Category Archives: Politics

TRUMP AID ACCUSES PRESIDENT OF TELLING THE TRUTH!

 

Reince Priebus sobs uncontrollably after committing uncharacteristic blunder

During his interview with CNN commentator Wolf Blitzer last night, President Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus let it slip that telling the truth is something the president does sometimes.  When pressed by Mr. Blitzer for a specific example of such incongruous behavior, Mr. Priebus seemed to be caught off guard and a a bit flustered, replying “You can’t expect the guy to just pull something out of his ass all the time.”

The stunning comments evoked an immediate defensive response from close White House staffers.  Speaking to a Fox News reporter the following morning, Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway tried her best to tamp things down, stating “I am not sure what conversation Reince was referring to.  He was probably just joking around with the president on one of those buses or something.  What I can tell you is I have never known the president to tell a non-lie.  Never.  It is amazing to me how he can just off the cuff not tell a non-lie.  He knows what America needs and his truths and facts are what the people want to hear.  He’s a man of his word and it’s what makes him such a great president.”

It remains to be seen what impact the fall out will have with the president’s supporters.  The commander in chief took things into his own hands however, tweeting from the third hole of his Virginia golf course, “I just heard around that someone somewhere said many members of congress might be making bad deals laundering money in Cypriot banks and funding ISIS.  Now I have to demand a full congressional investigation of itself.  SAD!”

When approached by the press and asked how long such an investigation would take, befuddled Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he had no idea how to even go about the process, but his best guess is it could easily take a decade to accomplish.  So for now it looks like the president has avoided catastrophe and has firmly reestablished his fundamental policy once again.

Fake News II or What are the Swedes Putting in Those Meatballs?

Well this really pisses me off.  Once again our president says something and the dishonest media gets a cob up its butt over it and makes the man look bad.  Totally unfair.  I’m not sure those Swedes know what’s going on in their own back yard.

Swedes of Every Sort Scatter in Confused Panic over President Trump’s Assertion that Their Country was Attacked by Terrorists.

Fox news was there!  When have you ever known them to get something wrong?  Fake News  God, if you listen to main stream news they make it sound like the president was just nonchalantly channel surfing or something when he saw all that trouble in Sweden that night.  He takes his channel surfing very seriously believe you me.  Between Fox News, Breitbart, and InfoWars who needs those bloated security briefings.  And for your information he quit speed surfing a long time ago- ever since Kellyanne stuck those 4×6 photos of the president in the corners of all the White House television sets.  She’s pretty sharp and realized that whenever he sees himself anywhere on those TV screens he takes extra time to pay attention.  That trick worked so well she had wall to wall mirrors installed in all the White House bathrooms so he could stare at himself while he was backing the brown bus out of the garage.  Not being in such a hurry there mitigated his constipation problem as well as improved his self esteem.  Gotta hand it to that Kellyanne.  Where in the heck has she been lately.  I sure hope she’s OK.

What chaps my ass even more is how the dishonest media keeps harping about the president’s amazing electoral  college victory.   So many times he has politely pointed out what a  record smashing achievement it was, and then you see the press crabbing about it.   It happened again during the president’s first press conference   So typical.  For Pete’s sake how many times does President Trump have to tell these guys how tremendous his landslide win was?  It was huge!  There has never been a public appearance of his that he has not mentioned it.  When will these morons start listening?  He got 306 electoral votes!  There was something fishy about two of those votes, but that just goes to show there’s voter fraud going on.  And then that dick reporter had the gall to nit-pick over some past election results.  Fake News  If the president of the United States says he won by the largest margin since Ronald Reagan, then he won by the largest margin since Ronald Reagan!  End of story!  He was given that information by somebody, so there you go.  Even more importantly, he has seen that information around. What more proof do you want?  You can’t deny somebody and around are impressively credible sources.  The dishonest media should take notes from our president and quit pulling unnamed sources out of their asses.  Further more, take a look at where his win total stands with respect to all presidential elections.  Out of 58 presidential elections, President Trump’s ranks 46th in win margin.  That is almost exactly where he falls numerically in presidential sequence.  That is fucking amazing!

So take heed news media.  Start paying attention to what our president says and report his facts, which are the true facts and best facts you can get.   We are sick and tired of all the fake news you are putting out.  He knows exactly what’s going on and he knows lots of big words that in the past have apparently confused you.  Sad!

 

220

A few days ago during his visit to MacDill Air Force Base, President Trump made the bazaar remark that the media was deliberately not reporting terrorists attacks (for reference, see crazy shit here).  The media is involved in a cover-up.  WTF!?  We are absolutely inundated with news about terroristic mayhem.  I have nightmares about some of the horrific video. What in the hell is this man talking about?  When pressured to produce a list of these mysteriously unreported attacks, the White House provided one that listed 78 attacks that for the most part were covered, many were covered extensively,  and those that were not were obscure or not even identified as having anything to do with an actual terrorist.  What is going on in this guy’s head?

The contradictory list is bad enough, but the president made that crazy statement that inferred there was some sort of media conspiracy going on “They (media) have their reasons and you understand that.” (part of italicized sentences in above article and in video below).  No, I don’t understand that or any of this bull shit you are throwing out here, and neither did anyone in the befuddled military audience you were addressing.   Suspiciously missing from this White House list were attacks on U.S. soil perpetrated by non-Muslims, and most glaringly, also omitted from this list were attacks on some countries most devastated by religious extremists.  And of course there are the misspellings included that have to make you wonder just how more disjointed can this administration get.  Where are they getting their information anyway?

It turns out, a good portion of it comes from right wing-nut Alex Jones and his fake news blog “InfoWars.”   Trump’s information source.  Jones is the guy that believes the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.  InforWars is probably where Trump latched onto his ridiculous idea that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally.  This is the President of the United States! He gets his information from a fake-news organization.   I’m telling you there is something wrong with his head.

Alex Jones

So contrary to Mr. Trump’s assertion, we have plenty of reporting about terrorist activity.  What we are sorely lacking, however, is in depth reporting about THIS.  There were at least TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY Pipeline spills in 2016. 220!  Pipeline Spills.  How many do you remember getting reported?  And now Trump has officially revived the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.  We don’t need anymore damn pipelines.  We are not taking care of the ones we already have.  There is practically zero oversight of these things.  There are at least eight crude or refined oil pipelines traversing the Missouri right now, and I don’t know how many other toxic chemical and gas pipelines,  What we need is some serious pipeline vetting and carbon source pull-back.   There are so many earthquakes going on in Oklahoma because of all the fracking who knows when one will crack open one of those hidden tunnels lurking underneath the Missouri River. Pipeline proponents will point out they are perfectly safe.  And that is true.  Until they aren’t.

 

GASLIGHTING

Ok now I’m worried.  The day after Donald Trump was elected president I thought I could give him a chance.  I even said that in a blog at that time.  One day later Mr. Trump did something that made me regret going out on a limb with that public statement.  He appointed alt-right provocateur Stephen Bannon as a presidential advisor.  It then became obvious to me that all of the soothing rhetoric of Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech about uniting the country was nothing more than another of his manipulative lies.  And by now it is obvious he is not about to release his tax returns.  For me those two things alone indicate what we observed during the campaign is pretty much what we are going to get from him as president.  That in itself is worrisome. Having Stephen Bannon as a PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR is a blatant proclamation by the president that he is a narrow-minded bigot himself.  And by concealing his tax returns he is shamelessly announcing he is a shifty, swindling  SOB and doesn’t care who knows it.  On top of that, the man has the audacity to suggest that because he was elected president it must mean he has the right to do anything he wants.

And the thing is in a way he’s right.  He is right because we tend to forget these and his other discretions and missteps for the simple reason there are so many of them.  Over time we have learned about his business misconduct, bankruptcies, despicable personal conduct, exaggerations and flat out lies, one after another, each episode glossed over by and because of the next.  It’s a shell game President Trump has played his entire adult life.  But he and his surrogates have transformed the game into a political weapon I think best described as GASLIGHTING, a state of mind that is achieved by deliberately creating  confusion so often that a person becomes vulnerable to believing an alternate reality.  It’s a common tactic of dictators.

Stopping Gaslighting in its Tracks

Up till now I have resigned myself to the fact that we are stuck with Trump’s mind games and fast talking and will probably live though it all. Yes, we will have to choose our battles, like issues involving civil rights and the environment.  As we have found out during the first days of this administration, public pressure works.  But many of the outlandish statements he makes are nothing more than pathetic displays of self aggrandizement, obsessions over matters that are ridiculously petty, and boasts about things that will never get accomplished. His flurry of executive orders contain many that are all show just to make it look like he is fulfilling campaign promises.  His “wall” is a perfect example.  Mexico is never, in any way, going to pay for the stupid wall.  If it does get built, you and I will be paying for it one way or another.  Also if it is built, we can kiss any of Trumps grandiose plans for infrastructure improvement goodby.  Geezuz didn’t daddy Fred ever have that discussion with Donald about money not growing on trees?

However, something he said during the campaign, and astonishingly repeated since he assumed the presidency really bothers me.  He insists during our invasion of Iraq that we should have “Kept the oil.”  It’s one thing to say that during a blustery campaign speech, but this man is now the president of our county.  That kind of remark is an alarming indication of how ill prepared he is for the job, and should not be buried in all the gaslighting minutiae, which sadly, it is.  I know the president is a foreign policy neophyte, but I cannot believe someone in advisory capacity did not inform him of how dangerous it is to say something that volatile.  This is something that should not be treated as one of the president’s petulant, fly-off-the-handle statements. If there is no one among the president’s advisory staff that has the courage to correct him, surely Paul Ryan or any member of congress with common sense should show some gumption and do it.  Whoever it is might also suggest he actually read something that is not about himself for a change, like a high school text about modern world history for instance.

Trump’s “keep the oil” statement is not just a contradiction of international law, the sovereignty of which Mr. Trump stunningly ridiculed during his first presidential interview (#5 at very bottom of this article). I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that someone who supports torture (#4 in same above article)  would in his mind consider pillage and rape to be normal extensions of war.  Critically important, this comment is also counterproductive to any kind of plan to destroy ISIS, one of Mr. Trump’s primary promises to us during his election campaign.  This is bulletin board material for ISIS.  There can be nothing more threatening and imperialistic sounding to the entire muslim world than saying we should keep the oil of any county in the Middle East that we imperiously invade.  The president seems totally unaware of the resentment in the region toward Western hegemony that has transpired since World War One.  It’s a remarkable lack of knowledge for someone so adamantly insistent he’s just the guy who knows how to deal with ISIS.  There is a strong argument that the catalytic spark for ISIS and the reason we invaded Iraq was Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s unrestrained avidity for Iraqi oil.  Not that he ever would of course, but his incendiary statement can not be retracted.  Those words are forever locked in the twitter domain for ISIS to use at its discretion.  They will headline every ISIS recruiting website these terrorists utilize.

Then there is the matter of the safety of our military.   In the muslim world an ignorant statement like this certainly resurrects unpleasant memories of an empire carved up by Western outsiders, and could easily excite feelings that imperil our troops currently serving in Iraq.  Who in this administration has the president’s ear?  Is it Steve Bannon, the anarchist who says the “media should keep its mouth shut.”  Though the gag orders and intimidation of this administration make it burdensomely difficult to continue reporting one ridiculous comment after another, it is more important than ever that the media keep up that work.  Hopefully then someone in authority will finally have the balls to say enough is enough.  Politically President Trump is in way over his head, but I am not sure if all the gaslighting isn’t working if you listen to his defenders.  Every time the president makes one of his absurd comments, a spokesperson rationalizes it by saying its just the way the man is and it is a ‘new order’ we had better get used to.  That convoluted logic seems to be working for some people.  I know President Trump wants to drive us into isolation, but he has got to realize his words do matter to other nations and can incite hostility toward vulnerable and innocent people.  Our country might be stuck in Trumpworld,  but there are other parts of the globe not as willing to dwell there.   Someone with a spine has got to force this president to take a serious look at reality- actual reality, not his.

NOTE:  Well we are into the second day of the president’s immigration shit storm now. Geezuz I just can’t keep up with this guy.   I am not so sure my computer won’t run out of ink.  If you agree with this blog, please share.  If you don’t you can bite my shorts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PRESIDENT CHASTISES MEDIA OVER ATTENDANCE REPORTING AT PANCAKE HOUSE

From all appearances President Trump’s ongoing feud with the media is not about to subside anytime soon.  Controversy erupted this afternoon after the president released a tweet questioning the crowd size at the Pancake House where he was eating.

President Trump Appreciates the Impressive Service Rendered by Pancake House Employee Bambi

A film crew from local station KCON happened to be in the area and shot video of the president having breakfast.  When he watched the clip during KCON’s noon news broadcast, he apparently took exception to what he perceived as a sparse crowd in the background, and immediately sent this tweet:  “Dishonest media at it again.  Pancake House was packed!  Obvious editing hack job!!  So Sad!!!”

When asked for specifics, presidential spokesperson Keilyanne Conway stated the president was simply concerned that the media had altered things to make it appear that the crowd this morning was  much smaller than the crowd televised last week at the Jimmy’s Egg where former president Obama ate his breakfast omelet.   “The president is just sick and tired of everyone always saying his crowds and other stuff are so small.  It’s time the media started reporting accurate alternative facts,” Ms. Conway stridently suggested.

In related news, after the CEO of Pancake House promised President Trump he would hire more waitresses like Bambi, company stock gained 5 points. In anticipation of presidential retaliatory measures, Jimmy’s Egg investors unloaded corporate shares in a huge afternoon sell-off.

   Separately, there is a really good article about fake news HERE

 

 

 

 

Fake News and How I Feel About Goldengate

If you’re like me when that Trump “Goldengate” story broke you immediately started searching the internet for pertinent information.  Also if you’re like me, when you found it you realized fairly quickly it was so bazaar it was in need of some serious fact checking.  In case you are fortunate enough to somehow be unaware of the sordid details, just google “Buzzfeed golden shower”.  You can find how the media handled the situation here.  Personally I don’t think CNN can claim to be totally blameless for the blowback.  True, what they reported was factual, but they opened the door that BuzzFeed saw as opportunity to release the entirety of the salacious document.  Maybe there is something to this story, maybe not.  But our media had better resist the temptation to be first on the block to disclose a story when it is unsubstantiated.

Of course this story is not without irony.  As explained here President Trump is a notorious liar and this can easily be considered a case of receiving a deserved dose of his own medicine.  But it has never been more important that the fourth estate kept us informed of that which is fact.    It’s bad enough when the president and his surrogates make their “alternative facts” seem believable, but passing  them a blatant lie on a silver platter is something they will absolutely feast on.  Zeke Miller! Get your head out of your ass.

It is apparent to most that President Trump has trouble dwelling in the realm of truth.  Take for instance his insistence that no one cares about his tax returns. Total bull shit.  I know because i did my very own survey just the other day.  I got pretty riled up after I heard him once again dodge and deflect about that during his pre-inageral news conference.  I laced up my shoes and went door to door on my block and asked my neighbors how they felt about the issue.  And I didn’t just collect information from the left. I wanted to be fair and hear from both sides, so I weaved my way right, then left, then right and so on till I reached the end of the block.   It’s a long block too.  More like two blocks.  There is sort of an alleyway halfway down that intersects our street at a right angle.  It doesn’t go through though,  It just ends at our street.  I don’t know what the fuck it’s doing there, but it comes in handy sometimes.

Now on my way back I noticed the left was now on my right.  So just to make sure opinions hadn’t changed I solicited each house again.  And sure enough nothing changed.  Each of my neighbors gave me the same answer they had previously.  Actually I didn’t get a second answer from everyone.  About half way back I decided since I was so consistently receiving the same answer from everybody the second time, continuing on with my questioning seemed pointless.  But just to make sure everything stayed on the up and up, I walked the rest of the way home backwards.  That way my left was still on my left and my right was on my right, just as it was when I departed. I wanted to be sure no one would think I was tampering with the results of my survey.  It’s important people know I wasn’t dicking around with facts.

Just as I suspected, overwhelmingly the public wants Mr. Trump to release his tax returns.  Of the 21 people I surveyed, none said absolutely not, 2 said it didn’t matter one way or the other, and 18 said yes, he should cough them up.  And all 18 were vehemently adamant about it.  Actually one of the 18 was a little more vehement about  Joey “No Socks”   than Mr. Trump and his tax returns.  That was a guy we call Bugsy.  He lives five houses down the block and kind of keeps to himself.  After I got a “yes” out of him he went on a rampaging dialog about Mr. “No Socks” owing him 30 G’s for some kind of painting he found somewhere and how he was going to take care of Mr. No Socks as soon as he completed his house arrest.  I couldn’t quite follow the whole thing but thought it would be more prudent to get the hell out of there than ask for clarification.

Trump and Mr. No Socks

You’re probably wondering about that one person that is unaccounted for.  Number 21 would be Marlborough Man.  He’s a stay at home dad and no one has ever seen him without a lit cigarette.  He lives clear at the end of the block and his yard is strewn with dog shit and dead animal parts.  The entire environment shouts stay away.  Another thing in his yard, even to this day, is a “Vote for Trump” sign, so to eliminate the risk of defiling my shoes with something untoward,  I just chalked  Marlborough Man up to a big NO that is duly logged, though that result is properly marked with an asterisk.

So as you can see Mr. Trump, people absolutely DO want to see your tax returns and by saying we are not interested you are promoting fake news.  And speaking of fake, those fake folders you displayed during that January 11th news conference were quite the nice touch.  If nothing else at least your well polished skills as a con-man remain factually consistent.   I look forward to seeing just how far you can push that envelope of public gullibility now that you are actually our president.

 

 

 

 

Billy Bimble’s Diary (The Real Story Behind Twittergate)

2/20/18- Dear Diary:

Well we made it through the first year Diary, and boy what a year!  I think America should be damn proud of what president Trump got done.  The wall is under way, that silly Obamacare is caput, and we rounded up all those bad muslims and Mexicans.  I think that’s a pretty impressive  list of accomplishments.  Of course the dishonest media is making a big stink about all of this stuff.  I think Gitmo was a great idea.  Our prisons are all filled up, so what better place to stuff all those muslims.   We’ll figure out what do with those guys someday.  And what a clever idea it was to use all those school busses to transport the Mexicans back to Tijuana.  They just collect dust in the summer anyway.

And we kind of need a way to cut expenses.  The dishonest press said a bunch of people were upset when they found out they were going to have to pay for the wall after all, but Ms. Conway came in and got that all straighten out and did a pretty good job explaining it was President Obama’s fault for letting all those Mexicans into America in the first place.  For some reason just mentioning Obama’s name like that seems to make people realize what a great president Mr. Trump is.   But really, like Mr. Trump says, the funding problem is on Congress anyway.  It’s their job to figure out where 26 billion dollars comes from.  He tried his best to get Mexico to pay up.  You  know about the twitter war he’s having with Vicente Fox.  I know he’s not the the Mexican president in office anymore, but he really should watch his potty mouth.  Using the “f” word and all.  I’m so glad our president doesn’t stoop that low. He might not know a lot of words, but like he says he knows all the good ones.

3/02/18- Dear Diary:

Well the dishonest media is at it again Diary.  They’re saying there’s some sort of conflict of interest with those new golf courses Mr. Trump has going on in Russia and Syria.  Everyone knows his sons are the ones involved in that.  He’s way too busy managing his Twitter account to have time for any outside business.  That damn Vicente is just a constant bother the president has to deal with.  They’ve been going back and forth now for over a year.   Right off I kept telling him to just let it go. As assistant press secretary (How I Became Assistant Press Secretary) I get to sit in on a lot of the office conversation, and I have to tell you if he comes across a tweet or something on TV that bothers him, that Oval Office is likely in for some  overheating.  Nothing seems to lather him up like ol’ Vicente though.

Of course I told you a year ago what set him off was Vicente’s tweet about him being all illegitimate and stuff since he lost so bad to Hillary in the popular and then he just had to bring up that awkward intelligence information about Russia pushing the election his way.  It’s got to the point now the two of them pass insulting tweets to each other pretty much every other day.  I have to say I’m a little worried where this is headed.  Like that tweet he sent today.  “Roses are red, violets are blue; Mexicans are losers, that means Vicente too. So sad!”

3/10/18- Dear Diary:

Well wouldn’t you know it those prissy environmentalists got their underwear in a bunch over the president’s executive order to have all the wind turbines in the country dismantled.  He really hates those things and made sure we understood  he did it out of concern for all the poor birds that those murderous machines kill.  His complimentary directive to switch all the electrical facilities back to coal is just the thing to help out our feathered friends.

And what is up with all those tree huggers anyway.  Geezus if anyone knows the best places to drill for oil it’s EPA Secretary Pruitt.  Mr. Trump stayed up all night tweet bashing critics objecting to the Trans Yellowstone Pipeline.  God what a bunch of whiners.  Maybe all that fracking wasn’t such a good idea in Oklahoma, but this is Yellowstone for Pete’s sake. Thousands of earthquakes rumble through there every day.  What difference will a few hundred more make anyway?

3/16/18- Dear Diary:

I have to agree with the president on this one.  When Robert Di Nero got on stage during the Oscars and started calling the president a “crazy man,”  well that’s just plain disrespectful, and the president had every right to skip the G8 Summit so he could spend some quality twitter time letting people  know how overrated Di Nero is.  Did you see Taxi Driver?  I really thought the president put Di Nero in his place with his tweet “I could have played that part blindfolded. What a hack!”  Spot on Mr. president!

The last couple of tweets Mr. Trump fired off at Vicente have me even more concerned than before.  Now that the vindictive poetry has regressed to limericks, the president seems to be a little out of his element.

3/20/18- Dear Diary:

Ms. Conway got a little upset with the president today.  Sometimes the two of them get into heated discussions about what’s more important.  Of course Mr. Trump knows he has to deal with all the unflattering tweets and dishonest media and as you might suspect Ms. Conway does her best to remind the president about governing stuff, and every once in awhile the president turns all red and then he and Ms. Conway  leave the room and then they duck into a closet in the hallway.  I don’t know what goes on in there, but every time they come back out of that closet Ms. Conway has Mr. Trump all calmed down.  Boy if you ask me I think that Ms. Conway has really earned her stripes.

3/21/18- Dear Diary:

Well Diary the shit hit the fan today.  Ms. Conway really got in the president’s grill for not studying up on the the speech she prepared for him.  After the stock market crashed yesterday she thought it might be a good idea to have a press conference and tell the people the dishonest media was way overblowing the situation and sort of calm people down. That damn Vicente started the whole thing when he sent out that tweet about GM and Honda moving their SUV production to Mexico and how Walmart and then GE and Verizon were thinking about shifting business across the border too and you better believe Mr. Trump wasn’t about to take that sitting down so he started off with all the threatening tweets, and wouldn’t you know it stupid Wall Street panicked with the huge sell off.  And guess what Diary?  Ms. Conway up and took Mr. Trump’s phone away.  Of course he started getting all red in the face, but Ms. Conway took control of the situation with another trip to the hallway closet.

3/22/18- Dear Diary:

I thought Ms. Conway did a bang up job on TV last night.  With the president still left a little stunned without his cell phone, Ms. Conway was stuck with the job of facing the press.  I think she said it all with her closing statement “It’s time America stopped paying attention to what President Trump says and start listening to what’s in his heart.”  From what I hear quite a few people out there say that makes some kind of sense.

To show you how clever the president is, he got ahold of another cell phone.  Naturally he couldn’t get out of the White House without his security team, so guess what he did Diary? Last night he shimmied out of the master bedroom on a bed-linen rope.  Do you believe it?  Then he took a cab to the nearest Verizon store.  Honest to God!

3/23/18- Dear Diary:

Of course, dear Diary,  you might have figured we all found out about that cell phone episode.  The president didn’t have a credit card on him or anything so he just ran out of the store with his phone and then didn’t have any money to pay the cabbie so the police got all involved.  Mr. Priebus and Ms. Conway were able to straighten things out though.  And take his new phone away.  Tonight I have to sleep in a small office in the Treasury Building so I can keep an eye on the Master Bedroom windows.

3/24/18- Dear Diary:

I don’t know exactly what happened Diary, and I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to retrace all the steps.  In the end we found out it wasn’t Vicente doing all the tweeting after all, at least for the past four months.  It was some 400 pound fatso by the name of Harold Tweedy.  He was just laying around on his bed one day and figured out how to hack into the president’s cell phone.  After he lost his Obamacare coverage he become despondent, and sort of turned vindictive.  He was all set to have bariatric surgery and then all of a sudden Congress up and pulled the rug out from under him.

After he got caught Harold admitted getting the stock market to crash was particularly satisfying to him, but he didn’t expect things to go this far.  Since the president hasn’t had a phone for a few days we were all wondering what in the world North Korea got so jacked up about.  After a little CIA and FBI research, kind of concentrated on who all had nuclear weapons at their disposal, they were able to trace back some tweets between Harold and Kim Jong-Un.  Harold had him believing he was President Trump and tweeted off one disparaging remark after another.  Well that guy is even less receptive to criticism than our president, if you can believe it, and as you can imagine, Diary, it was just a matter of time before Harold pushed Kim Jong-Un’s button.  And as it turned out that was the button that triggered the button that sent that ICBM into the heart of Los Angeles.  It’s just a big mess.  Late this afternoon we found out North Korea isn’t the only country Harold poked a stick at.  President Assad got a little miffed at all the personal insults he thought Mr. Trump was tweeting and decided to barrel bomb all 36 holes of the Trump’s fancy golf course in Damascus.  Surprisingly Mr. Trump is taking things pretty well, but Ms. Conway is the one turning all red.  Since things are kind of in reverse order, I’m not sure if that hallway closet will work out like before.

 

          

IN THE END THESE PEOPLE SAW LITTLE HUMOR IN TWITTERGATE

 

Electoral College

NOTE:  Due to the length of this blog, in the interest of saving time for our esteemed electoral college delegates  I have bold typed supportive information.  Some of you are probably on your way to wherever it is that you do your electoral college stuff.  I would appreciate it if you would give sober consideration to everything highlighted.  For the rest of you, it might be smart if you stopped tweeting and read the entire article word for word.   It won’t kill you to learn something for a change.

I think it is time to reevaluate our system of presidential elections in our country.  Personally  I’m all for keeping it simple.  The popular vote should be the one that counts. Even Donald Trump says the electoral college is rigged.  If you are in the mood for a nice migraine headache just try hacking your way through the Wikipedia narrative about that thing.  And if you’re like me you  wonder what in the hell were our founding fathers thinking?  It couldn’t be any more confusing.  I do know a couple of things about the institution though.  There were two reasons for it’s implementation.  First, it was an accommodation for the slave states.  They were afraid they would be unfairly represented in the voting process because their states were generally less populated.  By white folks anyway.  There were plenty of black folks walking around down there, but of course they didn’t count.  Well, one counted as three fifths of a white person for census purposes, but they weren’t allowed to vote.   And who can blame  the constitutional delegation for that.  Would you want to do all that fractional math without a calculator?

The guys that brainstormed over all this were for the most part really smart fellows.  At least they thought so, because the second reason they decided the electoral college was a good idea was they were afraid that people for the most part were a bunch of rubes who might have misconceptions of what was actually required to hold the highest office in the land, and they wanted to establish a method for overriding the general election results.  The whole idea was to make sure we avoided a country ruled by kings or dictators.  Or crazy people.   To me these criteria are as outdated as capri pants and powdered wigs, and we should do some housecleaning- except for now.  I do not think there could possibly be a more relevant time to put this concept to the ultimate test.  The electoral college is set to meet on December 19th, the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Or is it the other way around?  I really don’t want to walk over to my desk and peek at my calendar.  I’m no constitutionalist, but if it were me I would just make it the first Thursday of the month.  After all that work who’s going to blame you for not showing up at your job the next day.   You take a long weekend.  Forget all that first after the second business. Personally I think our forefathers got a bit carried away with that notion.

                                    

Electoral College                                                     Regular College

So on the 19th of December members of the electoral college could actually do something  historicalchange a presidential election. The one and only time a similar situation occurred was after the 1836 election of Martin Van Buren.  Strangely it was Richard M Johnson, Van Buren’s running mate, that caused the stir. He must have been a real dick.  But the senate, who’s job it is to declare the winner in a VP controversy,  ended up choosing Johnson anyway.

I’m not saying those who voted for Mr. Trump are a load of hayseeds.  Believe me I am as disgusted as anyone with political elitism and indifference.   We do need to shake things up, to the point of amending the constitution here and there if you ask me.  But it has became abundantly clear our president-elect is not any kind of instrument for constructive change.  When your record of attending intelligence briefings is one out of six,  I think it’s a pretty good indication you really aren’t that interested in the job in the first place.  It seems standing in front of an adoring crowd is much more important to Mr. Trump.

To me one of the curious benefits of the electoral college is during the interceding time between the general election and the time the college convenes, we can get a glimpse of how our president-elect will fashion his administration.  It is pretty clear from Donald Trump’s choices for his cabinet and advisors he couldn’t give a shit about the future of this country or planet.  He is in this thing for his own self promotion.  Then there is all the legal difficulty the man has.  The law suits he has to deal with currently are bad enough.  But our already productivity challenged congress will have to spend an inordinate amount of time on congressional investigations and possible litigation of Trump’s conflict of interests if he does not divest himself of his business holdings.  That emollients clause has been waiting to get dusted off for about 240 years.  

 Sure Mr. Trump is entitled to select his own advisers,  but how comfortable are you with his picks when he has shown complete disregard for information from a professional intelligence staff, particularly their conclusions about Russian involvement in the election,  and is manipulated by the likes of Steve Bannon.  Trump’s EPA director and Secretary of Education both embrace  policies that essentially will encourage dissolution of the very departments they are in charge of.  His Secretary of Commerce and Treasury Secretary are the same old Wall Street types Trump vowed to purge from government involvement.  In fact Steven Mnuchin profited millions off of the Bernie Madoff scheme, ran OneWest bank where he made money off the backs of suffering California homeowners, then sold the failing enterprise for a profit of 1.5 billion.  The alt-right even hates this guy.  His National Security Advisor is a fake news promoter and avowed Islamophobe.  His Labor Secretary choice is anti-labor.  HUD should have someone really smart in charge, but I’m not sure a brain surgeon is the way to go.   His Secretary of State is another wealthy elitist with close business ties to Vladimir Putin.  And how in the hell can you justify having an insurrectional racist like Steve Bannon as your right-hand man?

But even worse, Mr. Trump  showed  his true colors by attacking a private citizen with a relentless procession of cyber bullying.  Geezuz kreist you get kicked out of high school for doing that shit.  Chuck Jones, the unfortunate Carrier Company union boss who dared point out one of Mr. Trump’s lies, now has to put up with unwarranted social media harassment thanks to Trump’s bazaar habit of retaliatory tweeting.  It is a despicable reaction for someone with presidential authority.  I am sorry but Donald Trump is not only too thin skinned for the job, but there is something wrong with his head.

The members of the electoral college have a chance to save us. The odds of that happening are about the same as Frosty the Snow Man being elected president, but let’s face it Donald Trump started out with similar odds.  With that in mind one more unexpected development might be in order.  Come on man!  Vote your conscience and country, not your party.

Whether the electoral college comes to our rescue or not, it is clear we need to install popular vote for our presidential elections.  How do we assure nut jobs won’t get elected if we abandon the electoral college?  Simple.  Science.  Besides a complete physical, we make every presidential candidate take a full psychiatric exam including a thorough battery of psychological tests.  We should send them off for an EEG and do some poking around inside the old hat rack too. We need to know what in the heck we are getting for our money.   When I was in college I participated in a psychophysiological study involving an experimental drug  that one of my professors was developing.  And for the effort It also involved me getting a better grade in his pharmacy class that I wasn’t exactly acing.  Here is a picture of me during the lab  participation. It looks scary but believe it or not it’s a piece of cake.  For the record you should know those many electrodes discovered nothing out of place.   That was 1969.  I am sure by now modifications have been implemented that make the science a lot less cumbersome. I think you have to agree It’s a small inconvenience  to insure the competency of our leaders.

Please SHARE.  Who knows.  Maybe if some of our electors at least pay attention to  the highlighted parts of this or read similar blogs, it will jolt them to accept reality and we can show the world constitutional democracy makes sense after all.

NOTE:  if you disliked this blog, you will absolutely hate these: 28th Amendment  Make Mars Great Again  Second Coming  Our Closet Comedian

 

 

 

Nero 2.0

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”  Maya Angelou

I know three days after the election I said we should hang tough and hope for the best for our president-elect.  Less than two weeks later so many negative developments have occurred that at this point I have serious doubts that Mr. Trump’s administration will be anything close to principled.  His choice for Treasury Secretary is exactly the type of candidate Mr. Trump said he was going to purge from our governing payroll while he was campaigning.  Same goes for his Commerce Secretary,  As a matter of fact Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with such a vast array of Wall Streeters his administration is being labeled the richest in modern political history.  What we have is more alligators in the swamp.   His Secretary of Education is another elitist with no public school background who’s agenda is likely to provide the best education only to the wealthy.  Worst of all, having Steve Bannon roaming the White House at all, let alone in a capacity of counsel, is appalling.  So much for uniting the country.  Mr. Trump’s words of promise during his acceptance speech that he is going to be president for all Americans could not possibly ring any more hollow.

Mr. Trump knows full well the mountain of conflict of interest issues that surround him are jarring,  yet he has the gall to state that because he was elected he is entitled to do whatever he wants.  Recently he  made the comment that he is going to take care of his conflicting connections, but I personally don’t believe he will ever  totally divest himself from his business interests as the government ethics office has strongly suggested.  It’s the right thing to do, but ethics and Donald Trump do not often travel on the same path.

All of these transition affairs are starting to converge into a political shit storm.  Still there might be a dim ray of hope on the horizon.  Mr. Trump and Mike Pence should be praised for negotiating with Carrier and saving 800 jobs.  At least it shows big business is paying attention to Trump’s threats, and if threatening works, so be it. But look what happened here.  First of all, Carrier still intends to send 1,300 jobs to Mexico. Second of all, instead of following through on all the blusterous rhetoric of his campaign and punishing Carrier, he rewarded the company with tax incentives and subsidies.  Guess who gets to pay for the lost revenue?  The Indiana taxpayers.  What has thus been established is a very bad precedent.  Now any CEO worth his/her salt will threaten to leave the country in order to reap the type of benefits awarded to Carrier.  At this point this was a well publicized PR coup, but little else.  Just  a mile down the road from this particular Carrier plant is the ball bearing manufacturer Rexnord.  Manitowoc Foodservices is situated In southern Indiana.  They are both relocating in Mexico next year.  Neither business has been contacted by Trump or Pence.

What the Trump transition develops into in the way of his official administration is, of course, conjecture.  But these political appointments are telling, and Mr. Trump’s present lack of attention that has been on display these past few weeks is alarming.  According to his own staff he has declined to attend many intelligence briefings.  With less than two months remaining before he officially assumes the office you would think he would start taking the job seriously.  He does not seem to know what he doesn’t know, and shows little interest in learning anything, something that should be apparent to his closest advisors.  He is unfamiliar with diplomatic protocol and even lacks important historical knowledge of politically volatile parts of the world. Trump’s bizarre conversation Kellyanne!  Reince!  Where in the hell are you? Stay out of this Steve!! The guy needs help!  And what in the hell is with all the tweeting?  Now he is taking his “Thank you tour” when he should be boning up on current events.  He is in constant need of admiration and ego stroking.  He appears to watch television with every free moment and reacts to whatever he sees with a new tweet.  These are disturbing patterns of behavior.

img071                                           img072

NERO                                                             TRUMPO

Checklist of Trump campaign promises to date:  Drain the swamp- forget about it.  Punish  corporate outsourcing-  guess we’ll try the complete opposite.  Unite the country-  never really cared in the first place.

One small moment in time of this past, gut wrenching campaign process gnaws at me daily- the words “I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about all your damn e-mails.”  Had Bernie Sanders never uttered those words, there is a good possibility I would be blogging about the upcoming Sanders administration.  As it is, please keep in mind we elected a president, not a king.  The man is supposed to work for us, not line his own pockets by stretching conventional ethics and constitutional law.

 

 

 

 

Second Coming

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM ON HIGH:  our savior’s commination

HOLY SHIT!!!  What a fool I am.  Mr. Trump the Most Powerful One in the Universe, I am really, really sorry I did not vote for you. trump-nuclear-explosion Really.  I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.  How did I miss the signs?.  You live way up in the heavens and descended through the clouds on a gleaming silver escalator.  That orange halo around your head. Lots of people call what you have accomplished a miracle.  Count me in there.  I am hopeful you will find it in your heart to forgive me.  Unlike all those other people with their heads up their ass, I see where I went wrong and admit it.  I realize I will be outed anyway after the Russians tap into our voting records.  Nice to have those guys on your side.  Smart move.  But if you think about it, I kind of  deserve a break.  I know you didn’t win the popular vote, but the electoral count is what matters.  We all know that.  Boy did you get that straightened out.  Like you said, that thing is a rigged piece of shit.  So many things are rigged.  The whole system as a matter of fact.  The RNC, DNC, the FBI, the media, polls, debates, endorsements, and I’m not sure but possibly cats and trees.  You name it.  And you got it all fixed.  That’s what you can do when you are the Most Powerful One in the Universe.  I see that now.  So what I am thinking is just count my vote in the part that doesn’t matter- the popular vote.  Honestly, so much voting goes on I bet I voted for you at some point.  Sometimes I drink a little too much.

I hope you’ll go easy on this preacher that dared criticize you.  Boy what balls!  Whoever it is sounds a little old school, but you know it was your idea to send this woman to deliver your imperious decree, and sometimes that just grates on a man.  You know how that goes.  No one’s better at keeping a gal in her place than you.  Please don’t think I’m telling you what to do, but I believe Steve Bannon would have been a much more effective disciple to relay your wishes.  You sure did get your money’s worth with that fellow.  You’d be hard pressed to find another that could do a better job keeping all the inferiors feel subjugated.  People have learned the hard way that your order of things must not be trifled with.   Remember too, this cleric is all churchified, as many of us are, and there is that sticky business with the ten commandments we all get worked up about.  To be honest with you I am all for a new set of rules.  I’m on your team with that all right.  My neighbor has a pretty nice extension ladder I have been coveting for a very long time, not to mention his wife.  Hubba hubba!  She might not be what you would call a ten, but man what a set of knockers.  I know you would approve.  I’m not at all adverse to some convenient lying and cheating here and there either.  Thanks for all the great tips!

I am curious about something though.  With all the womanizing and grabbing this and that, do you ever worry that a big dose of the clap might grab onto you?  What is wrong with me.  You are the Most Powerful One in the Universe. You’re not just a smidgen powerful.  I bet you can rid yourself of  those nasty spirochetes and chancres with the wave of your tiny hand.  It’s the sort of thing Jesus used to do to help out all those lepers.  I just know there’s gotta be some more Jesus stuff in you.

What I am suspecting is those tricks might come in handy to take care of the pesky commitment you made to be the president for all Americans.  I have to admit your tax proposals and deft gathering of ex Goldman Sachs and Wall Street execs into your circle of financial advisors is just what the chosen few need to make their lives more pleasant.  You have to be proud of how you will be taking care of them.  And of course it goes without saying you should take care of yourself, the Most Powerful One in the Universe.  How your idea to create governmental  positions for family members and use political information to stuff your pockets would bother anyone is just plain ridiculous.   I can’t believe all the stink up over that.  It’s the absolute best way to remain the Most Powerful One in the Universe for Pete’s sake.  Geezuz it doesn’t take a genius to see that.

I was wondering how you plan to help out those of us who reside on the pavement below though.  People absolutely marvel at how you put all those undocumented workers to good use assembling your palace in the sky without hardly  paying them.  Of course!  It’s  the loaves and fishes deal isn’t it?  I’de throw in the water into wine thing but it kind of looks like anything  drinkable might be in short supply after you enact your environmental policies.  I know you have your eye on eliminating food stamps, so I bet your plan is to make things better all around with a universal but bare bones version of Meals on Wheels.  You might keep in mind that people will likely get tired of all the carp and bread though.

God and you know how all the pushing and shoving of this election have taken a toll.  I think it would help you immensely to get away from it all and relax.  Someplace really quiet and secluded.  I have a good friend who has a boat, and I bet he would be glad to drop you off somewhere nice.  How does the middle of Lake Superior sound?  The walk back to shore should be just what you need to reenergize.