Taking the Trump Train to Treasonville

TOPSHOT – A supporter of US President Donald Trump wears a gas mask and holds a bust of him after he and hundreds of others stormed stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. – Donald Trump’s supporters stormed a session of Congress held today, January 6, to certify Joe Biden’s election win, triggering unprecedented chaos and violence at the heart of American democracy and accusations the president was attempting a coup. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

Anger is a form of fear manifest, and the riots and unrest of this era are a result of a pandemic and the fear of what has typically been the majority population of America; white, blue collar men. This is a generalization, of course, but this seems to be the core of the most vociferous group that’s jumped on the “Trump Train” and arrived on station armed to the teeth and ready to commit treason in the name of a narcissist, adulterer and serial liar who managed to get elected with the help of Vladimir Putin. 

This group, which flourished in the fossil fuel epoch, is doomed in the upcoming era. In the era of hyper advanced technology and a dismissal of the internal combustion engine, the American rough-and-tumble white male becomes emasculated. Additionally, the preponderance of black and brown faces which will inevitably become the minority-majority, fuels this fear and the natural response of a threatened animal (meaning homo sapiens albus) is to attack, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.  

Combine this visceral fear of obsolescence, a fall from power, and a nebulous fear of an invisible enemy and you get a situation where this group hypertension has to find an outlet. Fight or flight on a cultural level would  naturally be exhibited in resistance to something. The natural target of these fears would be those on the left, who are proponents of technology and diversity, the very things that threaten the group’s way of life. This is what the left fail to understand when they see what’s happening. They fail to see that it’s a response to impending loss of power and an existential threat to what the group holds dear. 

Can it be any surprise that these  esoteric fears are subconsciously transformed into anger towards a concrete and specific group and/or object? The “left”, e.g., democrats, progressives, immigrants, want to take away their livelihoods–which is derived through backbreaking labor and long hours and results in living paycheck-to-paycheck– through green energy and open borders . And in response to the unseen threat of the COVID-19 virus they respond by denying its very existence and lashing out at the physical manifestation of it, namely the masks. 

This fearful group is easily preyed upon by a lifetime grifter with a certain boorish charisma (which baffles me). Trump has ginned them up to a frothy tempest and they are wreaking havoc on this nation. The blame, while cannot be removed from everyone involved in this seditious population, must be mostly placed on those who have manipulated and profited from these fears. This includes Trump and his acolytes including, but not limited to, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani, etc. The full weight of the Justice Department should be applied and all those with criminal liability must be brought to justice in order for the nation to heal. 

The “everyman” who donned tactical gear, facepaint, or Trump merchandise and breached the doors of Congress are not to escape justice. However, their actions have a natural, fearful, explanation. It’s those at the top who are purported to be leaders and manipulate these fears for selfish ends that should have known better and deserve to be tried and convicted by lawful processes. 

Men Doing Nothing

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

I have never been as furious as I am right now at the state of our nation. After watching Dr. Ford’s heart-rending testimony and Brett Kavanaugh’s stomach-turning testimony, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary–and likely the full Senate–are ready to confirm the nomination. Today, after announcing his yes vote for Kavanaugh, Jeff Flake committed the most egregious act of cowardice I’ve ever seen and it is perfect in its representation of the Trumpian wing of the Republican party. The only word that comes to mind is “broken.”

The party of “family values” now embraces as its leader a serial philanderer and is a sycophantic and morally adrift amalgam scurrying to cover their collective ass on an ad hoc basis. I am a Democrat but my moral center was gifted to me by my grandfather who was a veteran of two wars and one police state, serving in the infantry, as a pilot, a contractor and an engineer. He was also a full-throated (R) and had a political crush on Maggie Thatcher. As I grew into a man and adopted my own views he respected them, and me. While our political outlooks may have differed, the core of what he was remains a lodestar to me and I strive daily to live up to the standards he applied to himself.

Primary to Lt. Col. LaBombard was responsibility. A man takes responsibility for his actions despite the consequences. Recently I made a pretty egregious error that cost our organization both monetarily and in terms of reputation. It was my fault because I let my diligence lapse and some outdated material got published. My instinct was to find a scapegoat and make excuses.

Except that I couldn’t, because my grandfather showed me that a man holds himself accountable, apologizes when necessary and details what he will do to fix the situation. Donald Trump, the “leader” of the nation, is the antithesis of responsibility. He takes responsibility for an economy that was painstakingly rebuilt over nearly a decade before he took office, and refers blame for anything negative to the nearest scapegoat.

Also inherent in my grandad’s moral center is standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. I vividly recall one evening when I was a boy, my gray-haired grandfather, squaring off with my drunken stepfather. He gave up four inches and 20-some-odd years, but he was hell-bound and determined to defend his daughter and grandson. Put this in stark contrast to the video above of Jeff Flake desperately punching at the “CLOSE DOOR” button in an attempt to avoid the questions of the women who are protesting his decision and pleading for him to listen. He cowers in the corner while two female staffers come to his rescue, offering nothing more than a mealy-mouthed “thank you.”

This equivocation and excuse making is contrary to our society and our attempts to grow as humans. The phrase “be a man” is antiquated to an extent, but the tenets are solid. Perhaps we should say, when confronted with egregious acts of cowardice or immorality, “be a human.”

So to Jeff Flake, and all the others who know in their hearts what they are doing is wrong, BE A GODDAMNED HUMAN.

 

The Last Day of America

Dante's Inferno

Dante’s Inferno

Today I woke up terrified. It is the last day of questions in the Senate Trial of Donald John Trump and it appears as though Senate Republicans are about to kick the United States as we know it off a cliff. In surrendering their responsibility as a check and balance of a blatantly corrupt Executive they have ultimately given Trump Carte Blanche to behave as he wishes and use the power of the Oval Office in his own interest rather than that of the nation.

These GOP enablers — Senators like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul — are motivated by fear of a presidential tweet (and whatever Kompramat hangs over their heads) and are setting a precedent that will allow the White House to run amok.

“We will bury you.” – Nikita Khrushchev

Vladimir Putin is skillfully executing Kruschev’s chilling statement made decades ago in the height of the Cold War. In Donald John Trump he found an accomplice so riddled with a combination of ego, ignorance, and circumstance that the Russian Kleptocrat can probably scarcely believe the success of his attack on Democracy. Contrary to what the Republican Congress would have you believe, in 2016 we were indeed attacked as the Mueller report clearly shows.

The GOP loudly decries that the Mueller report fully exonerates Trump, and it’s only the apathy and short attention span of the American people that allow this lie to take root. The report clearly illustrates that the Trump campaign was aided by Russian GRE disinformation efforts and that the President welcomed it. “Russia, if you’re listening.” Mueller’s report states that but only for Federal rules they did not charge Donald Trump with a crime and that, “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
Trump’s sycophantic Attorney General knee-capped the report with his preemptive press-conference acquittal and with the benefit of a news-cycle-on-crack the lies of the Republican party declaring the report a Trump victory took hold. Perception is reality, but it is not the truth.

Existential Dread

What is to become of the nation? American law is based on precedent, and if the Senate now holds Donald Trump unaccountable by blocking witnesses he will no doubt use it as a springboard to do whatever he wants. If anyone in the nation believes that he will act in anyone’s interest but his own, they are not paying attention. There isn’t a public-spirited bone in his body, even the ones that developed convenient spurs.

The thin veneer of civilization

There is an undercurrent of truth that Senate Republicans are seeking to explain away, namely that Donald Trump is inherently corrupt and guilty of everything that has been levied at him in the Impeachment trial. The argument by Alan Dershowitz that Donald Trump believes it’s in the public’s best interest that he be reelected, therefore he can do whatever he wants to get reelected, is exactly the kind of semantic and logical pretzeling that makes people hate lawyers. There is no concern for America or the citizens in that farcical argument, but it is enough for Collins, Murkowski, and whomever else is looking for a semantic excuse to be a coward.

What is to become?

My biggest heartache is for my daughter and the other young people of the nation. My fearful imagination conjures up such a future of conglomeration of wealth and power that the ordinary citizen loses the opportunities that are currently available. It’s difficult enough as it is with systemic obstacles to success and gaining station, especially for women and diverse populations.
The Republicans, currently inebriated on the Trump Koolaid, are disinterested in deficits or national debt which is typically their bailiwick. The moment a Democratic president is elected–assuming elections are still a thing– they will immediately shift back to deficit hawks and proclaim that social programs are the sole culprit to the problem, not the lack of revenue due to Trumpian tax cuts for the wealthy or the spending on Quixotic projects like a wall in the middle of the desert. At this point, the most vulnerable will suffer and I fear greatly for our Republic.

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Mule with a Spinning Wheel

“No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!”

―Lyle Lanley, The Simpsons, Ep. 71

I don’t know why, among all the infuriating things these days, this little bit of nonsense brought my hackles up. But it seems that a political operative, a campaign manager and lackey, is now in charge of reviewing scientific grants given out by the EPA

John Konkus, who worked for Florida’s infamous climate change denier Governor Rick Scott, and allegedly helped Donald Trump “win” the state of Florida, is now the sole reviewer of who gets competitive scientific grants from the EPA.

To recap: another non-scientist…wait, if there was ever a time for capital letters this is it… SOMEONE WITH NO SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND WHATSOEVER is making decisions about scientific grants at the EPA. Of course, why should I be surprised? They replaced an experienced administrator with a Master of Science in Environmental Health Engineering and Planning and Policy with a lawyer. Gina McCarthy is almost everything the Trump administration hates: a scientist, a woman, and she believes in climate change. If she was a person of color, they might have had her jailed.

It seems that Mr. Konkus has told everyone they will be on the lookout for the “double C word”, aka Climate Change, and instructed officers to “eliminate reference to the subject in solicitations.”

Political appointees with an unrelated and unscientific backgrounds should have no place reviewing the validity and worthiness of federal grants. Of course what else should we expect with Donald Trump’s White House?

“Trump’s Presidency Ended May 9th” – Hatch Getting Security Briefings

If this is true, there will be a run on champagne sales across the nation.

Patribotics

Exclusive: Several sources familiar with the matter say that Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah is being given security briefings to prepare him for the Presidency.

Sources close to the legal community indicate that matters are proceeding rapidly in the forthcoming proceedings to remove Donald Trump from office, and to indict the co-conspirators around him.

Sources with links to the intelligence community described a sense of both inevitability and urgency over the unraveling of the Trump-Pence administration over their attempts to obstruct justice. “Trump’s presdidency ended May 9th,” said one source, referring to the overtly politicized dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.

Patribotics hopes to expand our reporting and commission other writers. If you would like to donate, there are buttons around the site, or you could make a contribution here. 

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have both violated their oaths of office in plain sight over the unconstitutional dismissal of Director…

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The Dangerous Ideologues Calling Donald Trump’s Shots

It should be readily apparent now, through the hastily implemented travel ban and increasing saber rattling, that the Trump administration is in the business of confrontation. Donald Trump has no previous public service experience, and his political leanings could be generously termed flexible. He’s been a Democrat, and has himself admitted to donating to politicians on both sides of the congressional aisle in order to get what he wants. As an apparent demagogue whose concern is primarily himself and his empire, there isn’t an ideological bone in his body. He has aligned himself with whatever political wind will carry him to power, and unfortunately for the nation he has trimmed his sails to catch very ill wind indeed.

So who are behind these concerning and dangerous policy directions to which the nation has turned? He has somehow surrounded himself with three stunningly toxic, controversial and unelected individuals, which seem to be directing policy.

Trump’s Rasputin, and probably the most well known of the three, is alt-right publisher/filmaker/banker Steve Bannon.  What makes this previously little known (to mainstream audiences) player so dangerous? Probably the most concerning is his belief that we are on the verge of a global war with Islam, and seems intent on hastening the process. His philosophy and intent is clearly demonstrated through his film trilogy.

The least concerning of his dangerous traits–and alone should be enough to disqualify him as a presidential adviser–is his tenure as publisher of the “ultra-conservative” website Breitbart News. Breitbart supported Islamophobic far-right European candidates and featured a website tag for “black crime,” which is eerily reminiscent of the new office in the Department of Homeland Security called VOICE. VOICE, it is conjectured, will publish lists of immigrants which have committed crimes. If so, this is reminiscent of a tactic used by Adolf Hitler to foment anti-Jewish sentiment.

Unfortunately the echoes of history reverberate further in the alleged association of Trump’s Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka. The website Forward.com reported that he is a sworn member of the Vitézi Rend, which was under the direction of the German Nazis in World War II. He was photographed at Donald Trump’s inauguration ball wearing a traditional Hungarian outfit which is popular with that country’s nationalist right wing, and wearing a medal that is a “…clear sign he identifies with the Horthy era.” The era identified was between 1920 and 1944, during which the Vitézi Rend aligned with German Nazis. Of course Gorka refutes the claim and declares that he has long advocated for anti-authoritarianism.

The final member of this trinity is a young man who made a brief appearance on the Sunday morning news shows to great effect; his authoritarian message and stone-faced delivery provided fodder for late-night talk show monologues and triggered more fears of a Trump presidency acting like a dictatorship.

Stephen Miller is a Jewish–an odd counterpoint to Gorka when considering the possible Nazi association–conservative raised by Democratic parents in Santa Monica. Spurred to conservative values by Guns, Crime, and Freedom by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, he transformed himself into a right-wing wunderkind, appearing on conservative radio while in high school.

His right-wing political career had him working for Michele Bachmann and Congressman John Shadegg, finally landing him as an aide to Senator Jeff Sessions before being tapped by the Trump campaign. With the administration he wrote Trump’s RNC speech and worked with Steve Bannon to craft the first controversial “Muslim Ban”. His boss must have thought his way with words would translate well to the news show circuit, but his heavy-handed, obviously teleprompted appearances landed more punchlines than punches.

“The Powers of the President are Substantial and Will Not be Questioned.” – Stephen Miller

In any administration there are aides and advisers which may have controversial positions. However, these three figures in Donald Trump’s administration are particularly dangerous in their extreme, bordering on authoritarian, stances.

There will be arguments about how it’s unproven that Gorka is a member of a Nazi-sympathetic organization, that Bannon does not want a holy war, and that Miller is not an authoritarian. The point is, that any administration of any party should never have members which would need to make these arguments. The mere fact that they even approach the fringes where these topics arise should be enough to disqualify them from public service, and these dangerous, unelected men shouldn’t be guiding policy.

Jim Rohn said that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If this is the case, the other two people Donald Trump spends time with would need to be Gandhi and King Solomon to balance the equation.

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How Much is Enough? Five Impeachable Offenses in Seven Weeks?

 

When Barack Obama solemnly took the oath of office on January 20th, 2009, the DOW was a 8,396 and the unemployment rate was nearing 8% with millions of jobs lost just the month before. The reputation of the United States abroad was severely compromised and the pallor of the nation was palpable. It took almost the bulk of his eight years in office, and some argue that it never found its footing, but under the dignified and thoughtful leadership of President Obama, the nation slowly regained the jobs and the reputation lost during The Great Recession.

Eight years later Donald Trump inherited a DOW Jones that was surging towards 20,000 and an employment rate of 4.6%. He proudly took credit for the momentum built over eight years of hard work and rebuilding, in effect being “born on third base and thought he hit a triple.” He spoke of ending the American Carnage in his inaugural address, but for all intents and purposes the real carnage started on January 20th, 2017. In just seven short weeks he has all but dismantled the goodwill of the nation and scarred the moral standing of the office of the presidency so severely, that one wonders if the gravitas of the position will ever return.

The rapid and explosive deconstruction of the U.S. Presidency needs to be halted, and so far no one in a position to do so has acted. Full disclosure, as a layman I have no idea what could be done aside from impeachment and/or twenty-fifth amendment. It would, however, help if there were strong rebukes from members of his own party and as of yet we’ve seen not enough of it.

So to those members of the Republican party who, having seen the displeasure from constituencies all over the country in their town halls and demonstrations on the street, I ask HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

What will it take for them to realize that what we are seeing goes beyond differences in policy? That there is an agenda to the administration that is being guided by forces that do not have the best interest of the United States in mind.

I recall all the candidates on the primary debate stage with Donald Trump and think (and this hurts to say) that I would be eminently relieved to have any of them in the Oval rather than what’s in there now. I would even be more comfortable with Carly Fiorina (ugh) or Ben Carson, because I could believe that they, no matter how much I disagree with pretty much all they stand for, still had the best interest of the nation in mind. Hell, I would practically BEG for Marco Rubio. BEG. I’d bring him bottles of water myself.

So I ask again, how much is enough? Is this enough?

Here is a short list of the impeachable offenses committed by Trump so far (In. Seven. Weeks.), according to Robert Reich on Twitter.

  1. In taking the oath of office, a president promises to “faithfully” execute the laws and Constitution. But he is “unfaithfully” executing his duties as president by [falsely] accusing his predecessor of undertaking an illegal and impeachable act.
  2. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution forbids government officials from taking things of value from foreign governments. But Trump is making big money of his hotels by steering foreign diplomatic delegations to them, and will make a bundle from China [and Mexico]’s recent decision to grant trademark applications to the Trump brand–decisions arrived at directly because of decisions Trump has made as President.
  3. The 1st Amendment to the Constitution bars any law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But Trump’s ban on travel form the six predominantly Muslim countries–which he initiated, advocated for, and oversees–violates that provision.
  4. The same amendment also bars “…abridging the freedom of the press.” But Trump’s labeling the press the “enemy of the people” and choosing whom he invites to news conferences based on whether they’ve given him favorable coverage violates this provision.
  5. Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution defines “treason against the Unites States” as “adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Evidence is mounting that Trump colluded with Russian operatives to win the 2016 presidential election.

So we ask you one last time, dear Republican friends, when will it be enough? The time is now, before it’s too late. Robert Reich has also said that Republicans will impeach Donald Trump, but only after he’s accomplished enough of their unpopular agenda and they can pin the blame on him. However, I fear they are like the sorcerer’s apprentice and their splintered orange-haired broomsticks are flooding the country with incompetence.

Donald J. Trump, on a daily basis, is doing massive, possibly irreparable damage to the country and the Republican brand. The only way to repair the image of the Republican party is to become the reluctant hero. This is going to take some gutsy, free-thinking Republicans to speak out and call for an end to the foolishness and call for the impeachment of 45. I’m a registered Democrat, but I would gladly place the laurels of hero-ship on your head if you’d only put country before party and end this national nightmare.

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Enemy of the People

In space travel it’s vitally important to maintain the proper trajectory. Let’s take for example a trip to the moon (disregarding mid-course corrections). If your rocket’s course is off one degree at the beginning of your journey you will miss your target by 4,169 miles, nearly twice the diameter of the moon. Fortunately, space travelers, or any travelers, are able to make course corrections during their journey. However, small influences, left unchecked, can lead to dire consequences over time. We are at a moment in our history that requires a severe course correction, lest we end up as a nation in a place that is entirely contrary to the values that we hold dear.

This moment is vividly illustrated in less than 140 characters, that was dashed off by none other than the President of the United States of America.

Now would be good time to remember this small section of the U.S. Constitution.

 Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The authors thought a free press important enough to put it in the first amendment. A free and unfettered press is the hallmark and conscience of democracy, and is the very mechanism by which the government is held to account. When an administration in power seeks to undermine trust in the press, it severely alters the trajectory of said democracy.

In fact, we have examples through history which plainly illustrate the erosion of trust in the press by governments, and the parallels are ugly and may invite criticisms of hyperbole, but here it is nonetheless.

It is simply deplorable that this connection can be made, but the language and tactics used by Nazi Germany and the Trump administration are alarmingly similar. Donald Trump has now famously coined the term “Fake News” in an attempt to delegitimize stories with which he disagrees. During the Nazi regime, critics of Hitler were branded  to be members of the “Lügenpresse (lying press) apparatus.”

One would think that this alone would elicit a strong response from Congress, even the GOP, which has remained conspicuously silent. And indeed, many have expressed serious concern about the vilification of journalists and journalism in the past weeks and months. Even so, there is not enough push back on the rhetoric directed towards the press.

Trump supporters seem to be unduly influenced by it, as evidences by a recent Fox News poll which found that they believe Donald Trump over the press by a slight margin.This slaps reason in the mouth given the amount of lies and hypocritical statements uttered by him recently and over the course of the campaign (e.g., releasing taxes, Russia, etc.). He wants the nation to believe that he is the supreme voice when it comes to matters of the truth, which is laughable given the evidence, and terrifying given the implications.

Having the government be the sole provider of information is the definition of propaganda. Now, the question remains, is this simply his style or a concerted effort on the part of the administration?

His persona has always been bombastic and off-the-cuff, which works well on a reality show but it’s disconcerting in a President. So it may just be stream-of-consciousness Donald which, as we’ve seen in the past few weeks, is unlikely to mature and become “presidential” as some of his supporters hoped. If it’s a case of Donald simply being Donald, the situation is untenable and requires he be removed from office.

The other equally terrifying option is that his language and rhetoric is part of a systematic campaign of psychological influence and manipulation. Scott Adams on the Joe Rogan Podcast suggested that the use of seemingly simple nicknames like  “Low Energy Jeb”,”lying Ted” and “Crooked Hillary” are actually well crafted tactics.

The Trump campaign, to its credit and shame, used sophisticated big-data techniques to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. The force behind this is the company Cambridge Analytica, who claims to have data points on 230 million Americans. Fun fact, the man whom many attribute much of Trumps policy direction is also a board member of Cambridge Analytica. There is quite a bit of sophistication in the pushing of the Trump agenda.

“Today in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual. … So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people.”

— Alexander Nix (Chief Executive, Cambridge Analytica), October 2016

Regardless if Trump is disparaging the press on an ad hoc basis, or if it’s a systemic promotion of the administration’s agenda, it is unacceptable. We can already see evidence of “soft” muzzling of the press, by selective access during press conferences by Trump only picking friendly outlets.

Clueless or nefarious, the arc of this administration needs a mid-course correction and quickly. It is simply unacceptable for our great nation to take such a drastic direction towards becoming the type of intolerant, tyrannical government that we fought against in several wars. It would be an egregious affront to those who fought and died for freedom, as well as those who currently put themselves in harms way to protect those freedoms.

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The “T” Word

At first it seemed merely curious, the man-crush that Donald Trump seemed to have for Vladimir Putin. Perhaps he simply admired the leadership ability of Russia’s shirtless horseback riding despot, or is it something more? Something a little more ominous?

Let’s take a quick dip in the conspiracy pool. Come on in, the water’s scary.

Some recently revealed information seems to suggest a relationship between the Trump administration and Russia that is considerably deeper than they will admit and possibly illegal. I’m not a constitutional scholar, but if I were I would be looking into the “T” word.

To begin with, let’s look at a baseline for the administration’s credibility when exploring the relationship. When I say administration, it begins with Donald. As he was running for president he claimed numerous times, trying to soften his admiration for Putin, that he had never met the President of Russia.

Just this month, he said in a tweet:

So bear this in mind when you take a minute to listen to him just few years ago:

So he is clearly, at a minimum, misrepresenting his relationship with the Russian leader. Clearly we cannot take anything he says at his word.

Having established that his credibility in regards to the Russian leader is suspect, we can also look to his affection for Putin. As early as 2007, in an interview with Larry King, Trump professes his fanboy status:

“Look at Putin—what he’s doing with Russia—I mean, you know, what’s going on over there. I mean this guy has done—whether you like him or don’t like him—he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.”

Now that we’ve established that the Donald is indeed acquainted with the Russian leader, we can take into consideration the sometimes salacious and recently corroborated Steele Dossier. Information on the first page of the dossier claims that “…Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP for at least 5 years.”

The dossier continues, detailing cooperation between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian leadership. In exchange for releasing damaging information on his opponent Hillary Clinton, the Trump team agreed to “…sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise US/NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine…”

Pretty explosive stuff, that is usually reserved for le Carré novels. Couldn’t possibly be real, could it?

Maybe. Take into account the recent revelations that Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn spoke with the Russian ambassador the day President Obama announced sanctions against Russia in response to hacking the DNC (and the RNC,  but no info released). Russia’s non-response to Obama’s sanctions raised eyebrows all across the beltway. At first Flynn denied the call with the ambassador included any conversations about sanctions, but then he backtracked once it was revealed that US intelligence had a transcript of the conversation. Flynn (through a spokesperson) “…indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

I call shenanigans.

I not only call shenanigans, I also call on Congress to initiate a full investigation into the relationship between Russia, Donald Trump, and the entire administration (which I suspect is occurring behind the scenes at the US intelligence agencies). Take into account a recent remark by a top Pentagon official quoted in an article in  Observer when he says,”…since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM.” The SITROOM, of course, being the Situation Room, the intelligence management center in the west wing of the White House. The Pentagon is going with the assumption that the Russians have “ears” inside of the White House itself. Ponder that for a moment.

The evidence of impropriety is overwhelming, and only one of many ethical, legal, and unconstitutional aspects of the Trump presidency. The dysfunction and danger of this presidency is, well, unprecedented and requires an immediate response . While there isn’t a smoking gun as of yet, the smell of gunpowder hangs over Washington D.C.

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I Spent a Year in America Last Week

If the strategy of the Trump administration is to baffle me with a dizzying array of half-cocked Executive Orders, more scandals than the entire Obama tenure, and a flurry of lies while they subvert the Constitution of the United States of America then I say, mission accomplished.

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So, in the interest of focus, let’s take a peek at just a few of the more consequential (impeachable?) curiosities of this past two weeks.

  1. Top of the list in my mind is the easement of sanctions on the Russian secret service. I’m leaving this one up in the interest of full disclosure, but on further examination I don’t think this is as egregious as I once thought. Reading further on the subject in a Reuters’ article, it seems it’s adjusting an unforeseen situation when the sanctions were instituted. Nonetheless, I still suspect that Trump is compromised by Putin.
  2. A disastrous raid in Yemen left a Navy Seal dead along with multiple civilian casualties, including a young American girl. The raid was green-lit by Trump “…without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.” Sean Spicer also confirmed that Donald Trump wasn’t in The Situation Room during the raid.
  3. Two weeks into his presidency Donald Trump is taking a “working” vacation to Mar-A-Logo resort in Florida. Let’s review this tweet from Trump in 2012 and savor the irony and hypocrisy for a moment.

    The so called “Winter White House”, owned by Donald Trump, still puts money in his pockets since he is unwilling to divest in his businesses. Of course the President is responsible for picking up his own tab, which would be zero since it’s his hotel, but the American Taxpayer (you) foots the bill for his entourage. Which also wouldn’t be unusual, except for the President owns the hotel, so in effect he is profiting from the trip. Also, make no mistake that the inner circle will be the ones doing any work while Trump tweets. Again, I have to repeat this: TRUMP IS MAKING A PROFIT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE EVERY TIME HE STAYS AT MAR-A-LAGO. (Breaking NewsA business trip Eric Trump took to recently to Uruguay cost US Taxpayers nearly $100,000)

  4. Speaking of conflict-of-interest, Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Army, Vincent Viola, excused himself from nomination. He cited the difficulty of disengaging himself with his business interests. Another billionaire nomination from Trump, who perhaps didn’t want to expose himself to the scrutiny required for the job.
  5. Betsy DeVos. Good lord. Plagiarism, outright lies (ahem, clerical errors), and a demonstrable lack of experience for the job. Just no.
  6. And the big one, breaking news as of the night of this writing, a big fat no from a federal judge in Washington state. The pen of Donald Trump flung into existence the infamous not-a-Muslim-ban Muslim Ban which Judge James Robart halted with a temporary restraining order.

This is only a fortnight into his presidency, and now transcends any traditional clash of political parties or policy-based clash. These are manifest corruption and incompetence of the highest order, the likes of which we’ve never seen.