Category Archives: awful people

curious things

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Here’s a curious thing. Comrade Trump fired (by tweet, of course) Dan Coats, the Director of National Security, three days after Trump made his disastrous telephone call to newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. You know, the call in which Trump leaned on Zelensky to reopen a closed investigation into Joe Biden’s son. The call that’s sparked the current impeachment crisis.

Coats didn’t have much relevant experience in intelligence when Trump selected him to be the DNI, but he was a decent, mostly thoughtful, establishment Republican. He wasn’t a Trump loyalist, though, so he was often in conflict with the president. He was the last member of the Trump administration to publicly disagree with the president. Clearly, he had to go. Although the timing is a tad suspicious.

Former Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats

Here’s another curious thing. The law clearly stated that in case of a vacancy at the DNI position, the Principle Deputy Director of National Intelligence would assume the role of acting DNI until the Senate could confirm a new DNI. This was because lawmakers felt it was critical for the president to have continuity in regard to national intelligence, as well as reasoned, experienced, expert advice. But the PDDNI was Susan Gordon.

Susan Gordon was a career intelligence officer — a true intelligence professional. She’d risen through the ranks from a CIA analyst to become the CIA’s Director of the Office of Advanced Analytic Tools (the cyber nerds), then the Deputy Director of the CIA, then Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, before taking the second seat as Deputy Director of National Intelligence. She wasn’t just the legal option for acting DNI, she was the best choice to become the permanent DNI.

Former Principle Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Susan Gordon

But the Trump team felt Susan Gordon wasn’t “sufficiently loyal” to Trump. They let it be known there was no place in the Trump administration for her. So she did the decent thing; she resigned on the same day as Director Coats. Three days after Trump’s call to Zelensky. Gordon wrote one of the shortest and most honest resignation letters ever.

Mr. President — I offer this letter as an act of respect & patriotism, not preference. You should have your team. Godspeed, Sue.

Who did Comrade Trump want to replace Coats and Gordon? Trump loyalist and Texas Republican John Ratcliffe, a two-term Congressman. Ratcliffe was best known for (and I swear I’m not making this up) 1) asserting the existence of a “secret society” within the Obama Department of Justice and the FBI devoted to preventing Comrade Trump from being elected and 2) claiming the Mueller Report was written by “Hillary Clinton’s de facto legal team.” In other words, Ratcliffe is a classic Republican from Texas fuckwit.

Current Nitwit and Conspiracy Theorist, John Ratcliffe (getting some serious side-eye from fellow Texas Republican Will Hurd)

Not surprisingly, Ratcliffe was so unqualified even Senate Republicans couldn’t support him. Five days after nominating him, Trump pulled the nomination.

The fact is, Comrade Trump doesn’t want intelligence experts. In fact, he doesn’t want any experts around him at all. He wants to be the expert. He wants others to defer to him and his judgment. He wants others to recognize his genius. Having people around him who are knowledgeable, who have expertise, makes him uncomfortable; they might correct him. And to a narcissist like Trump, that would be intolerable. That’s why the Department of National Intelligence lost both its director and deputy director on the same day. Three days after Trump made his call to Ukraine President Zelensky.

And that leads us to yet another curious thing. If you read the whistleblower’s complaint, it reads like it was written by an intelligence analyst. Or at least somebody familiar with intelligence memoranda. The format, the detail, the underlying evidence, the footnotes that support the narrative — it’s exactly how an analyst prepares a memorandum. Can we think of anybody with experience as an analyst, or who is familiar with such reports? Somebody who is a patriot and a professional, maybe even a career intelligence officer? Somebody who might be willing to be a whistleblower in order to throw light on a shady subject?

I’m just thinking out loud here.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I’m not saying either Coats or Gordon is the whistleblower. I’m just saying…you know…you never know. Is what I’m saying.

okay, impeachment then

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Okay, impeachment then.

I’ve been advocating this step for quite some time, but I’m NOT happy about it. Well, that’s sort of not true. I’m not happy that the US is in a situation where impeachment is a necessary task. Impeachment is an ugly business, and it’s a shame that we’ve come to that point. But we ARE at that point, so while I’m sad for us as a nation, I’m also happy that enough Democrats have finally agreed that it’s necessary.

A lot of folks who oppose Comrade Trump and his ‘policies’ (and yeah, I put irony quote around the term because Trumps doesn’t really have policies; he has impulses) are really reluctant about impeachment. They keep warning us that impeachment will ‘fire up his base’ and ‘make them even worse’.

EVERYTHING fires up his base. And they’ll ALWAYS find a reason to make things worse. The Trump base exists in a constant state of rage and fear; cruelty is their response to almost every situation. For four years, starting before the election, Trump’s base have been wearing t-shirts that say ‘Fuck your feelings.’ That’s their starting position. We shouldn’t be concerned with ‘firing up’ his base. What are they going to do? Wear t-shirts that say ‘Fuck your feelings MORE’? (Spoiler — yes, it appears that’s exactly what they’ll do.)

I think it’s time to fire up OUR base. The Democratic leadership have spent far too much time making threats without backing them up, far too much time talking about what we’re GOING to do. It’s time we actually DO something. Fuck THEIR feelings.

You tell me the Senate will never vote to convict Trump? Maybe so. Probably. Then we force them to openly and publicly vote to support the most corrupt president in US history. We force them to say on the record, for the judgment of history, that it’s okay for a president to pay off porn stars, to lie to the public, to hide his taxes, to use the Oval Office to enrich himself and his family, to separate immigrant toddlers from their parents, to deliberately harm the environment, to encourage hostile foreign nations to interfere in US elections, to make it harder for citizens to vote. We may not win, but the very least we can do is force his supporters to acknowledge their own corruption. 

The US may yet turn into a fascist nation. It’s entirely possible. But damn it, if that’s going to happen, we need to at least make them work for it.

Stormy! Stormy! Stormy! Russia! Russia! Russia!

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You’re probably one of those snowflake liberals who think paying off porn stars to keep them from publicly stating the prensidential candidate they had sex with while he was married to his third wife (having cheated on the first two) in order to avoid a scandal before the election ought to be illegal or against the law. Hah. This is the big leagues, and if the water’s too hot, get off the bridge before it hatches.

Now it’s been confirmed that Donald J. Trump — the greatest prensident god gave the planet earth in his lifetime and much more — knew about the payments his lawyer (who, by the way, is a born liar who can’t be trusted to know when to keep his mouth shut) made to the porn star (and c’mon, who’s gonna believe a porn star, who is a slut who can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut when she’s been paid to keep her mouth shut) even though he totally denied knowing anything about those payments. Which, okay, means Trump lied, but who wouldn’t lie to protect his wife? It’s proof of how much he loves Melanie (who is totally hot and classy in a way most women with big tits wish they could be that classy).

So there’s nothing really there, right? But the liberal maimstream limp-wristed commie media keep bringing it up and bringing it up in an effort to ‘prove’ that committing a felony to protect his hot wife ought to be against the law. They hate women.

I wanted to see what real patriots and America-loving Americans thought about this so-called “issue” so I checked in on FreeRepublic, which is as American as mayonnaise. And here’s what they said.

— So what would the crime be? It’s his money?

— is there anything illegal about paying a hooker not to tell your wife? seems like good business practice to me.

— Basically, FBI was being used to do oppo research for Hillary. Paid for with taxpayer money. While other serious crimes (like Hillary’s server, bribes delivered to her “family foundation,” etc.) weren’t investigated.

— Yup……she admitted she lied. Which makes Trump the VICTIM.

— trump better start indicting these jokers before the election rolls around, as a supporter,i am tired of not seeing hillary in jail.

— it is widely believed that Michell aka the Wookie, lived on the streets as a prostitute when she was about 17. She was saved by a Chicago pimp who realized she was too ugly to generate sales. The pimp signed a sealed affadavit that is in Chicago DA custody.

— The FBI is a branch of the Dem/Antifa party and they believe altogether too much.

— Stormy! Stormy! Stormy! Russia! Russia! Russia!

I couldn’t have said it any more better than that. Stormy! Stormy! Stormy! Russia! Russia! Russia! Why can’t the libs just accept the fact that they lost and deserve to be in the dust bin of history with all the other losers like Russia China Viet Nam and Venevuela (sp) down there in South America where all the illegal immigrants come from who are all or mostly gang members and drug deals. Or have vans with tied up women gagged in the back? Why?

The Deep State FBI should just go back where they came from so Prensident Trump can continue to make America Great Again MAGA and Keep it that way for ever until the Rapture or even after.

fixed it

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Comrade Trump tweeted this in his morning rant:

The tweet needed work.

If Democrats Republicans want to unite around the foul language & racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of the very unpopular & unrepresentative Congresswomen president, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I can tell you that they have he has made Israel the American people feel abandoned by the U.S. president and his Republican enablers.

There. Fixed it.

trump at the g20

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Jeebus tapdancing Christ. I knew Comrade Trump was bound to do something really stupid and offensive at the G20 summit because he is, after all, Trump. I knew it. And yet I didn’t expect it to be this stupid and offensive.

Comrade Trump joking with Vlad Putin about election interference.

Here’s Trump and Vlad Putin joking — joking, for fuck’s sake — about Russian meddling in the 2020 election while Russian social media bots were actually meddling in the election. Seriously. That’s not an exaggeration. Minutes after last night’s ‘debate’ by the mob of Democratic candidates, Russian-linked bots were attacking Kamala Harris.

But that’s not the most twisted and horrible thing Trump and Vlad joked about. They also shared a laugh about ‘getting rid’ of journalists. How stupid and offensive is this? Let me count the ways.

  1. Trump has consistently called the news media the ‘enemy of the people’.
  2. Trump has refused to punish, reprimand, or respond in any meaningful way to Mohammad bin Salman despite overwhelming evidence that MbS ordered the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Kashoggi — a US resident and journalist employed by The Washington Post. MbS has imprisoned at least 20 Saudi journalists critical of his policies.
  3. Since Vlad Putin took office in 2000, 38 Russian journalists critical of his administration have been murdered. That’s how many journalist deaths have been classified as homicides; dozens more have died under suspicious circumstances.
  4. Today is the anniversary of the Capital Gazette mass murder, in which five employees of the newspaper were killed.

It’s not just that Comrade Trump is insensitive; it’s that he just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if Russia or any other hostile nation interferes with US elections so long as the interference benefits him. He doesn’t care if journalists are imprisoned or murdered if those journalists are critical of him.

Comrade Trump giving a friendly greeting to Mohammad bin Salman.

Trump continues to act as if he’s an asset of Russian intelligence agencies — which is a completely horrific and almost unimaginable thing to say about a US president. The only thing inconsistent with the notion of Trump as a Russian intel asset is that he’s entirely open about it. He doesn’t attempt to disguise it. When a reporter asked him if he was going to discuss election meddling with Putin, Trump responded, “I will have a very good conversation with him. What I say to him is none of your business.”

What Trump and Putin discuss is exactly the business of the news media. It’s the business of the Intelligence Community. And yet Trump has, on several occasions, met privately with Putin and gone to extraordinary lengths to keep those discussions secret. Even to the point of taking possession of his own interpreter’s notes after a meeting (which, by the way, is a violation of presidential record-keeping laws).

That’s another thing Comrade Trump just doesn’t care about — the rule of law.

To sum up: Comrade Trump appears to be Putin’s puppet, is more fond of murdering dictators than freely-elected democratic leaders, hates the idea of a free press, has been accused by a couple dozen women of sexual assault, orders his staff to refuse to honor Congressional subpoenas, deliberately undermines the law enforcement and intelligence communities, welcomes the interference of hostile nations who support his election, casually spreads conspiracy theories, lies to almost everybody about almost everything, and is woefully ignorant about world and domestic affairs.

None of which Congress considers impeachable. Jeebus tap-dancing Christ.

we are approaching a crisis point

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You guys, I don’t want to alarm anybody, but I’m starting to get a little worried about the Comrade Trump administration. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving her job as…as whatever it is she does for the Trump administration. I mean, yeah, okay, she’s officially the ‘Press Secretary’ or something, but c’mon, her job clearly doesn’t have anything to do with the news media (except FoxNews, of course). Her real actual title is probably something like ‘Iron Sneer Maiden’ or ‘Destroyer of Souls’, but at heart Sarah is a lying asshole.

Here’s the thing: she’s leaving and who is qualified to take her place? Who among Comrade Trump’s coterie of collaborators can do what Sarah Sanders has done with the same level of mendacity and disdain? (Spoiler: nobody.)

This is becoming a problem, you guys. We haven’t a Secretary of Homeland Security since April, which means we have an amateur in charge of caging children. We haven’t had a Secretary of Defense since Christmas, which means we’ve got us a rookie handling the rumors that Iran is blowing up oil tanker in the Gulf of Someplace. And we don’t have a Secretary of the Interior, which means…well, nobody really knows what that means on account of does anybody have a clue what the Secretary of the Interior actually does? (Spoiler: nope.)

The result of so many of Comrade Trump’s most (temporarily) trusted advisors and aides is that our national reserve of lying assholes is being depleted. We are beginning to face a lying asshole deficit (and okay, maybe ‘face’ isn’t the best term to use there).

Now you’re probably saying to yourself there’s an abundance of lying assholes in Our Nation’s Capital, which is most certainly true. I mean, there are scads of liars in DC, and the city is hip deep in assholes, and since the Family Trump has come to town, there are more lying assholes than usual. But are they the best lying assholes? Are they natural lying assholes? You can learn to lie, and you can learn to be an asshole, but the very best lying assholes are born.

I’m afraid that with the departure of Sarah Sanders the craft — no, the artistry — of being a lying asshole will suffer. Unless Comrade Trump is willing to think laterally. Unless he proves himself to be morally and ethically flexible enough to dip into a deep well of high grade lying assholes that’s been available for some time, but remains untapped.

That’s right. I’m talking about television ministers. They might just be the answer to our looming lying asshole crisis.

tire iron transition of power

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I had a horrible thought yesterday afternoon. It led to a horrible belief that has now solidified into a horrible certainty.

A Facebook friend had said, “I want to scream when Pelosi says, about impeachment: ‘We’re not there yet.‘” I’ve heard lots of folks say that, and sometimes I’ve felt the same way. But I’ve also been telling myself that Nancy the Knife Pelosi has been around the block a few times. She’s cagey enough to say ‘not yet’ to impeachment in order to seem reluctant to engage in a process that could most definitely would be seen as primarily political. But all the while she’s prepping for impeachment like a boss.

I said as much to my friend — and when I said it, I believed it. Or at least I wanted to believe it. This morning, I think there’s a pretty fair chance that I was just full of shit. Why? On account of I’ve now read that Pelosi says the only real way to rid ourselves of this turbulent fuckwit is to defeat him in 2020 by a margin so big that he can’t challenge the validity of his loss.

Which is when I had the horrible thought. Which was as follows: There IS no margin of victory so large that Comrade Trump wouldn’t challenge it. And that led to this horrible belief: Even if he was impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate, he’d refuse to accept it. Which led inevitably to this horrible certainty: Motherfucker ain’t gonna leave without an ugly fight, no matter what.

Let’s face it, Trump has ignored every norm, every standard of presidential behavior, every yardstick of diplomacy, and every rule of protocol so far. So why in the hell would we assume he’ll abide by our tradition of a peaceful transition of power?

He won’t. He just fucking won’t. It’s horrifying for me to say this, but even though he doesn’t really even want to be president, I can’t imagine him just giving it up. No matter whether he’s impeached or defeated in 2020, he’s going to claim the system has been rigged against him. He’s going to claim his enemies have conspired against him. He’s going to claim his defeat is a fraud perpetrated by deep state traitors. He’s going to rage and complain and threaten and bellow that he was somehow cheated.

And a lot of his supporters will believe him.

Here’s another horrible but true  thing: Trump won’t care how much damage he does before he leaves. He won’t care about the harm done to the office of POTUS, to the system of checks and balance, to our entire system of democracy. He won’t care if he leaves the nation in shambles. Trump is the kind of guy who’d shit in the driver’s seat if he thought you were going to repo his car.

I really believe we need to start thinking in those terms. I think we need to accept the fact that no matter the circumstance, Comrade Trump is not going to make a peaceful and dignified exit from the White House. He’d rather burn the place down.

With that in mind, there’s no reason the House of Representatives shouldn’t start a long, detailed impeachment process. We’re going to have to pry this jamoke out of the White House with a tire iron; we might as well take a few deep breaths and get started.

trump 2020: never indicted!

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Jesus suffering fuck. I’m already seeing folks declaring Comrade Trump is going to be re-elected because of AG Bill Barr’s summary of the Mueller report.

Take a breath, people. Remember who Bill Barr is. Last year he was a lawyer with Kirkland & Ellis (the firm that also employed Brett Kavanaugh, Robert Bork, Ken Starr, and several lawyers now serving in the Trump administration). Last June Barr wrote an unsolicited 19 page memo to Rod Rosenstein (who oversaw the Mueller investigation) arguing that Mueller’s approach to investigation possible obstruction of justice by Trump was ‘fatally misconceived’ and ‘legally insupportable.’ He said Mueller shouldn’t even be allowed to interview Comrade Trump.

And hey, what a surprise, Trump picked Bill Barr to be his new Attorney General. So having spent part of his weekend reading the report of Mueller’s two-year investigation, Barr concluded he was right last June. He agreed with himself; no obstruction of justice. In other words, Bill Barr did the job he was hired to do: he protected Trump.

Republicans toss confetti, set off fireworks, wear party hats. Democrats weep, rend their garments, cast themselves into the Pit of Despair. And the news media, bless their simple little hearts, repeat that narrative and cast it into the cement blocks Democrats will use to drown themselves.

Trump 2020: Never Indicted!

I totally understand why folks are disheartened and glum. We have a corrupt president supported by corrupt administrators put in place by corrupt senators. But remember this: we haven’t even seen the actual Mueller report yet. We don’t know what it says. But we know this:

  • in the course of the Mueller investigation, grand juries and federal judges approved 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, and 50 pen registers to gather evidence, which we haven’t seen.
  • that evidence resulted in 199 criminal charges against 34 individuals and three companies.
  • seven of those individuals were either members of Trump’s presidential campaign team or closely associated with Trump’s campaign — all of whom have either pled guilty, gone to prison, or are still awaiting trial.
  • at least six other individuals were referred to career prosecutors in the DoJ on related criminal matters; there may be other referrals that haven’t been made public.

Those facts would end any other administration. But there are other investigations still progressing out there. Comrade Trump may have dodged this particular bullet (and ‘may‘ is the operative term), but he’s still facing a whole lot of trouble.

For example, there’s the New York Attorney General’s Office, which is investigating:

  • allegations of illegal operations by the Donald J. Trump Foundation
  • allegations of tax fraud by the Trump family and the Trump Organization
  • allegations of tax evasion by the Trump family and the Trump Organization

And there’s the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is investigating:

  • irregular Political Action Committee activity by the Trump campaign and by Rebuild America
  • matters relating to Russian intelligence operative Maria Butina and her interactions with the National Rifle Association
  • allegations of violations of the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution by Comrade Trump and the Trump Organization
  • irregular spending by the Trump Inaugural Committee

And there’s the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is investigating:

  • the Russian disinformation campaigns
  • improper Turkish influence in the Trump campaign and administration

And, of course, there’s the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is investigating:

  • various violations of campaign finance laws
  • unregistered foreign lobbying

So even though Comrade Trump and his fluffers are celebrating the end of one investigation, there’s still a metric ton of ugly fetid shit hanging over his head. Some of it’s going to land on him. He may survive his first term, but he’s going to have a hard time convincing anybody but his most loyal supporters that Trump 2020: Never Indicted! is a winning campaign slogan.