Friday, June 9, 2017

"TRUMP LIED" James Comey denounces and indicts Donald Trump

James Comey

James Comey exclaims you can't trust Donald Trump to tell the truth. I watched his testimony and thought Comey looked, well...Presidential. The man was ultimately prepared--don't think he ever had to look at notes--and he handled himself extremely well as the professional he is. He seemed to have the respect of most of this bi-partisan Senate panel, except for Arizona's John McCain who veered off on inane questions re. Hillary Clinton's emails. The outset of the hearing is the fact that it will take the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to get to the bottom of all this.

Although Comey would not say if he felt Trump had obstructed justice, he did have the following to say...
“I know I was fired because something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was putting pressure on [Trump],’’ Comey said.
James Comey is a former federal prosecutor and knows the way witnesses react to save their butts in statements and testimony and said...
"...that he took detailed notes of his private talks with the president — a departure from his practice with Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama. Comey said he did so because he was 'honestly concerned’ that the president might lie about what had been said in their meeting. He said the two spoke in private a total of nine times before Comey was fired, he said."
Folks, this is the President of the United States that Comey is talking about lying. What does this tell the other countries of the world? If a top U.S. government official thinks Donald Trump is a liar, what might Angela Merkel of Germany think of her dealings with Trump? Or the other nations out there. To me, it sounded like Comey made it clear that, although Trump prefaced his comments to the FBI Director with "I hope," Comey took it as pressure to do what was asked of him. This from the President's comments, "I expect loyalty, I need loyalty."

For once, or, at least, not yet. Donald Trump has not used Twitter to vent his unbalanced reactions. He let his attorney do it and the following is interesting...
"The President likewise never pressured Mr. Comey. The President also never told Mr. Comey, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty' in form or substance."
Here's the "incoherent" questioning of Comey by Arizona's Republican Senator, John McCain:



The interesting part comes from the fact that James Comey has said he fully welcomes any tapes that might have been recorded of the conversations between the two men, and this isn't likely unless he expects them to prove him right. Trump also says he welcomes the tapes, but then this con man is known for his bluffs to get what he wants. Comey, on the other hand, has proven himself a reputable member of government service who tells it like it is. So, what's missing in all this? As James Comey said in his testimony several times, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller must now put all the pieces together. And James Comey has no doubt that he can get the job done.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

How long will the Trump meltdown continue, before...

London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Trump

Here's the latest headline from the Washington Post: "Trump is out of control." It is an opinion written by respected journalist, Eugene Robinson, which, in and of itself, almost worries me more than the content of his words. Someone of his stature has come to the conclusion that the leader of the free world has gone berserk. And he sits in the Oval Office where he could bring about a series of disasters that could...well...not something we want for our children. Here's Robinson's opening paragraph...
"The statements President Trump issued on Twitter in recent days lead to a chilling conclusion: The man is out of control."
Again, it's the Twitter thing this narcissistic lunatic has used repeatedly to ply his need to receive the approval from a group of double-digit followers that, with all this maniac's recent bizarre activity, must have stuck their heads in the sand. It is purely ridiculous to me that anyone, regardless of their intelligence, can't see that this man is moving this country to the point of collapse. Just like George W. Bush did with his financial crisis of 2008. In the WP article, Robinson documents many of Trump's outlandish tweets that is worth the read.

Following the terrorist attack on the London Bridge, London's Mayor Sadiq Khan said: "Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There's no reason to be alarmed." To illustrate Donald Trump's stupidity when it comes to diplomacy, the dunce tweeted this in retaliation: "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!" He took Khan's last sentence completely out of context, and proceeded to use it to promote himself and his U.S. travel ban. 

The apparent new White House spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders (supposedly Sean Spicer has been dispensed to cutting the White House lawn) said when asked if the president’s tweets were being vetted by lawyers or aides...
“Social media for the president is extremely important,” Sanders said. “It gives him the ability to speak directly to the people without the bias of the media filtering those types of communication.”
Meaning precisely what WP opinion writer Eugene Robinson stated, "Trump is out of control."

White House advisers were full of inane comments justifying Trump statements and Tweets like they simply aren't listening to what their boss is saying. Better yet, they're just afraid to open their mouth in rebuttal. Christopher Ruddy, a close associate of Trump and president of Newsmax Media, a conservative news organization, said...
"He’s rightly frustrated, and he isn’t always checking with his lawyers about each tweet. But he’s getting his message out there. He is relying on himself to be the messenger.”
This just proves how ludicrous the conservative media can be when referring to another conservative.

Donald Trump's ratings are tanking amid a group of White House staffers who have actually turned on him, but which are offset by party leadership and senior advisers in the West Wing, where many remain supportive of Trump’s combative posture, but are unable or unwilling to usher him toward a less incendiary approach. Interpreted, that means those that might be able to do something about Trump's imbecility have decided it is in the best interest of the country to allow a maniac to proceed, almost without any restrictions. Until what...total calamity?

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

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?

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

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!

Monday, June 5, 2017

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. 

Friday, June 2, 2017

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.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

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 

Donald Trump Says He Will Be Indicted On Tuesday

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