Totalitarians All Along

For years, conservatives warned of liberal totalitarianism. It turns out it was really them all along that want a state similar to the Soviet Union.

By using the phrase and placing himself in such infamous company, at least in his choice of vocabulary to attack his critics, Mr. Trump has demonstrated, Ms. Khrushcheva said, that the language of “autocracy, of state nationalism is always the same regardless of the country, and no nation is exempt.” She added that, in all likelihood, Mr. Trump had not read Lenin, Stalin or Mao Zedong, but the “formulas of insult, humiliation, domination, branding, enemy-forming and name calling are always the same.”

Shocking...not...

I've said this for years. Whenever conservatives bitch liberals being ____________, it's invariably them that are being ____________.

The Befuddling Line of Whine

With all the political talk at last night's Oscar ceremony, there are sure to be howls of derision from the right over how Hollywood just doesn't get it and they better be careful about who they criticize if they want to win more elections. I guess the right assumes that everyone in California votes for Democrats even the big studio execs.

This line of whine has always befuddled me. Isn't this the same group of folks that bitch about people being two faced and wishing they would be more honest? Being too PC and not allowing the country to speak their mind?

I guess the right has exclusivity when it comes to being abrasive and honest. And they clearly can't take what they dish out every single fucking day.

The Flippers

Take a look at these charts from NPR. They show the people that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then flipped to vote for Donald Trump in 2016. The contrast is staggering. How could this happen? At first glance, it appears confusing and beyond explanation. Obama and Trump are two vastly different people. I'd go as far to state that one is good and one is bad.

Yet they do have a common thread that they also share with Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. The losers in past elections (Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bob Dole and George HW Bush) also have something in common. It's pretty simple when you think about it. The winners all have a populist appeal and seem to care more about common folk. The losers come off as elitist and unsympathetic to your average Joe.

All either party has to do in each presidential election cycle is nominate someone that is populist and is down with regular people. That's it. It really has nothing to do with Ds or Rs.

Boehner Speaks The Truth

I've always liked this guy.

Which Town Hall Is This?

Smelling More Like Nixon

The Trump Administration must be pretty nervous about its Russian ties these days. Apparently, they asked the FBI to "knock down" stories about Trump ties to Russia. Appalling in many ways and a gross breach of ethics. Further, it tightens the comparison to Richard Nixon in the final months of his presidency. Considering we are barely out of the first month of the Trump administration, the future does not look good for this president.

Which View?

Phoning It In

I was shocked, I tell you, shocked, that many GOP Congressmen were holding "phone in" town halls (whatever the fuck that means...sounds made up to me) with their constituents over this mini break for Congress. Ah, the party of bravery and strength....

Even worse for them is the belief that is being perpetuated within the right wing bubble that these angry constituents are actually paid protesters. Didn't the Democrats say the same thing in 2009?

How did that turn out? :)

Keep Baby Happy

How do new mommies keep baby happy? Well, we fill baby's world with happy things so they don't get sad and fussy. We don't want them to look like this.

We want them to look like this

It's the same thing for our president. His staff has learned that if they only show him praise from the media, he won't have a tantrum on Twitter. In fact, they go out of their way to steer him clear of all that bad, poopy headed stuff and only let him see the happy things.

I for one am so comforted that our president, like most right wing bloggers and commenters, fills his world with light and not darkness:)

Three Separate Probes

Reuters has a piece up regarding the THREE separate probes that the FBI is currently conducting regarding the connections between Russia and the Trump Administration. Before I highlight each one, I find it highly amusing and outright LMAO that the same people who were chanting "lock her up" last year are now excusing everything that has to do with Trump and Russia. They call it everything from fake news to an Obama shadow government operation running by the Ladies Optimists Club of Hibbing, Minnesota. The cognitive dissonance runs deep with these folks...

The three probes are:

-The FBI's Pittsburgh field office, which runs many cyber security investigations, is trying to identify the people behind breaches of the Democratic National Committee's computer systems, the officials said. Those breaches, in 2015 and the first half of 2016, exposed the internal communications of party officials as the Democratic nominating convention got underway and helped undermine support for Hillary Clinton.

- The bureau’s San Francisco office is trying to identify the people who called themselves “Guccifer 2” and posted emails stolen from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s account, the sources said. Those emails contained details about fundraising by the Clinton Foundation and other topics.

-Beyond the two FBI field offices, FBI counterintelligence agents based in Washington are pursuing leads from informants and foreign communications intercepts, two of the people said. This counterintelligence inquiry includes but is not limited to examination of financial transactions by Russian individuals and companies who are believed to have links to Trump associates. The transactions under scrutiny involve investments by Russians in overseas entities that appear to have been undertaken through middlemen and front companies, two people briefed on the probe said.

Based on this information, as well as other reports of secret deals regarding Ukraine and the Flynn resignation, it's only a matter of time before Trump is toast. GOP leaders in Congress will begin to weigh how expendable Trump is compared to what they could accomplish with a President Pence. Let's recognize that Pence is a fairly stable conservative who would work much more easily with Republicans in both the House and the Senate.

The only thing really holding them back at this point is the voters. They know that around 40% of this country love and blindly follow Trump...for now. If that number dips below 35 percent, I suspect we will start hearing impeachment talk.

Emboldened by Trump?

When I was just out of college I volunteered to teach recent Russian emigres English at the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul. It put my otherwise useless Russian degree to good use (my sister-in-law, who also majored in Russian, went to work for the CIA, but that was not my cup of tea).

At that time Jews were the only Russians who could leave the Soviet Union, ostensibly to emigrate to Israel (the USSR practiced Germany's pre-Holocaust version of Zionism), but many of them came to the United States instead.

Now, in the age of Donald Trump, that same Jewish Community Center has been the target of two bomb threats in as many months. Last month 17 Jewish centers were hit with bomb threats.

During Donald Trump's fake news conference, which consisted mostly of lying and bragging, took place the day after Bibi Netanyahu visited the White House. Trump had fielded a lot of questions that he perceived as "tough" because the reporters wanted real answers instead of more bragging and lying.

So he asked the assembled reporters for an easy question from a friendly reporter. Trump picked Jake Turx, an orthodox Jew, easily identifiable by his attire and hairstyle. Trump apparently assumed Turx would ask him an easy question because of his buttering up of Bibi the day before.

And, in fact, the reporter did give Trump a softball:

“... [W]hat we are concerned about and what we haven’t really heard being addressed is an uptick in anti-Semitism and how the government is planning to take care of it. There’s been a report out that 48 bomb threats have been made against Jewish centers all across the country in the last couple of weeks. There are people committing anti-Semitic acts or threatening to——”

All Trump had to to was disavow the scum that threaten Jews. It's a no-brainer. But Trump couldn't do it. He took the question as a personal affront:

At that, Mr. Trump interrupted, saying it was “not a fair question.”

“Sit down,” the president commanded. “I understand the rest of your question.”

As Mr. Turx took his seat, Mr. Trump said, “So here’s the story, folks. No. 1, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. No. 2, racism, the least racist person.”

Look. It's really simple. When someone has to tell you that they're not a bigot, they're almost certainly a bigot.

It doesn't matter how many Jewish friends, relatives, wives, or grandchildren you have. When you say and do things that demean and hurt Jews, or don't consider them to be equals, or imply that all Jews are money-grubbing misers, you are an anti-Semite and a bigot. Even if you think you're just joking.

It's like Rush Limbaugh claiming, "I can't be sexist! I only marry women!" For sixty years my dad has told the same, tired old sexist jokes. I'm sure he loves my mom, but he treats her as a servant and not an equal.

For centuries western society demeaned and demonized Jews, yet Jews were an integral and essential part of that same society, acting as bankers and money-lenders because the Church prohibited Christians from charging interest (usury was a sin). This same attitude persists today in people like Trump.

Trump has frequently tried to pass off his obnoxious stereotyping of Jews in his speeches as humor, but Jews have long since grown tired of hearing how good they are at counting Donald Trump's money.

Since Trump started running for president he has, in the parlance of George W. Bush, emboldened racists, anti-Semites and bigots. Indeed, Trump's fake news conference brought great praise from neo-Nazis (via Haaretz):

At the website The Daily Stormer – named after the Nazi-era newspaper Der Stürmer – editor Andrew Anglin wrote that the press conference “was one of the greatest things I’ve ever witnessed in my life. From start to finish, it was simply beautiful. He blasted the media, the Jews, Mexicans, Obama – all of his/our enemies.”

You see that? The "his/our enemies"? The racists and anti-Semite have adopted Trump as one of their own, because -- despite his protestations -- Trump's words and actions are identical to those of the racists and anti-Semites.

One of the first acts as president Trump took was to discontinue monitoring of right-wing hate groups in the United States and instead focus solely on Muslim extremists. This is very short-sighted, as there are more terrorist attacks in the United States by right-wingers than by Muslims. (Only with the Orlando attack did the body count from Muslim terrorists exceed that of right-wingers.)

Inspired by Dylann Roof, emboldened by Trump?

Fortunately, not everyone in the FBI got the message: just four days ago Benjamin McDowell was arrested for illegally buying a gun in order to copy Dylann Roof's massacre. The FBI was looking into McDowell because he had threatened a synagogue on Facebook.

If McDowell had been a Muslim Donald Trump would have gone ballistic: he would have castigated the judges for stymieing his Muslim ban and demanded their resignations.

But Trump -- and the "fake news" media -- have been almost completely silent about McDowell and all the other right-wing terrorists who have been emboldened by Trump's rise.

It's really simple, Donald. If you want to prove you're not a bigot and an anti-Semite, stop telling us that you're not an anti-Semite or a racist, and instead start condemning people like Benjamin McDowell in no uncertain terms. Disavow The Daily Stormer. Tell David Duke to go to hell.

And reinstate monitoring of hate groups of all stripes.

#22 and #24

Grover Cleveland, our nation's 22nd and 24th president, was the only president to be elected, to lose his reelection bid, and then win again 4 years after he lost. Why?

He wanted to get rid of tariffs.

Berkeley and CPAC's Common Cause

Last month Milo Yiannopoulos, the gay, racist, woman-hating, alt-right Breitbart editor, troll and Trump supporter was disinvited from speaking at Berkeley after demonstrators rioted, demanding his speech be canceled.

Donald Trump immediately tweeted his outrage, threatening to take away the university's federal funding, ostensibly for suppressing free speech.

I'm not sure why Trump thinks this. Which clause of the Constitution grants everyone the right to speak at Berkeley?

Now Yiannopoulos has been barred from speaking at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee), after Yiannopoulos made comments that appeared to promote pedophilia. He now claims to have been joking.

Is Trump to going to issue a similar condemnation of CPAC and threaten to revoke their non-profit status? And will Breitbart man up and fire Yiannopoulos?

Yiannopoulos' disqualifying comments, however distasteful, were illuminating: as a kid he appears to have been molested by a priest and forced to perform oral sex. It's sad that he had to go through that. But the abuse molded his opinions, such as his claim that “People are only gay to be transgressive. They choose to be gay to be naughty.”

That's the guilt talking. It's the conservative party line spread by the Church to excuse the crimes committed by priests who were probably victims when they were children. I grant, possibly, that Yiannopoulos is gay simply because he's a contrarian dick (or perhaps because he drives women nuts).

But most gays are not like that. And they don't want Yiannopoulos to screw up another generation of gay kids the way his Father Michael screwed him up, by feeding them a line of bull equating homosexuality and pedophilia. They don't think that Yiannopoulos has the right to publicly inflict his hatred on innocent bystanders, such as the transgender student he attacked during a speech in Milwaukee.

By coincidence, a report came out in the same edition of the paper that found that suicides among gay teens declined by 14% when states legalized gay marriage. Shutting down trolls like Yiannopoulos saves lives!

The problem with Yiannopoulos is not that he's conservative. Or that he's gay. The problem is that he's a selfish, hate-mongering troll who takes delight in hurting people.

In other words, he's just like Trump and all the rest of the gang at Breitbart.

President #11

James K Polk, our nation's 11th president, served from 1845-1849. Known as the "dark horse" president, he presided over the Mexican-American war which lasted from 1846 to 1848.

This resulted in our acquisition of California and New Mexico which, in turn, stoked the powder keg between the North and the South over slavery.

President #8

Martin Van Buren, our nation's 8th president, came after seven gentlemen who were titans (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, Jackson) in the office and in our history. Referred to as the "little magician," he looked more like a Harry Potter character, standing at only 5 foot six inches.

He served from 1837-1841 and blocked the annexation of Texas because it assuredly would add to slave territory--and it might bring war with Mexico. Defeated by the Whigs in 1840 for reelection, he was an unsuccessful candidate for President on the Free Soil ticket in 1848. He died in 1862.

President #21

Happy President's Day! As most of you know, I take this day to put up quotes and fun facts from the presidents we have had over the years. This year, I thought I would highlight some of the forgotten presidents.

First up, Chester A Arthur, our nation's 21st president. He took over after James Garfield was shot very early in 1881. Aside from having the best facial hair of any president, Arthur signed an immigration bill which barred "paupers, criminals and lunatics" from entering the country.

How could they tell?

Trump's Russian Owners

Donald Trump likes to claim that he doesn't own any property in Russia. At the carnage he called a press conference last week he said: “I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia.”

This isn't through a lack of trying: Trump has tried numerous times, but has failed to close any deals in Russia.

While Trump doesn't own anything in Russia, a lot of Russians own pieces of Trump:

Dolly Lenz, a real estate broker in New York, said she sold about 65 units in Trump World Tower, a condominium tower at 845 U.N. Plaza in Manhattan, to Russian buyers looking for real estate investments in the late 1990s. “I had contacts in Moscow looking to invest in the United States,” Lenz said. “’What do you have to recommend?’ They all wanted to meet Donald. They became very friendly.”

And this:

In 2008, Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million. On the campaign trail, Trump at one point claimed it was his only dealing with Russia, but that’s not accurate.

The Russian paid far more than market value, for some strange reason...

The same year he sold the mansion, his son, Donald Trump Jr., told the global trade publication eTurboNews that Russians were key investors in the Trump Organization’s assets. "And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York,” Trump Jr. said in the interview. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. There's indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble." 

Just before the election the Trump Toronto hotel went bankrupt. It's managed by Trump's company and was financed by Russians.

When American banks stopped lending money to Trump after his numerous bankruptcies, he turned to Russians for financial backing for his new projects 

The most notable — and most notorious — of Trump’s Russian investors came through the Bayrock Group, which according to CNN, was “a company run by Soviet immigrants, and according to a lawsuit filed, financed by Russian and Kazakhstan money.” Bayrock, whose operations were headed by a man accused in a lawsuit of using “mob-like tactics to achieve his goals,” helped develop huge Trump projects in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Phoenix, Arizona, and New York.

Yes, Trump doesn't any property in Russia. But the situation is actually far worse: he is in bed with a lot of questionable Russians and he owes a lot of Russians a lot of money.

We don't really know the extent of Trump's indebtedness to the Russians, but it's a huge conflict of interest. It's only one of the many reasons why Congress should release his tax returns so that the people of the United States can see just how much Trump owes his foreign masters.

Trump's Security Incompetence

Donald Trump shows an alarming incompetence when it comes to matters of security.

His national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was just fired for lying about discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador. The reason we know this is that the NSA recorded the exchange. Which means Flynn is an idiot for not realizing that this is what the NSA does for a living.

US intelligence agencies report that at least four close Trump associates have been in contact with Russian spies. Paul Manafort, one of Trump's many campaign managers, whined that spies don't wear badges. But that's not the point: why aren't these guys vetting their contacts with Russia? If they're not colluding with the Russians, why are they even talking to them?

Trump himself discussed North Korea's missile launch with the Japanese prime minister in front of a yuuuge crowd of diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort. People posted pictures on Facebook of Trump and Abe looking at secret briefing documents. Trump himself is the biggest security breach in Washington.

The Wall Street Journal reports that intelligence agencies are withholding certain information from Trump because he can't be trusted with it. Why? Trump can't process the information himself: he doesn't know anything, so he has to rely on his aides to tell him what's relevant in the security briefings. Aides like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller cannot be trusted.

Trump is now looking at a replacement for Flynn. His first choice, Robert Harward, has turned him down, ostensibly for financial and family reasons. But the real reasons appear to be the state of total chaos in the White House, and the fact that Trump won't let him choose his own staff. Only Trump loyalists are allowed.

Trump's no. 1 pick now? David Petraeus, who was fired from the CIA when it was revealed that he was having an affair with a writer and had given her hundreds of classified documents.

Donald Trump's judgment is terrible when it comes to matters of security. Which is kind of weird: he goes nuts about leaks to the press, but he's totally careless when it comes keeping the nation's secrets. His record of putting equally careless people in charge of security puts our country's safety in jeopardy.

The Magic R

When you are a Republican, a different set of rules applies to you. You get away with shit that Democrats would be destroyed for. Worse, the very thing that you spend years ripping Dems for, you get to do with zero repercussions.

Last night on Real Time, Bill Maher most eloquently expressed something that has frustrated me for years. Democrats are held to a different standard because they are the adults while Republicans (the adolescents) are given a very wide degree of latitude of words and behavior.

It must stop. Yesterday.

The Fake President

Yesterday Donald Trump had a solo press conference (who's a big boy?). It was a disaster: packed full of bragging and lying, it was a command performance of dickish adolescent behavior combined with the senescent forgetfulness of an Alzheimer's patient.

For example:

I put it out before the American people, got 306 Electoral College votes. I wasn’t supposed to get 222. They said there’s no way to get 222, 230’s impossible.

270 which you need, that was laughable. We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan. In other words, the media’s trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made and they’re not happy about it for whatever reason.

Trump has been repeating the lie that he got the biggest electoral college majority for more than two months now. He has been corrected dozens of times, yet he keeps saying it. When the reporter pointed this out to him yet again this is how he responded (The Daily Show has video):

Question: You said today that you had the biggest electoral margin since Ronald Reagan with 304 ... 306 electoral votes. In fact, President Obama about 365 and--

Trump: Well, I'm talking about Republicans. Question: ... President Obama 332, and George H.W. Bush 426 when he won as president.
Trump: Yeah.

Question: So why should Americans trust...

Trump: What, no, I was told... I was given that information. I don't know, I was just given, we had a very, very big margin.

Question: I guess my question why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you're proving information that's --

Trump: Well, I don’t know, I was given that information. I was given — I actually, I’ve seen that information around. But it was a very substantial victory, do you agree with that? OK thank you, that’s...

His response to being caught lying again is to say, "I was just talking about Republicans," and when he's caught lying yet again, he says, "I was given that information."

Is he the president or a kid who didn't do his homework and is claiming the dog ate it?

Or is Trump a duffer who keeps bragging about that one time he shot two under par, when in reality his caddy was dropping balls back on the fairway after Trump sliced into the rough?

These antics mean one of three things:

1) His aides are (repeatedly) feeding him the same lie that he just mouths in front of the press, in which case he's a puppet of Bannon and Miller.

2) He really can't remember the numerous times he's been corrected on this point, in which case he's already suffering from senile dementia.

3) He knows he's lying and doesn't care, thinking that if he repeats the lie often enough people will be duped by it.

All of these behaviors are disqualifying in a president. If this was just a one-off, we could ignore it. But since he repeats these behaviors over and over, he cannot be trusted to lead the country.

Listening to Trump speak, it's clear that he's just a jerk and doesn't really know anything that a president needs to know. He's totally at the mercy of aides who are much smarter than he is, with agendas that run counter to American democracy.

Given his many bankruptcies and failed ventures like Trump "University," Trump doesn't seem to be good at anything, except self promotion and golf -- by some reports he's a decent amateur (but he cheats all the time).

Speaking of golf, during the campaign Trump complained about how frequently Obama played golf. It's only been a month now, and Trump is flying down to Florida most every weekend to play golf, at great taxpayer expense and huge inconvenience to users of the airport in Palm Beach, which is shut down every time Trump is around.

Congress should let Trump spend all his time on the links -- they should impeach this clown before he does something really stupid.