Tag Archives: Trump

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Paranoid? You Should Be

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12 members of the Russian GRU (military intelligence) have been indicted for working to influence the 2016 election on behalf of Donald Trump. Who ya gonna side with? The FBI and all of American intelligence, or Donald and his Russian buddies, who undoubtedly have long-term dream scenarios of overthrowing the governments of the U.S. and the U.K., while fracturing the EU into pieces while Soviet (whoops, excuse me) Russian influence floods the globe?

Pardon my paranoia, but sometimes a little paranoia can be a good thing.   Can’t prove any of this, but sometimes things are exactly as they seem.  

I can’t help but think there was a very specific reason the FBI announced these indictments just prior to DJT’s very private meeting with Vladimir Putin, to be attended only by interpreters. I think it may have been more than pushback for the show trial in the House the Republicans held to slam the FBI and the Mueller investigation.  It almost feels like Trump and his supporters in the House, are doing all they can to provide cover for Putin and the Russians.  All of it leads one to think that the country could be in far more peril than anyone suspects, except for the intelligence community, and that they were sending a message to Putin and his American puppet to back off.  

There are two games being played.   The one we’re all watching on television, and the other, taking place out of the spotlight, on an international chessboard with pieces being moved in the shadows.

We do know that Donald J. Trump, refuses to admit the Russians meddled in the election and that he continued that refusal even after being briefed about these new indictments by the FBI.  We also know that his son-in-law, Jerad Kushner, was talking to the Russians during the runup to the election, trying to set up a back-channel to the Kremlin out of Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States.

There’s so much more.

Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev, paid Donald Trump $95 million for a Florida property Trump purchased for $41 million.    It’s not uncommon for property to appreciate in value over time and Palm Beach is a pricey neighborhood but almost everybody concerned agrees that this was an unusually high profit.      It did in fact, at that time,  set a record for the price of a single family home anywhere in the U.S.    Rybolovlev’s people say it was simply an investment.  However, there is evidence that Rybolovlev and Trump may be more than casual business associates.   The Seattle Times reports that, “Federal Aviation Administration records reviewed by The Palm Beach Post and other news outlets have tracked Rybolovlev’s private plane to cities where Trump has traveled, both during his campaign and into his presidency.”

The New York Times reported that Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg met with Trump attorney Michael Cohen at Trump Tower eleven days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, to discuss ways to improve US-Russia relations.   A short time later, one of the oligarch’s subsidiaries signed a million-dollar contract with Cohen, according to an article in salon.com. 

Just days ago, the State of Maryland was notified by the FBI that a Russian oligarch owns the company that handles their election registration software.   According to State Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, Jr., and House Speaker Michael Bush, “We were briefed late yesterday, along with Governor Hogan, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the software vendor who maintains portions of the State Board of Elections voter registration platform was purchased by a Russian investor in 2015, without the knowledge of state officials.”

According to the New York Post, from 2011 to 2013 the FBI bugged a unit on the 63rd floor of Trump Tower, which was allegedly being used by the Russian mob for gambling and money laundering.

Politico reports that Donald Trump Jr. praised the Russians at a real estate conference in 2008, saying, “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” he said of Trump Organization properties. “There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble.”

Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who popped up from out of thin air, was a former adviser to the former President of Ukraine,  Viktor Yanukovych, who is a political ally of Russian President, Vladimir Putin.  When the Yanukovych government fell amidst evidence of widespread corruption, Yanukovych, fled to Russia.

To this day DJT has refused to take any action to stop the Russians from meddling in upcoming elections.  He’s done nothing.  Almost as though he is under orders to stand down, to avoid getting in the way of the Russians.

Trump is turning his back on our friends and allies while singing the praises of dictators  and tyrants who oppose the very concept of democratic freedoms and self-determination.

How much more do you need?  Sometimes things are exactly as they seem.

Blog, Politics

The Lingering Ghost Of Rome

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It’s impossible to watch what is now happening in the Southwest, with the Trump Administration setting up internment camps for children and babies, without being reminded of Germany in the late 1930’s and 40’s.  For those of us who know a little history,  what’s happening is also somewhat reminiscint of Roman Carthage.

Around 150 BC, the Romans marched in and captured Carthage, eventually turning it into one of the biggest cities in the Roman Empire.   They held it until 435, when the Vandals came in, capturing the city while most of the sports-obsessed Romans were off attending the games, chariot races, gladiatorial contests and whatnot,  at the local coliseum.

It may be overstating things to say the Vandals might never have taken the city, had the sports-obsessed Romans paid more attention to their defenses and less to sporting events.   Then again, maybe not, which brings us back to a parallel with the United States.

Not only are we an overextended empire, as were the Romans, we are equally sports-obsessed.  One wonders how the country would function if the populace spent one-third of the time it spends watching sporting events or playing fantasy football, with reading and thinking about how the country is being run.   This doesn’t mean getting all of one’s “news” on the FOX News Network, it means actually reading a mainstream newspaper either online or by subscription.  They will still bring it to your front door for a very nominal fee and it is still a good way to absorb some solid, objective information.   You might consider it your patriotic duty.

Mainstream newspapers are not engaged in doing fake news, regardless of what Donald Trump may be telling you.   Most of the fake news, in fact, has been coming from the mouth of Donald J. Trump.  And it’s bringing down our country.

Without belaboring the point of how fascism did not grab Germany by the throat overnight, that it was a process that developed over years and not months or days, it is not unreasonable to draw parallels with what is happening in the U.S., particularly in light of Trump’s “birther” movement, a president who equates Mexicans with “rapists,”  who labels all those of the Muslim faith as being dangerous, who turns his back on the needs of storm-ravaged Puerto Ricans and more recently gave his approval to torch carrying neo-Nazis, marching through the streets of Charlottesville.    And now, in one more horrendous and unbelievable stroke, Donald Trump has set up internment camps for toddlers and babies, calling them “tender age” camps, in an effort to make the fact that he has fixed his approval to tearing babies and kids away from their parents sound  less harsh than it actually is.   It is simply monstrous, and Trump, unrestrained by his Republican Party, is acting like a dictator.  Or at the very least, a power-mad oligarch, playing the race card for all it’s worth, as he attempts to turn white Americans against all people of color.

According to a study done at Princeton,  our Democracy, once the envy of the world,  is already dead.  Gone.   The scholarly study says we are now an Oligarchy, which works well for Donald J. Trump, who has shown himself to be a modern-day authoritarian Julius Caesar wannabe.  Are we now, with Vandals approaching the city,  literally playing ourselves into the hands of fascism?

With thousands of kids being torn from their parents, and no sign that the country has any idea as to how to eventually reunite them, isn’t it finally time to say “enough?”  Isn’t it beyond time for men and women of good conscience and decency to set aside politics, restore our system of checks and balances,  and remove Donald J. Trump and his poisonous, hateful, racist band of scoundrels from office?

Let us pray that our elected officials act responsibly before we lose all hope of regaining a representative federal government.    Don’t think it can’t happen here.  The unthinkable is happening right now, down on our southern border.    Thousands of kids are being torn from their parents and it’s being done in our names.  Yours and mine.

Blog, Politics

“Progressive” Is Not A Dirty Word

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Those on the right have always accused the media of being on the left, even when the media was increasingly acquired by those on the right. Point in fact, is that righties don’t like anybody saying anything they perceive as negative about them regardless of the truth, which puts them in opposition to journalism.   And that dear friends, is the truth.

With massive deregulation, we are increasingly subjected to the threat of the practice of objective journalism being labeled as “fake news.” This is the right’s new standard practice and it is a very real threat.

All that can be done is to vote for a straight Democratic slate in November and then, if the Dems regain control, push like hell for a Dem president two years later who will agree to re-regulate the business and work to bust up these massive media conglomerates. You might also consider becoming a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, which supports objective, ethical journalism.  My experience in more than forty years in the craft is that most journalists try and do this to the best of their ability – tell the truth, that is, irrespective of what the Trumpists and others on the right might say.

Any employer’s blatant demand to put words in journalist’s mouths or to intentionally insert bias into an otherwise legit newscast while trying to pass it off as being objective is both disappointing and dangerous. And it should be illegal because it threatens our democratic way of life.

Instead of forcing broadcast journalists at dozens of its 193 stations to parrot the same corporate language about “The sharing of biased and false news” becoming “all too common,”  Sinclair Broadcasting should consider having all its news operations join the SPJ, while making a corporate pledge to do their level best to have their employees abide by the SPJ’s code of ethics.  Now that would be something the corporation and its employees could feel good about – as opposed to forcing their employees to parrot a message – the very delivery of which – appears to contradict their mission statement.

To those who will accuse me of being biased, hell yes, I’m biased, particularly so when I feel the country is threatened. I’m also retired and now do opinion pieces as opposed to straight-ahead journalism. However, unlike some of those on the right, I don’t try and pass off my opinions as being straight-ahead “just the facts” news.

Progressive, is not a dirty word, particularly when those on the  regressive side are brushing up against supporting fascism.

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Trump Finally Draws Swords With Putin – Or Does He?

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On the heels of the Stormy Daniels interview on CBS and the march on Washington to protest a lack of legislation dealing with firearms – but on an even larger scale, a protest against the way this current administration and Republican legislators conduct themselves – Donald Trump, uncharacteristically silent, has suddenly decided to draw swords with Vladimir Putin, kicking Russian diplomats and spies from U.S. soil, possibly a precursor to stronger action.

For months, some have wondered out loud, whether Donald Trump would try and go to war with North Korea or Iran as a diversion against his personal and professional issues at home. This move against Russia, could be that diversion. This will not only divert attention from the march and Stormy Daniels.  The harder Trump pushes against Russia, the more it will pull attention away from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, making it appear less likely that Trump or his people colluded with the Russians.

One wonders how hard Trump will push, whether there could be economic sanctions to follow?   According to the experts, that, and not diplomatic expulsions, is what would really get to Putin and his oligarchs.  However, Putin, should not be expected to sit back and do nothing in response.  He apparently has the ability to shut down at least some of America’s power grid, as well as the power in Ukraine and possibly elsewhere.  Who knows the extent to which the Russians have hacked into other countries systems?   The threat of such a cyber-attack can surely be considered nothing less than an act of terrorism?

Even more interesting for some of us, is the question of whether Trump’s stand might not motivate Putin to release any information he might have been using as leverage (blackmail) against Donald trump.  If there are video tapes, might this not cause Putin to release them to humiliate the American President?   Or might something else be going on here?  With Putin and Donald Trump, who, up until now, has refused to even utter a bad word about the Russian dictator, one never knows.

We do have a few facts to consider.   One, is how brazen the Russians were in launching an attack with a military-grade nerve agent on British soil.    It was as though they wanted the world to know what they were doing.   Another, is that the United States was almost sure to back whatever play the Brits made against the Russians as the U.K. is among America’s oldest and strongest allies.   And finally, we must never forget that Putin is a former KGB officer, and a key player with regard to the deconstruction of what was once a promising Russian democracy which was then usurped by the former KGB network with Vladimir Putin as their new strong man.

It is also possible that the attack in the U.K. was designed to make Putin politically stronger at home, making it appear as though the Russian dictator was forced to take a stand against a renewed attack from the west.

The more the conflict with Russia grows, the more other issues will shrink into insignificance, to the possible advantage of both Putin and Donald Trump.  It’s probably all just coincidence?  A very real problem for loyal Americans is that this current President is without credibility, so we have no way of knowing one way or the other.

It’s difficult to imagine Vladimir Putin would invite this much trouble internationally unless he’s in far greater political trouble at home than any of us understands.

Whatever is going on behind the political curtain, kicking a few diplomats from the country is no big thing.  We’ll see if it’s just a little dust-up to divert attention from the march, the Mueller investigation and DJT’s issues with women, or whether Trump is serious and takes it further with meaningful economic sanctions.

While this is an equation filled with unknowns, it can be said with some certainty that intentional or not, Putin and the Russians have just handed Trump and the Republicans a huge diversionary gift.

Blog, Politics

Waiting For Donald’s Big Parade

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It’s getting scarier and scarier out there.  Or as our regressively  evolving jargon might have it, “more scary.”   Illiteracy in America.  It’s a terrible thing.  Did you know that eighty-five percent of all the kids who get into trouble and subsequently come into contact with the courts are functionally illiterate?  Here in America?

Yesterday, our fearless leader was at a Marine Corps Air Station in California, talking about the need for a “Space Force,” because in the near future, our Air Force, presumably won’t be enough.  “My God, he’s been watching ‘Battlestar Gallactica’ again” I thought as beads of sweat formed on my forehead while pouring a big glass of Chardonnay to help kill the pain of contemporary living.

I needed it, as today I awoke to find the fat man had issued a tweet, talking about the Marine “Core.”  Maybe it was a Russian bot?  One can only hope.  Pretty sure it was the fat man though and not his buddy Putin who’s being charged with spreading a military-grade nerve agent on the streets of the UK, putting three people including a police officer in the hospital, all in critical condition.

But hey, fourteen suspicious deaths are now being investigated for possible links to Russian assassins in the UK, so this most recent nerve agent murder spree was probably just Vlad out doing his thing as a warning to anyone who might be thinking of betraying Mother Russia.   That’s what some of the pundits think.

They also warn that it could happen here on U.S soil, where we’re busy enough killing ourselves and our kids with military grade assault weapons available over-the-counter at your local gun store,  with full-auto conversion kits available at some gun shows.  According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 1,300 children die from gunshot wounds in the U.S. annually with no help at all from Russian assassins.   That number is thirteen-hundred.  Each year.  Shot dead.   With or without “bump stocks.”

If all of that isn’t enough to scare you into never again leaving home, the networks are now warning about Russia’s increased activity in submarine warfare up in the Arctic.    Remember “The Hunt for Red October,” with Sean Connery?  That kind of thing.  Only this is apparently real.   Scary, huh?   Doesn’t it feel at times like somebody might be trying to make things even scarier than they really are?

In light of these terrible threats,  our fearless leader was out speaking to an audience of military personnel, promising them a pay raise just to guarantee applause.   He was presumably at a military installation because most of the country no longer wants to have anything to do with him or his peculiar brand of madness as he fires his Secretary of State just before breaking an agreement with one country over the possible development of nuclear weapons and works to establish ties with another rouge nation over…..ah…..that exact same thing.

It feels like one of those old Daffy Duck cartoons, where Daffy is out of control, bouncing off the walls and yelling, “Woo woo!  Woo woo!  Woo woo!”   Except this isn’t Daffy Duck, this is our very own fearless leader.   And now he’s talking about a new war in space, a war that so far is taking place only in that bizarre space inside his head while he waits for his upcoming military parade.

Who can you think of that uses irrational fear to promote unlimited military growth at the cost of more civilized behavior, like putting money into education, affordable healthcare and care for the nation’s very young and very old?   Where in the world do autocratic leaders demand military parades serving no purpose but to make the autocrats look powerful while their pitiful powerless subjects are forced to ignore how little they actually have?   Where does that happen?

It happened in Germany and Italy in the 1930’s.  It’s happening now in places like Russia, North Korea and anywhere else Democracy has been snuffed out by the kind of authoritarian madness our very own fearless leader appears to admire, as he awaits his own big fat military parade through the streets of our nation’s capitol paid for by millions of our tax dollars.

“Woo woo!  Woo woo! Woo woo!” everybody, and fasten your seatbelts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

 

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A Presidents’ Day Message

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Thinking of those presidents and others, who put on uniforms and fought or died for our freedoms as opposed to so many current politicians who talk the talk while being concerned only for their own petty self-interest.

While our Russian-lover in chief, Donald Trump, apparently lacks the ability to feel shame, Republicans in the House and Senate should be held accountable for their shameful inaction on behalf of the nation they are supposed to serve. We can all remember this and throw the bums out in November, or suffer the consequences, one of which could very well be the end of our constitutional democracy.

I am a member of a Gold Star Family. I had friends who came back from Vietnam in body bags. I stood on the tarmac and watched our troops board planes bound for Afghanistan. I do not take any of this lightly. This current Republican Party threatens our continued existence as a free people. November will soon be here. God bless America. THROW THE BUMS OUT!

Blog, Politics

Forget The Stupid Memo – It’s The Russians!

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It’s all about that damn stupid GOP memo.   Something the White House put together to be delivered by presidential water carrier, Devin Nunes.   Nunes, should be booted to the curb from his job of Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, because of his obvious, overt and continuing bias for Donald Trump.  The Committee Nunes chairs, is supposed to look out for our best interest, not Donald Trump’s.   But it’s the memo that’s really getting to me, and the way the mainstream media has been thoroughly sucked in by it.

When I went to bed they were talking about the memo.  What might be in the memo.  What might not be in the memo.  What might have been redacted from the memo.  When Trump would release the memo, or maybe not release the memo.   Memo, memo, memo, whose got the memo now….   Blah, blah, blah…..   When I got up this morning, they were still on it.  An endless loop of memo blather.

The memo, is probably nothing.  It’s a memo for God’s sake, not a formula for rocket fuel that was stolen by the Russians or proof that the Trump family has been purchased by Russian money over the past ten years so completely that this current president has no choice whatsoever but to abide by whatever Vladimir Putin wants, like failing to enforce sanctions approved by a majority, with only five no votes in the House and Senate.  Nothing like that.  No, it’s just a stupid memo.  In all likelihood, nothing but blather made up out of whole cloth by those in the Administration who would condemn the FBI and other American intelligence agencies while sneaking in the top three Russian spymasters for clandestine meetings with Trump appointees on U.S. soil.   One, who had been barred from entering the United States because of his involvement in the attack on the Ukraine and subsequent invasion and capture of Crimea.

What?  Seriously?  Yes, according to Reuters and confirmed by others, that’s exactly what happened.  The Trumpists brought in Russia’s spymasters.  Probably to talk about how best to make those nasty sanctions go away, but there could have been more.   Maybe they’ve come up with some way to set up that “back door” secure communications channel to the Kremlin via the Russian embassy, Jared Kushner  discussed with the Russian ambassador during the transition?   Why would Trump need a secure channel to Moscow?   What is it he needs to hide?

That’s the point.  The Russians.  Everything with this administration always seems to come back to the Russians.   Even this current obsession with condemning the American intelligence establishment while seemingly trying to promote Russia’s ability to further infiltrate and influence the American political process.

It’s the Russians.   It’s the spymasters secret visit to the U.S. at the apparent invitation of the Trumpists.   It’s the way this administration favors Russia over the United States.  That’s  what the media needs to focus on, not this stupid memo and the diversion it has caused.

While doing all he could to undermine the credibility of the FBI, Donald Trump was waving in Boris and Natahsa through the rose garden doors.  Even now some covert think tank in Moscow is probably working on a cover story for the Russian spymaster’s trip to the U.S.  Something along the lines of their being here to discuss peace in Syria or a joint response to North Korea or a continued response to the Taliban or a cost saving plan to pull U.S. troops away from the Russian border.   Don’t be fooled.

Over the past couple of days I’ve had more than one conversation about the “memo” as a diversion.   More than once I have used the analogy that good reporters should be like hungry watchdogs.  Oh, the watchdogs are out there all right, but most have forgotten or never learned how to identify a bone, so when one is thrown their way they miss it altogether or are diverted.   A situation made all the more difficult by a president who keeps throwing giant bags of kibble into the air.

Which brings us to one last point.  Do you think Donald Trump is crafty enough to come up with all this stuff?  Diversion after diversion leading to an all-out attack on the FBI while refusing to enforce sanctions against the Russians, at a time when the FBI is investigating Russian interference in U.S. elections?   Do you?

Fast forward to a dimly lit room deep within the Kremlin.   A half-dozen men in dark suits drain bottles of the finest vodka while congratulating themselves, holding their sides they emit howls of laughter at how easily the stupid Americans can be deceived, controlled and contained as one by one  America’s long-standing institutions continue to weaken.

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A Brief Period Of Relief As Trump Leaves The Country

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Sleep, blessed sleep.  It’s easy to forget how necessary it is to our well being until we are forced to go without it – an experience many of us have been suffering through since the election of this current Russian-aligned occupant of the White House.

Thanks to Robert Mueller and the FBI,  responsible and patriotic adults are once again asserting control over the federal government through the rule of law, and many of us can once again get a little sleep.   The kind of deep sleep your body needs.   The kind that helps you heal the wounds, both psychic and physical, that life regularly inflicts.  Particularly so, when there is no doubt that our government is under attack by a foreign power, determined to tear down our democratic institutions brick by brick.

This morning, as Donald Trump boarded Air Force One for a trip to Asia, I was reminded of Richard Nixon’s departure for Egypt in 1974, as the weight of accountability for the Watergate break-in and cover-up was approaching its inevitable conclusion.    Two months later, Nixon would resign.

Real or imagined, it just feels better when people like Nixon or Trump get on a plane and get out of the country.   And Trump will be gone for eleven days.   Like Nixon, he must have really needed to get away.

True, they can do a whole lot of damage overseas, but somehow it just feels better, not being on the same continent with those who stand in opposition to all that is pure and best about America.

Even now, while writing this, it occurs to me that it may be unfair, comparing Nixon to Trump, as Trump is so much worse than Richard Nixon ever was, simply by reason of Trump’s inability to be anything resembling “presidential,” or his obvious inclination to dance with the devil, in a constant waltz with Vladimir Putin and his fascist state.   I’m fairly certain Nixon, would never have gone there.  He simply couldn’t have.  The Republican base, at that time, simply was not gullible enough to fall for a Russian-loving commander in chief.

As with Richard Nixon, the truth will eventually prove to be Donald Trump’s nemesis, as the FBI investigation continues into this current Administration’s ties to Russia and their possible collusion with the Russian Government.   We will get to the truth, because we are a free people with a system that is stronger than any one person or party.    That is to say, we should be allowed to get to the truth.

Should any one person or party attempt to shut down the investigation, then that one person or party will be more than suspect.  That one person or party will be signaling that they are, in all likelihood, guilty of committing treason against the United States by their effort to cover up the Trump Administration’s ties to the Russians.  Ties that are becoming all the more apparent with the passage of time.

Certain parties are already suspect by their obvious and disgusting determination to stop congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election from moving forward.

Let’s hope the Mueller investigation is allowed to run its course.  That it is permitted to reveal the truth to the American people, and that Donald J. Trump doesn’t drag the nation into another war as the ultimate diversion, before Mr. Mueller and the FBI are able to complete the task before them.

Until then, we do at least have hope, and along with it, the ability to once again get a decent night’s sleep as Robert Mueller and the FBI, follow the money.    Adults dealing with what’s true and real as opposed to the alternative reality of Mr. Trump and his childlike supporters, who live in a world of disinformation, misinformation, delusion and denial.    A world increasingly influenced by Vladimir Putin and his oligarch friends, none of whom desire Democracy.

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Somewhere, Putin Is Smiling

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The uprising in Catalan may have a nexus with Russia.  Or, it may not.  Shouldn’t somebody be trying to figure it out?   The Spanish Government maybe?  Or the CIA?

Looking back on the way the Russian Government usurped the government of Ukraine,  followed by its criminal taking of Crimea through the use of military force,  one must conclude that Putin’s Russia has a well-laid plan for interfering in other countries businesses, territories and general well-being.   Well, of course they do.    They’ve been in the expansion through espionage business big-time since Nikita Khrushchev threatened to bury us while banging his size ten Soviet-made wingtip on the Russian ambassador’s desk at the UN.

The introduction of our current information age and the  technological highway of the Internet make it all the easier for Putin and his “bot farms” to interfere, be it turning Brits to favor the “Brexit” through disinformation or American voters to favor Donald Trump because of a whole lot of fabricated nonsense many of them were led to believe was true.

It’s important to remember the role played by Paul Manafort in Ukraine and then in the U.S. election.   In 2005, Manafort acted as an adviser to Ukranian billionaire, Rinat Akhmetov, an ally of Vladimir Putin.   Manafort, who is said to be a protege of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripraska,  eventually became a principle adviser to Ukraine’s former President,  Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovych (another ally of Vladimir Putin), who escaped to (guess where?) Russia, following the Orange Revolution.    With Manafort, there appears to be another Russian billionaire with ties to the Kremlin around every corner.

So when Donald Trump needed someone to run his presidential campaign, who appeared like magic from out of nowhere?  Paul Manafort, who slipped effortlessly into the role of Trump’s campaign manager, even while many were scratching their heads wondering who the hell he was.

Even now, Donald Trump steadfastly refuses to say anything negative about Putin or the Russians and is currently stalling on levying sanctions against the Russians for interfering with American elections.  Really?  And there are those among us who still haven’t been able to connect the dots?

When fake news is real, and real news is fake, who ya gonna believe?  Very clever, these Russians.

There’s an interesting piece in today’s Guardian, entitled, “Our pain for their gain’:  The American activists manipulated by Russian trolls.”   The piece points out that what Russia has been up to goes far beyond simply placing phony ads on Facebook or creating fake news.    According to the newspaper, “This week, a Moscow-based news outlet called RBC uncovered the work of a troll factory that infiltrated US social networks, with Russians posing as Americans and making payments to legitimate activists in the US, directly funding protest movements. The revelations suggest that the Russian operation went beyond spamming online comment sections and spreading false news – and that a sophisticated interference campaign manipulated, controlled and created real-world events.”

So we’re up to that.   Putin and his people are now using disinformation, misinformation and cash funding to create “real-world events.”  And the victims don’t even know they are being victimized.   Possibly like what happened to the Brits with their Brexit and maybe even the uprising in Catalonia?   Oh sure, the Catalans have had a beef with Spain for decades, but why such a big blowout right now, with Brexit, Korea, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran all in the international mix?  Might not Russia be a least partially responsible?

The United States would normally be taking the lead in trying to ferret out precisely what the Russians are up to.  To what degree they influenced our last election and are now attempting to throw the world’s democracies into chaos, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.  Not to the degree to which it should.

Alarm bells should be going off all over Capitol Hill, and in the White House.  And they would be, were it not for our Putin-loving president who looks more and more Manchurian as the days and months roll agonizingly by and much of America remains in denial about it all, either because they have been mesmerized by Donald Trump and an endless stream of Russian propaganda or they simply can’t begin to grasp what’s happening because it is just too complicated.

Somewhere within the bowels of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin is undoubtedly smiling that snarky little smile of his, as he contemplates the international chaos he has created.

Shouldn’t somebody be trying to figure it out?   How much of the current chaos is Russian based?   To what degree are we all being played for suckers by Vladimir Putin?    How far will Trump go to cover this charade?   Will he take the nation to war?   Who will stop him?

Robert Muller and his investigation could be the only thing standing between the United States and a Russian threat some don’t want to believe is real.   We can only hope there are those who can still feel the fire of patriotism.  Those with the strength of what America truly is, to force the Muller investigation forward to a legitimate conclusion.   If not, our great American experiment could be finished.  A thought too terrible for many to even consider, making it all the more important for all of us to get our heads up out of the sand and demand the truth.

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A New Low, Even For Trump

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The man who currently occupies the White House has a problem of needing to not just refute the assertions of those who disagree with him, but to do all he can to destroy them.   In what appears to be a new low, even for someone who has castigated a gold star family and repeatedly lied to the American people,  he is now issuing forth on a path of verbal destruction against those poor souls who have already been visited by destruction in Puerto Rico.   Americans who are literally begging for help from America.

We are long past the point of needing to care about  whether he understands what he is doing or why.    The fact, is that he has  repeatedly done and said things that threaten and hurt the nation, from supporting white nationalist tactics designed to reboot the Civil War to bringing the world to the doorstep of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.   He is childlike in his reactions, dividing rather than joining.  He wounds rather than heals, lashing out with all the power at his command from the greatest bully-pulpit in the world.

Be it from picking at open wounds of racial hatred and fear to pitting football fans one against the other under the guise of patriotism, he is tearing us apart.    Assisted by Russian bots, he sews clouds of chaos, confusion and division, and then hides behind his evil creation while dreaming up his next diversion to deflect from the truth of his actions.

He has repeatedly shown an ignorance of both history and contemporary reality.  Now, he openly attacks injured and suffering Americans.  Donald J. Trump, must be impeached.  Those who continue to support this madness will be forever complicit in the damage he continues to inflict, both here on the mainland and on the island of Puerto Rico, which, as he has so vacuously put it,  remains surrounded by “big water, ocean water.”

God, help us.  It appears the cowards in Congress certainly won’t.

Blog, Politics

Has The Donald Gone Bye-Bye?

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The question must be asked.  Has the President of the United States gone completely loco?   His reckless and seemingly mentally unbalanced statements appear to be getting worse.

Within the past couple of days, Donald J. Trump, has taken the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation, threatening millions of lives by taunting the boy-man leader in North Korea.  From the safety and comfort of his country club in New Jersey, he has called the Governor of little Guam, our island territory in Kim’s nuclear crosshairs, assuring him “We’re behind you one-thousand percent!”   Really?   Never would have guessed.  Thing is, it was totally avoidable.

So was his idiotic statement thanking Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man who can do no wrong in Trump’s eyes, for expelling more than seven-hundred American diplomats from Russia.   Trump said that was just fine with him because expelling all those diplomats would save the U.S. a pile of money.

The Americans who have been expelled from Russia are career diplomats, who will be reassigned and not fired, so there’s no money to be saved.   Beyond that, our President has just praised a foreign adversary for kicking the United States in the teeth.   He can come back later and say he didn’t mean it but the fact is he said it and he’s the President, and his words carry weight.   Beyond that, it’s one more example of Putin being able to do no wrong in the eyes of Donald Trump.

What does Putin have on Trump?   Is Trump being blackmailed by the Russians?   Is it possible that Trump’s creeping authoritarianism, now challenging even his own party, could be guided by a foreign power?   Can he claim he’s just delivering on his promise to “drain the swamp?”  At times it feels like there’s an evil brilliance behind Donald’s actions that exceeds his abilities.

And now comes the creme de la creme of bizarro statements with Donald’s threat to invade the sovereign nation of Venezuela.    When I first heard it I laughed.  I stopped laughing as the frightening realization hit me that Trump might finally have gone completely off his nut.   What next?   Sending the 101st Airborne into the woods around Chappaqa, in search of Hillary’s emails?

Whatever Mr. Trump’s problem is, it appears to be getting worse.  It no longer matters whether Trump is acting to create a diversion or if he’s truly delusional.  Neither is acceptable.   The Republicans must act now to put a stop to this madness.

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LATE ADD – HE’S DONE IT AGAIN – The piece above was written before the Neo-Nazi / White Nationalist automobile attack on counter protesters in Charlottesville, VA, which Trump tried to explain away by saying, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”    Unacceptable rubbish.

When it comes to Nazis, there are only two sides, fascism and freedom.  Many of us lost loved ones who fought to keep the world free of Nazis in World War II.  Trump is obviously trying to pacify those in his base who are white, racist, Nazi or KKK.     Unpresidential, Un-American and totally unacceptable.

Blog, Politics

Up To Our Eyeballs In Russians

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Day after day he keeps grinding away.  The Russian stooge in the oval office is now talking about dropping out of the Paris climate deal, making the once great United States one of only three nations rejecting the agreement to do something rational about climate change.   The other two would be Syria and Nicaragua, proving once again that the Donald knows nothing about being judged by the company he keeps.  Or he is forcing us to keep.

The big orange boob is also talking about once again slamming the door on Cuba, even though it is even now only partially open.   Why make the world a safer place when you can crank up decade’s old hatreds and tensions?   Why does Trump seem to feed off of chaos, confusion and conflict?   Is it because his daddy wouldn’t let him have a puppy?

That would be and should be enough for one day, but the man who would be king is also blubbering about letting a nest of Russian spies return to the country.  Remember the spies?  The bunch who were operating out of one location in New York and another in a big house on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, before President Obama kicked them out of the country after warning Putin to stop attacking America’s cyber-infrastructure?  Remember any of that?

Donald Trump, in his ongoing “Russia can do no wrong” campaign, is talking about letting them back in.   Russian spies.  And why not? These could be some of the same guys who are advising Trump on how to use phrases like “witch hunt” when attempting to deflect the truth about the influence Russia holds over his tiny mind.  The same Russian operatives who left no fingerprints when they saw to it that Trump was surrounded by advisers who were and may remain in contact with their Russian handlers.

All of it is so very clever, targeting a country, a former democracy, that is ultra-sensitive to the call of a “witch hunt” following the horrible experience with Joe McCarthy in the 50’s and his right-hand-man and attorney Roy Cohn.  A closeted gay man who prosecuted other gays.  He also is said to have been Donald Trump’s mentor, the guy who taught him all those nasty tricks he used to get elected.  So maybe it’s not the Russians at all.   Maybe they just fell into a good thing, with a candidate who had been groomed to be their “useful idiot.”   Their stooge in the White House.

And so Donald has been surrounded by advisers with known ties to the Russians as he talks about letting Russian spies back into the country while the Democrats are calling for Jared Kushner to lose his top secret security clearance.

They shouldn’t just be “calling” for it, it should be a demand, and they should be taking it over the heads of the Administration and his Republican wonk supporters in the House and Senate.  They should be taking it directly to the American people.  The majority out there who don’t support Donald Trump and fear for the future of the nation.

To what degree have the Trumps and Kushners been dependent upon  Russian money keeping their business interests afloat over the years?   To what degree are they in no position to say no to the Russians now?

Each day you think it can’t get any worse.  And then it does, leaving some of us with a hollow feeling in our stomachs from the thought that treason may be afoot in the land but nobody is willing to talk about it much less put a stop to it?

No, dear friends, the talk, on the other hand, is about letting the Russian spies back in.   Imagine that.  Can’t be happening.  Not here.

Blog, Politics

America’s Problem: Alien Mind Control Or Something Else?

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A recent poll indicates that 45% of all American voters approve of the job Donald Trump is doing. They couldn’t all have suddenly awakened from a coma, not all of them, so alien mind control has to be the answer. The space guys are beaming in on us.  Some of us, anyway.   Or it could be the Russians. Perhaps all those loonies in the park with tinfoil on their heads were getting it right.

Who are these people?  How can there be such a vast difference of opinion, or is this about something other than politics?   Something that runs much deeper?   Something that has remained unresolved for more than a hundred years?

Eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.  His base, if there is any truth to the pictures on tv and in the papers,  is nearly all white.

Trump, to anyone who has been paying the least little bit of attention beyond FOX and right-wing radio, is horribly incompetent, vastly overrated by the right, and a danger to the nation and the world.   He needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. And yet, 45% of the American electorate approves of the job he’s doing as he fails to deliver on campaign promises while alienating our friends and allies as he befriends our long-time enemies, cozying-up to dictators, oligarchs and autocrats.

That same poll indicates that 43% of the American electorate thinks Trump should be impeached.  Now.  And yet, there is inexplicably, that 45% job approval rating.   For a man who, by all appearances, opposes Democracy and favors Fascism.

What’s really going on here?  Are we big enough to admit that it could be something other than politics?   Something that runs much deeper and has been around much longer than the past couple of election cycles?   Something that is so abhorrent and dangerous that most pundits fear letting the words “white nationalism” leave their lips?

Blog, Politics

Trump Falls Into Saudi’s Open Arms – Turning His Back On Iran

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It feels as though a blanket of calm has been spread over the country with Trump and his Russian-connected cabal out of the daily mix.

The President of the United States has taken his overseas road show to Saudi Arabia, where his first act was taking part in a sword dance, with our President standing in a line of Saudis, clad in their traditional robes and headgear, all waving swords in the air.  Very dignified.   When the Saudis come to visit the U.S., maybe Trump can stage a western gunfight with everybody clad in styles from the old west and shooting blanks at one another with six-guns.   Silly as it might be, we’ll still be a century or so ahead of the Saudis backward civilization.

While it’s doubtful the Arabs will be kind enough to keep him, one wonders at the damage he may be doing, signing agreements like a customs agent stamping out passports.   One wonders to what degree he might be selling us out.

CBS reports the arms deal with the Saudis is worth “$110-billion effective immediately and as much as $350 billion over ten years.”

There are those who fear DJT has already been purchased by the Russians, and now he’s accepting 40-billion from the Arabs to re-build America’s infrastructure and in what looks like a “sweetner” to the deal,  another 100-million from the Saudis and the UAE,  for a fund for women entrepreneurs in the Middle East, proposed by Ivanka Trump.  Women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia?  Really?

Remember when the twin towers came crashing down?   Remember what may have been Rudy Giuliani’s finest moment as Mayor of New York (perhaps the finest moment of his life), when he told the Saudis to go to hell after they offered him 100-million in blood money just days after the attack?

One wonders what’s really going on with the Saudis, what the long-term impact will be after they set up production lines for weapons of war with America’s help.  One wonders whether this has been thought through.  One wonders if the Saudi blood money for 9-11 has finally been accepted and whether this new agreement to help the Arabs build their own weaponry could be the final nail in the coffin of any hope of establishing a relationship with Iran that can lead to peace rather than war.

One wonders as to the degree to which the Saudis, who face serious internal conflict, will be willing to take a lead in the fight against ISIS and terrorism in general, shutting down their madrassas and cutting the flow of private Saudi money to ISIS.   One wonders if that’s even possible considering the scope of this centuries old Sunni-Shia conflict.  One wonders if Donald Trump fully understands any of this, or if he’s under the impression that this is just another development deal.  Just another casino.

Oh wait, the American president is now speaking about “conquering extremism.”   He’s telling this to the Saudis who practice beheadings as an integral part of their Islamic justice system?   He’s preaching the evils of “inflexible idiology” to the Saudis, who prohibit women from driving cars, participating in sports or “showing off their beauty?”   A country where women are stoned to death for adultry?   Does he know where he is and who he is talking to, an auditorium with only three women visible in the audience and all three are Americans, including his wife and daughter?

Perhaps Trump will cut a groundbreaking deal marking a turn in the war on terrorism, or maybe we’d have been better off had he stayed in the U.S.

Blog, Politics

Just Another Wall Of Lies

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Misdirection through deception with a wall of lies.  It’s all been done before.

The communists in the former Soviet Union put up the Berlin Wall in 1961.   They did it, they said, to protect their people from the “fascist” capitalists, with their corrupt judiciary and propaganda promoted by a free press on the other side.

In 2017, the American people are being told another wall is needed and that the free press is putting out “fake news,” while a court system that rules against the Trump Administration has to be ethnically biased.

Anger, is the only reasonable response to fascism.   It is a frightening thought that our representatives in Washington D.C., may not be angry enough to stop Donald Trump by any legal means possible before he replaces this current interim FBI Director with someone who will shut down the investigation into the Trump Administration’s relationship to the Russians.

Don’t be fooled.  It’s not the people on the other side of the wall that we should fear.   It’s those who advocate building the wall, shutting down the free press and intimidating the judiciary in an attempt to bring Democracy to its knees.