Trump even worse than Nixon says John Dean

Yeah...Sure!

Watergate is the political conspiracy scandal against which all others are measured, claims John Dean, who served as President Richard Nixon's White House attorney in the 1970s. In the beginning Dean worked to protect Nixon, but then, "...flipped and helped sink Nixon by revealing the president’s involvement in the cover-up." The Los Angeles Times reports...

"As part of a deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and served four months in a federal safe house. He was barred from practicing law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, moved to his wife’s home state of California and made his livelihood as an investment banker and regular on the lecture circuit."

John Dean is back, but this time his interest is in Donald Trump, and as the Times put it...

"He hasn’t been in this great a demand since his call for President George W. Bush’s impeachment — for condoning torture, among other perceived abuses of power — and, before that, as a ringside commentator during the Clinton-era Monica Lewinsky scandal."

Dean states something that is painfully obvious to the rest of the world now, the fact that Richard Nixon was better prepared to serve as President than is Donald Trump. This, of course, is laughable at this point, but Nixon's former attorney adds, although they both had an authoritarian persona, Trump is by far the most narcissistic and transparent. As an example of the latter...

"Unlike Nixon, 'Trump is surprisingly candid about himself,' Dean said. The president’s admission that he fired FBI Director James B. Comey to relieve the pressure of his investigation into Russia and the 2016 election was, to Dean’s mind, 'basically confessing obstruction of justice.'”

A Politico poll taken at the end of May shows that, "Forty-three percent of voters want Congress to begin impeachment proceedings...up from 38 percent last week." That's a significant increase, five percentage points in just seven days. The 46% who earlier were against impeachment has dropped to 45%, no big deal, unless the slide continues. Along with all this Trump's approval rating hit a new low, "...46 percent of voters approved of Trump’s job performance, and 47 percent disapproved. Much of this comes from the fact that Americans are concerned over the GOP health care bill.

If Congress is not ready to launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, there are a growing number of cities and towns around the U.S. putting pressure on Congress for that reason. Politico reports...

"Brookline, Mass., became the 10th and latest local government Thursday to pass a resolution calling for impeachment, a step designed to add pressure on the state’s congressmen to launch a formal investigation that could ultimately lead to the president’s removal from office."

Already on the move are Cambridge, Amherst, Pelham and Leverett. And then there's the liberal playground of California where, "The Los Angeles city council in early May overwhelmingly passed a measure asking for impeachment proceedings to begin. Richmond, Alameda and Berkeley did the same." Not to be outdone, Chicago is drafting an ordnance for impeachment. This isn't the first time for this action; it also happened in 2006 when...

"...a group of towns in Vermont, and later the state’s Senate, passed resolutions calling for George W. Bush’s impeachment, saying he misled the country before going to war in Iraq."

According to another Politico poll, 43% of Americans want Donald Trump impeached regardless of whether or not he has committed acts of high crimes or misdemeanors, required by the Constitution. If close to half the country wants this man out of the Oval Office, based entirely on the fact that his behavior as President has been unfit for that office, good God!...what more does it take. The answer to that is a Congress that finally realizes it must do the right thing and put the good of the country ahead of the good of the Republican Party. Will that ever happen?

Bigots and racists can't fault Kathy Griffin

How can the radical right take offense at Kathy Griffin's severed head picture, considering the way Ted Nugent unleashed his numerous hateful comments against former President Barack Obama? Griffin was punished for what she did. Nugent became the White House guest of Donald Trump. Nugent is also a gun nut who, "...went on a rant onstage during a concert and said vile things about both Obama and Clinton, using expletives to refer to both. This lowlife said at a NRA convention in 2012, “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”

Back in October of 2012, a North Carolina Tea Party racist hung President Obama in effigy, and took his presentation on a tour around the country, ending up in New York city. I conversed by email with VR Phipps, who was a Command member of the Tea Party from Faison, NC, who denied everything he had done. Including even being a Tea Party member. North Carolina also has concentrations of active hate groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, including Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi, Racist Skinhead, Neo-Confederate, Black Separatist, Anti-LGBT and Anti-Muslim.

But Griffin had this comment re. the Donald Trump bloody head photo...

"...the photo was intended to be in protest of Trump’s sexist words to journalist Megyn Kelly during a 2016 Republican presidential debate, in which he said the former Fox News host had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” when she asked him about his past comments regarding women."

That's not a photo, but it's about as graphic as it gets in terms of text illustration. In Peoplepolitics, Alec Baldwin, who has made a recent career of lampooning Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live is in full support of Kathy Griffin...

“Kathy… f— them,f___them. F— them all,” Baldwin, 59, wrote. “No one believes you meant to threaten Trump. Trump is such a senile idiot, all he has is Twitter fights.”
“Ignore him,” Baldwin continued. “Like the leaders of all the other countries in the world. Ignore him.”

AMEN!

Kathy Griffin is now taking a great amount of flak from Donald Trump and his family, and she says they are trying to ruin her career...

"As a result of the first family bullying her, she has been vilified, getting death threats, fired from multiple jobs and had multiple events canceled," Lisa Bloom, her attorney, said.

Okay, let's get down to the nitty gritty of this whole fiasco. Kathy Griffin posed with a bloody, severed head of Donald Trump, and everyone, including the Secret service goes ballistic, somehow assuming a threat against DT's life. Ridiculous, of course. But a Tea Party nut can hang Barack Obama in effigy while he is still in the Oval Office, parade this around the country including New York city, hardly drawing major attention. Ted Nugent denigrates both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and is rewarded with an invitation to the Oval Office by Donald Trump.

Kathy Griffin commented, "This is a woman thing," as is much of what Donald Trump's past problems have been. No one will forget his most famous comment about what a "star" could do to women...

"I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—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 ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

The upside to this whole thing is that Kathy Griffin has promised not to be intimidated by all this; rather, that she will continue to use Trump as fodder for her comedic material. "I'm going to make fun of him more now," she said.

Right on, Kathy!

Republicans paid millions by top polluters to dump Paris Agreement

GOP Congress 

The sleaziest of all, Senate head, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) was paid $1,975,245; Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas): $2,484,520; Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas): $3,031,956; Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri): $1,143,574. And the list goes on; view the totals for each Senator here. There is a question in my mind of what the difference in the impact of this group is over the White House nationalist, Steve Bannon, who supposedly spearheaded Trump's decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord. But politicians will take money for anything, regardless, especially Republicans.

In the Washington Post, Ishaan Tharoor made a startling statement: "If Trump quits the Paris climate accord, he will lead the U.S. into the wilderness." It was the headline for his article speculating that should Trump take that course, we, the United States, go against the rest of the world. And he did. And we have. What is most interesting is that local governments across the country have rebuffed DT's decision, insisting they will support the Paris Climate Pact. At the same time the nation's top CEOs say Trump is dead wrong in his decision.

Even the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were supposedly urging Trump to stick with the Paris agreement, according to Tharoor, but Tillerson's former company, Exxonmobil ranks #2 in historic greenhouse gas emissions. There are opponents including...

"White House chief adviser Stephen K. Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, a climate skeptic who has already set about dismantling Obama-era regulations on the U.S. fossil fuel industry."

Bannon, of course, is considered one of the architects of Donald Trump's decision to exit the agreement. The WP provides more background on the Paris agreement...

""Championed by the Obama administration, the Paris agreement created, for the first time, a single framework for developed and developing countries to work together and reduce greenhouse gases."

Former President Obama developed a network of countries that were interested in improving the ecology of the planet, including China, which is #1 in carbon dioxide emissions. The latter, in itself, was considered a major accomplishment because China had always refused to participate in any ecological agreements. The pact was signed by 195 countries, with only Nicaragua, Syria and the United States, #2 polluter, not participating. There's more fallout...

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla announced that he's quitting the president's business advisory councils because of the decision. He twittered, "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world." Also, Disney CEO Bob Iger said he will step down "as a matter of principle" from Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum.

The Forum is a group of business leaders organized by Donald Trump, to give Donald Trump advice in protecting the planet. Apparently' the Oval Office moron doesn't listen to anyone, not even industry compatriots. 

More heads should roll in the Trump administration

Call my headline in poor taste but still considering all the negative media Kathy Griffin is getting, what she did reflects the total disdain for the lunatic who currently sits in the Oval Office. Her act is distasteful because the person in question is the president of the United States and you do not disgrace that office. While in the Navy I complained because I had to salute an officer for which I had no respect. The officer I worked for told me to just keep in mind that you are saluting the rank, not the man. I choose to believe Griffin had contempt for the man, certainly not for the office.

So, to move on, and, by the way, how do those of you who denounce my headline, know I wasn't taking about the recent firing of Mike Dubke, Trump's communications director? I wasn't. Whatever, let's move on to the substance of my headline, those who should be next in line to go, starting with Jared Kushner. We know Donald Trump gloats over his overrated family, whose accomplishments all seem to stem from the Trump name. And there would be no Trump "name" if DT's father, Fred, hadn't given him $14 million to start his real estate enterprise, plus all Fred's business connections.

Now Jared Kushner's father took a different course to success than Trump's; he was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering, and served time in federal prison on his way to his $1.8 billion fortune. And according to Sen. Al Franken, Jared "...may have broken the law with Russia communications." Franken said further...

"White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s reported efforts to set up a back-channel line of communication between the transition team of President Donald Trump and the Russian government is a 'pretty bad breach,' one that could be against the law and should prompt consideration about a revocation of his security clearance."

Now this is the same thing we have been hearing about lately re. the fact that Kushner proposed a meeting with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. in order to establish a secret means of communications between the Kremlin and Trump’s transition team that would keep out the U.S. intelligence community. Apparently, Kushner failed to disclose his contacts with Russian officials. Franken commented, “This is a pretty bad breach. These guys, the administration, they're not acting like people who have nothing to hide.”

Steve Bannon

Another one who should go who seems to be holding on by only his relationship with Trump, is Steve Bannon, who hasn't been in the news lately. Until yesterday, when Trump announced the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, a decision most likely provoked by his chief strategist, Steve Bannon. The nationalist won, the U.S. and the world lost. Some say the Paris deal would have hurt the U.S. economy, but Dozens of CEOs have been lobbying President Donald Trump to stay in the deal. China, world's largest carbons polluter stayed in the Paris agreement.

The U.S., second largest carbons polluter, exited the agreement. There were 197 participants, 147 ratifying the agreement. But apparently Steve Bannon's whiteboard explains Donald Trump's climate decision, plus a number of other priorities on the nationalist's agenda that we can look forward to in the future. That is, if he isn't dumped with Kushner. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center says that Bannon has no business in the White House. "We're the platform for the alt-right," Bannon said in July, using a term that is really just a rebranding of traditional white nationalism.

Kellyanne Conway and friend

And then there's Kellyanne Conway...what can one say. Here's what Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC said, "White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is not credible anymore, and won't be booked in the future on “Morning Joe.”  The woman can't help lying...look who she works for. If Trump should dump her, there is the possibility that she could replace Kathy Griffin on CNN's New Year's Eve show. Anderson Cooper is going to be desperately in need of someone who can make him laugh as much as Griffin. Conway's stupefaction is classic on all fronts.

If my headline has offended anyone, well, that's life under the Donald Trump administration.

Bigotry, racism and hate in Donald Trump's presidency

Mark Potok, Editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, said in the Spring 2017 issue...

"The campaign language of the man who would become president sparks hate violence, bullying, before and after the election."

He was, of course, talking about Donald Trump who had adverse effects on the lowlife of our country even back in 2015. The story goes, two guys left a Red Sox ballgame late one night and ran across a homeless Mexican immigrant sleeping outside a commuter rail station. They proceeded to beat him with a metal pipe, punched him repeatedly, urinated on him and called him a “wetback." Elated with what they had done, Guillermo Rodriguez was left with cracked ribs and broken fingers plus other injuries. Arrested just a short time later,  one of them, 38-year-old Scott Leader said...

“Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported.”

In another incident in Portland, Oregon, a man stabbed three people when two of them attempted to stop a man who was ranting and raving and shouting anti-Muslim insults at two young women. It was n a light-rail train where the attacker stabbed and killed the two men and seriously injured another. There were witnesses and police were able to capture 35-year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian, of north Portland. The Southern Poverty Law Center had Christian in their records that indicated he held racist, white supremacist and extremist beliefs. Trump/Bannon related? Who knows.

It is noteworthy that Donald trump had kicked off his presidential campaign just two months prior to the attack, above, on a homeless Mexican man, with a speech describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug smugglers. In his article Mark Potok takes us from the attack on the Mexican homeless man through Trump's inauguration. One of the first things he did was call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the country. He attacked a Muslim Gold Star family, insinuating that Khizr Khan, whose son died in Iraq, was a terrorist sympathizer.

Here's more from Potok's SPLC article...

"He had retweeted utterly bogus claims that black people were responsible for 80% of the murders of whites. He had cozied up to some of the country’s hardest line gay-bashers. He had retweeted anti-Semitic memes and called many immigrants “not well.” He had attacked a debate moderator by insinuating that her tough questions were the result of her menstrual cycle. And his earlier boasts about grabbing women by the genitals had been revealed."

Wow! We had just elected a real gent, huh? But there's much more...

"After a Black Lives Matter activist was beaten at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Ala., he told Fox News that “maybe he should have been roughed up. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he urged supporters to 'knock the crap' out of protesters, adding, 'I promise you, I will pay your legal fees.' When a backer at a Fayetteville, N.C., rally sucker-punched a black protester being led away by police — an act described by the local sheriff as 'a cowardly, unprovoked attack' — Trump told two national news outlets that he was looking into paying the man’s legal fees."

Mark Potok has done a great job of documenting Donald Trump's bigotry, racism and hate ranting. But Donald Trump throughout it all remains oblivious to how terrible what he is doing and saying, and even makes this unbelievable statement following the beating of Guillermo Rodriguez. His reaction was, "While the attack was 'a shame,' Trump’s main conclusion was that 'people who are following me are very passionate.'" It is impossible to figure out what kind of blood runs in the veins of this lunatic or just how his brain synapses operate...or don't.

And finally...

"In the immediate aftermath of the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) noticed a dramatic jump in hate violence and incidents of harassment and intimidation around the country. At the same time, a wave of incidents of bullying and other kinds of harassment washed over the nation’s K-12 schools. The SPLC decided to make an effort to document all of this in real time."

Thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center for the great material and I suggest you visit their site and make a donation: Southern Poverty Law Center 

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.