Category Archives: current events

wish i was making this up

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Seriously, just what in the fuck was that?

Let’s try that with inflection. Just WHAT in the fuck was that? Just what in the FUCK was that? What in the fuck was THAT? SERIOUSLY, JUST WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS THAT?

I watched…and I completely fucking gobsmacked that this is real…the President of These Semi-United States speak like an addled 12-year-old for 50 minutes, during which he claimed there was a national emergency because the US is being invaded.

“We’re declaring it for virtual invasion purposes.”

“We’re talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs.”

Virtual invasion purposes. I don’t even know what that means. I tried for a moment to figure out what it means, but it was like whacking myself in the forehead with a ball peen hammer. It was just pointless pain. If any other president in history had decided to declare a national emergency they’d 1) make sure they had an actual emergency, and 2) would get somebody to write them a coherent speech and not just stand in front of a podium and wing it.

Jesus suffering fuck. Okay, okay, deep breath. Right. Just to state the completely obvious, there IS no emergency. The number of immigrants showing up at the southern border (legally or otherwise) has been declining for nearly two decades. That fact is supported by data gathered and published by US agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, When asked by a reporter if he believed the data, Comrade Trump said:

“I get my numbers from a lot of sources, like Homeland Security, primary. And the numbers I have from Homeland Security are a disaster.”

Dude, the fact that you don’t like the data doesn’t make it an emergency. That DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. None of this makes any sense. Aargh! And then…and I swear I am NOT MAKING THIS UP…then Trump says this:

“I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster … I just want to get it done faster.”

What sort of cretinous fuckwit says, “Guys, we got us an emergency! We got to build us a wall! We got to build it RIGHT NOW! Well, we don’t really have to build it right now, but I want to which makes this an EMERGENCY cofeve hamberder!!!” Aargh!

And guys, that’s NOT the craziest or stupidest thing Trump said. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. He also claimed President Obama (the Last Sane President of the United States) told him, while sitting in beautiful chairs, that he (Obama, the LSPotUS) was thinking about starting a war with North Korea. And he claimed the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize — which he’d earned because Obama got one after he’d only been in office for about fifteen minutes and he didn’t even stop rocket ships from flying over Japan like Trump did.

Trump abruptly left the podium and returned to the Oval Office, but I think we were only about seven minutes away from the moment when he would declare himself the Sun God, which would allow him to have sex with his daughter Ivanka Antoinette on a golden throne in a room scented with peaches.

Anyway, this morning Comrade Trump declared a national emergency. This afternoon he flies to Mar-a-Loco to play golf. I am not making this up.

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ag-gh! help!

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Tomorrow evening Comrade Donald Trump will stand up on his hind legs and bark at the American people. Afterwards, he’ll probably call it ‘maybe the greatest State of the Union speech ever given in history.’ I’m pretty confident it’ll mostly be bullshit.

I don’t say that because I dislike Trump (though I do — I really do — Jesus suffering fuck do I dislike Trump). I say that because the speech will be meaningless. Why? Two very fundamental reasons. Reason One: the state of the Union is Ag-gh Help! Reason Two: nobody really trusts or believes anything Comrade Trump says anymore. Last I heard, WaPo had Trump at just over 8000 lies since he assumed office (and really, that’s the best use of ‘assumed’ ever).

The state of the union is Ag-gh Help! largely because Trump is really bad at being president. Why? Because he’s ignorant of the functions of government, he has no interest (and probably lacks the capacity) to learn the functions of government, he seems incapable of putting the nation’s interests before his own, he’s incapable of establishing a coherent policy and abiding by it, and none of the other nations of the world trust him or believe him when he makes a promise (on account of all that lying). All of that is in addition to the fact that Comrade Trump is effectively a Russian intelligence asset. In other words, ag-gh help!

Yes, he IS giving a State of the Union speech.

This is how bad Trump is at being president. Right now the Trump administration doesn’t have a chief of staff, it doesn’t have an Attorney General, it doesn’t have a Secretary of Defense, it doesn’t have a Secretary of the Interior, it doesn’t have a Director for the Environmental Protection Agency, it doesn’t have Director for the Office of Management and Budget. The people who held those positions have all either resigned or been fired. All of those positions are in the hands of ‘acting’ directors. We don’t even have nominees for many of those positions. Ag-gh help!

Again, why? Because competent people don’t want to work for Comrade Trump. Nobody trusts him (there’s that lying business again, plus the fact that Trump has no concept of loyalty to his staff). The fact is, Trump treats being POTUS like it was a part-time job. Seriously. A member of the White House staff recently leaked three months of Trump’s private daily schedules. The very fact that his own staff is actively undermining him is evidence of how badly he sucks at his job. Worse, the schedules show that for the past three months, Trump has spent about 60% of his day engaged in ‘executive time’. Which is basically watching FoxNews and tweeting. (If you’re interested, you can look at those schedules yourself.) Ag-gh help!

So it’s really no wonder the state of the union is Ag-gh Help! When Trump bothers to actually attempt to do his job, he’s bad at it. He can’t say that in his speech, of course. Which means he’s pretty much limited to having to lie a lot. Which is what everybody expects. Which is why the speech is meaningless.

That said, Comrade Trump can count on his fellow Republicans to give him several standing ovations. Why? Why why why? Because they’re as responsible for the state of the union as he is.

Ag-gh help!

he that soweth discord

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I declare, it’s like Comrade Donald Trump is a complete stranger to himself. He can say (or tweet) stuff that’s so absolutely contradictory to who he is that you’d wonder if he was being ironic — if you didn’t already know he was incapable of deliberate irony. Yesterday he tweeted this gem:

Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible. Starting to make a turn back? Great!

Great! Here’s a little Bible literacy lesson for the preznet. (I’ma use the King James Version of the Bible on account of I like the way the language rumbles; it’s so much more rich than the anemic New International Version.) From Proverbs 6:16-19:

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

In Trump’s favor, I don’t think his feet runneth all that swift, even toward mischief. But those other things? The proud look, the lying tongue, all that discord sowing? Comrade Trump is solid there. And that heart that deviseth wicked imaginations? Dude, just wrap your head around his ‘bound and gagged women in the backs of vans’ fantasy.

I believe this is where liars and sinners are supposed to end up.

While we’re doing this Biblical bit, let’s take a look at that deadliest of chapters, Leviticus. Leviticus doesn’t mess around; it flat out tells a person what to do and what NOT to do. Some of which Comrade Trump has totally done. Leviticus 19:13, ya’ll:

Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.

I’m not suggesting Trump defrauded his neighbors. I’m not sure he even has neighbors in his Trump Tower penthouse. But Lord knows (see what I did there?) he certainly defrauded lots of folks with a free hand. What I’m just focusing on, though, is that bit about wages. I think we can safely say ‘the wages of him that is hired’ abided with Trump for 35 nights and mornings during the government shutdown.

But here’s the kicker: Trump went all wage-abiding in pursuit of another violation of Leviticus. I’m talking Leviticus 19:33-34 here:

And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.
But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Comrade Trump was seriously vexing the holy shit out of strangers attempting to sojourn into the US with his wall. And all those strangers that dwelleth in the US under DACA? They are surely not as one born among Trump. He wants to toss their brown asses out, and he was willing to abide all night with federal employee wages to get that done.

I should note, if it wasn’t already apparent, that I’m not a Christian. Neither is Comrade Trump, for that matter. But only one of us is pretending.

 

the lesson of history

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I’ll bet you’re sitting there right now and asking yourself, “Hey, I wonder how the patriots at FreeRepublic reacted to Comrade Donald Trump being totally nutted yesterday in the Rose Garden by Nancy the Knife Pelosi?” Well, you can stop wondering, on account of I’m going to tell you how they reacted.

Not well, is how they reacted. Depending on how you define ‘not well’. Many of them were…well, let’s say they were somewhat disappointed.

He just caved on TV….what a PUSSY!! — sailor76

Stock up. The Republic is dead. — dware

First, he said Mexico would pay for the wall, then demanded $5 billion from US tax payers. Second, he said no to opening the government no matter what until the wall was funded. It is now opening today. NO wall. CAVED! — CodeToad

Some sought to understand–to explain how this Jedi Master of the Deal could have been out-maneuvered. Surely Trump must be playing multi-dimensional chess.

What is this 3 week delay accomplishing for the wall funding? Getting us by the Superbowl. Only thing that makes sense to me. — mewzilla

He will get a SOTU and the dems fear this. — Boardwalk

But most seemed to understand that Comrade Trump was overmatched. Not even Superman could have withstood the implacable and evil forces arrayed against him.

I don’t have energy to follow this shit on a day to day basis anymore. Democrats want to destroy this country, period and the Republican’s don’t seem to be doing a damn’ thing about it. They should’ve funded the wall within weeks of Trump taking office. That they didn’t tells me they don’t really want to do a damn’ thing about illegal immigration. Not even sure why I bother to vote anymore. — usconservative

DJT is facing never before seen attacks and pressure and is fighting back every way he can. Yet still, weenies on this site take every opportunity to so discord along with Ann coulter. She is a whore who would change her allegiance in a new york minute for an extra million dollars. — okkev68

He is a duly elected President who hasn’t been in charge since the election….he has been battling a coup since day one. The Feds (IRS, CIA, FBI, DOJ) have committed illegal crimes against him with impunity…and their protorian guards in the MSM have covered it up. Your ire is facing the wrong direction. — roses of sharon

A surprisingly large proportion, though, felt their ire was facing in the right direction (I’ll bet you didn’t know ire had a face). They suggested Comrade Trump just wasn’t up to the task. Not only was he taken down, he was taken down BY A GIRL.

It’s game over. Nancy and Chuck run the show. — Scott from the Left Coast

Dude, it ain’t happening. We’ve had two years. Nothing’s going to happen in 3 weeks. It’s over. — DownThe405

Trump folded, ceded to Pelosi. Now he’s just rambling in shame, all talk, no action. Pathetically, he’s just repeating worn speech talking points he’s given over and over. Doesn’t cover that there is no money, just an expectation to talk with people that said No Money and WON. Pelosi owns Trump. — Reno89519

But there were those who started to wonder if Comrade Trump really wanted the wall to begin with. Maybe…just maybe…he wasn’t all that serious.

Trump never fought very hard when the GOP was in control. If Paul Ryan was not going to fund the wall, what made him think Nancy Pelosi would? — David1292

If the problem is so serious, why wait? It’s going to lead many to believe now that the problem isn’t all that serious. — dfwgator

Of course, there were Freepers who focused on the future rather than dwell on the ignominy of the present or the expectations of the past. Where do they go now? What are they to do? How should they respond to the government re-opening without any money for a wall? Some will vote differently; some advocate more direct action.

I’ll write in Mickey mouse before I vote for someone who is rhetoric. 21 months remaining and counting and court up ahead. pelosi in the driver’s seat. The long the waits to declare the emergency, the less likely m amor work will be done. — morphing libertarian

All I can think of is the line: “Cut the cake!” – and there rolls out the Death Mobile. One way or the other the left will be defeated. If not through political action – then by violence … Because that is the lesson of history. — JME_FAN

The lesson of history. Maybe it would be wise to consider recent history — the two caravans that Trump claimed were ‘invasions’. Consider how those people swarmed over the southern border in Death Mobiles (the back seats of which were jammed with women bound and gagged with duct tape), turning right and/or left, pillaging whole communities, marauding the countryside, laying waste to crops and homes, plundering shops and warehouses, massacring innocent Americans in their beds, and…wait. What?

Oh yeah. That didn’t happen. Still, we should keep the words of ‘morphing libertarian’ in mind when the next three weeks pass and there’s still no money to build a beautiful wall: “The long the waits to declare the emergency, the less likely m amor work will be done.” Amen to that, sister.

c’mon, just pay for the wall, okay?

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COMRADE TRUMP: I’m going to build a wall and Mexico will pay for it.
DEMOCRATS: Yeah, sure.
CT: I’m ending DACA.
D: Wait, what?
CT: And I’m ending temporary protected status for immigrants.
D: You’re what?
CT: I’m enforcing a program to separate children from parents seeking asylum.
D: The fuck?
CT: Mexico will pay for the wall eventually through a process only I can understand, but in the meantime, you’ll have to pay for it.
D: No fucking way.
CT: I’m going to shut down the government if you don’t pay for the wall.
D: You’re insane.
CT: It’s okay, I won’t blame you for it.
D: Yes you will.

CT: There’s a crisis on the border and Democrats shut down the government.
D: You created the crisis, you weasel-brained mook. And you shut down the government.
CT: Pay for the wall or I’ll put children in cages.
D: You’ve already put children in cages.
CT: I’ll end the Democrat’s shutdown if you pay for the wall.
D: Fuck you.
CT: I’ll end the Democrat shutdown and let you have DACA for three years if you pay for the wall.
D: Jeebus on toast, that’s extortion. And you’re probably lying anyway.
CT: Pay for the wall or I’ll declare a national emergency.
D: There’s no emergency, you stupid fuck.
CT: THERE’S AN EMERGENCY!
D: Take your meds.
CT: Pay for the wall or I’ll ruin the economy.
D: You’re already ruining the economy. And the environment. And democracy.
CT: Pay for the wall or I’ll sell the children in cages to Russia. Creating jobs!
D: You’re a monster.
CT: Pay for the wall and I’ll give you an apartment in Trump Tower Moscow. And Mexico will pay for it.
D: Oh, for fuck’s sake.
CT: It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again.
D: …
CT: I’m the best negotiator ever.

dear camel, is this the straw you’ve been worrying about?

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Late last night Buzzfeed posted an article claiming that Comrade Trump ‘directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.’ If this is true — if the reporting is accurate — then this means Trump suborned perjury, which is a federal felony. It’s also classic obstruction of justice. We’re talking textbook ‘high crimes’ folks.

If it’s true. If the reporting is accurate. So clearly the first thing we need to do is look at the folks who wrote the article: Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier. Cormier has been an investigative reporter for about 15 years. A couple of years ago, when he was writing for the Tampa Bay Times, he won a Pulitzer for reporting on violence and neglect in Florida mental hospitals. Leopold’s career has been somewhat more controversial. He’s done investigative reporting for some serious news outlets (like the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian), but he’s also done work for online venues that have occasionally been sketchy (TruthOut, Counterpunch, Raw Story). He had a story on the Enron scandal pulled from Salon because he failed to adequately attribute part of his report to another source and he slightly misquoted a suspect email. The facts of that story, however, were accurate. The book on Leopold is that he’s an aggressive reporter who has occasionally made mistakes in how he gathers information, even though the information has been reliable.

So the reporters seem solid. What about the content of their reporting? We know from court documents (and his own guilty plea) that Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow deal. We know he consulted with Trump’s legal team before he testified falsely to Congress. We also know Cohen kept Trump and members of Trump’s family informed about the negotiations with Russian officials regarding the deal. What Cormier and Leopold have added to the story is that Cohen has apparently told Mueller that he lied to Congress at Trump’s direction. It’s the first direct link between Trump and a crime.

According to the Buzzfeed report, this new information came from a pair of law enforcement sources, apparently connected to the Mueller investigation, both of whom have chosen to remain anonymous. Anonymous sources have to be treated with skepticism, of course. We should also be skeptical about any alleged leaks apparently coming from Mueller’s team, which has been famously tight-lipped. However, the Buzzfeed report also states Cohen’s claim that he was directed by Trump to lie to Congress is supported

through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.

But again, we have to rely on the integrity of the reporters to assess the reliability of that claim. It’s important to approach this revelation with caution.

The Twitterverse, of course, erupted after the Buzzfeed revelation last night. There was an pyroclastic flow of speculation. What does it mean for Comrade Trump? How will Republicans in Congress respond? Will this lead inevitably to impeachment? How will Trump himself respond in the morning?

Trump responded this morning by tweeting mostly about the border with Mexico, blaming Democrats for not supporting his wall, castigating Nancy the Knife for wanting to visit NATO and the troops in Afghanistan while the government is shut down, and re-tweeting a FoxNews report that Cohen pleaded guilty to perjury. This could be a strategy of distraction — trying to focus attention elsewhere. Or, perhaps more likely, it’s just Trump repeating whatever he sees on FoxNews, which has largely ignored the Buzzfeed story.

Don’t look behind you; history is catching up and has a thin, sharp blade.

But here’s the thing. Even though the Buzzfeed story fits in with the pattern of Trump’s behavior, and even though the story makes logical sense, and even though the reporters have an overall good reputation, it’s a good idea to approach the story with some hesitation. We’ve seen other ‘this has GOT to be the last straw’ stories before, and Trump has always managed to produce more straws.

BUT IF it’s true, then Comrade Trump is fucked. IF it’s true, there’s a good chance Ivanka and Don Jr. are fucked. IF it’s true, then the only thing left between Comrade Trump and impeachment (or resignation) is how to begin the process.

with an emphasis on the ass

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The revision list informs me I starting writing this post on August 21, 2018. I’ve revised it eight times in the intervening months without publishing it. I chose not to publish it because the supporting evidence was too complex to fit conveniently in a blog post and I didn’t want to assert that Comrade Trump was an intelligence asset without backing it up. Happily, the New York Times has finally done all that, and I can simply link to their article:

Here’s the meat of my original much-revised post. I’ve edited out all the supporting material, I encourage you to read the Times article, and a rather good summary of the evidence by Politico.

My opinion? Comrade Donald J. Trump is a Russian intelligence asset.

I know that sounds like some conspiracy theory shit, but I’m serious. It’s probably a good idea to define ‘intelligence asset’. An asset is someone or something intended, developed, cultivated or utilized to gather or disseminate information that might be useful to an intelligence service. That’s all it means.

It doesn’t mean Trump is a Russian spy. It doesn’t mean he’s intentionally working for his boy Vlad Putin. It just means Putin is using Trump to further Russia’s geo-political agenda, and has been doing so since Trump began his campaign. It’s possible — even likely — Trump isn’t aware he’s being used.

Comrade Trump meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov & Ambassador Sergei Kislyak the day after he fired FBI Director Comey. During the meeting Trump disclosed classified material obtained from a US ally.

Let’s face it, Comrade Trump is a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (which, for some reason, I always read as the Freddie Kruger effect). The D-K effect is defined as ‘a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is.’ In other words, the D-K effect describes folks who actually aren’t terribly clever but believe they are. Comrade Trump has claimed expert knowledge of: international trade, politicians, social media, ISIS, campaign finance, television ratings, taxes, the visa system, governance, debt, renewable energy, the law, infrastructure, finances, drone technology, science, border security, and the economy. In fact, he’s shown himself to be painfully ignorant in those areas.

Because of the D-K effect and his massive ego, Trump is easily manipulated. And let’s not forget, Putin is a former intelligence officer who has worked undercover and has been trained by experts in social manipulation. But it’s not just a matter of Trump being a dupe; there are a lot of other reasons he may be acting as a Russian asset.

He’s vulnerable to kompromat. I mentioned this back in July of last year. It seems probable that Putin has something on Trump. It could be his shady business and banking transactions with Russian and former Soviet states have made him vulnerable to blackmail. It could be money laundering in the US; we know a LOT of Russians have purchased Trump condos and apartments for millions of dollars (and real estate is the money launderer’s favorite tactic). It could, I suppose, be the infamous pee tape, though I think that’s unlikely. I’m inclined to think the Trump kompromat is more criminal than salacious. 

It really doesn’t matter what his motives are; what matters is that Donald Trump, the sitting president of the United States, is furthering the geo-political agenda of a hostile foreign nation. What matters is that one of this nation’s two major political parties is complicit in Comrade Trump’s offenses. 

Again, the reason I didn’t publish this back in August was that I wanted to include evidence to support the claim — but all that evidence made for an awkwardly long blog post. Over the past several months, even more supporting material has become known and has been reported by major news sources.

Even so, it still sounds incredible to state that the President of the United States is a Russian intelligence asset. But I can’t find any other explanation for Trump’s behavior, for his pro-Russian policies, for his reluctance to impose sanctions against Russia or Russian oligarchs, for his willingness to remove those sanctions, for his campaign’s frequent inappropriate interactions with Russian agents, and for his consistent attempts to undermine US law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

It seems clear the guy is helping the Russians and damaging the security of the nation he’s sworn to defend.