Tax Bill=Dead

Donald Trump is never going to get a deal done on tax reform as long as he doesn't release his income tax returns. The voters don't want it. Check out this recent town hall put on by Tom Cotton, junior senator from Arkansas.

FBI used dossier allegations to bolster Trump-Russia investigation

The FBI used the infamous MI-6 dossier as justification for a whole host of investigations, including the most recent one into Carter Page, a senior Trump campaign official. Much as the president would like the Russian stuff to go away, it won't. There is simply too much evidence out there that demands an investigation.

It's incredibly obvious to the thinking world where this is headed. Let's hope this happens sooner rather than later.

Defining The Trump Voter

What are the best ways to characterize the Trump voter? It's certainly something that has been up for debate since the Donald won office last November. I think the best place to start is the man himself. He can easily be characterized by two words: childish tantrum.

This characterization can easily be extended to the people who voted for him but they are having their childish tantrums for different reasons. As I have stated previously, the right wing blogger/commenter crowd is always in childish tantrum mode because they can't stand the reality of liberals being right most of the time. All of their envy, insecurity and inferiority comes out in one fell swoop when they foam at the mouth about "smug liberal elites." They failed in life so they are taking it out on the rest of us.

Worse, they apparently think that the rules of being nice and being respectful only apply to liberals. They get to say whatever the fuck they want and no one is more perfect for this than Trump himself. For proof of this, watch what happens when a liberal calls a Trump voter ignorant or uninformed. It's the end of the frikkin' universe or something much like it. Yet, calling liberals "libtards" is just dandy!

A good chunk of Trump voters voted for him merely because they were having a childish tantrum about Hillary Clinton. I'm still trying to figure out what it is about her that makes grown men...particularly grown older men...descend into fits that are worse than a crying four year old at Wal Mart acting out to get his mom's attention. Is it just because she's a woman? A successful liberal who is intelligent? Both? Regardless, these are the voters that propelled him over the top.

And this group includes the mouth foamers on the left who voted for Jill Stein...

I think a majority of people who voted for Trump are merely folks who always pull the lever for the Republican candidate. They would never vote for any Democrat under any circumstances and merely went along. I liken these folks to the German citizens who just went along in the 1930s...

So, it's a mixed bag of angry malcontents, nihilists, and sheep that define the Trump voter. It's a really bad combination and one that is ripe for solidifying a dictatorship assuming their dear leader was competent enough. He's not at all. Given this fact, he's had to rely on more conventional folks like James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and HR McMaster. And the GOP Congress isn't competent either. For years, they bitched and bitched about the Affordable Care Act only to fall completely flat in their efforts to repeal it.

All of this makes me realize that there is another way beyond "childish tantrum" to characterize the Trump voter.

Spineless Ineffectives.

Is Trump's base turning on him?

That's the question posed by Politico recently. I can certainly see why they would. He's starting to govern in pretty much the same way Hillary Clinton would have governed. He's reversed himself on NATO, China, Russia, and more.

"Donald Trump dropped an emotional anchor. He captured how Americans feel," said Tania Vojvodic, a fervent Trump supporter who founded one of his first campaign volunteer networks. "We expect him to keep his word, and right now he's not keeping his word." 

Earlier this week, Vojvodic launched a Facebook group called, “The concerned support base of President Trump,” which quickly drew several dozen sign-ups. She also changed the banner on her Facebook page to a picture of Bannon accompanied by the declaration: “Mr. President: I stand with Steve Bannon.”

Hell hath no "fury" like the right wing blogger/commenter...hee hee hee...

As someone who recognizes the reality of the world and how to function in it, I applaud Donald Trump's reversal on all these positions. I'm also hoping that Bannon's days are numbered. It looks like they might be. Someone with such a fictitious view of the world bound by ideologically intransigence (aka right wing blogger/commenter) has no business implementing policy.

So, reality has hit Donald Trump smack in the forehead. Who would have guessed being the president would be so hard?

Under A Cloud

Rewriting History

While I fully support President Trump's recent attack on a Syrian airbase in response to the Assad government's chemical weapons attack on its own people, I find myself confused. Is this the same Donald Trump who said this just a few years ago?

AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Or all of this. 

Here's my personal favorite.

The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Ah, yes...the red line lie. That would be the one where our much missed and highly successful former president actually went to Congress to ask permission to attack Syria. The result?

Congress, especially the Republicans, told President Obama NO. Now, of course, all those same Republicans are loving themselves some Syrian air strikes. What a bunch of hypocritical assholes.

As usual, the Christian Science Monitor has the best coverage of this story.

“We should not invest the limited American military attack with any strategic connotations so far,” says Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics (LSE). “It’s an attack divorced from any strategic political vision. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration has any concrete ideas to find a political solution. I’m very skeptical.”

Yep.

Another Buh Bye!

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has stepped aside as chairman citing evil liberals as the cause. The actual cause was his own unethical and possibly illegal behavior in handling the investigation into ties between Russian intelligence. Worse, he appeared to be Trump Flunky #89, regurgitating information about the investigation from the White House itself.

Flynn, Bannon, Nunes...the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice...

Buh Bye

Guess who just got booted off of the National Security Council?

Steve Bannon.

As I have said a few times on here, the best way to deal with the right wing blogger mindset is to not give them the attention they so desperately need. If they see liberals freaking out, they pop boners and are all super happy that the smug liberal elite are getting payback. Just let shit work itself it out. Boy, it sure did with this situation.

As soon as Flynn was gone and McMaster took over, I knew things were going to be set right. I suspect he had little tolerance for right wing blogger buffoonery. That ideology simply has no place in the real world so it was buh bye to Bannon!

Tantrum!

So Right Wing Blogger/Commenter President 8 Year Old was supposed to sign another one of his imperial declarations (which actually mean nothing) but some person with a fat face asked him a poopy question so he stomped off down the hallway without doing nuthin!

Check it out!

The 38%

President Trump's approval rating continues to fall as he struggles to explain his connections to the Russian government, the Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs. He has likely settled down to his core base of around 38 percent of voters who will believe anything he says and NOTHING that anyone who is remotely against the president says.

Trump himself isn't really the problem. It's this 38%. We know from various studies over the last 15 years or so that the demographics that are the Trump voter aren't rational and allow emotion to drive their reasoning process. If Trump is impeached and driven from office on the basis of facts, this reality will be ignored and a new one will be formed in which liberals conspired with the elites and the media to destroy their savior. How on earth do we get these folks to recognize how warped this is?

Perhaps we can't. It may just be that we simply have to get more people to vote against this view. More importantly, we have go get more people to run against this view.

More women...more minorities...

The Enablers

Propaganda 101

Former FBI agent Clint Watts called out the president and his followers yesterday in front of the Senate Intelligence committee for actively using Russian measures to undermine the US political system. It's what most of us have known all along and it's shocking, disgusting, likely treasonous and just plain fucking stupid.

When you send someone to Washington DC to "drain the swamp," you are, in effect, doing the Russians' bidding. They want our system weakened so they can increase their influence in the world. It certainly helps when you have tens of millions of Americans who are so consumed by hatred of liberals that they will believe anything they read.

The blame for this lies directly at the feet of right wing bloggers and their mouth foaming band of commenters. Now that the direct connection has been made (as seen in the testimony below), it's time we stopped listening to these assholes and call them out on their ignorant and destructive behavior.

The Research behind the "Carnage"

Since the president took office, people have been wondering why so many voters have been acting against their best interest in supporting Trump's agenda. Thankfully, we now have the answer in the form of peer reviewed research.

Essentially, there has been a deep, mental illness that has been metastasizing in the white community for the last 20 years. As the authors note...

This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics;

The data they reveal is stunning. And it honestly explains why these folks gravitated towards Trump. They see a guy who is wealthy and lives in an ivory tower. That could be me, they think, and all of their problems would be solved. Never mind the fact that this is not how curing mental illness works and they would likely continue to have the same problems, they are all in!

Trump played into this malaise and continues to do so. Like the late night huckster promising riches (in this case, ideological ones), Trump is the cure for all that ails them. If the Democrats want to make serious gains next year in the midterms, this study should be the basis for their message. These people are hurting and they need help. Real help...as opposed to the vanity fueled nonsense that Trump is offering them.

Rethinking King

Perhaps the cognitive dissonance wall is starting to crack in northwest Iowa. Some folks in this dark red section of the country are starting to question their representative, Steve King. Why?

He heard dairy farmers say they couldn’t get their cows milked without immigrants. “You can put an ad in the paper and you won’t get two white guys to apply,” said Mr. Wielenga, who grew up on a dairy farm himself. He heard of the ruinous damage an immigration raid had done to families.

“Some of these kids were born in the U.S.,” he said. “These families had lived here 10 years, and all of a sudden, Dad’s gone, Mom’s gone. When you think of it from that perspective, what’s the lesser of two evils?”

Ah, yes, reality rears it's ugly head once again. Unlike Mr. King, he's constituents actually have compassion for the people that live in their town. I'd say it's time to find a young, energetic Democrat to run in that district!

Hooray for...China?

China Poised to Take Lead on Climate After Trump’s Move to Undo Policies

For someone who is supposed to be a successful businessman, why can't Donald Trump see the profit to made in renewable energy? More serious are the consequences of a China dominated renewable energy market. Consider what happens when people are desperate for alternative sources of energy to mitigate the effects of climate change in their region. They will turn away from US and be forced to buy from China.

Considering China's record on human rights, I'd say that's a large problem.

Waving Buh-Bye To the House Intel Investigation

Now that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has shown that he is compromised in terms of the investigation he is running regarding ties between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign, the House investigation is officially dead.

So, it's now the Senate's turn and my hope is that things will be taken a little more seriously in the upper chamber. Honestly, there is no more important story than this one. This is not a legitimate presidency until we find out what's going on in terms of all of these connections. I'm happy to see that both Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner will be testifying before this committee.

Learning the Hard Way

Over the years, I've interacted with many folks like Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart editor and current senior adviser to the president. The right wing blogger/commenter mentality has a few key characteristics that have been on display quite often during the young, Trump presidency.

They are absolutely convinced they are right about everything, issuing imperial edict after edict on how they would "fix" Washington. They view liberals as being autocratic dictators who constantly are telling them how to live their lives. They are xenophobic, nationalistic to a fault, resistant to any sort of new information and truly believe that bullying folks will win them the day.

Last week's health care debacle showed just how ineffective all of these qualities are and it was summed up quite nicely by John Podhertz.

"I'm Steve Bannon. i've been in politics since August 2016. You will bow before me, elected Republican officials! I ran a website!"

• RETWEETS4,431
• LIKES14,967
• 

2:18 PM - 25 Mar 2017 from Manhattan, NY

If you peal back each one of these traits that the right wing blogger/commenter has, you see insecurity, projection, and poor people skills. More importantly, you see an arrogant belief that they can beat Washington DC and their ongoing enemies, the press.

They can't.

And they never will.

Sure, they have their candidate in Trump, that was ironically elected by a coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans, but he's simply not all powerful. That's a lesson the Democrats should learn from all of this. They have an opening now to work with the president and pass bipartisan legislation. They could get all sorts of things passed that the right wing blogger/commmenter would hate but most Americans would love. Things like actually fixing the issues with the ACA, tax reform, and expanded background checks for all gun purchases.

Of course, none of this may happen because I don't think the president is going to be in office for his full term. He might not even last the year given the ongoing investigations into his campaign and the Russian government. I'm still baffled that his supporters are ignoring all of this and calling it a witch hunt. But that's cognitive dissonance for ya!

I'm President and You're Not!

Pretty much sums up the attitude of every right wing blogger and commenter as well... 

And yes, Trump did actually say this...

The Con Man

The best part of the video above is the comparison between Trump and infomercial hucksters...

Let's (Not) Make A Deal

Donald Trump has always been a con man. The fact that people bought into his act shows how fucking stupid people are. That's right, STUPID!.

Now, I'm sure this will offend all those uber sensitive white rural voters whose precious little egos need coddling every single fucking day but I don't care. They elected a guy who talks like this all the time so they better be able to take what they dish out without whining about "smug, liberal elites" who look down on them. How is it my fault that they are ignorant?

Take health care, for example. Trump promised them the moon and assured all those Republicans who hate Obamacare with all the heart and soul that he would give them something better. He would "art of the deal" that mammajamma and deliver. Well, guess what?

He fucking failed.

The so called "repeal and replace" American Health Care Act couldn't get enough votes in the House because of GOP infighting. The actual reason is that children can't govern. When you put people in charge that are not adults, they can't accomplish anything. All they know is how to be against something.

The GOP in Congress and their soon to be impeached leader got a big does of reality today. Health care is all tough and stuff. And maybe the adult who was in office from 2009-2017 knew what the fuck he was doing after all.

Somewhere, Barack Obama is laughing his ass off.

I am too, actually. This is what right wing bloggers governing looks like.