Leading From Way Behind

Putin Admits Russians Hacked US Election

It looks like the investigation into Russian hacking of the US election is starting to uncover solid evidence. Vladimir Putin has basically admitted the hacking:

Shifting from his previous blanket denials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia suggested on Thursday that “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year that meddled in the United States presidential election.

Putin ultimately said similar things about patriotic Russians fighting in Crimea, after denying that there were any Russian troops there. But Russian troops were constantly fighting in Crimea, indiscriminately killing civilians -- including those from the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Great Britain:

A Dutch-led investigation has concluded that the powerful surface-to-air missile system used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine two years ago, killing all 298 on board, was trucked in from Russia at the request of Russian-backed separatists and returned to Russia the same night.

And how does Trump respond to Putin's admission of hacking? The Donald is going to let the Russians reopen their den of spies:

The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

President Barack Obama said Dec. 29 that the compounds were being “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes” and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian “intelligence operatives.”

This is particularly disturbing in light of this news:

In the throes of the 2016 campaign, the FBI found itself with an escalating problem: Russian diplomats, whose travel was supposed to be tracked by the State Department, were going missing. The diplomats, widely assumed to be intelligence operatives, would eventually turn up in odd places, often in middle-of-nowhere USA.

One was found on a beach, nowhere near where he was supposed to be. In one particularly bizarre case, relayed by a U.S. intelligence official, another turned up wandering around in the middle of the desert. Interestingly, both seemed to be lingering where underground fiber-optic cables tend to run.

Yes, it appears that the Russians are not satisfied with sabotaging our elections via the Internet, they appear to be planning to sabotage our Internet hardware infrastructure as well.

Trump keeps claiming that he's not colluding with the Russians. But every time Vladimir Putin says "bend over" Trump asks "how far?"

Whining Wonder Woman Wankers

After a couple of theaters announced they were going to have women-only screenings the new Wonder Woman film, a flock of insecure little bitches had to whine about it. 

One childish wanker apparently wrote a letter to the mayor of Austin threatening to boycott the city if they didn't host a men-only event:

"I hope every man will boycott Austin and do what he can to diminish Austin and to cause damage to the city's image. The theater that pandered to the sexism typical of women will, I hope, regret it's decision. The notion of a woman hero is a fine example of women's eagerness to accept the appearance of achievement without actual achievement. Women learn from an early age to value make-up, that it's OK to pretend that you are greater than you actually are. Women pretend they do not know that only men serve in combat because they are content to have an easier ride. Women gladly accept gold medals at the Olympics for coming in 10th and competing only against the second class of athletes. Name something invented by a woman! Achievements by the second rate gender pale in comparison to virtually everything great in human history was accomplished by men, not women. If Austin does not host a men only counter event, I will never visit Austin and will welcome it's deterioration. And I will not forget that Austin is best known for Charles Whitman. Does Austin stand for gender equality or for kissing up to women? Don't bother to respond. I already know the answer. I do not hate women. I hate their rampant hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of the 'women's movement.' Women do not want gender equality; they want more for women. Don't bother to respond because I am sure your cowardice will generate nothing worth reading.

"Richard A. Ameduri"

The mayor gamely responded by alerting the writer to the fact that his email had been hacked. And then he proceeded to list several things that women did invent, including a system for torpedo control that actress Hedy Lamarr patented in 1941, which just happened to become the basis of spread-spectrum communications systems like wi-fi and cell-phone service.  But that's not important.

The mayor didn't mention Marie Curie, but she won the Nobel Prize in physics for her work on radiation in 1903 and then went on to win another Nobel in chemistry in 1911, after the death of her husband, becoming the first person of any gender to win Nobels in two different disciplines. And those "10th place" women Olympic martial artists would wipe the floor with Mr. Ameduri.

Speaking of the martial arts, Gal Gadot, the star of Wonder Woman, was a combat trainer in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), where she served for two years. Why? Because Israel requires women to serve two years in the military -- though, yes, Israeli women get an easy ride: the men have to serve for three years. Except for ultra-Orthodox conservative Haredi men, who don't have to serve in the military, or even work at all. But their wives do.

In any case, a private theater chain is hosting this special one-shot screening. All the other showings of the film will be to mixed gender audiences. The mayor can't demand the theater schedule a men-only screening any more than the mayor of Houston can demand that the Astros hire a female pitcher.

On average men make 25% more than women doing the same job. Men constitute 95% of all Fortune 500 CEOs. Men like Donald Trump think they can just do whatever the hell they want with women's bodies. 47% of the workforce is women, yet women still do the vast majority of housework, cooking and child care. Men are not the oppressed victims of estrogen-stoked rapine and plunder.

But back to the movie. The guys whining about it are oblivious: the film is about an island full of Amazons. That means that it only has women on it. The whole conceit of the movie is that there's a place where there are only women, with no petty little wankers constantly spewing misogynistic hatred about how mean women are to them.

Screening this film to a female audience is a tip of the hat to its basic conceit.

If these guys want to go see a movie with just men, they can go to any theater showing gay porn.

Oh, wait. That would mean...

Joining Syria and Nicaragua

President Trump officially announced today that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords. This agreement was signed on to by every other country in the world except Syria and Nicaragua. What great company to be in! Actually, considering who we have as president and how he is trying real hard to turn this country into a banana republic, I guess we fit right in.

Trump is a total fucking moron. Whether you "believe" in climate change or not, by pulling out of this agreement, we are essentially handing the keys to the renewable energy market over to the Chinese. We are saying to the world that we don't want to get into the business of renewable energy because our leader and his followers want to win a blog argument about global warming (hint: they already lost.)

We had 8 years of a great president moving us forward in the world. Now, we have a reality show buffoon whose only conviction is vanity moving us backwards. Worse, his followers are likely cheering this right now in one giant mouth foam at how they are sticking it to those smug liberal elites who think they know so much. Again, why is our country having to pay for their personal problems in life?

If we truly want US values in the world, we can't allow countries like China to lead on anything. This withdrawal means they get to run the table on us in countries that will be hit the hardest on climate change. China, not us, will be allowed to instill their values on these countries.

What a fucking disaster.

The US has a Trade Deficit Because We're Rich -- At Least Some of Us

Donald Trump has a serious Twitter problem. No, I'm not talking about "covfefe". (Trump seriously needs to get more sleep.)

I'm talking about him using Twitter to sabotage our relationship with our NATO allies.

“We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military,” an angry Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday morning. “Very bad for U.S. This will change.”

Has Vladimir Putin stolen Trump's Twitter password, or is Trump just following the orders Sergei Kislyak gave him when the Russian ambassador visited the White House?

No, it's not that: Trump is just being dense again. As has been pointed out in numerous places, German companies build a lot of their cars in the United States:

German companies employ roughly 700,000 people in the United States. Carmakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have huge American assembly plants, which export vehicles to China and Latin America. BMW’s factory in Spartanburg, S.C., is the largest single exporter, by dollar value, in the American automotive industry. 

Yeah, the trade deficit can be a problem. But the real reason that we have a trade deficit with most (though not all) of the rest of the world is that the United States is the richest and most successful country in the world.

Being the richest country in the world means we have the most disposable wealth. In 2015 the average American salary was higher than every other country in the world except Luxembourg, which also has a trade deficit.

Luxembourg's banking sector is a huge part of its economy, just as finance is in the United States and Switzerland, which has the third highest average salary. Banks don't build a lot of cars.

Since we're so rich, other countries step up to sell us things. We don't have to buy those things, but a lot of rich Americans like to buy expensive things from foreign countries. Things like Italian marble:

Trump himself, after riding down an escalator through the tower’s six-story atrium, announced his candidacy from the sky-lit basement level, perched on a temporary platform rigged over the basin of a sixty-foot waterfall that—along with twenty-four hundred tons of rose-colored Italian Breccia Pernice marble—is the atrium’s signature feature.

Donald Trump bought 2400 tons of rock from Italy. Wasn't American rock good enough for Trump?

Trump bitches about German manufacturers who have invested billions of dollars in the United States to build factories in states like South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama. Japanese car manufacturers have plants in Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Indiana. Korean companies have factories in Georgia and Alabama.

Not only does Donald Trump import Italian marble, Trump and his offspring import foreign workers using the H-2A program. Two months ago this happened:

Trump Vineyard Estates, owned by Eric Trump, is seeking permission to hire 29 foreign workers through the federal H-2A visa program to cultivate grapes at its Virginia winery, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The immigration program lets agricultural employees temporarily hire foreign workers to do the jobs Americans don't want or can't do.

This is an ongoing thing:

This isn't the first time a Trump business has looked to hire outside the U.S. Trump's older daughter and close adviser, Ivanka Trump, has also shown a preference for foreign workers. Her jewelry line applied for five guest worker visas to hire foreigners from 2008 and 2013 at salaries from $41,370 to $45,000, a Huffington Post investigation found last year.

And while Trump promised on the campaign trail to create new jobs for American workers and vowed to come down hard on trade deals that benefit foreign labor markets, companies owned by the New York business mogul requested 1,100 foreign worker visas between 2000 and the time he entered the presidential race in 2015, according to a Reuters analysis of Department of Labor data. Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, sought the most foreign workers, with applications for 787 workers such as maids, cooks and servers since 2006 under a H-2B visa program that tends to benefit Mexicans.

"You cannot get help during the season. The season goes from like October to March. It's almost impossible to get help," Trump explained at one point during his campaign. "And part of the reason you can't get American people is they want full time jobs."

Maybe Trump could find Americans who would work part time if he would pay them enough money, instead of hiring Mexicans and Romanians.

The United States used to be the biggest exporter in the world. Our workers got great salaries. But then the rest of the world started to catch up to us. American CEOs started building factories in countries with lower wages.

People like Donald Trump shipped manufacturing off to China:

[V]isitors to the Trump Store in the lobby of the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City, or to the displays of Trump clothing at Macy's in New York's Herald Square, would be hard-pressed to find much labeled "Made in the U.S.A."

At the same time Trump was speaking in New Hampshire, his Trump Store was contributing to the growth of Chinese manufacturing, arguably at the expense of American workers, selling $80 Trump-branded cotton sweaters and $70 Trump-branded warm-up tops, all made in China. Also available with the made in China tag: golf hats stamped with the Trump crest and stuffed animals.

Trump claims he had to do this because China was manipulating their currency. Nonsense. Trump can't find an American supplier for an $80 cotton sweater? That's 10 cents worth of raw materials and a dollar worth of labor, even in America -- sweaters are made on automated looms these days. The only reason that $20 sweater cost $80 was because it said Trump on it.

Like all the other corporate shills, Trump just wants more profit for himself. He could have put more money in the pockets of working Americans, but he wanted more. So he sold America out.

Trump Literally Unfit to Be President

At the G7 conference in Italy Donald Trump proved he was physically unfit to be president:

President Trump chose to ride in a golf cart while his foreign counterparts took a walk through Taormina, Sicily, on Saturday during the Group of Seven summit.

The Times of London reported the six other world leaders — from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — walked 700 yards to take a group photo at a piazza in a hilltop town. The U.S. leader decided to wait until he could get a golf cart.

Trump is so fat and lazy that he cannot walk 700 yards up a hill. He is the most infirm president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had polio. What's Donald "Two Scoops" Trump's excuse? Gluttony?

Barack Obama played basketball while president. George W. Bush used to run but switched to mountain biking when his knees gave out. Donald Trump plays golf, but has to use a golf cart between holes.

Being 70 years old is no excuse. I know 60-, 70- and 80-year-old women who rode bicycles 332 miles in six days from St. Paul, MN, to the Canadian border, going 60 and 70 miles some days, through cold and driving rain. Trump would be dead like a beached whale on the side of the road after one day.

Trump used to play sports in high school but gave up physical activity because he holds this idiotic idea that exercise uses up the body's "finite" energy. He might have more stamina if he actually got enough sleep every night, instead of deluding himself that he only needs four hours. And what's he doing when he should be sleeping? Watching TV. And tapping out Twitter rants that make him look like a moron.

Research has shown over and over that physical activity -- even modest exercise such as walking -- increases mental acuity and improves memory. It's no wonder that the weakest and laziest president in decades is also the dumbest and least coherent. Trump makes W. look like a genius.

Republicans are celebrating the victory of a man who bodyslammed a reporter for asking a health care question. This happened right in front of Fox News reporters. Yet Greg Gianforte, the congressman-elect from Montana, was elected anyway, even though he was charged with assault.

Republicans used to pretend to be the party of moral values: truth, faithfulness, chastity, honor. But in a heartbeat they threw all that away and elected a lying, cheating, womanizing sexual predator and admitted fraud. Yes, fraud: settling the Trump University lawsuit for $25 million was an explicit admission of fraud, no matter how much Trump whines it ain't so.

This is how low Republicans have sunk. Their president ripped off thousands of people who were trying to make a better life for themselves. Their politicians beat up reporters. They sucker-punch protesters at rallies. Their politicians brag about how rough and tough they are, how violent they'll be, how much they'll kill and torture their enemies. How they can grab women's vaginas.

Republicans are constantly railing against political correctness and demand they have the right to call it like it is. Okay, then: this is how it is.

Donald Trump is a weak, old, pansy-assed, fat slug who can't even walk a third of a mile up a hill because he's afraid he'll stroke out or keel over from a heart attack. How in hell is he going to survive four years of the most stressful job on the planet?

Trump likes to brag about grabbing pussy, but he is a pussy.

Honoring the Fallen

Today, our nation honors those who have fallen in our country's history. It's especially important to be there for our veterans, many of whom have lost fellow sisters and brothers over the years. Make some time today to support them.

And remember...

Autocracy!

Refugees Welcome Back!

Flying very low under the radar, news came this week that the US State Department, overseen by Donald Trump, is now doubling the amount of refugees allowed in the country. It looks like we will be back up to the Obama-era levels of 1500 refugees allowed in a week.

I'm wondering how this sits with Trump's supporters...

Pez Fed

The New Russian Dupe, Clueless Person

I've now had more than a few emails regarding Kevin Baker's latest "uberpost" (see also: cut and paste job passed off as evidence of high intellect) entitled "The New Soviet Genderless Person." I still check in on Kevin from time to time to make sure he's still just blowing hot air and not actively fomenting domestic terrorism. It was nice to see that he still has me featured prominently on the sidebar of his web site. Years later, the obsession still continues from him and his followers.

It's actually serendipitous that some of my readers wanted me to comment on this latest piece. I was thinking about Kevin and other gun bloggers in general as I have realized something recently that was profoundly ironic. Consider that this is a group of people who WON'T REGISTER and WON'T TURN OVER THEIR GUNS. EVER!!!!  They bemoan government intrusion in their lovemaking to their guns and are terribly afraid of those smug, liberal elites getting a hold of too much information on them. And yet...

THEY PUT EVERYTHING ABOUT THEMSELVES AND THEIR GUNS ON THE FUCKING INTERNET!!!

Seriously, if I was working for the federal government, ATF division, why would I even need surveillance? I'd merely check out Kevin's blog to find out what kind of weapons he owned, where he lived, who he associated with and when he would be at the range. In fact, why do we even need registration when these guys are easily traceable and tracked? What a bunch of fucking morons...

It's this same stupidity that also leads to the massively ignorant mentality seen in this latest post on how evil liberals are going to turn us all into commies. All of the people that emailed me wondered...does Kevin not see the irony of this belief considering the deep connections between Trump and the current Russian regime? The answer is no, no he does not.

Like many on the right, Kevin believes that the entire Russian-Trump story is liberal propaganda. Never mind the fact that ALL of our intelligence agencies has confirmed Russian meddling in the last election. Never mind the fact that his meddling took the form of propaganda disseminated via the news sources that Kevin reads on a daily basis. Never mind the fact that President Trump fired James Comey and then MET WITH THE RUSSIANS IN THE OVAL OFFICE, BARRED US MEDIA FROM ENTERING, AND THEN LEAKED CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO THEM.

And it's the liberals that are leading us down a Soviet path...

Wow...just wow...

I've come to the conclusion that folks like Kevin hate the fact that liberals are smarter and more accomplished than them so much that they are blinded to reality. Vladamir Putin and Russian intelligence knows this very, very well. Kevin tells them.

Rush Limbaugh was vilified for stating, after Obama won the Presidency the first time, "I hope he fails." Right now we're watching the Ruling Class and its enablers in the media do absolutely everything they can to pull off a coup d'état because the man who won the White House this go-around isn't one of them. He's not one of the New Genderless Persons who mean to Do Good, who Care About You, who just want to help.

Isn't one of them? Are you FUCKING kidding me? First of all, Donald Trump is a card carrying member of the Hollywood Elite. He had a show on NBC called "The Celebrity Apprentice." Like Rush Limbaugh, he is a rock solid member of the media who uses it to manipulate people like Kevin. In fact, I'd put quite a bit of money on the idea that he's merely playing a role.

Consider that he was a Democrat up until 2011 when he jumped on the birther bandwagon. I think he saw rubes like Kevin out there and recognized a grand opportunity.  He's tapped into the anger, hate and fear that was already out there and is now playing the role of their dear leader. Like fascist leaders of the past, Trump has made it OK for people like Greg Gianforte to beat up reporters. Supporters of Gianforte think that the reporter had it coming to him. Why? He asked a question that Gianforte didn't like. This is what an authoritarian regime looks like. Trump and his followers have made this possible.

So, when Kevin talks about enablers, brainwashing, and propaganda that ends in authoritarian control he should look no further than the mirror. He is the one who is willingly being played like a fiddle by people who want to take away the very freedom he claims to cherish. He is being led down the garden path by folks who are taking advantage of his completely irrational hatred of liberals in order to cement their power. Another great irony here is that it's these very liberals...people like me...who are going to save Kevin and other Trumpsters from what they are unwittingly creating. Let me be one of the first to say this.

You're welcome.

Trump's Worst Enemy: His Own Big Fat Mouth

Today Donald Trump suffered another humiliating loss on his Muslim ban:

A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reinstate President Trump’s revised travel ban, saying it “drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”

The decision, from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., was a fresh setback for the administration’s efforts to limit travel from several predominantly Muslim countries.

Why? Because calling it a "Muslim ban" was de facto religious discrimination, something Trump blared over and over on the campaign trail:

Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory said Mr. Trump’s statements on the campaign trail concerning Muslims showed that the revised order was the product of religious hostility. Such discrimination, he wrote, violates the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

“Then-candidate Trump’s campaign statements reveal that on numerous occasions, he expressed anti-Muslim sentiment, as well as his intent, if elected, to ban Muslims from the United States,” Judge Gregory wrote. He cited, as an example, a 2015 statement calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our representatives can figure out what is going on.”

Trump's voters claimed to love him because he spoke the truth. But the truth is, they loved him because he said racist, bigoted things that they say all the time. Smarter politicians avoid this kind of speech because it causes so many problems down the line.

If Trump has just decried Islamist extremism and vowed to keep America safe, like most politicians do, he could have slipped his Muslim ban past the courts. But he's an idiot, and doesn't understand how the law works.

His Muslim ban might ultimately win in the Supreme Court. But that's only because Republicans stole a Supreme Court appointment from Barack Obama by refusing to consider Merrick Garland's nomination after Antonin Scalia died a year before the election.

Almost every problem Trump is facing today is due to his big fat mouth.

He just couldn't shut up about the FBI's investigation into Russia's meddling in the election: he told James Comey to drop it and the FBI director refused.

The president demanded multiple times that Comey pledge his personal allegiance to Trump, something Comey could not do without violating his oath of office to defend the United States of American from enemies foreign and domestic. Despite what Trump might think, the president is not the same as the country.

Trump couldn't shut up about James Comey's firing, bragging to Lester Holt  on national TV that he fired Comey because Comey wouldn't drop the Russia investigation.

Trump couldn't shut up about the fabulous intelligence the NSA and the CIA gives him: he had to brag about it to the Russian ambassador and burn an intelligence source of a close ally.

Trump still couldn't shut up about his own leak, confirming later that the intelligence source was in fact Israel by blabbing that he never said it was Israel, when he was visiting Israel. The Israeli defense minister subsequently confirmed that Trump had blown their source.

While talking to the murderous Philippine dictator Trump again leaked sensitive information by bragging that there are two nuclear subs off the coast of North Korea, according to a Philippine transcript of the call.

Trump just cannot shut up. He cannot be trusted with sensitive information. He is clearly not fit to be president. All you need to do it butter him up, give him an opening to brag about himself and he'll divulge pretty much anything.

It really makes you wonder about all those leaks coming out of the White House. Are there really that many dissatisfied aides sabotaging Trump, or is he the actual source of all these leaks? After all, the leaker-in-chief used to pose as "John Miller" or "John Barron" and release juicy gossip about himself. He never seemed to care how bad he looked in public, just as long as people were talking about him.

Historically, Trump has taken to heart P.T. Barnum's adage that "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

But Trump is supposed to running a country. Not a circus.

Curiouser and Curiouser

The New York Times reports that Russian spies planned to use Trump campaign advisors to influence Donald Trump:

American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.

The conversations focused on Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman at the time, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired general who was advising Mr. Trump, the officials said. Both men had indirect ties to Russian officials, who appeared confident that each could be used to help shape Mr. Trump’s opinions on Russia.

Some Russians boasted about how well they knew Mr. Flynn. Others discussed leveraging their ties to Viktor F. Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine living in exile in Russia, who at one time had worked closely with Mr. Manafort.

Manafort has been gone a long time, but Donald Trump -- incredibly -- still thought he could get Michael Flynn back after he fired James Comey, thinking he could quash the FBI's investigation into Russian interference with the presidential election. 

And then there's this photo of Michael Flynn with Vladimir Putin -- and another very surprising person: Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who siphoned thousands of votes away from Clinton in the three states where Trump barely beat Clinton:

After the election Stein pushed for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where she may have garnered enough votes to deny Clinton the presidency. Was Stein feeling guilty for getting Trump elected?

This looks extremely bad: the implication is that Russia was going after Clinton from the right with Flynn/Trump, and from the left with Jill Stein.

I certainly hope Stein wasn't colluding with the Russians, but it looks like we can add her to the list of useful idiots in the last election.

History of the World (I Guess)

Trump: Clueless Negotiator

Another day, another story of how oblivious Donald Trump is. This time he was bragging to the Russians about firing James Comey:

President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.”

Trump sounds like an underling bragging to his boss about what a bang-up job he's doing. Not a great look for someone who's trying to not seem like a Russian puppet.

Trump told the Russians this the day after he fired Comey (as well as leaking Top Secret code-word intelligence from Israel). Meanwhile, the Internet and all news media were exploding with the story of the firing, making it clear to anyone who was breathing -- and the Russians in particular -- that no pressure whatsoever had been relieved by Comey's firing, and the move had totally backfired.

Has Trump ever sounded more clueless?

One of Trump's guys still tried to spin this blunder into gold:

A [...] government official briefed on the meeting defended the president, saying that Mr. Trump, whose discursive speaking style has hindered him in office, was using a negotiating tactic when he told Mr. Lavrov about the “pressure” he was under. The idea, the official suggested, was to create a sense of obligation with Russian officials and to coax concessions out of Mr. Lavrov — on Syria, Ukraine and other issues — by saying that Russian meddling in last year’s election had created enormous political problems for Mr. Trump. 

How naive are these people? Trump just made himself look like a fool by saying that firing Comey took the pressure off him, when the exact opposite was true. Trump looks even weaker and more foolish as his presidency is spinning faster and faster out of control.

Then told Lavrov he wasn't under investigation. A week later a special counsel was appointed, the former FBI director who brooks no nonsense. And now an advisor very close to Trump is suspected of directly colluding with the Russians. It sounds like it's Kushner, Sessions or Tillerson (my money's on Kushner, who has a history of playing pattycake with Russians and has been very cozy with Kislyak and Russian bankers).

Trump made himself look weak, stupid, oblivious and foolish right in front of the Russians. Does he think they'll take pity on him and give him something concrete because his administration is collapsing?

It's more likely that they'll put even more pressure on the weakened Trump, extracting hard-core concessions from the United States on NATO expansion, Ukraine and Syria and giving Trump purely cosmetic wins.

Because Trump is so weak and desperate to make it look like he's winning, the Russians have a huge negotiating advantage. Trump does not get it: any kind of deal that he makes with Russia will always be suspect because he's under investigation for colluding with Russia. Trump has been forever tarnished by acting as Putin's lapdog.

Most likely we'll see another gimmick like the bombing in Syria: after Syrian dictator and Russian puppet Bashar al-Assad used nerve gas on civilians, Trump had a Syrian airport bombed. But Trump warned the Russians before the bombing! Mere hours later Syrian warplanes were targeting civilians again.

Trump's "decisive" action against Syria was just for show and didn't hurt the regime at all.

Russia will want to draw out Trump's drama as long as possible to press their advantage, while pulling more dirty tricks in German election, creating confusion everywhere in the western alliance.

With this kind of negotiating "skill" it's no wonder that Trump drove four of his businesses into bankruptcy.

The longer Trump is in office, the longer the chaos will continue, and the more power Russia will accrue. The war in Syria will drag on. Russia will target anti-Assad forces and leave ISIS terrorists alone. More people will die in Syria and the mass exodus into the rest of the Middle East and Europe will continue. ISIS will infiltrate more terrorists into Europe and the United States.

Because that's been Russia's goal all along.

Laughably Wrong

Nikto has been doing a great job covering all the Trump stuff this week so I thought I would focus on something else: education. Being that this is my area of expertise, I had a pretty strong reaction to this recent story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune regarding the loosening of regulation in obtaining a teacher's license. Here's the part that cracked me up the most.

"If this bill passes, there will be a teacher shortage," Cwodzinski said. He predicted that community experts would be unprepared for the multifaceted demands of the job: "When ... they find out that we have papers to grade 'til midnight and curriculum meetings that go 'til five on Fridays and classroom management issues, and safety and discipline ... and Lord help them when they're told you can't go potty until the bell rings," he said.

Let's take this crap one piece at a time. Only English teachers grade papers until midnight. If any other teacher is doing so, it's because they assigned them. Most instructors give multiple choice assessments or assign other forms of work. Curriculum meetings are never on Fridays and invariably are professional days off or are on staff development days. If an instructor has classroom management issues, they should adjust how they deal with the issue. There are a myriad of methods (ENVOY, PBIS) that are effective with any sort of student. This would include discipline. I'm not sure what he means by "safety" but there are only a few drills a year, usually done in the fall and spring, that don't take up much time. Finally, teachers go to the bathroom all the time during class. Tenured teachers leave their rooms unattended all the time. I'm not a big fan of it but if you have to go, you go. Further, you can always get a paraprofessional to come to your home if it's an emergency. So, all of his protestations are nonsense and he is laughably wrong.

As to the larger issue of easing the path to being a teacher, I think it's going to have to happen. We have a teacher shortage in this state, in particular with math, science, and special ed. Who will fill these roles once even more baby boomers retire? Besides, administrators aren't going to hire someone who is underqualified. There doesn't need to be a state law saying who is or isn't qualified. A principal will simply not hire someone who doesn't have the degree they desire.

I had to jump through a lot of unnecessary hoops to get my license. People are turned off by this and that's why there is a teacher shortage. The real issue is tenure. It needs to change. Yesterday. Seniority should be taken into account but only in terms of not allowing districts to cut people simply because they make too much money. Unions need to get tougher on teachers who are just phoning it in and teachers evaluations should be done by outside, private entities.

Administrators should be given greater leeway to hire and fire based on performance. If that happens, the quality of both teaching and candidates coming into teaching will improve.

Did Michael Flynn Betray the United States for a Turkish Dictator?

The news about former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn keeps getting worse. Most attention has been paid to Flynn's connections to Russia, but Flynn relationship with Turkey is far more troubling.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, while Flynn was working for Trump, Flynn received $600,000 from Turkey to work as a foreign agent, pushing Turkey's agenda in the United States.

On election day, Flynn wrote an editorial saying that the United States should hand over a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania that Turkey portrays as a radical. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says the cleric was complicit in last year's failed coup attempt.

Turkey has a long history of military coups that rein in political leaders who betray the vision of Turkey as a modern secular state that its founder, Kemal Atatürk, had for his country. Erdoğan is quickly turning Turkey into an Islamic dictatorship in the Iranian mold.

After the coup attempt, Turkey purged thousands upon thousands of government officials, teachers, police, governors, university deans, and arrested thousands of soldiers, judges and generals.

Turkey just held a constitutional referendum that gives President Erdoğan dictatorial powers. It barely passed, 51-49%.

When Trump hired Flynn after the inauguration, Trump knew that Flynn had committed a crime by not registering as a Turkish foreign agent. Trump didn't fire Flynn for almost three weeks after Sally Yates told his administration that Flynn was dirty with Russian money. During that time Trump let VP Mike Pence and other mouthpieces continue to lie about Flynn. Now Pence says he didn't know Flynn was a foreign agent for Turkey.

Recently the Trump administration decided to arm Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS, despite objections from Turkey. However, Flynn rejected this idea when the Obama administration proposed doing it before Trump took office, to help avoid Trump taking the heat for the decision.

But now that Flynn's out, we're helping the Kurds. Flynn set back the American fight against ISIS. Did Flynn betray American interests for a Turkish dictator?

Turkey doesn't want the Kurds to have weapons or any kind of relationship with the United States because they have a native Kurdish minority that the Turks have been oppressing since forever. Some Kurds in the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) have committed terrorist acts in Turkey, so not all Kurds are angels. But they're not all terrorists, either.

The Kurds in Iraq have been pretty much the only reliable ally the United States has had in the Middle East since George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. And Turkey bombed our Kurdish allies just last month.

The daughter of an acquaintance of mine taught English in Turkey for several years. It used to be a normal, modern, democratic, religiously-tolerant country, but since Erdoğan took power it has become backward, Islamist and anti-Western. She and her husband moved to Spain recently because of increasing anti-Western rhetoric spewing out of the dictator's mouth:

“Turkey is not a country that can be pushed and shoved, whose honour can be toyed with, whose ministers can be ousted, whose citizens can be dragged on the ground,” Erdogan said in a speech to Turkish media representatives in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

“These developments are being watched in all corners of the world,” he said. “If you continue this way, tomorrow no European, no Westerner anywhere in the world will be able to step onto the streets safely, with peace of mind.”

This is the same dictator that Trump congratulated after his dictatorial referendum win.

This is the same dictator that Trump met with in the White House the other day.

This is the same dictator that ordered his thugs to beat up people on American soil.

This is the same dictator that Flynn took more than half a million dollars from, violating his oath and breaking the law. This isn't just a liberal allegation: Flynn has admitted committing these crimes by retroactively registering as a foreign agent.

Despite all this, Donald Trump apparently still wants Flynn to come back and work for him. Trump still doesn't think Flynn did anything wrong.

Is Trump really that stupid? Is he really that morally compromised, oblivious, unethical and ignorant of the law?

Or is Trump intentionally leaking these positive vibes so that Flynn still likes him? Is Trump trying to keep on Flynn's good side so that when Flynn is ultimately charged for his crimes, he won't rat out Trump for a deal?

You know it can't be out of loyalty. Trump will throw anyone under the bus to save his own skin.

You'd think that with all the trouble that Flynn has caused Trump he'd blast Flynn on Twitter endlessly. But, just like the Russians who have made Trump look like their bitch, the president has nothing bad to say about Flynn.

Why is that?

Twenty Five, Part Two

Ever since Donald Trump was elected, almost six months ago, reliably conservative commentators have been bailing on him. The same people who defended any and every idiotic thing George Bush did have been bemoaning the fact that Republicans have put a child in charge of the world's most powerful military and its nuclear weapons.

It's only gotten worse since Trump fired James Comey. Russ Douthat, the New York Times' apologist for every absurd Republican brain fart, has called for Trump's cabinet to remove him using the Twenty Fifth Amendment. I made that same call last November.

Now even some Republican lawmakers are saying that Trump should be impeached if it's true that Trump told Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn, Trump's national security advisor, for his connections to the Russians.

What has changed since November? Absolutely nothing. Trump is behaving exactly the same way he always has. He's a lying, selfish, corrupt, dictatorial nincompoop who doesn't know anything, has no wish to learn anything and is incapable of forming any new memories.

All anyone had to do to know that Trump was unfit to lead this country had to do was listen to what the man said for the previous forty years. For example:

Trump: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.

Unknown: Whoa.

Trump: I did try and fuck her. She was married.

And this:

Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

 And this:

When I asked Donald Trump in 2014 about his temperament, he readily volunteered this: "When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same. The temperament is not that different."

As a grade-schooler Trump threw cake around a birthday party and gave a teacher a black eye because, as he wrote in his own book "The Art of the Deal", the man didn't know what he was talking about. Trump told me in interviews I did with him for a biography that as a boy he just "loved to fight." Pressed to explain, he added, "Any kind of fight, I loved it, including physical." 

This buffoon admitted that he has not grown emotionally since he was ten years old. And he's proud of it.

You really have to wonder whether Trump would be able to pass a basic citizenship test without Ivanka and Jared to give him all the answers. 

The typical Trump speech on the campaign trail would start with him lying, then bragging, then lying, then bragging, then exaggerating, then changing the subject and going off on some irrelevant tangent. Then he would make a joke. Then he would whine about how mean and unfair everyone is to him (he's still doing it today, in a commencement speech!). Then he would reverse everything and pose a sarcastic question. Then he would mention the truth, but in an off-handed and dismissive way that people ignored.

This is why people listening to him are so confused. He says everything and he says nothing. People who watched his show and thought he was funny hear whatever they want to hear, and ignore all the other crap that spews from his ever-snarling lips.

But listening to him closely, you realize everything he says is BS. He's worse than the most conniving used car salesman, the most mendacious realtor or the most pernicious politician.

He's still doing this, four months into his presidency. His press people, the VP and other surrogates squirt out a bunch of lies to defend him, and when no one believes the lies, Trump goes out and lies and brags and exaggerates, then he finally admits the truth, undercutting and embarrassing his surrogates over and over again. Then, in the end, he says that since he's president he can do whatever the hell he wants.

This is exactly why Putin worked to elect Trump. Putin feared Hillary Clinton, but wanted Trump because he knew Trump was a полезный дурак -- a useful fool. He knew that Trump would be an ineffective and bumbling moron, leading the United States into chaos, dissension and ruin.

And then Putin humiliated Trump yet again today, by offering to provide a transcript of Trump's meeting with the Sergeis Lavrov and Kislyak in the oval office. I wonder if Putin could also provide a recording of Trump's meeting with James Comey, when Trump tried to obstruct justice or demand personal fealty from the FBI director. Perhaps those are the "tapes" that Trump was referring to in his threatening tweet to warn Comey against talking to the press.

Trump's first-grader mentality is is why he categorically refuses to believe that Putin threw the election to him, and why he refuses to acknowledge that he lost the popular vote. The Russians were more afraid of a girl than they were of him. More Americans wanted a girl to be president than him.

And first-grader-in-chief Trump can't stand that.

As soon as Trump lifts off for his international trip the cabinet should hold an emergency meeting and invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

Please let this national nightmare be over as soon as possible. Because for the United States Trump is a безполезный дурак -- a useless fool.

What Have the Russians Got on Trump?

If there's one thing Trump hates, it's when someone makes him look bad. He has gone after hundreds of people in his campaign rants and on Twitter. And it's not just Rosie O'Donnell and reporters that he insults. He has insulted our German allies, our French allies, our Australian allies, our Korean allies, our Japanese allies, and on and on and on.

Trump even threatened James Comey on Twitter after firing the FBI director, implying that he had tapes of their conversations.

But the one group Trump never seems to get mad at, no matter how bad they make him look, is the Russians. In the last year Putin has made Trump look his puppet over and over again with story after humiliating story:

• Former national security advisor Michael Flynn lied to the Trump administration about his relationship with the Russians. 
• Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort dealings with the Russians and Russian puppets forced him to resign from the campaign in disgrace.
• Trump campaign advisor Carter Page had dealings with Russian spies.
• Putin demanded Trump to receive the Sergeis Kislyak and Lavrov in the Oval Office, and Trump blindly obeyed, opening Trump up to ridicule in front of the whole world.
• Trump was embarrassed by stories that Russia has kompromat -- blackmail material  -- on Trump from when he was in Russia for the Miss Universe contest, including an infamous Golden Shower tape.
• Said Sergeis brought along a Russian propagandist from TASS, the Soviet press agency (yes, it really is -- "Soviet" is still in the name), and not an "official Kremlin photographer" as Trump thought.
• Said Russian propagandist published photos of Trump yucking it up with the Sergeis in the Oval Office, after agreeing that no photos would be released.
• Trump was caught bragging to the Russians about the Top Secret information he gets during this meeting.

Every day brings another story that makes it look like the Russians own Trump's fat ass. They are making him look like the biggest putz to ever sit in the Oval Office.

Yet Trump has not blasted the Russians in speeches or on Twitter. Why not?

Why is Trump so afraid of the Russians? What do the Russians have on Trump?
 
Did he hook up with Russian hookers in Moscow (Putin did say they were the best)? Do they really have the Golden Shower video? Do they have evidence that he laundered money for Russian oligarchs? Do they have recordings of direct collusion with Trump campaign advisors Roger Stone and Carter Page? Do they documentation of coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians over the release on Wikileaks of DNC emails?

Trump is not the kind of guy who takes the kind of humiliation the Russians have been heaping on him silently. Yet he's just taking it all without a peep.

Why?

Trump Just Committed Treason to Brag to the Russians

Just when you think Trump couldn't do anything stupider than admit on national TV that he fired James Comey to stop his investigation into Trump's campaign connections to the Russians, Trump did:

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

Anyone else revealing such classified information to the Russians would be fired or charged with treason. But because Trump is president he can technically choose to declassify information if necessary.

It wasn't necessary: it was a catastrophically stupid blunder. Trump has now burned a key intelligence source in our fight against ISIS, a fight that Russia has been sabotaging for years:

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

Why on earth would this idiot Trump feel the need brag to the Russians about what great intel he gets? They already know about the CIA and the NSA -- they've been fighting them for years.

Trump is totally oblivious to what the Russians are really doing. They have been helping Assad target our allies in Syria with cluster bombs, barrel bombs and nerve gas, while ignoring ISIS targets. They have forced millions of Syrians to flee to other countries -- in particular Europe -- causing widespread political instability and terrorism when ISIS terrorists sneak in with the victims of Assad's brutality.

Is Trump intentionally giving the Russians this information, or is he just incredibly stupid and incompetent? Some people thought the Russians might take advantage of being in the oval office to plant a bug, but why bother when that moron Trump blabs top secret information just to prove what a cool guy he is?

Trump and Kislyak

Most government officials have to be seduced by some fabulously sexy Russian femme fatale to give up the nation's secrets -- Trump's weakness is a fat old man with no chin.

The only top secret information Trump can be trusted with is his real height and weight.

Okay, Republicans: will you now admit that Trump is danger to the Republic? A loose cannon who can't be trusted with the nuclear codes? An golf-playing orangutan whose pussy-grabbing brags should have been the evidence everyone needed to know what a complete and utter moron this clown is?

Impeachment can't happen soon enough. Trump is clearly unfit to serve as president.