Death By Stupidity

I cannot believe I am hearing so many pundits say that people are confused about Russia's interference in our elections and about the investigation being conducted by Robert Mueller, who was lauded by members of both political parties for his integrity and competence when he was first appointed as special counsel. So has Mr. Mueller, a life long Republican, somehow changed and turned into a raging, partisan Democrat or is he just coming very close to finding out facts Donald Trump does not want us to know? It should not take a genius to come up with the correct answer to that question!

Here you have a conflict between a proven lier, Donald J. Trump, who by last count has told 2,000 lies during the last twelve months, and reputable news outlets that have a reputation for trying to get the facts right. Trump the lier refers to those news outlets as “fake news.” Making matters worse is the effort of Trump and his party to besmirch Mr. Mueller as well as the FBI and the Justice Department, both of which are lead by people Trump appointed. Those departments have a tradition of serving this country without regard to which party is in power. They see it as their duty to serve the nation rather than the President regardless of the fact that the people heading those departments are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. None of that matters to Trump; objectivity and the security of the country be damned, those people in the FBI and Justice Department are there at Trump's pleasure and they damn well better serve him! As former FBI director James Comey testified, Donald Trump asked for Comey's personal loyalty to Trump. Now we have evidence that Trump has asked Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein (who oversees Special Counsel Mueller) to pledge his loyalty to Trump, and Trump has complained many times about Attorney General Sessions being disloyal enough to recuse himself from any investigation of Russia's interference in our elections.

And how has the Republican Party reacted to this? Well, Devin Nunez has already disgraced himself with his infamous midnight run to the white house to deliver intelligence reports showing that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies. Mr. Numes later had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee, which Nunes chairs, because this ruse perpetrated by Nunes was exposed by a responsible press. It turns out that a pair of White House officials helped provide Representative Devin Nunez with the very documents Mr. Nunes claims he “rushed to warn the white house” about. Now we know Mr. Nunes recusal from the Russia investigation is also an obvious sham. We know this because Diaper Devin is making another despicable effort to discredit the FBI and cover Trump's filthy ass. He is aided and abetted in doing this by House Speaker, Paul Ryan, who helped Nunes obtain classified documents over the objections of the FBI, and now supports the release of a spurious and dangerous report in which Mr. Nunes attacks the FBI investigation of Carter Page's interactions with Russian spies. This report or memo allegedly shows that the FBI has a bias against Trump even though the investigation that eventually resulted in the FISA warrant started well before Page went to work for the Trump campaign. The FBI and Justice Department object to making Mr. Nunes' dishonest and incomplete hack job public because the hack job reveals classified information that could tip the Russians off as to our counter intelligence efforts. But the security concerns of the FBI and Justice Department do not concern lyin' Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, and/or the Republican Party. The only thing that concerns Republicans today is keeping their nihilistic base supporters happy and staying in power.

What we are seeing from Trump and the Republican Party is a disparagement of the FBI, the Justice department, and all the dedicated public servants who work to keep this country safe from threats foreign and domestic. To put it quite simply, Trump and his party, the Republican Party, are willing to compromise the security of this country and forsake its highly prized political traditions in order to further their partisan political ends! This is despicable. It is how fascists, communists, and would be tyrants act.

Anyone who accepts the word of proven liars, such as Trump and his defenders, over the word of dedicated public servants and honest news people are fools! The willful ignorance of the people who say they do not know who to believe is downright stupid. Why do you think the Republicans oppose the release of a Report by Adam Schiff that shows the deceptions perpetrated by Devin Nunes? Is the Nunes Report a prelude to Trump replacing Rod Rosenstein with someone who will place unreasonable restraints on Mr. Mueller's investigation! Are we looking at another Saturday night massecre? Why do we no longer hear Republicans supporting a bill to protect Mueller and/or the investigation? Why are we not hearing any Republicans warning Trump not to fire Mueller?

The only thing that stands between us and tyranny is an informed electorate. The investigation of Trump and Russia must continue until the facts are uncovered and revealed. If we let Trump and the Republicans kill the investigations and destroy the very agencies and departments that protect us our democracy will die from terminal stupidity!

The Full Willie

The pundits are calling the latest Trump/Republican advertisement against the Democratic Party the “Willie Horton ad. on steroids,” in reference to the infamous, racist Willie Horton advertisement run against the Democratic Presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, during the 1986 election. But this current Trump advertisement is even worse than the Willie Horton ad. By some incredibly illogical leap away from anything resembling a fact or decency this ad. created by Trump's Herr Goebbels conflates support for DACA with heinous criminal acts committed by undocumented (“illegal”) aliens. Calling these "dreamers," these loyal, hard working people who were brought to this country as young children by their parents a criminal class of undesirables defies all reason. Nor is there any evidence to suggests that granting these “dreamers” legal status will cause or encourage criminals to enter this country. Furthermore Trump's ad ignores all the statistics showing that the percentage of the undocumented aliens who commit criminal acts is lower than the percentage of legal citizens who commit criminal acts. Yet in some sort of hateful, paranoid, alternate universe inhabited by Neo-Nazis, xenophobic dumb asses and members of the KKK this advertisement resonates. For the rest of us all that is missing from this hateful ad. is the swastika.

This advertisement is Trump laid bare; it is his inglorious Willie. And yes it is that obscene! Trump and the GOP moral midgets supporting him want you to believe that the shut down is about illegal immigration and the very, very expensive and impractical wall Mexico was supposed to pay for -- they lie! As the Atlantic, the Rolling Stone and many others have reported this shut down is about more than Daca. It is even about more than Trump's ignorance, negligence and petulance, although those traits are also significant factors, particularly in regard to how little trust anyone can place in Trump's promises to sign bipartisan bills about issues such as DACA. The real problem, the real reason for this shut down is the inability of the Republican Party and its leader to govern. No other President has failed to keep the government open when his party controls both houses of congress. But why the hell should Trump and his chumps care? The government is the problem rather than the solution anyhow, and the deep state hates him.

Could it be that the people Trump thinks of as the deep state actually know more about governing than Trump and his party know?  Well, one thing they of the “deep state” know is that the uncertainty of the funding of the military and other departments caused by the passage of a succession of “continuing resolutions” rather than a long term budget has hindered the implementation of needed projects and measures. Furthermore, as the Democrats correctly point out, the Republicans intentionally held out funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program so they could use it as a bargaining chip in regard to the budget. And a damn poor job the Republicans did of trying to use it as bargaining chip because the provision in the House proposed CR does not even include any funds for the hospitals and clinics that are supposed to provide the care. Add to this Speaker Ryan's adherence to Ayn Rand's “provide nothing to no one” philosophy and it is easy to see why the Democrats are not willing to trust the Republicans when it comes to correcting this defect in the CR any more than they are willing to trust Trump when it comes to DACA.

All I can say is that we must all follow the lead of the ladies who march in protest and turn out for elections. We must make it evident that in the November elections we will keep our resolve to discard the GOP diapers covering Trumps Butt and throw into the gutter the brown shirts supporting his fascist rule. If nothing else, Trump's full Willie advertisement demonstrates beyond all dispute what Trump and his administration are about, and why anyone who does not oppose him is complicit in his hateful, harmful, and dangerous demagoguery!