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. 

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.

#ImpeachmentTrial #DonaldTrump #Armageddon #Hellscape #GOP #Senate

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 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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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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Officially a Conspiracy Theorist

It took Donald Trump to make me an official conspiracy theorist. Conspiracies were always interesting to think about; Bilderberg group, Illuminati, shadow underworld figures controlling things from behind the scenes. I thought about it, but never really gave it too much credence.

But now I’m starting to believe. I believe that forces are controlling the highest office in the land, out in the open, with a man nicknamed the Cheeto, Don the Con, and Donald Drumpf, starring as the Puppet-In-Chief. I believe there are two possible puppet masters, maybe working together, maybe not, pulling Donald Trump’s strings. One, a name that has been floated around for several months now, being Vladimir Putin, and the other, which I am shocked didn’t receive more attention when he was hired, Steve Bannon.

So was it the unverified dossier leaked by aptly named former MI6 agent Christopher Steele that lead me to believe that Putin had his hooks in Donald Trump? I have to admit, that it did help to congeal the thought in my mind. However, the initial indication to me was Trump’s own reaction to being called a puppet in the debates.

His immediate, school-yard reaction, “No puppet, no puppet. You’re the puppet.” was such a transparent case of psychological deflection I’m still flabbergasted. He notoriously has a thin skin, but this reaction spoke volumes about what was really going on in his head. I’m not sure what the situation is, but I now consider it well within the realm of possibility that Putin has compromised Donald Trump.

Obviously the Russian leader disputes that they have kompromot on Donald Trump, but it’s almost laughable that we should take that as reassuring. You can read about Putin’s background yourself, but it seems almost guaranteed that the career Russian intelligence agent could outplay the bombastic, ego driven Trump. It’s not only feasible that Donald Trump would have participated in questionable activities in a Moscow hotel room (being filmed by Russian intelligence), I’d be amazed if it didn’t. The President is certainly not known for his sterling moral reputation.

A Moscow hotel bedroom isn’t the only entanglement in which Trump may find himself with the Russians. Being a simple human of modest means, I can’t even begin to speculate what business transactions may have occurred behind boardroom doors which would cause enough trouble for Trump whereby he would allow Putin to control him and to betray the interests of the United States of America.

It seems that some in the President’s senior staff thinks that he may be compromised as well. The Twitter account @RoguePOTUSStaff details events surrounding the phone call Trump had with Putin.

The other, more apparent, puppet master is one that was hired by Trump himself. I’m coming to believe, however, that Bannon is above Trump on the depth chart. We’ve all heard Trump when he speaks off-the-cuff. His vocabulary is not yuuge, and it’s not the best of all time. It’s certainly not as dire and cataclysmic as his inaugural speech in which he describes “..rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape..” This apocalyptic view of the nation (disproved by more than a few metrics) and the language therein belongs more to an individual with a bleak world view, one who seeks to destroy the institution of government. Little wonder then, we find this apropos quote from Mr. Steve Bannon, self-avowed “Leninist” in an August 2016 The Daily Beast article:

“I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed. Shocked, I asked him what he meant.

“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

Donald Trump created the cabinet-level position of White House Chief Strategist for Bannon, and gave it the same heft as the President’s Chief of Staff. Then, in an unprecedented maneuver, appointed Bannon as a permanent member of the National Security Council, and removed from permanent status were the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This makes Bannon the most powerful unelected person in the US government.

Warning; pure speculation ahead.

This “stone cold crazy” (according to former US UN ambassador Susan Rice) addition of Bannon to the National Security Council seems like either a reward or result of coercion. I fail to see how it could be a reward to someone possessing the wealth of Donald Trump, so that leaves coercion. It certainly couldn’t be Bannon’s seven years as a naval officer that gives him more credence that the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Perhaps it’s just my mind trying to wrap itself around the new reality of the United States of America, but for the first time it makes genuine sense that there is a conspiracy at the highest levels of government. Scandal and House of Cards are great television but the current administration makes these shows seem all too plausible. Call me old-fashioned, but I much prefer The West Wing.

 

Donald Trump Woke My Ass Up

In the process of grasping at meaning and trying to find impact in my existence, I tucked this blog away and nearly forgot about it. In the interim, the rift between left and right news sources and the divide between truth and spin has grown even larger.

It’s this gap that prompted this blog in the first place, and the widening of this gap makes reviving it only reasonable.

So again, this will be my attempt to separate the wheat from the overwhelming deluge of doublespeak and misinformation (aka chaff).

Admittedly I have a left-leaning ideology, which I will try and place in the correct context and also be mindful of. That being said, I am incredibly concerned about the arc on which the new administration has launched itself.

When Obama was elected I heard and saw rhetoric about his being authoritarian and how he was going to take away everyone’s guns, etc., ad nauseam. Trying to reflect on it objectively, I can’t recall any statements or actions that suggested this was true. However, in seven short days I see numerous examples of the Trump administration exhibiting these very traits. Some quick examples:

  • In an executive order, planning to list weekly crimes committed by immigrants. This is reminiscent of the Nazi’s list of Jewish crimes. I hate invoking that, and it may be hyperbolic, but the parallel is troubling.
  • Trump’s senior adviser Steve Bannon (whom I suspect to be the architect of the administration’s agenda) saying that the press should “keep its mouth shut” and calling it the “opposition.”
  • Adopting an isolationist stance in an increasingly interdependent planet.

And these are just quick examples off the top of my head from the first week alone.

So yeah, “Mainstream Median” is, as a term and a blog, even more relevant than when I created it years ago. Stay tuned.