trump has
pushed Fox & Friends in 577 tweets – which would be included in the
1,606 above.
Trump has fed your addiction. He’s your pusher. He has touted
Sean Hannity’s show (235 additional tweets), Tom Fitton’s show (77), Lou Dobbs’
show (70), Tucker Carlson’s show (44), the Ingraham Angle (41) and
suggested you watch Judge Jeanine Pirro (in 36 tweets).
You, dear Trump fans – and I trust most of you love this
country, just as I and my liberal friends do – you have been suckered for sure.
8/21/20: No matter how hard you try you cannot keep up with all the craziness that
click clacks from the Twitter thumbs and blah blahs from the lips of Tin Pot
Don. Nor is it possible to delineate the multifaceted ways in which the current
President of the United States threatens fundamental American values, while simultaneously
undermining our standing in the world.
____________________
Trump is bad at math, bad at geography and really bad at his
job. More and more Republicans know it and are starting to say so, too.
____________________
He’s not even good at the basics of his job. This week we had
another 1.1 million Americans file for unemployment. That kept alive a disastrous
streak of 22 weeks with at least a million new claims. COVID-19 cases did fall on
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, a hopeful trend for all Americans. Then they spiked
again: 46,500 new cases on August 19, 44,864 on August
20, and 46,754 today.
Meanwhile, the president has been trying to make it sound
like other countries are doing just as badly – if not worse –
than we are. This week he cited New Zealand as
an example. On August 19, the island nation had six new cases. Six!!!! On August 20, they
had five. Today, they reported 11. Adjusted for population that would be the
equivalent of the U.S. having a combined 1,452 cases those three days.
Trump sucks at math.
*
IF MATH IS A PROBLEM for Tin Pot Don, geography is definitely
not his strongest subject. According to a former Trump appointee at the
Department of Homeland Security, after Hurricane Maria smashed the island of
Puerto Rico, the President of the United States floated the idea of selling the island,
and justified his plan, saying Puerto Ricans were “dirty” and “poor.” Later he
suggested a possible trade for Greenland, which would be hard to believe.
Except this is Tin Pot Don, a most ill-informed man.
We should remind Trump fans – and their
fearless, clueless, lawless leader – that
the people of Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens.
You can’t just sell them or trade them like slaves.
*
FIRES ARE BLAZING across California, as climate change
continues to heat up and dry out the Golden State. Tens of thousands of Californians
have been displaced from homes, and 771,000 acres have burned. Trump displays his usual level of empathy –
which is none. “I see again the
forest fires are starting,” he said on Thursday. “They’re starting again in
California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests – there are many, many years of leaves and broken
trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”
“Maybe we’re just going to have
to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added.
Someone should probably explain to
Trump. Eight of California’s ten worst fires have ignited this decade. Colorado
is currently fighting its second biggest fire ever. The worst came in 2002. Arizona
has a dozen active fires going, tied with Oregon. Scientists have long warned
that a hotter, drier planet would suffer more and more destructive forest
fires. See, for example: Siberia in July; “zombie fires” in Alaska in May; massive fires in Australia in January.
Climate changes is not a “hoax,”
and neither are these results. (See: NASA comments on Greenland, 8/20/20.)
*
IF YOU SKIPPED the Democratic
National Convention, you missed several touching moments. Brayden Harrington, a
13-year-old stutterer talked about how Vice President Biden took him aside when
they met, and told him to have confidence, and said he could overcome his
problem, as Biden did as a young man.
“Fundamentally good people.”
Not so touching, but still of
note: Ed Good, 95, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, a lifelong
Republican and Trump voter in 2016, said he would not make the same mistake again.
Trump, he said, was the “worst
president we have ever had.”
S.E. Cupp, a conservative commentator,
watched the DNC show and came away impressed. Having viewed a video that
focused on Jill Biden and the tragedies that have shaped her husband, Cupp had
a sudden realization. These were “fundamentally good people.” It was clear, she
said, that Joe loved this country. He loved its people. She compared him to
Trump, who she found wanting.
Our current president loves only
himself, she said. Cupp decided that was reason enough to vote Democratic for a change.
She was not alone. Cindy McCain,
wife of the late Sen. John McCain, announced that she, too, would cast a vote
for Biden. “Joe Biden,” she said, “is a wonderful man and a friend of the
McCain family.”
Daughter Megan, a conservative
like her late father, said she would also vote for Joe, one of an increasing
number of GOP regulars to have had enough of Trump. Republican mega-donor Meg
Whitman made it clear she was votingBiden. Governor Phil Scott of Vermont said he would not vote for Trump. He “would consider” supporting the Democratic
ticket, but not his own party’s leader. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich is a “no”
and will vote the Democratic ticket.
Kasich’s announcement prompted Mr.
Maturity in the White House to erupt. “He was a loser
as a Republican, and he’ll be a loser as a Democrat,” the president fumed, even
though Kasich has no plans to turn Democrat. “Major loser as a Republican,”
Trump added. “I guess you can quote me on that,” he told reporters. “John was a
loser as a Republican. … And as a Democrat he’ll be an even greater loser.”
Trump repeats himself a lot.
A group of top Republican
intelligence officials, 73 in number, have announced that they will vote for the challenger, not for the
incumbent. This group (which is likely to grow), includes
…retired
General Michael Hayden, who served as national security director and head of
the CIA; William Webster, the only man to serve as both head of the CIA and
FBI; John Negroponte, the first director of National Intelligence; Michael
Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Mike
Donley, former Air Force secretary.
Trump has demonstrated that he
lacks the character and competence to lead this nation and has engaged in
corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president [emphasis
added, unless otherwise noted]. … We have concluded that Donald Trump has
failed our country and that Vice President Joe Biden should be elected the next
President of the United States.
Former Republican congressman Charlie Dent is voting Biden/Harris in
November. He set forth his reasons, in an interview on CNN.
For me, it’s about right
or wrong. Stability vs. instability, security vs. insecurity, normal vs.
abnormal. That’s why I’m doing this because I feel that we need
to return some sense of normalcy to the function of
government. We simply don’t have that now. And that’s why I’m going
to be voting for Joe Biden for president.
There are greater
principles involved like the rule of law. We have to defend
democratic values. And I say democratic with a small “d.” A
free press, an independent judiciary. These are things that are
very important.
And the president has
been trying to undermine those things. And I think that, again,
we have to talk about broader principles here rather than just
an immediate policy victory.
Dent said there were “many
Republicans” who agreed with him. Those who have already made it clear they plan to vote for Biden,
write in a vote for someone else, or remain on the fence continue to multiply.
They include retired Gen. Colin Powell (for Biden), former GOP presidential
candidate Carly Fiorina (Biden), George W. Bush (unlikely to support Trump),
former Florida governor Jeb Bush (unsure) and Sen. Mitt Romney (plans to write
in some other name). John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor is a
hard “no” on his former boss. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is “struggling” with the idea of a second term
for Tin Pot Don. Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of
Homeland Security and once a member of Team Trump, will not vote for the man
who gave him a job. Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida is also leaning toward
Biden, explaining that our current president is “driving us all crazy.” Ret.
Admiral William McRaven will vote against his party leader.
“A conspiracy of cowardice.”
Stuart Stevens, who spent four
decades helping GOP candidates craft campaigns and win, has soured on Trump
and his party, generally. He describes what he sees from leadership in todays’ GOP
as a “conspiracy of cowardice.”
Even Dan Coats, Trump’s former
Director of National Intelligence is wavering in
support for his old boss. Like those six dozen other Republican intelligence
experts who have made their opposition clear, Coats is said to believe the
current administration has damaged our national security apparatus.
Ultimately, Coats, a loyal Republican, may not jump ship.
Still, there has probably
never been an election like this in all of U.S. history, where so many members
of a president’s party think their erstwhile leader is a threat to the country
they love.
Ms. Fiorina is typical of the
best of what remains of the Grand Old Party. She calls Biden “a person of
humility and empathy and character.”
None of which, Trump is.
*
LAST BUT NOT LEAST, an
unexpected note of warning regarding the man in the Oval Office. Sources at Fox News have
reportedly revealed to CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter what Sean
Hannity says about the president behind closed doors.
Stelter
writes that some in the White House refer to Hannity as Trump’s “shadow chief
of staff.” It’s a position of power, but comes at cost. Trump calls Hannity at all hours, day and night. One of
Hannity’s confidants described it to Stelter as the president treating, “Hannity
like Melania, a wife in a sexless marriage.”
A
sexless marriage might explain why Trump is always so on edge, so short on
temper, so prone to lash out.
He’s
horny.
One of Hannity’s associates
says that “off-off-off the record,” the Fox News host would tell people the
president is “batshit crazy.” A second source confirmed, “Hannity has said
to me more than once, ‘He’s crazy.’”
FUN FACT: Speaking of Fox News, according to Miles Taylor, former DHS chief of staff,
Trump told top officials at Homeland Security to watch Lou Dobbs’
show on Fox “every night.”
“The president would call us and ... he would say, ‘Why the
hell didn’t you watch Lou Dobbs last night? You need to listen to Lou. What Lou
says is what I want to do,’” Taylor said.
And that is the history of the lame-ass Trump administration
in a nutshell – filled with nuts. Trump was too lazy even to come up with
policy positions of his own.
11/14/20: No doubt Trump was feeling
better Saturday, since tens of thousands of fans descended on Washington D.C.
to show support. Trump aides managed to organize a motorcade which left the
White House, passed through the adoring throng, and then headed for Potomac
Falls, Virginia, where Trump managed to squeeze in Round #309 of golf, since taking office.
Since Team Trump said a deceased WWII veteran voted,
here's my dad, James R. Viall, who didn't.
(He died in 1999.)
____________________
Democrats intend to “deny
this president what is rightfully his, a second term.”
Lou
Dobbs, Fox News
____________________
At this point, it would be difficult to say who is more deluded – the president, who refuses to
concede defeat – or his
adoring fans who believe he is being cheated out of a second term.
Benjamin Hovland, Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance
Commission, tells CNN that while the president has
made a number of “bold claims” of voter fraud, “we’ve seen zero evidence.”
There’s “nothing that we’ve seen that would cause any real doubt in the
integrity of the election.”
Again: Hovland is a Trump appointee.
*
The shocking case of James Blalock!
DEEP INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE, the president continues to insist that
victory has been pried from his deserving grip.
In one tweet, he cites the claim of “Top US Pollster and Statistician Richard
Baris,” who Trump also refers to as the “People’s Pundit.” Baris was “SUSPENDED”
from Twitter, Trump groans, for reporting on the “Disputed Election.”
It would seem the president also had help
with this tweet, since he makes a passing reference to the book 1984,
noting, “Political ‘WrongThink’ Not Allowed.” Baris, “Said 10,000 DEAD PEOPLE
VOTED IN MICHIGAN. When will this RIGGED ELECTION be overturned!”
This could get embarrassing quick. As proof of such claims,
the Trump campaign cited the shocking case of James Blalock, a World War II
veteran, who voted in Georgia this election, despite having died fourteen years
ago.
Yet, it required only the most minimal effort to show that Mr.
Blalock had not in fact voted. His wife, Agnes, had, under her properly
registered name: “Mrs. James E. Blalock, Jr.”
Team Trump also cited the case of “Linda Kesler,” a Georgia
woman dead since 2003. She too had “voted” from the grave.
Once again, the ghost story proved not to be scary at all. Lynda
Kesler – different address – different birthday – different zip code – and, for god’s sake, different
spelling of the first name – did
vote.
As might have been expected, however, Tucker Carlson picked up
this story when it began running, and reported with horror on this travesty of
dead World War II veterans and other corpses voting.
Then…um…okay….he had to admit he had been duped.
Good old Tuck isn’t the only chump who works at Fox News. Another
host who proved today that he was unwilling to do even the easiest research is Lou
Dobbs. On his show this afternoon, he insisted that Republicans should refuse
to acknowledge Trump’s defeat, claimingthe
Democrats intend to “deny this president what is rightfully his, a second term.”
Good news on the vaccine, for sure, with hope
healthcare workers and frontline personnel can be vaccinated as early as the
second week of December. No comment from the president on all those for whom a
vaccine has come too late. On Monday, the U.S. was hit with another 157,531
cases.
Another 1,058 Americans died. But the stock
market was up again – 30,000 – “a sacred number.”
NO DOUBT, the president felt worse and worse
as the day progressed. True, he managed to pardon the Thanksgiving turkeys, “Corn”
and “Cob,” which I think should have been named “Donald J. Loser” and “Lame
Duck Don,” instead.
(That’s
just me.)
Then a double whammy. The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania certified its election results and Governor Tom Wolf signed off on
its 20 electoral votes – going not to Trump, but to Joe Biden.
Not long after, the Nevada Supreme Court
certified Biden’s win and awarded the former Vice President six more electoral
votes.
The handwriting had been on the wall since
Saturday, when Michigan certified its votes for the challenger.
That certification came after a federal judge
batted aside a Trump challenge to the Pennsylvania vote. (That challenge had
revolved around the claim that in some counties voters were allowed to fix
errors on their mail-in ballots. In other counties that offer was not extended.)
Not long after the judge ruled, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) urged the
president to accept reality, and move forward with the transition process,
which Trump had so far blocked. “President Trump has exhausted all plausible
legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania,”
Toomey said in a statement. It was time to face the
truth.
*
LATE TUESDAY, we learned that the U.S. had
set another record, not just a stock market high. Hospitalizations for the
coronavirus reached a new level, with 88,080 Americans too sick to go
home.
Many of them are going to die and tens of
thousands will miss Thanksgiving with their loved ones.
*
FOX NEWS takes a sock
to the “Fake News” chin when it is forced to settle a
suit brought against the company by
the family of Seth Rich. If you don’t remember, Rich was the young staffer,
murdered on the streets of Washington D.C. in July 2016. According to several
of the talking heads on Fox – or in this case the spewing heads – Rich had
leaked thousands of emails damaging to Hillary Clinton and Clinton and her
people had somehow had him knocked off.
Sean Hannity and Lou
Dobbs both pumped up the conspiracy theory. Once the case went to court, and they
realized they might have to testify in court, the parent company realized the
better part of valor was to tell the Fox lawyers to settle. Also involved in
fueling the story were Fox reporter Malia Zimmerman, Edward Butowsky, a wealthy
GOP donor, and at the time an unpaid Fox News consultant.
There was even a cameo
for Sean Spicer, who met with Butowsky at the White House in April 2017.
*
TRUMP’S LAWYER in
Wisconsin, Jim Troupis, is fighting to have tens of thousands of ballots throw out, including absentee ballots which were voted in person. His legal
case is not helped when he admits he and his wife voted by absentee ballot.
In person.
*
LONGTIME CONSERVATIVE
WRITER, Max Boot, warns in an
opinion piece that the president’s desperate
attempts to overturn the results of the election represent “the last
gasp of a pathetic presidency in its dying days.” If Trump decides to run again
in 2024, Boot says, the Republican Party “will do nothing to check his
authoritarian impulses.”
“Much of the GOP has already decided that
achieving its policy preferences is more important than preserving America’s
democracy,” he adds.
BLOGGER’S NOTE: In January 2021, with only six
days remaining in the star-crossed Trump presidency, Aaron Rich, the brother of
Seth, also wins a settlement against Butowsky and Matt Couch, a right-wing
activist.
Having both worked hard to spread the Hillary-had-Seth-murdered myth,
both apologized, apparently, as part of the court agreement.
“A single source, who we
now believe provided us with false information.”
“I never had physical proof to back up any such
statements or suggestions, which I now acknowledge I should not have made,”
Butowsky wrote in a Twitter post, which he deleted as soon as he had met his
legal responsibilities. Briefly, however, he admitted, “I take full
responsibility for my comments and I apologize for any pain I have caused. I
sincerely hope the Rich family is able to find out who murdered their son and
bring this tragic chapter in their lives to a close.”
Couch ate his own slice of “Fake News” pie,
admitting that his reports on the Rich murder “were largely driven by
information [given to] us by a single source, who we now believe provided us
with false information and who, as of this date, has retracted his statements.
Today, we retract and disavow our statements, and [we offer] our apology to Mr.
[Aaron] Rich and his family.”
And that is how you tell what’s “Fake News.” See
also: Lou Dobbs, et. al., at Fox, getting sued by voting machine companies
after claiming that their machines used during the 2020 election were rigged.
