If you ever doubt the pernicious effect Comrade Trump has on the social and political fabric of this unfortunate country, look at this statement by Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League:

It was unfortunate that on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic. This is not and was never the case.

This season, all league and team personnel shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem. Personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room until after the anthem has been performed.

First he acknowledges that taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem was NOT an unpatriotic act. He then creates a policy that’s based entirely on what he’d just admitted was ‘a false perception.’ From the beginning, NFL players taking a knee was about social justice and police violence against unarmed black men. It was never about the flag or the national anthem.

Which is disrespectful? Silently taking a knee during the national anthem…?

This new NFL policy is cowardly bullshit made in deference to a bullying POTUS who lies and is willing to corrupt any person or institution that he dislikes at any given moment in time. Goodell goes on to say this:

[A]ll league and team personnel shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem. Personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room until after the anthem has been performed.

Forced ‘respect’ isn’t respect; forced ‘patriotism’ isn’t patriotism. It’s just compliance. This sort of submission to bullying is not only injurious to the concept of a free society, it also encourages Comrade Trump to continue to lie and bully others. For example, this morning Trump doubled down on his bullying, saying:

“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there, maybe you shouldn’t be in the county.”

Cowardly bullshit from a draft-dodging bully who hasn’t ever in his life willingly made any sort of sacrifice for his country.

…or a draft dodging tax-evader hugging the flag?

Goodell and others have described the locker room option as a compromise between respect for the flag/national anthem and the right to protest. Again, that’s cowardly bullshit. It would be cowardly bullshit even without the hypocrisy of having admitted the protest was NOT unpatriotic. Limiting protest to a closed room out of sight is NOT a compromise; it’s a cowardly and underhanded strategy to silence the protest.

But here’s a true thing: NFL teams are private companies, and the First Amendment doesn’t prohibit private companies from stifling political speech. The NFL has a legal right to cave in to Trump’s bullying.

But here’s an even more important true thing: the NFL can force players to either stand during the national anthem or hide their protest in the locker room — but in doing so, they erode genuine respect for the flag, for the national anthem, and for the United States. True patriotism, true respect for the things that make this nation great sometimes means confronting ugly truths.

Taking a knee to protest injustice is by far more patriotic than submitting to the demands of a bully.

Comrade Trump basically wants to undo everything President Obama did. No, that’s not right…he doesn’t want to just undo those things; he wants to degrade them, to minimize them, to prove them worthless, to eradicate them. He wants to piss on them.

He says he wants to do something similar, but better. Obamacare? Piss on it and replace it with something better. Climate accord? Piss on it, replace it with something better. Nuclear disarmament in Iran? Piss on it, replace it with something better.

The problem — wait, I just said ‘the problem’ as if there’s only one problem. There are dozens of goddamn problems. You’d need an abacus to keep track of all the problems, starting with the twisted psychology of a man so insecure he feels compelled to piss on everything his predecessor did. But right now I’m just talking about the fundamental problem of the fact that Trump is completely focused on the pissing and not giving any actual thought to the ‘something better’.

Oh, he talks about ‘better’. He promises some vague, gilded fantasy of ‘better’. He assures everybody there’s a beautiful and magnificent Trump-branded ‘better’ that won’t cost nearly as much as expected. It’ll be ‘better’ and he’ll invoke some form of magic ‘negotiation’ spell to guarantee most of the costs will be borne by somebody else. It’ll be so much ‘better’ — we’ll work out the details later, but you won’t believe how much ‘better’ it’ll be, trust me.

You know what? Ain’t nobody who really trusts Comrade Trump. Nobody, not even those Republicans in Congress who say they do. Ain’t nobody trusts him on account of he lies and he has a really long history of cheating people who trusted him.

This smug, self-satisfied, duplicitous fuckwit isn’t to be trusted.

So yesterday Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement with Iran. In his announcement, he said this (and I swear, I am NOT making this up):

“Today’s action sends a critical message: The United States no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them.”

Okay, yeah, you have to agree yesterday’s action sent a critical message. But not the message Trump thinks it sent. The message is this: The United States can no longer be trusted to abide by its agreements. As of now, any threat made by the U.S. is potentially empty. Any promise made by the government of the United States is only valid until the next election. And any promise made by this president is hollow. When Comrade Trump makes a promise, it’s necessary to understand he doesn’t actually know what a promise is, he fails to understand the purpose of a promise, and he hasn’t a clue how a promise works.

In his announcement, Trump also said this:

“Iran’s leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal; they refuse. And that’s fine. I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.”

The fact is, Iran had a deal. Trump backed out of it. And by backing out, Trump assured Iran that any new deal they might strike with the U.S. would be just as worthless as the last one. There’s absolutely no reason, no incentive for Iran to bother negotiating a deal with the United States. And hey, guess what: there’s no reason for any other nation to consider making a deal with the U.S. about anything. Because Comrade Trump isn’t to be trusted, which means right now the U.S. isn’t to be trusted.

Wait…I was wrong. I said Comrade Trump doesn’t understand the concept of a promise; I said he isn’t to be trusted. That’s not exactly true. He promised to piss on everything Obama did, and he can be trusted to do everything in his power to keep that promise.

In the world of espionage, there are spies — and then there are spies. The majority of spies operate under an official cover. They may actually be agents of an intelligence service — the CIA, for example — but they’re usually placed in legitimate positions in an ordinary government department or agency. A CIA agent might be placed as an admin clerk in an embassy in Turkey, or a courier in a consular station in Poland.

Agents with an official cover may engage in covert work, their espionage activity may be dangerous, but they’re protected. They have diplomatic immunity. If they’re caught engaging in espionage, the agent may get roughed up during interrogation, but the most severe punishment will likely be expulsion from the host nation.

There are also agents operating under non-official cover. These are NOC agents. They have no official association with any government agency — and, in fact, are trained to deny any connection in the event they’re caught. They’re not protected by diplomatic immunity. If they get caught, they’re fucked. Deeply fucked. The nation they work for isn’t going to come to their aid, and they know that. They’re subject to long periods of incarceration, possibly torture, possibly execution. Hell, if their cover is blown, they may even be assassinated on the street.

NOC agents are serious spies.

I’m nattering on about this because it’s being reported that Comrade Trump is planning to pardon Scooter Libby.

Cheney and Libby

You may be asking yourself, “Who the hell is Scooter Libby?” It’s a good question. He was a disciple of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served in the Bush 2 administration. President George W. Bush was, by almost all accounts, looking for a reason to invade Iraq. He and his staff settled on the claim that Iraq illegally possessed weapons of mass destruction, and was attempting to obtain more such weapons. As part of that claim, the Bush administration accused Iraq of attempting to buy a form of processed uranium from the country of Niger.

Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon who had served in diplomatic posts in five different African nations and was very familiar with African intrigue, was sent to Niger to investigate the issue. He found there was absolutely no merit to the Bush administration’s claim.

Shortly thereafter, a conservative columnist with the Washington Post wrote an editorial casting doubt on Wilson’s findings. In that editorial, he stated that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame — an energy analyst for Brewster Jennings & Associates — was actually a CIA operative. That was accurate, but incomplete. Plame was, in fact, a covert NOC agent working on issues of nuclear proliferation. Not only that, Brewster Jennings was a front company created for, and operated by, the CIA. By divulging Plame’s CIA affiliation, her life was put in jeopardy, as were the lives of everybody working for Brewster Jennings (most of whom were unaware it was a CIA front). Every covert espionage operation being conducted by agents at Brewster Jennings had to be scrapped.

NOC operative Valerie Plame testifying

Who told that columnist that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative? Nobody was ever charged with that crime, but it was accepted knowledge that Scooter Libby leaked the information. Why? As political payback for Joseph Wilson’s undermining of the weapons of mass destruction claim.

Libby was charged, tried, and convicted of four felony counts related to the crime. He was sentenced to thirty months in prison. President Bush commuted that sentence, so Libby escaped most of his punishment. Bush, however, refused to pardon Libby for the crime.

Comrade Trump is now, apparently, planning to do what Bush didn’t. Why? Who the hell knows for sure why Trump does anything? But it’s probably no coincidence that one of Libby’s most vocal supporters was John Bolton, who Trump has just nominated as his national security adviser.

Oh, and there’s this: guess who made the decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Valerie Plame case? James Comey.

Would anybody be at all surprised that Trump, purely as political payback, would pardon a man who, also purely as political payback, outed a NOC CIA operative and destroyed an entire CIA front company as well as an untold number of covert operations? Nope.

That’s classic Trump. Petty, cruel, selfish, and willing to place his own wants above the needs and safety of the nation.