Looking past Trump...How do we dispense with Pence?

The Koch Bros. were the kingpins behind the Tea Party. Mike Pence is and always has been one of its staunchest supporters. Do we want Charles Koch controlling the Oval Office? Backing up, Donald Trump is either at the point of implosion, or, any day now he will make the most awesome and dangerous mistake of his presidency and the numb nuts in Congress will finally do their job and impeach him. In either case, we end up with Mike Pence and, as you can see from the above, that could be even worse. But maybe not as bad as Paul Ryan?

So, what do we do once we are saddled with another lunatic in the Oval Office, one, by the way who is afraid to be in a room alone with a woman other than his wife.? To start with, it seems to me that the latter is an indication of some form of instability, one that does not complement the job of President. But there is much more starting with Pence's claim that...

"...he did not know of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s work on behalf of foreign governments until he learned of them in media reports."

Rep. Elijah Cummings reaction, “Either he's not telling the truth, or he was running a sloppy shop.” Now this sounds like he is mirroring Donald Trump. Like President, like Vice President? Geeez, you would think that these dufuses would at least try to come up with something original. Cummings even sent a letter to Pence as the President of Trump's transition team last November regarding Flynn’s ties to the Turkish government. The Representative's office received a receipt for the latter. Thus, the statement that Pence is either not telling the truth, or running a sloppy shop.

Cummings marveled over the fact that when you pass along information like this about someone Trump has nominated, and eventually took the office of National Security Adviser, the number one guy with America's secrets, and who was also connected to a foreign government, hundreds of red flags should go up. Thy did and Flynn was fired. Through all this Pence stood by his earlier statement-sound like someone else in the White House? It was, perhaps, Karl Rove that perfected the use of dirty politics, including lying, under George W. Bush and the GOP has just improved it.

The Washington Post expands on the Flynn allegations of lying or just dumbing down, with Pence's explanation of the James Comey firing. His version is that his boss did it on the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general adding...

“There is no evidence of collusion between our campaign and any Russian officials. That's not what — let me be clear with you — that was not what this is about. That's not what this is about.”

Just one day later, Trump told "NBC News's Lester Holt that he had already decided to fire Comey and would have done it regardless of the DOJ's recommendation." WP asserts...

"Pence could argue that Trump technically did accept the recommendations of the Justice Department. But, again, that would be highly misleading, based on Trump's own comments that he had already made up his mind."

The long and the short of Mike Pence's statements to defend the Trump administration indicate a combination of the fact that he will say anything to protect the administration, and/or, he is just so far out of touch with Trump and his advisers, he really doesn't know what's going on. In either case, if Pence had to assume the presidency in an emergency, it could be even worse than it is now. So back to my headline, "How do we dispense with Pence?"

Coming up in future posts...Your comments are welcome!

The slime (Koch) Bros.are at it again

Koch Bros. slogan

I watched a recent video of Charles Koch playing the "philanthropic entrepreneur" who claims to do what he does for the good of America. But he and his brother, David, do what they do entirely for the sake of Koch Industries' bottom line. They are pouring more money into the 2018 election and particularly to, "...drive Trump's tax plan through Congress." USA Today reports that James Davis, a top official in Koch's Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, says, "The group plans to throw 'the full weight of the network' behind the campaign with the goal of passing a tax overhaul this year."

Translated, that means this group will shore up every Republican that is beholden to this family already, having done their bidding since put there by the Kochs, to make sure they are reelected in the midterms. It takes money, and they have it readily to spend to make sure they get what they want, and will do just about anything to get the job done. Back in 1989, "Investigators told a special Senate committee that a Wichita, Kan., company (Koch Industries) has been stealing oil from Indian lands for at least the last three years." Total value was $31.1 million. Just one example.

This is only one of several devious and illegal shams these brothers have pulled on the American public. If you are really interested in their illicit activities, read Sons of Wichita by Daniel Schulman. I couldn't put it down once I started. It reveals a trail of congressional investigations, and "Under the nearly five-decade reign of CEO Charles Koch, the company has paid out record civil and criminal environmental penalties," according to Rolling Stone. And here's one of the worst...

"...in 1999, a jury handed down to Koch's pipeline company what was then the largest wrongful-death judgment of its type in U.S. history, resulting from the explosion of a defective pipeline that incinerated a pair of Texas teenagers."

Yet following an incident such as this, Charles Koch will go on TV with his syrupy shit professing he can't imagine why the American public could think anything but the fact that the Koch brothers are just magnificent benefactors to all. Either this man is too stupid to realize what he does is wrong, or else he doesn't give a damn. Probably a combination of both. The Kochtopus is one of the most influential of the conservative gangs with grassroots minions in 36 states and backup operations in data processing. There are 550 ultra-wealthy donors that finance the goings on.

USA Today says they "...plan to spend $300 million to $400 million on policy and political campaigns ahead of the 2018 elections." Progressives say, we have to counter that with people who will vote for the good of the country, not for billionaires like the Koch brothers. There are only three companies that rank among the top 30 polluters of America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries. Its subsidiary, Georgia Pacific alone, dumps more pollutants into the nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined.

Although the Kochs deny direct funding of the tea Party, they, especially Charles, are known to be the kingpins behind the movement. Rolling Stone says it this way...

"The Koch family's lucrative blend of pollution, speculation, law-bending and self-righteousness stretches back to the early 20th century, when Charles' father first entered the oil business."

When Charles Koch took over from his father, the business flourished, because he didn't hesitate to bend or even break the law to make a buck. It was cheaper to let the Texas pipeline go without maintenance, explode and horrendously kill two teenagers then pay a court charged fine of $296 million. The Kochs appealed and later settled out of court. The dirty dealings of Charles Koch are well documented in Daniel Schulman's book, Sons of Wichita, and the Rolling Stones article, above. It will take a massive Progressive movement in 2018 to stop the Kochs and all conservatives. 

Why Memorial Day?

Saigon evacuation

Officially, Memorial Day is the day we remember all those members of the active armed services that died in a war. That would be many...

World War One-17 million
World War Two-416,800
Korean War-36,914
Vietnam War-58,220

World War One was billed as the war to end all wars. It didn't. It seems more like it set the mold for future generations to build from. Folks, this was when they fought face to face in the trenches and often, the method of killing the enemy was with a bayonet. Now that is up close. My father was in that war and he brought home a German rifle, bayonet, and two German helmets, one an enlisted man, the other an officer. He never told me exactly how he acquired them. This war started from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, then spread around the world.

World War Two was started by a dictator, Adolph Hitler, lasted for six years, and ended with the U.S. dropping an atomic bomb on the Japanese. As Wikipedia put it, "It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries in a state of 'total war.'" Japan surrendered and today is one of our closest allies. Before Hitler there was Benito Mussolini, then there was Stalin. Dictators have ruled from the beginning of time and will continue to as long as power is concentrated and there are people who succumb to deceptive promises.

Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the end of WWII, when it split into two regions, each with separate governments and claiming to be the legitimate government of all of Korea. The war had its ups and downs for both sides until an armistice was signed July 27,1953, creating the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea. There were several leaders in North Korea following the war but in 1994, Kim Jong-il took control and ruled until his psych son, Kim Jong-un took over. Here's how he runs his regime...

“Kim Jong-Un has picked up where his father and grandfather left off, by overseeing a system of public executions, extensive political prison camps, and brutal forced labor,” according to Human Rights Watch.

Unfortunately, there is no Memorial Day for these deaths and others like them...

The Vietnam War was fought against America as the aggressor, and produced, perhaps, some of the worst horror stories of any before it. No one will forget that picture (above) of people trying to get on one of the last helicopter evacuating Saigon, which transported more than 1,000 Americans and more than 5,000 Vietnamese out of the city. I had a close friend, until his death, who related to me his chilling experience. He and other American soldiers were attacked by hooded Vietnamese with knives; he shot and killed two. When he removed the hoods, one was a young girl.

As they say, war is hell but currently we are stuck with a "potential" situation that won't go away. No. Korea's present leader, Kim Jong-Un, persists in rattling his swords of war and dares the United States to call his bluff. President Obama seemed close to some meaningful negotiations in March of 2016, but it all tanked when the U.S. demanded No. Korea's nuclear weapons be a part of the talks. And Kim Jong Un just tested a missile capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead. But now Donald Trump has decided to shoot down a simulated North Korean ICBM intercontinental-range missile.

I am using Memorial Day here to point out the unneeded wars that have been fought and to illustrate the fact that we just might be headed back into another one with a dictator on one side, and our very
own oligarch on the other. Will it ever end? I will leave you with a list of fatalities from all U.S. Wars and Conflicts...

American Revolution (1775-1783)                4,435 War of 1812 (1812-1815)                              2,260 Mexican War (1846-1848)                          13,283 Civil War (1861-1865)                               620,000 Spanish-American War (1898-1902)               385 World War I (1917-1918)                           116,516 World War II (1941-1945)                         405,399 Korean War (1950-1953)                            36,574 Vietnam War (1964-1975)                          58,220 Gulf War (1990-1991)                                      383 Afghanistan War (2001-present)                   2,381 Iraq War (2003-2012)                                   4,500 Happy Memorial Day!

Trump tells poor to go screw themselves

Mike Mulvaney

The White House budget was released last Tuesday and just as Bernie Sanders predicted, Donald Trump threw the poor and needy under the train, telling them to get a job now or lose all their benefits. That includes food stamps, tax credits and welfare payments, and this will be accomplished by reducing spending on these programs by $274 billion over a decade. Here's what Mike Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said to this group...

“If you are on food stamps and you are able bodied, we need you to go to work.”

Okay, there are some deadbeats out there but doesn't this mindless bureaucrat think that most of these unemployed people are already desperately looking for a job and there just might be some reason they aren't connecting. Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 211,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. There are 7.1 million persons unemployed, more when you consider those no more looking. Yes, Donald Trump inherited an economy on its way up from near disaster caused by George W. Bush.

Instead of Mulvaney showing these unemployed folk the street if they don't find a job, his maniac boss should get busy with some of the jobs programs he promised. Instead, his budget proposes a 40% cut in job training programs. And then Mulvaney said,  “There is a dignity to work, and there’s a necessity to work to help the country succeed.” Can you believe this? Cut job training, then talk about helping the out-of-work. This is all insane and if we don't get rid of the source of all this chaos soon, it could be too late.

Later Mulvaney said, “We believe in the social safety net. We absolutely do. What we've done is not to try and remove the safety net for folks who need it, but to try and figure out if there’s folks who don't need it that need to be back in the workforce." The keyword here is "try," which provides great latitude in what they really end up having to do.

His staff, Ann Coulter and Twitter's Evan Williams all turning on Trump

The Trump-Coulter team

To begin with, here's what a senior administration official who also worked on Trump’s campaign said...

"Every day he looks more and more like a complete moron.”

Another person in the administration commented...

“If Donald Trump gets impeached, he will have one person to blame: Donald Trump.”

It would seem that even Donald Trump's top advisers believe that their idiotic leader's actions portend impeachment. The Daily Beast reports that T-rump had "trash talked" James Comey to Russian government officials. In this meeting "Trump reportedly promised the Kremlin more flexibility in their relationship, with 'crazy' Comey out of the picture." To Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, the Oval Office imbecile remarked, "I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job.” Putin must be going into spasms about now.

Everything that comes down seems to be leaked, some saying it comes from within the administration with the hope that it could stop Trump's zany acts. Since we know that will never happen, one just might assume that many of these leaks are meant to point out the sheer desperation of a team whose morale is in the toilet. It's a cry for help with a clueless Congress completely ignoring the fact that Donald Trump is literally destroying our country. And the two most responsible are Senate leader, Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

But perhaps one of the biggest blows to the Trump administration is the revelation of Ann Coulter that "...she’s ready to bail on President Donald Trump over his lack of delivery on promises." But that's not all, she does address his outright lunacy with the comment that he is “comically improbable" in the Oval Office. Her downfall is when she blames Congress for "...Trump’s perceived lack of success so far in his presidency." At first I thought she was talking about Barack Obama but obviously Coulter is hallucinating again.

I have a great deal of respect for Ann Coulter because of how she has risen as a top conservative pundit in a man's world. I don't agree with anything she says and believe much, if not all, of her ideology is dangerous. But I will defend her to the end of the earth to be able to say it. Here's one of her quotes: "I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am." Maybe that is the key to her success. Another example is the fact that she claims Donald Trump's quote, “immigrants are rapists,” was stolen from her.

Here is another example of Coulter quotes...

“We need to execute people like John Walker [Lindh] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors,”

 Coulter later clarified what she meant;

“When I said we should ‘execute’ John Walker Lindh, I mis-spoke. What I meant to say was ‘We should burn John Walker Lindh alive and televise it on prime-time network TV’. My apologies for any misunderstanding that might have occurred.”

Now, Coulter washing her hands of Donald Trump is a hard hit, but perhaps what Twitter's President, Evan Williams said would dig even deeper into T-rump's psyche. Williams remarked that one of the goals of Twitter is for people to speak freely and exchange information and ideas. He added though, “If it’s true that he [Donald Trump] wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry,” Whoa, now, you are talking about the great communicator's favorite mode of staying in touch with all the blithering idiots who voted for him.

Apparently his tweeting has toppled since he learned that "... a special prosecutor would investigate his campaign for possible ties to Russia..." And it was back in March that he commented to Tucker Carlson of Fox News...

“I have my own form of media. There's been nobody in history that got more dishonest media than I've gotten. … Twitter is a wonderful thing for me because I can get the word out.”

A Twitter spokeswoman felt the need to qualify Evan Williams' comment...

“Twitter provides a platform for people to engage with and discuss issues of importance, and facilitates a more open exchange of information. We continue to see more leaders, around the world, take to Twitter to communicate with their constituents and engage in a conversation.”

Twitter will never be the same again.

Will Trump impeachment woes turn out Progressives in 2018?

Daniel Coats-Michael Rogers

In yesterday's post, I posed the idea that the Republican Congress could become so worried over Donald Trump's recent antics between the Russian relationship, Michael Flynn's problems, and what James Comey might say to Congress, they would vote for impeachment. But wait, that's not all. The dumbest of all dufuses has done it again. T-rump asked Daniel Coats, director of national intelligence, and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, two of the top intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence. Unbelievable.

The Washington Post commented...

"Trump’s effort to use the director of national intelligence and the NSA director to dispute Comey’s statement and to say there was no evidence of collusion echoes President Richard Nixon’s 'unsuccessful efforts to use the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break-in on national security grounds,' said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel at the CIA. Smith called Trump’s actions 'an appalling abuse of power.'"

So now we have added another blunder by the master blunderer, and more fire in the furnace of growing disillusionment with Donald Trump with increasing worry for those GOP seats across the country that could go left in 2018. Marc Rotterman, a longtime Republican consultant in North Carolina, feels Trump is not fulfilling his 2016 campaign promises, and finds it hard to justify this to Trump supporters in his state. Rotterman said...

“...there still could be a course correction but that if Trump and Republicans don’t make good on their promises, they risk losing support — particularly from the blue-collar voters who helped propel Trump to victory last fall. They’re counting on him,”

As a life-long liberal, I remember when the blue-collar worker was solidly in the Democrats' camp. I do not know what happened to change their minds so radically that they would vote for someone like Donald Trump; perhaps their lack of education, which is borne out by some of the comments made by the man's supporters. And here is the best example of Trump supporter stupidity I have ever seen. WATCH THE VIDEO. It is so obvious in this video that the people interviewed, T-rump's loyal supporters, belong to the same moron club as does the blockhead they elected.

So, how is this affecting the trenches, those Republican strongholds in local, state, and national offices nationwide that were carefully expanded over the years while DNC head, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had her head up her...well, you know. Here's an assessment of the current situation from Jennifer Horn, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party...

“We cannot sustain this level of chaos from the White House and expect it will be anything less than a tragic outcome on Election Day.”

While Rotterman concentrates on the Trump blue collar vote, the candidate took 29% of the Hispanic vote, better than Romney in 2012; total Latino turnout in 2016 was 11%, which mirrored 2012. Unfortunately, Bernie Sanders didn't convince Hispanics in 2016, but he made a solid pitch to the working class, the blue-collar worker, and had he run against Trump, he might very well have taken this group, thus, eliminating one of T-rump's bases. As a point of reference, Donald Trump won blue collar workers by 40% over Clinton; men by 49%.

While it's all about Russia, James Comey and Michael Flynn right now, Barry Bennett, a Trump political adviser during last year’s election campaign, says 2018 will be all about jobs and his present feeling is that the jobs picture is good, therefore, many Republicans will be safe in the midterms. But, while Bennett's point does have some validity, I cannot believe that a rational American public will continue to settle for a bonehead like Donald Trump as the President of the greatest country in the world. You won't change the dimwits in the video above, but who really needs that mentality.

More on why Trump may be impeached

Yesterday I made the statement in my headline "Why GOP may be planning Trump impeachment," and in the post I recovered the issues that have led the sane members of the public to wonder at this point just what is going on in Donald Trump's administration. His administrative staff and his closest advisers apparently don't, so the bungling idiot, who listens to no one, just goes stupidly on his way. Aren't we lucky that there has been no major crisis to contend with because it is certain that, whatever the dilemma, T-rump would screw it up, possibly even getting us into a war.

Here's what Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) had to say...

“Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening,”

Congress has not established a relationship with Trump allowing it to pass legislation that has been on the agenda since it scored both houses of Congress and the Oval Office. Unfortunately, the latter has not cooperated and their master plan to conservatize the country is in a constant case of chaos. And as long as there are die-hard T-rump supporters like Joseph Amodeo, age 19, of Staten Island, NY, the White House lunatic isn't likely to back down. Amodeo "...incorrectly praised the president for raising New York's minimum wage, something enacted by Democrats in the Legislature."

The Staten Island resident added...

"If you're wishing for him to fail, you're basically wishing for the pilot of the plane to crash. You just gotta stick by him and hopefully he does things that benefit everyone."

Joseph Amodeo, in a nutshell, showcases the sheer stupidity of those who support Trump. The dismal, out-of-touch world they live in allows this gang of poor souls to survive, much as the ostrich does when it puts its head in the sand. Pathetic but so true. Here's the Washington Post's assessment of Donald Trump's leadership to date...

"He has provided limited leadership on health care and limited leadership on taxes. He has offered direction that does not always conform to the preferences of conservatives in Congress. He has offered guidelines but no detailed blueprints. His priorities are not always those of congressional Republicans. He retains the power to sign legislation but in all other ways seems to frustrate or complicate efforts by congressional Republicans to bring those measures to his desk."

And they cap it off with the fact that T-rump is nowhere near the deal maker he professes to be. In other words, he falls short on just about every level of what it takes to be President.

So, what about a special prosecutor to investigate both Donald Trump and Michael Flynn, in relation to Russians interfering with the 2016 election, Flynn's relationship with Turkey and what Trump knew in advance of his appointment along with what James Comey is about to say before Congress? Republicans will stand by him until their constituents demand otherwise. That's when the shit will hit the fan and that's when Republicans will be forced to do something they abhor doing, the right thing. Backed into a corner, they will do the unthinkable to a Republican President. Impeach him.

Here's my reasoning. The 2018 midterms are fast approaching and the GOP has already lost ground in several races nationwide. A Republican Congress could easily lose the Senate with Democrats needing only 3 seats to take a majority. There's even talk of taking enough seats in the House to at least make it harder for the GOP to pass its legislation. I don't think Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell want that. Their only option is to throw Donald Trump under the train which means this option will mean impeachment of the President of the United States.