From The Bottom Of His Heart

Yes, Republicans and conservatives, we get it. You don't like it when liberals win and help people. It makes you stomp your feet and throw tantrums. So...what....you're just going to kick guys like this to their coffins so you can score points against those smug liberals who are all smart and stuff?

Whiny Little Bitch

The Siberian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate was both  a cold-war era book and movie about the son of a conservative politician who was captured and brainwashed by the communist Chinese to become their assassin.

Now it looks like the election we just endured wasn't the reality TV show that we all thought it was. It was actually a sequel to The Manchurian Candidate, called The Siberian Candidate.

For months now we've known that Russian hackers leaked emails from the DNC and John Podesta through Julian Assange and Wikileaks. American intelligence services have concluded without a doubt that Russia did so to discredit Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump.

When this all started it looked like Trump was denying this obvious truth because his ego wouldn't let him think that Putin handed the election to him.

But the truth seems to be much darker than this:

The chiefs of America’s intelligence agencies last week presented President Obama and President-elect Donald J. Trump with a summary of unsubstantiated reports that Russia had collected compromising and salacious personal information about Mr. Trump, two officials with knowledge of the briefing said.

In particular:

The memos suggest that for many years, the Russian government of Mr. Putin has looked for ways to influence Mr. Trump, who has traveled repeatedly to Moscow to investigate real estate deals or to oversee the Miss Universe competition, which he owned for several years. Mr. Trump never completed any major deals in Russia, though he discussed them for years.

Was Putin just leading Trump on, suckering him with promises of sweetheart deals? Or did they come to some more sinister agreement?

It appears one reason Trump has been so nice to Putin and Russia is that they have real dirt on Trump:

The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel. The videos were supposedly prepared as “kompromat,” or compromising material, with the possible goal of blackmailing Mr. Trump in the future.

Trump, of course, has dismissed all this. He says it is fake news and a witch hunt. And he doesn't think there should be any further investigations into Russian hacking of the DNC, the RNC or Trump himself.

Russia echoed Trump's "witch hunt" meme, saying that the dossier on Trump is "pulp fiction."

But several Trump surrogates visited Russia during the campaign and just after it, with no explanation of what they were doing there. One of Trump's many campaign managers, Paul Manafort, was a foreign agent representing a deposed Ukrainian dictator beholden to Putin. Manafort was forced to resign during the summer when it turned out he was still being paid by shadowy Ukrainian political entities aligned with Russia.

Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of State nominee, has received state honors from the Russian government and has been working to derail sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Crimea and instigating a civil war in eastern Ukraine, where a Malaysian passenger jet was shot down by a Russian missile battery, killing hundreds of innocent civilians.

Michael Flynn, Trump's security nominee for national security advisor, received payments from Russia's propaganda outlet, Russia Today, and dined with Putin.

There are way too many substantive and documented connections between Russia and Trump and his cabinet to simply dismiss this as fake news. A special prosecutor should be appointed and Congress should hold hearings. Because these allegations are far worse than Benghazi and Clinton's emails. It's worse than Watergate. It is the most damaging scandal in American history.

Did Trump and his cronies commit full-on treason and conspire with the Russians to win the election? Or were they simply greedy dupes taking bribes from Russia and selling America out along the way? Or are they just victims of Russian kompromat, blackmailed by Putin's GRU?

The best-case scenario: the FBI and CIA present Mike Pence with the evidence and Trump has a "medical problem" shortly after inauguration. Trump steps down, setting the record for shortest presidency, and Pence succeeds him.

The most likely scenario: Trump blusters and threatens everyone. His administration becomes so bogged down in scandals involving nepotism, conflicts of interest involving Trump, his family members, and his cabinet, the emoluments clause and foreign bribes, insider trading, the collapse of the health care system because of a too-hasty repeal of Obamacare, weather disasters related to climate change, catastrophically huge deficits, construction delays on the stupid wall, a trade war with China, a Wall Street crash, soaring inflation and interest rates, deteriorating race relations and a few nasty riots, and general incompetence.

The Russians feel no need to leak the kompromat because Trump is an even worse president than George W. Bush and he loses the 2020 election in the biggest landslide ever. But the United States becomes a political and economic basket case, so it's a win for the Russians.

What's the worst-case scenario? It could be pretty grim.

Russia decides Trump is no longer useful since he so incompetent and compromised. So they decide to torch the United States.

Shortly after the inauguration the Russians burn him as an asset. They start leaking dirt that makes his pussy-grabbing video look like Sesame Street.

When Trump's prostitute videos come out he claims they're fake. Then he falls back on the "I can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and my people will still support me" argument. It goes something like this: "So I banged some Russian hookers. Have you seen the tits on those chicks? My supporters already knew I was nailing Karen McDougal -- who was a very, very hot Playboy model, let me tell you -- when Melania was lactating -- that was so disgusting. And the weight gain -- ew! What's a couple more Russian whores? Why do you think I bought the Miss Universe pageant in the first place? Besides, it's not like I was president when I did it. Bill Clinton should go to jail!"

There are calls for his resignation from both sides of the aisle. Trump refuses. Congress is in an uproar. There is a movement for impeachment. A full-on constitutional crisis erupts.

Trump tweets not-so-veiled threats and insults to all who oppose him. He threatens to shut down CNN and NBC and NPR and the failing New York Times. He uses Rudy Giuliani's cronies in the New York FBI office to spy on journalists. He jails reporters on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage, while still obliviously praising Julian Assange. His supporters threaten congressmen with murder. Several shoot people: a reporter, a congressman, a few Muslims and Mexicans, and maybe a delivery guy who works for a pizza joint that Russian fake news falsely tied to child sex trafficking.

Some of Trump's supporters, angered that their man is going down, take up Dylann Roof's call for a race war. More black churches are burned, shot up or worse. Blacks demonstrate angrily. Cops shoot blacks. Blacks shoot cops.

Trump declares martial law, but many generals refuse his orders. A Trump loyalist tries to arrest a refusenik for dereliction of duty. American troops open fire on each other. The country descends into chaos. Or worse. Trump has the nuclear codes, after all.

And that's exactly what Putin was thinking when he installed Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office.

Russia tried for decades to defeat the United States, and failed miserably. Now they may well have fooled us into destroying ourselves.

Trump Names Jared Kushner Head Babysitter

WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner will assume the duties of head babysitter to his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, who will become president of the United States in just ten days.

Mr. Kushner, in an interview with Breitbart News, said he prefers the term "minder," because it more accurately reflects his duties. This will mostly consist of reminding Mr. Trump of what what he has already been told, keeping him from wandering out of meetings, cutting him off when he starts talking about women's breasts and vaginas, making sure he gets regular potty breaks, and dabbing the drool from his perpetually protruding pouting lower lip.

Mr. Kushner will also have the politically sensitive task of keeping track of what Mr. Trump knows, when he knew it, and most importantly, when he stopped knowing it, to ensure deniability in the conflict of interest scandals already under way with several foreign governments and businesses.

Software developers are said to be working on an iPhone app to help Mr. Kushner with this monumental task.

Mr. Kushner will be taking over head babysitter duties from his wife, Ivanka, who did it during the early days of the transition, sitting in on meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders. According to Breitbart, Ms. Trump decided against continuing as head babysitter because her father kept making lewd remarks about her various body parts and no longer seemed to remember she was his daughter.

Mr. Trump has been suffering from early onset Alzheimer's for several years now. Symptoms include:

• Lack of sleep.
• Inability to remember what he said only hours before. 
• Wild fantasies and fabrication of events that never occurred.
• Short temper.
• Inability to learn new skills, such as working with technology.
• Fear of new places, such as the White House, and an attachment disorder to Trump Towers and the Trump jet.
• Difficulty reading and speaking, which he does at only a sixth-grade level.
• Lack of focus and concentation: his mind wanders whenever he speaks, causing him to go off on wild tangents and forgetting what he was talking about in the first place.
• Poor judgment and bullying, impatient, childlike behavior.
• Extreme emotionality: Mr. Trump is thin-skinned, taking offense at any and every perceived slight, no matter how minor, and constantly resorting to childish threats and retaliation.

Though these signs of dementia were evident during the entire presidential campaign, Mr. Trump managed to win the a majority of electoral college votes (but losing the popular vote by almost three million) through a concerted campaign of computer hacking, fake news, propaganda and disinformation orchestrated by his joint campaign managers Steven Bannon, Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange.

As a show of solidarity with regular working-class Americans, Mr. Kushner will accept a salary of $15.34 an hour, the same as an average New York babysitter.

Freedom From Criticism

When conservatives whine about freedom of speech and "PC bullshit," what they are really saying is they want freedom from criticism because their precious little egos can't take it. This is certainly true of their hero and our president elect, Donald Trump. Odd, because they also bemoan people that get offended at everything...which they take offense to...:)

A great example of which is the recent Meryl Streep flap which went something like this:

Meryl Streep says, of Trump mocking a disabled reporter...

"It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can't get it out of my head, because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose."

Trump responded in his usual way, calling Streep overrated.

Then Megan McCain says... "This Meryl Streep speech is why Trump won. And if people in Hollywood don't start recognizing why and how - you will help him get re-elected."

Right. So conservatives want to be able to say whatever they want...do whatever they want...bully whomever they want...and NEVER be called on it.

Happy As Clams

Trump supporters are happy as clams. Take Mr. David Gubert of Louisiana for example.

Like the Willises, he ruminated on what it would mean if the Russians had gotten involved, and possibly even swung the election. But Mr. Gubert came to a different conclusion. 

“If that’s what it took,” he said, “I’m glad they did it.”

He's glad that the Russians hacked the DNC servers and ran a successful propaganda campaign.

Wow...

The rest of the folks in the piece seem to not believe that it happened. This jibes with I've seen on Quora. This question and this question contain answers that really show the true colors of these "patriots." Thankfully, with the first question, we have the amazing and talented Sophia de Tricht to offer her expert insight of the document in question. Since she used to be an intelligence analyst, it stands to reason that she knows quite a bit of this sort of thing. Her entire answer is awesome but here's my favorite part.

My point is, when the entire IC comes together, as 16 different agencies with differing, often conflicting or at least adversarial missions and goals, and says anything with one voice, it’s been examined every single way it can be, and what you’re reading is as close to the truth as you’ll ever get without getting a clearance and joining one of these agencies.

Mic Drop.

Hacker Sack

Putin Directed Psi-Op and Hacking of 2016 Election

The National Intelligence agencies have released a declassified report that details exactly how Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence intentionally interfered with the 2016 US election. In what is no doubt the greatest psi op and propaganda campaign every successfully executed against the United States, Putin directed his intelligence operatives to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

Of course, he had a lot of help from conservatives in this country who all too willingly filled up their brains with Russian propaganda via Russia Today (mentioned extensively in the report), the Drudge Report, Zerohedge, and various other conservative media outlets including Fox News who parrots much these site's talking points.

It's genius when you think about it. Hack into both the DNC and the RNC and release the dirt on the former for the kittens to lap up like milk. Hold the latter over the incoming president (who owes you a shit ton of money as well) and Republicans in Congress and PRESTO! You have yourself a weakened United States hegemonic power which you can now manipulate in your favor.

Vladimir Putin has for many years wanted to extend his global influence and with his puppet now in the White House he's pretty much set. Add in all the right wing bloggers and commnenters out there who hate liberals so much that they are willing to give up all of their convictions just for the childish win and it's going to be extremely hard to stop these folks.

I think I get it now. When conservatives foamed at the mouth about this....

...they became perfect conduits for propaganda to enable the very outcome they fear.

Thanks, assholes!! I hope that we can clean up your mess in 2018.

Challenge Extended

President Obama has extended a challenge to Congressional Republicans. Come up with something better than the Affordable Care Act and he will publicly support it. I am extending that challenge as well to any of my readers. Post your plan in comments, show me examples of how this has worked more effectively in the past, and I will publicly admit that the ACA has been defeated by a better plan.

My bet is the GOP comes up with nothing and just repeals the ACA out of pure, adolescent spite.

Our New President

So let me see if I have this straight....

1) Trump owes Blackstone/ Bayrock group $560 million dollars (one of his largest debtors and the primary reason he won't reveal his tax returns)

2) Blackstone is owned wholly by Russian billionaires, who owe their position to Putin and have made billions from their work with the Russian government.

3) Other companies that have borrowed from Blackstone have claimed that owing money to them is like owing to the Russian mob and while you owe them, they own you for many favors.

4) The Russian economy is badly faltering under the weight of its over-dependence on raw materials which as you know have plummeted in the last 2 years leaving the Russian economy scrambling to pay its debts.

5) Russia has an impetus to influence our election to ensure the per barrel oil prices are above $65 ( they are currently hovering around $50)

6) Russia can't affordably get at 80% of its oil reserves and reduce its per barrel cost to compete with America at $45 or Saudi Arabia at $39. With Iranian sanctions being lifted Russia will find another inexpensive competitor increasing production and pushing Russia further down the list of suppliers.

As for Iranian sanctions, the 6 countries lifting them allowing Iran to collect on the billions it is owed for pumping oil but not being paid for it. These billions Iran can only get if the Iranian nuclear deal is signed. Trump spoke of ending the deals which would cause oil sales sanctions to be reimposed, which would make Russian oil more competitive.

7) Rex Tillerson (Trump's pick for Secretary of State) is the head of ExxonMobil, which is in possession of patented technology that could help Putin extract 45% more oil at a significant cost savings to Russia, helping Putin put money in the Russian coffers to help reconstitute its military and finally afford to mass produce the new and improved systems that it had invented before the Russian economy had slowed so much.

8) Putin cannot get access to these new cost saving technologies OR outside oil field development money, due to US sanctions on Russia, because of its involvement in Ukrainian civil war.

9) Look for Trump to end sanctions on Russia and to back out of the Iranian nuclear deal, to help Russia rebuild its economy, strengthen Putin and make Tillerson and Trump even richer, thus allowing Trump to satisfy his creditors at Blackstone.

10) With Trump's fabricated hatred of NATO and the U.N., the Russian military reconstituted, the threat to the Baltic states is real. Russia retaking their access to the Baltic Sea from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and threatening the shipping of millions of cubic feet of natural gas to lower Europe from Scandinavia, allowing Russia to make a good case for its oil and gas being piped into eastern Europe.

(Sources: Time Magazine, NY Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian UK.)

It's painfully obvious that Trump is completely beholden to Russian interests hence his refusal to accept the facts about the hacking.

Advice from a 12 Year Old

I might have to rethink my whole "adolescent" rip on Trump and his supporters. It's an insult to adolescents like Kid President.