July 31, 2017

Imagine if Russia hadn't really tried to interfere with our election.

Edited for clarity:

Yes, Russia interfered in our election. <-- Read it again.

But I was thinking that even if Putin and his Russian hackers hadn't interfered, or even tried to interfere, with our election, under the current circumstances Putin would still be in a strong position to compel Trump to do his bidding. Here's my reasoning:

1. Whether or not it's true, what matters is that our intelligence agencies are firmly convinced that Putin interfered with the election. Congress accepts that and is acting accordingly with sanctions against Russia.

2. Given that, does Putin have anything to lose if he publicly admits that he interfered, and that he did so in collusion with Trump and his minions? Such an admission might not have any serious consequences for Putin but would be devastating for Trump.

3. If so, this puts Putin in a position to compel Trump to do what he wants, or else. Putin has the power to destroy Trump.

For all we know, this could be what was privately discussed over dinner on July 7 at the G20.

If this makes sense it would presumably disqualify Trump for a security clearance, let alone the presidency, but maybe I'm being naive and it isn't plausible at all. I'd like to hear what others think about this.

July 28, 2017

Dark Helmet attends Trump's speech in Brentwood, NY.

July 25, 2017

Fake News from CNN! (Ha ha, just kidding.)

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/25/politics/trump-sessions-bullying/index.html

CNN says

... that came less than 24 hours after Trump had described Sessions as "beleagured" in another tweet...

The use of quotation marks implies that Trump misspelled beleaguered, but in fact, he didn't. See for yourself:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/889467610332528641
Fake news! Fake news! We can be confident that even though Trump is contemptuous of virtually all of the other resources at a U.S. president's disposal, he does rely on his spell checker.


Edit: It's just a joke! Yes, I understand that what actually happened was that the CNN reporter didn't know how to spell beleaguered.

July 23, 2017

It's time to reassign the "miserable failure" Google Bomb to he whom it clearly & obviously belongs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb

July 22, 2017

Does anyone else remember "Baghdad Bob"?

I'm already seeing haunting parallels between Anthony Scaramucci and Baghdad Bob.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is a former Iraqi diplomat and politician. He came to wide prominence around the world during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, during which he was the Iraqi Information Minister under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, acting as the spokesperson for the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and Saddam's regime.

He is best known for his grandiose and grossly unrealistic propaganda broadcasts before and during the war, extolling the invincibility of the Iraqi Army and the permanence of Saddam's rule. His announcements were met with widespread derision and amusement by Western nationals and others with access to up-to-date information from international media organizations. In the US he was popularly known as Baghdad Bob...

July 21, 2017

Solar Eclipse Delayed Two Weeks, Rescheduled for Labor Day

July 20, 2017

Trump threatens electoral consequences for senators who oppose health bill.

The only way this could make sense is if Trump is threatening to call Putin and have him interfere again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-challenges-senators-to-resurrect-obamcare-repeal-effort-were-close/2017/07/19/468c2dc0-6c8f-11e7-9c15-177740635e83_story.html

July 20, 2017

It's a bit distressing that Rachel ran out of time last night. I wonder what else she had ready.

July 19, 2017

Great news! The White House is trying to kill the daily press briefing.

The White House is trying to kill the daily press briefing

We've known for a long time that what Trump and his surrogates say is worthless, so the press briefings and their rebroadcasts are essentially wastes of time for everyone involved. The time is better spent focusing upon what Trump does and what's been newly discovered about the Trump Crime Family.




As Rachel Maddow said in the Rolling Stone Interview:

"Have you found the whole fake-news and "alternative facts" stuff to be a distraction?"

"I mean, who cares? It's like sticks and stones. I am interested in the president denigrating the press – and the judiciary and the intelligence community and law enforcement – because that is important in terms of his behavior as an increasingly authoritarian-style leader, the type of which we have never had before at this level of American politics, period. I am not interested in it because it offends me. When speech becomes behavior, then it is relevant. I don't watch the press briefing. I don't read the president's tweets. In general, 'The president has tweeted X' is an overblown story."

And, of course, who wants to look at this?

July 18, 2017

Never mind, it turned out to be a problem on my end.

I only asked if others were getting the same unexpected result that I was getting. It turned out that it was just my computer and there's no evidence or a problem with the DU site.