This Is the Republican Talking Point Concerning Roy Moore

As of this afternoon, this has been the most common response I've seen on Social Media defending Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore over accusations he stalked and dated HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS while he was in his early-to-mid 30s:

If you're wondering who Eric Dondero is, and if you can't see his Twitter Bio in the bottom left corner, here's a copy of that Bio:

Liberty-Identitarian. Social Darwinist, Rugged Individualist, #MAGA Republican, US Rep Ron Paul '97-03, Travel 25 nations/5 conts, Spk 5 langs, US Navy Vet, FSU

Dondero is one of those hard-core Far Right "Individualist" #MAGA types. Who probably sent a ton of FEMA funds requests after getting flooded out this hurricane season.

Happily advertising himself as a Social Darwinist is pretty much all you need to know about how racist a son-of-a-bitch we're dealing with right off the bat.

This is Dondero's position: He will happily back child molesters into one of the highest offices of the nation all because Democrats are even worse.

Just to clarify, there are roughly 750,000 registered sex offenders in the United States as of 2012. The number may well be higher but for the most part it's under one million. Given the overall population for the US is 310 million, that's about 0.002 rounded up, in terms of percentages that's 0.2 Percent of the population. Less Than One Percent.

Meanwhile, there's roughly 96 MILLION registered Democrats across the nation. Not every state lists actual numbers, so we have to extrapolate from the number who self-identify in polling, which is around 31 percent of Americans polled.

Alabama does not list voter registration by party, so at best guess based on the 2016 Generals there were 729,000 who voted for Hillary. There are almost as many Democrats in Alabama as there are sex offenders across all 50 states.

This Dondero fellow is saying he and his partisan side of the aisle will happily accuse 96 MILLION AMERICANS of being WORSE than pedophiles/sex offenders. This sentiment is similar to other Tweeters I've seen online.

Because this is how low the Republican Party has sunk into partisan madness.

They've been told for 40-50-80 years (probably all the way back to FDR) that Democrats were the enemy: A bunch of hippie pot-smoking tree huggers who hate our troops and want to steal everyone's candy under the catch-all nightmare of DREADED SOCIALISM.

This hatred of Democrats, of Libruls and Progressives and Feminazis and Soros-backed Black/Latino street gangs has been hammered in through an increasingly fact-less Right Wing Noise Machine, where their side of GOD GUNS AND TAX CUTS can do wrong and THE HILLARY-OBUMMER CONSPIRACY WILL KILL US ALL.

Rather than concede the likelihood that their Senate candidate in Alabama is an Ephebophile (new word for the day, kids! Now you know what to call those creeps who pop up on your Snapchat) who broke Statutory Rape laws by dating/molesting a 14-YEAR-OLD when Moore was 32, rather than consider Moore's own conflicting excuses as the stories pile up, The Republican and Evangelical faithful would rather let a man they shouldn't ever trust their daughters/granddaugthers with in private get elected to the Senate instead of a Democratic candidate in Doug Jones who just 1) happens to be successful prosecuting the KKK, and 2) not a sex offender.

In only one way can I even understand WHY the Republicans are acting like this: It's because they are stuck on their obsessed mission to pass a tax-cuts bill for their super-rich SuperPAC backers, and their hold on the Senate is tenuous at 52 seats out of 100 (with Pence as tie-breaker). They lose this seat to Jones, they will have only enough wiggle room to lose ONE Republican Senator - because the Democrats are lock-step in opposition to any tax-cuts for the rich - to any upcoming tax bill. Given how not every GOP Senator agrees with what should be cut (moderates like Collins are not on board with eliminating the Estate Tax or giving cuts to those over $1 million in income)  the Hard Right that wants those unpopular cuts will never get that agenda passed. So they NEED Moore - who will gladly sign off on those tax cuts to appease his "Fuck All Those To the Left of Barry Goldwater" mindset - to win at all costs, even at the costs of their own reputations as moralists and Godly Christians.

You always wonder where the Moral Event Horizon is for certain people. How far they will go into that black hole of Total Evil just to destroy everyone else in the process.

Well, we are finding that Moral Event Horizon right now for the Republican Party. They are perfectly willing to cross this line and stand before God and America as Pro-Pedophile.

Goddamn them.

And Goddamn the voters of Alabama if they close their eyes to this and vote for a Goddamn Child Molester.

Indefensible

Sickening.

Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore.

It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing...

Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.” Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.

Just to note, the age of consent in Alabama was and still is sixteen. Leigh Corfman was fourteen when this started. No matter how you excuse this, it was... it IS statutory rape.

And Moore was a district attorney at the time. HE'S SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE LAW. HE'S SUPPOSED TO UPHOLD IT.

Two of Corfman’s childhood friends say she told them at the time that she was seeing an older man, and one says Corfman identified the man as Moore. Wells says her daughter told her about the encounter more than a decade later, as Moore was becoming more prominent as a local judge.

Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older. None of the three women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

Moore may not have forced them, but he went after them sexually. An older man, chasing after HIGH SCHOOL AGE GIRLS.

Wendy Miller says she was 14 and working as a Santa’s helper at the Gadsden Mall when Moore first approached her, and 16 when he asked her on dates, which her mother forbade. Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class and asked her out on the first of several dates that did not progress beyond kissing. Gloria Thacker Deason says she was an 18-year-old cheerleader when Moore began taking her on dates that included bottles of Mateus Rosé wine. The legal drinking age in Alabama was 19.

Of the four women, the youngest at the time was Corfman, who is the only one who says she had sexual contact with Moore that went beyond kissing. She says they did not have intercourse...

I actually started writing this blog entry last night, but I've been so enraged by this story and the expanding revelations that it's taking me this long to compose myself to compose this.

And before any of you lot jump on me for being a Bill Clinton fan considering all the sexist shit he's pulled, I have condemned Bill's sexual dalliances as folly and wrongheaded. And for all the accusations aimed at him - especially a possible rape allegation that has some teeth to it - Clinton's never been a teen stalker (His affair with Lewinsky happened when she was 22).

I have no love for sexual predators. I really have no love for holier-than-thou religious hypocrites who eagerly bash everyone else for being sinful while they themselves commit greater sins.

And in the time it's taken for me to write this out, OF COURSE there are many Republican political figures at the Alabama and National levels who are making the immoral decision to BACK Moore even as these stories threaten to expose more sordid tales.

I came across this on Twitter this afternoon:

Carroll Bryant‏ @CarrollBryant

Replying to @tpe3tpj2 @FiveRights

I'd rather have a pedophile in office rather than a democrat any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Pedophiles only screw kids while democrats screw everyone.

7:30 AM - 10 Nov 2017

THIS IS coming from a self-proclaimed arch-conservative (yet proudly) INDEPENDENT VOTER who seems to genuinely think that Democrats are the ultimate scourge of humanity.

THIS is how low the Far Right have sunk. Their hate and disdain for Democrats, progressives, and essentially EVERYBODY NOT IN THEIR CLOSED CIRCLE have gotten them to where they will proudly, eagerly vote in corrupt, contemptible, violent monsters all because they've been taught that Democrats are worse.

This is how trump got into the White House. Enough voters bought the Fox Not-News Narrative of DEMOCRATS BAD that when caught between the choice of A) the corrupt and bankrupted failed businessman with no experience or intellect and who bragged about being a Pussy-Grabber assaulting his own partners' wives or B) the Democratic candidate who just happened to be Hillary Clinton the MOST HATED DEMOCRAT THE REPUBLICANS AND FAR RIGHT EVER HATED SIMPLY BECAUSE SHE EXISTS, they sided with the corrupt and failed bankrupt businessman who SURPRISE SURPRISE is incapable of governance and has been committing impeachable acts in office since Day One (not to mention mismanaging the nation into a chaotic mess that will collapse on itself. It's not a question of IF it's a matter of WHEN).

The Republicans would rather vote in criminals, sexual predators, con artists all because those dark forces offer them the fantasy of power and control, of being lords of the realms rather than the poor unwashed masses they deem parasites.

There may be sexual predators and con artists among the Democratic ranks - Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer - but when exposed for their sins they fall out of favor/power and even wind up in jail (save for Clinton, whose predatory nature balanced out with a persona that presented itself as pro-women even as he skirt-chased them). Republican campaigners and voters excuse their monsters - Bill O'Reilly just got his job back even after public exposure of his harassment of women, David Vitter got re-elected after getting caught hiring call girls, Newt Gingrich never goes away after getting caught committing adultery, Mark Sanford may have lost his governorship but South Carolinians voted him to Congress, and for the love of GOD they voted trump - and eagerly push them higher into elected offices or bigger book deals.

This is insane. The Republican Party keeps claiming they are the "Family Values Party" but the only value they see in families is how much they can shred those families into poverty-stricken, emotionally scarred, and physically abused wrecks. Family Values, my ass.

Their ongoing support of a monster like Roy Moore by using twisted interpretations of Biblical teachings is proof the Republican Far Right - self-proclaimed moralists who praise themselves as God's Chosen thumping those Bibles as though they were weapons - are no true Christians. They're just selling another lie about their faith, because they ONLY THING they believe is winning elections and destroying innocent lives.

When I wrote that the Republican Party was dead, this was what I meant. There is no soul here, no empathy or morality or ethical practice that would make a political party work. Just cons and criminals, issuing lie after lie and committing sin after sin, a shambling zombie infecting the nation and the world with their taint.

What the hell, America.

What the hell, Alabama, that you should side with the child rapist to represent you. What the hell.

One Year Later, A Ray Of Hope

So it's been a year since... well, one of the most horrifying Election nights I'd ever been through.

Last night was an off-year election, when some states hold their own elections for the governorships and legislatures, and also referendums. In particular, Virginia's election is viewed as a bellweather / measuring stick to let the Parties know the mood of the electorate.

If last night's election was any indication, the mood of the electorate is PISSED OFF. At Republicans.

To quote EJ Dionne:

Tuesday’s Democratic sweep obliterated a series of outdated story lines in American politics and opened a new era.

Forget those repetitious tales about some piece of President Trump’s base still sticking with him. It’s now clear, from Virginia and New Jersey to Washington state, Georgia, New York, Connecticut and Maine, that the energy Trump has unleashed among those who loathe him has the potential to realign the country.

In droves, voters rebuked his leadership, his party and the divisive white nationalist politics that was supposed to save Republican Ed Gillespie in the Virginia Governor’s race, the centerpiece of the GOP catastrophe.

Instead, Ralph Northam, the Democratic lieutenant governor who was much-maligned until election night for being boring, swept to victory on a massive turnout with the largest percentage for a Democrat in Virginia since 1985. On top of this, Democrats picked up at least 15 of the 17 seats they need to win control of the Virginia House of Delegates and were within 200 votes in four other districts. There were comparable Democratic gains in state and local contests elsewhere.

Washington State in particular flipped their Senate chamber to Democratic control, giving Dems both houses and the governorship and clearing the way for a more progressive agenda to pass. Back to Dionne:

Other right-wing narratives died as well. Anti-Obamacare sentiment was once an asset for the Republican Party. Not anymore. On Tuesday in Virginia, the exit poll found that health care was the top issue in the governor’s race, named by close to 40 percent of voters. Health care voters backed Northam by better than 3-to-1. In Maine, voters defied their erratic arch-conservative governor, Paul LePage, and voted for the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

LePage, a jackass to the bitter end, is swearing to deny the Medicaid expansion, but it's becoming clear that the Republican Party no longer represents the interests or needs of the general voting electorate when it comes to health care coverage.

In a tragic twist, the Republicans were blindsided by the sudden shift in public mood towards gun safety because of recent mass shootings in Vegas and Texas that showed the GOP were firmly in the pocket of the bloodthirsty NRA...

The gun issue was supposed to hurt Democrats whenever it was salient. It was the No. 2 issue in Virginia, after health care. But in an historic rebuke to the National Rifle Association, voters who said they cast ballots on gun policy split narrowly. Sane gun policies are no longer a political third rail. It’s time for fearless opposition to the NRA’s extremism.

What stands out is not so much how Democrats won, although it was interesting to see the uptick in challenging GOP-safe districts and running candidates who were clear rebukes to Republican elitism. What stands out is badly Republicans lost, and why.

Gillespie for example tried to campaign in the trumpian mold: attacking immigrants, defending the Confederate Flag, dismissing every concern voters had about making Obamacare work, etc. He got his ass stomped.

For all the "success" trump had in 2016, Republican strategists forget he actually LOST (62 million to Hillary's 65 million). The only reasons he's sitting in the White House are that he had a broken Electoral College in his favor, he had Russian interference up the wazoo, and the mainstream media was too busy attacking Hillary to where that all depressed Democratic turnout.

None of those factors applied here: the state-level candidates had to play by more consistent rules and they couldn't justify attacking Hillary (although they sure as hell tried). As a result, they couldn't stir the anger and ire of their base voters. They had to stand on unpopular talking points of killing an increasingly popular Obamacare, of doing nothing on gun control, on obsessing over tax cuts to the rich that nobody earning under $70000 a year would support.

Other than a win in a special Congressional election in Utah, the Republicans were beaten in every other election night ballot issue, elective office (well, most of them), and referendum. Outside of Presidential election time cycles of massive shifts (2008, 1980, maybe 1994 midterms) this kind of turnaround is unheard of.

Why this is a clear rebuke of trump is because while he wasn't running for anything, these elections were a response to the ongoing corruption and ineptitude of his administration.

For the Democratic Party, last night was epic: after the debacle of losing the White House in 2016, these wins reflect how popular the Dems' political stances are with the electorate. This is vindication for the #Resistance efforts by outraged anti-trumpian forces getting into the local elections and defeating their Republican rivals. That a transgender woman was able to beat a hardcore homophobic Republican candidate is a perfect example of how Democrats are facing Republicans head on... with positive results.

NOW IS THE TIME WHEN WE DANCE

Things are looking up.

KEEP WORKING, DEMOCRATS. The 2018 Midterms are yours to win if you keep hitting the Republicans on issues they can't defend. Go after them on gun control. Stand up for Obamacare. DANCE MUTHAFUCKAS DANCE LIKE YOU'RE NUMBER 5 AT A CHRISTMAS PLAY.

And for the Love of GOD, America, recognize just what the Republicans are right now: Openly cavorting with racists, sexists, and Nazis; Pushing tax cuts for the rich we don't want NOR need; Trying to kill off healthcare coverage that more Americans realize they DO need; Trying to kill off Americans by letting the gun nuts shoot anybody they want...

This is both postscript to a bad 2016 result and prelude to a 2018 Democratic resurgence. This is still work to be done. Get to it.

The First Amendment Is Dead Along With All the Dead in Our Churches and Schools

Here's the First Amendment:

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.

Anybody notice where the National Rifle Body Count Association creates a conflict here?

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.

We can no longer practice our faith in this nation because our churches are getting shot up. Congress - thanks to their gun lobby overlords - refuses to do anything to regulate gun ownership to ensure our churches don't turn into target practice. By inaction, Congress is interfering with our First Amendment rights to go to church.

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.

We can no longer as a People assemble peaceably. We can no longer go to movies, or shopping malls, or church services, or schools, or even more church services, or nightclubs, or Sikh religious services, or workplaces, or country music concerts, or baseball games, or public rallies, or anywhere at all because we live under the threat of an Angry Guy with guns just showing and opening fire with military-grade rifles with high-capacity ammo clips that can wipe out 200 to 500 people in a matter of minutes.

For God's sake. EVEN THE AMISH GET SHOT AT.

All because the National Everybody Else Gets Shot Association has the gun as their Golden Calf, and their profit margins as their Holy Scripture.

We can never be safe in public. We can never go to school or church or work without the nagging dread that we will get killed because an Angry Guy with enough firepower to kill hundreds in a single minute gets to express his rage and his bloodlust.

The First Amendment is dead. Shot to death on the streets of America by a Second Amendment that no longer has any merit or value to us.

You wanna know how to stop the next mass shooting, America? If we can't set up gun laws to perform universal background checks as 80 PERCENT OF US WANT DONE, if we can't set up gun laws to limit the size of ammo clips to reduce the number a single gunman can fire within seconds, if we can't pass legislation to limit ownership of military-level assault rifles that serve no other purpose than to clear out entire buildings within a minute?

Here's how we stop the next mass shooting:

Stay home.

Stop going to school. Stop going to church. Stop going out in public to shop, or attend concerts, or view movies. Close down the stock markets. Stop going to work.

Stay home.

Don't give Angry Guys with Guns any targets to shoot at.

Sure. We're killing off the entire economy if we do this.

But if it means ending the gun manufacturers' profits and bankrupting the NRA, so be it.

There is nothing else we can do. The First Amendment is Dead, why should we try to adhere to its principles of peaceful gatherings in public?

NaNoWriMo 2017: Day One

Start writing a novel, people.

50,000 words.

You know you need to.

What The Wire Means

You gotta pity the poor guys on social media named George Papadopoulos. It may be a rare name in the US, but it's about as common in Greece as John Smith is stateside.

(on the other hand, this guy has a wicked sense of humor about what's happening, and way more integrity and smarts than the Wrong Papadopoulos)

Amidst the pomp and celebration that were the Manafort/Gates indictments, there was a lesser-reported story that Mueller's probe into the trump-Russia collusion of the 2016 elections secured a guilty plea - of lying to federal investigators - from the Wrong Papadopoulos. Thing is, that guilty plea points to Papadopoulos as a key figure tying most of the questionable behavior of the trump campaign into one large tidy conspiracy pot.

Referring to an expert from the Watergate years, via The Raw Story article by Tom Boggioni:

Speaking with host Ali Velshi, attorney Nick Akerman said he had looked at the indictment against Manafort and said that he had no doubt that Trump associate would be found guilty.

“Now this it’s not like a witch hunt where there is nothing,” Akerman began.”Now you have got something that is real...”

...Akerman picked up on the deal that Papadopoulos made with investigators, saying, if Mueller has done his job properly, the former Trump associate has been wearing a wire for months as part of a deal...

“...He’s pled guilty, pled guilty to a felony, lying to the FBI,” Akerman continued. “He’s basically, if you looked through his allocution, you have allocute. They don’t name names, it’s against Justice Department policy to do that. But he refers to campaign officials, other officials — it’s very obvious he has information on lots of people and on top of that, he’s been cooperating since July.

“If I were the prosecutor, and I guarantee you Robert Mueller has done this, he’s had him out there wearing a body wire, playing dial-a-crook on the phone, trying to get recorded conversations to use as evidence against other people,” he asserted. “If I were the other people, and they know who they are in that information, I’d be extremely nervous right now.”

A lot of this depends on the actual timeline, of when Papadopoulos started handing over information and providing sound to whatever conversations were taking place. If Paps had been wearing a wire since early October (when the plea deal was reached), there probably isn't a lot there. But if he'd been wearing a wire since July 2017...

July 2017 is when the story broke on donald jr's meeting at trump Tower back in June 9 2016. The fallout from that revelation - of how invested in working with their Russian partners and Putin associates the trumps were - would certainly have been a major topic of conversation among the members of trump's Inner Circle. If Papadopoulos was present at any of those conversations, it's likely he picked up on various details of what people were doing to hide any compromising info from the investigation (and also what that compromising info could be).

We're dealing with a conspiracy here, people. A group led at the top by a con artist in trump, whose dealings with Russia go all the way back to the 1980s (!) and whose entire circle of family members and handlers are circling the wagons to protect their scams. The problem with proving a conspiracy isn't the numbers or the money: You can trace phone calls and meetings and fund transactions all over the place. Without actual testimony from people - catching them in lies and making them confirm the facts - it's hard to prove criminal actions were part of those transactions.

The way prosecutors break a conspiracy is catching a low level member of it, especially someone whose lies are the easiest to disprove. With that person flipped to the prosecution's side, he/she then has to cooperate by proving there is a conspiracy through the conversations and responses he/she has with the other members. This is where the wire comes in.

If you've watched enough episodes of Law & Order - yes, it's a television show, but in terms of prosecutorial conduct it's accurate - you'd remember this: In a criminal trial where you need a suspect to testify between a group of suspects, the one who flips first (the one with the most to lose) usually gets the best deal. SEE ALSO: The Prisoner's Dilemma.

Mueller - and the intel agencies aiding his investigation - most likely has a good idea what happened with Russia and trump, otherwise the federal investigators who interviewed Papadopoulos wouldn't have confirmed so easily he lied to them. But he still needs testimony, not just from one or two people he got to plead out but with recorded evidence backing established facts... and revealing more troubling facts that would force those higher in the chain of the conspiracy to plead out themselves.

The Papadopoulos wire shows how confident Mueller and his team was that they could secure confirmation of criminal misdeeds. That this information is coming out now while the investigation is ongoing - and while lower rungs of the conspiracy like Manafort and Gates are getting arrested - suggests that Mueller doesn't need Papadopoulos to get more information. He's already got enough out of Paps.

And he's likely got a wire now on someone even closer to trump and his handlers.

If You Had Manafort On Your Dead Pool List, Congrats You Win a Firm Handshake

It's Manafort first out the gates... with his business associate/lobbyist Rick Gates alongside him.

If you hadn't heard of Gates much, he's been under investigation as well, just not as noticed by the media. As the Daily Beast notes, Gates is a serious link to Russia.

As Silverman noted at Balloon Juice, which I linked to earlier, it's clear that Mueller is going first after the stuff he can prove in a court of law without any heavy lifting. Manafort's "questionable" business practices - on the radar since 2012 - makes him an easy target to get... and a likely would-be witness willing to flip on others when a good deal is on the table.

It's not the grand slam a lot of Never trumpers was hoping for - if Mueller had indicted Kushner, Flynn, and donnie junior today as well, I would seriously revoke my No Drinking rule and get smashed on the finest whiskey - but it's a solid base hit. The game is on, muthafuckas, and trump is going to be flailing like the wounded shitgibbon that he is.

With thanks to Betty Cracker for this image link:

That Sliver Of Hope This Weekend (w/ Updates)

Per the Balloon-Juice website (itself linking to CNN):

A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.
The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.

As Sarah Kendzior tweeted:

The thing bothering me is "Why let your suspects know the arrests are coming on a Friday before arresting them on Monday? You're giving them ample opportunity to skip..."

Anywho. Back to Balloon Juice and the ever-informed Adam Silverman:

...Mueller inherited the joint counterintelligence investigation that had begun during the summer of 2016 into Russian active measures and interference in the 2016 election. This means that Mueller and his team in the Special Prosecutor’s office have access to the full range of US, allied, and partner intelligence and counterintelligence related to the issues he’s investigating. It is this material that forms the bases of FISA warrant requests, not political oppo research like Fusion GPS’s Steele dossier. (Personal note: The Steele dossier still has value as it corroborated a lot of stuff the Intel agencies were finding)

In seeking to bring charges, which are not always the focus or outcome of a counterintelligence investigation, Mueller has to navigate from the world of intelligence and counterintelligence, from the classified world of need to know and special access programs to information that can be brought before a grand jury. This means that while Mueller, his team in the Special Prosecutor’s office, and those on the joint counterintelligence task force he inherited know the full depth, breadth, and scope of what happened, how it happened, why it happened, where it happened, and who it happened to it doesn’t mean he can just curate that into a compelling narrative and bring it to the grand jury. Like everyone else with a clearance and access he has to protect not just the information, but the sources and methods that were utilized to get the information. This means that whatever information he brings to the grand juries he has access to, and whatever charges he brings, are going to have to fit within the body of Federal criminal law.

As a result there is a lot of speculation that what he’s doing looks like a white collar investigation and prosecution or one of organized crime... But it is true in that he and his team have to find evidence that can be presented to the grand jury and then utilized in a trial to prosecute those who are the target of his inquiries and the joint counterintelligence task force. We may never see a charge of espionage, because while it certainly happened with the hacking of Podesta’s emails, the DNC, the DSCC, and the DCCC, as well as similar hacking of GOP organizations and officials, Mueller may not be able to make that case without divulging sources and methods. Instead he’s got to find another way to get at those who engaged in these activities through more mundane charges. Hence all the speculation about leveraging Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), as well as other investigations into financial and business irregularities into Manafort, Flynn, etc...

By the sound of it, Mueller isn't charging everybody tied to the Russia-trump Connection: You get one shot in these investigations, and if you don't have enough solid evidence to charge someone you shouldn't risk the attempt. He's getting the ones he knows committed acts so obvious that they can't weasel their way out of the charges. Those are the ones he can flip to testify on the others in the inner circle of this scandal.

That said: Far be it for me to speculate...

As Silverman noted, the obvious suspects are going to be Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn.

Manafort in particular has got so many questionable business ties to Putin's Russia and to a corrupt pro-Russia Ukrainian regime that it's surprising he hadn't been arrested ages ago. Flynn is an interesting player in this scandal given the close ties he has to trump and trump's relatives, as well as ties to the Russian players suspected of the illegal hacking of everyone's (including the GOP's) emails. Flynn had been the subject of trump's attempts to stymie and obstruct the investigations - in particular Acting DoJ head Sally Yates and FBI Director Comey - which hints at how valuable Flynn was to him (trump does not show this kind of interest in someone outside of his own family).

But part of me thinks that Mueller has enough information on other parts of the scandal - in particular donald trump junior's meeting with Russians claiming to have dirt on Hillary - that the recent leaks about that meeting detailing how the Kremlin had beforehand knowledge of the meeting may indicate Mueller has enough on trump's scheming kids to file charges on them.

It would be interesting at the least to see trump's reaction to seeing on news channels other than Fox Not-News his own kin getting dragged off in handcuffs for their perp walks.

One can hope...

Update: Crooks & Liars offered a link to another blogger at Cannonfire who is also guessing on the amount of celebratory drinking he'll be doing Monday afternoon.

Addendum to the Update: So who DO I have getting the indictments? If you follow the charts at the Politico website, you might see who the likely suspects are...

Flynn: 80 percent
Manafort: 75 percent
Kushner: 75 percent
trump junior: 50 percent
Carter Page: 40 percent
Roger Stone: 25 percent
Jeff Sessions: 15 percent
Felix Sater: 10 percent

When A Sociopath Calls

As the nation's government collapses into chaos and despair, a brief pause to document how fucked up the whole thing has gotten (David A. Graham at The Atlantic):

Thirteen days after Sergeant La David Johnson was killed in Niger, and a day after Donald Trump boasted about his actions to console grieving families in contrast to his predecessors, the president called Johnson’s family Tuesday night.

It didn’t go well.

Representative Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, was with widow Myeshia Johnson when Trump called. “She was crying the whole time, and when she hung up the phone, she looked at me and said, ‘He didn’t even remember his name.’ That’s the hurting part,” Wilson told MSNBC.

“He said, ‘Well, I guess you knew’—something to the effect that ‘he knew what he was getting into when he signed up, but I guess it hurts anyway.’ You know, just matter-of-factly, that this is what happens, anyone who is signing up for military duty is signing up to die. That’s the way we interpreted it. It was horrible. It was insensitive. It was absolutely crazy, unnecessary. I was livid.”

I wrote this about the Republicans back in 2014:

The Republican voters - some of whom are genuinely nice in the real world, and hug puppies and feed unicorns whenever possible - have a problem: the Republican Party they're stuck with has the habit of talking and acting like assholes.  There's no other way to describe this behavior...

...How can the American electorate respect or even like a Republican Party that shows no respect to others?  How can there be any empathy or compassion for a political party that isn't even doing a good enough job faking compassion, or any emotions other than spite and hate?

trump's phone call to Johnson's widow echoes back to this problem: That the Republican leadership and the party as a whole simply lacks any empathy or emotional awareness at all...

In trump's case, it is as textbook a case of sociopathy you'll ever see in public. He obsesses over ensuring loyalty, attacks others for political points without even acknowledging his hypocrisy, and shows no respect for anyone he deems beneath him. As Graham noted:

It is not just that Trump claimed, falsely, that his predecessors had insufficiently consoled grieving families of service-members. He also spent most of the last month wrapping himself in the flag while waging a fight with NFL players and other athletes who have kneeled or undertaken other protests during the National Anthem. The athletes say these protests are a way of bringing attention to police violence and racism. But Trump has insisted that the kneeling “has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem.” The president has used his powerful Twitter account to pass along the idea that players who kneel are slighting the American military.

Even as he insists that NFL players are disrespecting the military, Trump did not make any public comment about the deaths in Niger until he was asked about it at a public press conference. Only after this prodding, and his bragging that he called every family he could, did Trump make a call to La David Johnson’s family. And when he did, he botched the call badly enough that he left Johnson’s widow in tears and his mother feeling disrespected. The president cannot be both the foremost patriot and the utmost consoler while at the same time dragging his feet on calls and angering military families.

trump fails at every requirement that the office of the Presidency expects from a leader.

A President needs to be wise, politically savvy, aware of current matters, informed on his administration's actions. We look to a President to be - and I'm going to gender-specific archetypes for this - a Father, or a Brother, or a Son, a Priest, an Educator, a Leader of the Community: in short, a Hero. Someone with charisma and style, a modicum of success, a knowing wink, a glad hand to shake, a dinner table of lively chatter with him as the provider of bon mots and sage advice.

trump is none of these things. His own resume speaks against being a genuine success: relying on the mercy of his father for his business starts, and the mercy of bankruptcy courts to rescue him from failed casinos and condos, and relying on a popular media that can't look away from his excesses and allowed him to revel in that. trump is no priest or teacher, and what he is as a Father or Brother has been clearly lacking in how screwed up his personal life is.

Whatever trump presents of himself as a leader is based on fantasy and lies. His place in the community comes from putting his name in big letters on every ad space he can get. His role in the community is never about serving others, only himself. Even when he shows up at charity events - that he gave no money to - it's all about putting himself at the center of attention, preening for the cameras before stealing off (either figuratively or literally with the charity's money pot).

There is nothing about him that makes trump truly Presidential. he cannot connect on an emotional level to anyone who's not a preening bully like himself.

Expecting trump to make phone calls to grieving families is like expecting Jack the Ripper to send Thank You cards to the British Suffragette movement.

It's just not going to end well. At all.

Trailer Alert: We're running out of Jedi it seems

So, I'm trying to survive long enough to see Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

I'm trying to figure out if the Porgs will be better than Ewoks:

This is what happens when a Porg reaches the Monolith:

And to be honest, I haven't even opened the Millennium Falcon Lego Set I obsessed over back when The Force Awakens came out. Well... I don't have any decent place to put it together right now...

It's Not Going To End Well

There are more and more stories about the trump regime that signals an administration in crisis. With that, I have been seeing more and more stories about how trump's tenure as President Loser of the Popular Vote will end.

None of the options are particularly nice or safe, but let's consider:

The obvious way trump's tenure ends is through the Mueller Special Counsel investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 Elections. Consider how a lot of legal experts and political think tanks - such as the Brookings people - note the likelihood trump Obstructed that ongoing FBI investigation. Just on that alone, trump could be facing criminal charges (and in a sane world, an angry Congress removing him via impeachment).

Thing is, Mueller is finding more and more how trump's campaign - including trump's own sons and son-in-law - interacted with Russian agents, Russian businessmen with ties to Putin, and how Putin gave orders to interfere with the election. The odds are good - not a 100 percent lock, but it's high - that enough people in trump's inner circle are facing criminal charges over this: Which increases the odds that just one of them will flip, breaking trump's entire con game, meaning other nasty secrets come out that would end with trump in handcuffs or impeached.

The impeachment process requires one thing, however: A Republican-controlled Congress willing to put their collective ass on the line to impeach someone from their own party. No matter how or what the GOP leadership tells themselves, trump is insanely popular with the Republican base. Attack him right now and a majority of sitting incumbents will find themselves kicked out during the 2018 midterm primaries.

There remains a chance that trump's base support with wither in the face of actual criminal findings: but considering how every single scandal that would have destroyed other campaigns never hurt trump, this isn't a given. So expecting the Republican leadership to grow a spine when Mueller presents his finding is a fool's hope.

The other likely end is with trump's handlers finally having enough with the chaos and stupidity. The ongoing reports of behind-the-scenes freakouts by trump and the stressful responses by his Chief of Staff and key Cabinet Secretaries are fueling suggestions in the media about the 25th Amendment.

I've mused about this before... and it's taken this long for the mainstream media to get to where I was back in January. Sigh. Anyhoo. We're at a point where the provision in the 25th - Section 4, about the President being "incapacitated" or unable to perform his duties - is applicable (via that Vanity Fair article):

...The conversation among some of the president’s longtime confidantes, along with the character of some of the leaks emerging from the White House has shifted. There’s a new level of concern. NBC News published a report that Trump shocked his national security team when he called for a nearly tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal during a briefing this summer. One Trump adviser confirmed to me it was after this meeting disbanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron.”

...One former official even speculated that (Chief of Staff) Kelly and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have discussed what they would do in the event Trump ordered a nuclear first strike. “Would they tackle him?” the person said...

Granted, there isn't anything specific in the amendment that spells out the definition of "unable to discharge his duties", but the lack of focus from the Oval Office has to fit. The reports of how Kelly is trying to isolate trump from trump's more reckless advisors and wingnut news sources... The fact that former generals like Kelly and Mattis have to consider cutting trump's access to the Nuclear Football (that they might, Gods help us, have to physically restrain him)... the evidence of trump's own behavior and decision-making that fall into legitimate concerns about dementia or psychosis.

Let's put it this way: trump's handlers treat him like a 5-year-old. Considering the Constitutional requirement to serve as President is that you be 35 years or older, trump is emotionally and intellectually unqualified to serve.

This move - using an amendment to force a sitting President Loser of the Popular Vote out of that office - also requires courage from a Republican Party lacking in said courage. While some in the Cabinet - Kelly, Mattis, Tillerson - are clearly exasperated and likely at the point of "fuck it," the other Secretaries - needed to sign off on the office notice - would have to go all in on the move. Enough of them either do not feel the pressure (yet) to care, or even profit from trump's chaos. We're not at a point (yet) where the Cabinet would be forced to act. It would have to be trump ordering a first strike - either at Korea or Iran or Guam or Puerto Rico - to get them to act.

The attempt would also require backing from Congress - as they have to accept the notice of removal per the amendment - and there are no signs that Speaker Ryan or Majority Leader McConnell are keen to support trump's removal (even if they are exasperated with trump's failings as well).

I doubt the military or intel agencies would raise a fuss if trump were removed. If you consider Mattis and Kelly are ex-generals trying to maintain control, there's probably a lot of sympathy among the ranks who share those backgrounds and would accept it as long as it was a legal transfer to civilian control with Pence taking over. I'd wager the NSA, CIA and FBI ranks for the most part would love to see this walking security risk in trump lose all access to stuff they don't want going to Putin.

The risks of this move will come from outside the military/executive Establishment. trump supporters - especially the Far Right media - would view the use of the 25th Amendment as a political coup. These factions would likely take their anger - already at a boiling point - out on Congressional Republicans (again, a reason why Ryan and McConnell won't back it).

There's also the likelihood the trump base could explode into violence: some of the more outrageous outliers in the wingnut media are talking about rising up if trump were removed from office. This has to be taken seriously when you consider trump's supporters include the KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and other fringe groups known for violence.

We'd be talking about something akin to the 1960s. It won't get as bad as the American Civil War - probably the closest we're at right now in terms of a divided nation - if only because a majority of Americans are not that violent. The wingnuts hoping for an actual war are going to get disappointed when they get only ten or twenty people to show up for their revolution - I kid, the actual number might be 20,000 - and they're facing about 500,000 National Guard troops and 400,000 US Army troops and 300,000 Air Force personnel (and if they're really stupid about getting on boats, they'll face at least 10 Navy aircraft carrier fleets and 180,000 Marines). There might be a civil war but the heavy part of it might be over inside of, oh, a week.

While those numbers might be a mis-match, the caveat is this: All it will take is one wingnut with enough military firepower to take out a school or shopping mall or public gathering to make it bloody for enough Americans to suffer for their rage.

The only other scenario of trump's removal is being voted out in 2020. This is highly likely because 1) even trump supporters can't keep him above 30 percent approval until then, 2) trump's habit of alienating everybody will break the Republican Party well enough that a third party WILL RISE up to pull away enough votes to let Democrats win (in 2018 no less), 3)

The only problem with THAT scenario is, obviously, that's still three years down the road. Can the United States survive three more years of this chaos, this illegality, this bullying and discord by trump's own command?

Either way, we're not going to like the end results.

When You Consider All These Things

When you consider all the acts donald trump did this week:

• Signing an Executive Order screwing up CSRs (Cost Sharing Reductions) to ensure that insurers will have to raise premiums on everybody by at least 20 percent...
• Refusing to certify the Iran nuclear agreement in an attempt to demolish that multinational deal for his own short-sighted warmongering needs...
• Ignoring Puerto Rico as it struggles in its THIRD WEEK of recovery from Maria, pretty much ensuring that thousands if not millions of island residents WHO ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS will be sick or dying in short order...
• Avoiding any mention of California as it suffers the worst wave of wildfires that state has seen in decades...

It seems he's really pissed about getting called a fucking moron.

And he's taking it out on everybody else.

Please Don't Let Him Back Onto The Mainland

What the everloving hell (via The Atlantic):

“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here and what is your death count? Sixteen people, versus in the thousands,” Trump said. “You can be very proud. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people.”

It gets worse:

During his briefing, he made an apparent attempt at a joke about the cost of recovery. “I hate to tell you Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack,” he said. 

“That’s fine. We saved a lot of lives.” Yet the remark comes in the context of Trump repeatedly mentioning Puerto Rico’s debts as both a reason for the slow recovery and a reason to think hard about reconstruction there. Nor did he make similar remarks after hurricanes in Texas and Florida.

Okay, this is the part where I lose it.

62 million of you voted for this disaster. Happy?

Blood On the Streets of Las Vegas

Here's a simple thing for the mainstream media to do:

Every mass shooting committed by angry white guys should be labeled terrorism.

Because that's what it is. Evoking fear in the victims and survivors.

And the media should pointedly do it for every angry White guy, to underscore that it's not Muslims, not Blacks, not Asians, not Latinos that's the threat here.

It's Angry Guys. Nearly every mass shooter is male, coping with emotional issues of some kind that expresses as rage towards women or towards a society that's supposed to applaud their masculinity but ignores them.

How many domestic violence episodes ends with the angry ex-boyfriend or ex-husband with a family massacre? Too many to count. How many office shootings with a disgruntled male employee pissed off that cute secretary won't return his calls?

How many schools shot up by guys who can't socialize well? How many nightclubs by guys who can't handle gender roles or identity?

The NRA keeps saying "oh no, we have a RIGHT to bear firearms" but at the expense of allowing so many Angry Guys easy access to them?

It'd be nice to think we could do something about the Angry Guys. But let's be honest, 5000 plus years of religion and morality haven't cut it. Anger is a primal emotion, hard to control.

We have to do something about the easy access to firearms. Do we really need that kind of firepower the gunman in Las Vegas just unleashed to uphold an antiquated Second Amendment? That terrorist fired for 4 minutes, killed 50 (so far) and wounded 200 people who were no threat to anybody. That's not self-defense. That's not performing the duty of a well-regulated militia. That's murder and terror.

And it's not going to stop until the NRA stops being paranoid fearmongers trying to convince more people to buy more guns and ammo. It's a hell of a racket, considering the kickbacks they get thanks to owning most of not all of the gun manufacturers.

How many more Angry Guys with Guns will it take before Reason reclaims control of governance?

The Crisis

To say that the relief efforts for Puerto Rico after getting slammed by Category 5 hurricane Maria are going far too slow is an understatement.

Relief efforts that should have taken a day to begin took instead almost an entire week. Shipping supplies to the island was hampered by trump's refusal to exempt the Jones Act - necessary to allow cargo ships to deliver the bulk of needed goods - during the earliest days of this crisis. While there are military and FEMA response teams in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, they are too meager a presence compared to the scale of rescue and recovery required.

Compared to relief efforts for Houston (Harvey) and Florida (Irma), the response of the trump administration to Puerto Rico seems intentional negligence.

So, responding to all the harsh criticisms rising up as the national news outlets began covering Puerto Rico's recovery efforts, trump went and tweeted...

Basically accusing the Puerto Ricans of being lazy nobodies unwilling to save their own communities. Accusing Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz of partisanship, and accusing the "fake news" of established networks CNN and NBC of "disparaging the first responders" when those news channels are actually disparaging him.

And he's tweeting all this while going on yet another golfing weekend to one of his clubs. He's not on the ground, finding out first-hand how packed the hospitals and shelters are, how much damage needs to get picked up before any rebuilding can happen.

I lived through Irma as it smashed through Florida. I work in Bartow, and even with all of the emergency electrical crews and tree cutters helping out, this small town still has debris to pick up and parts of the surrounding county without power. And this is two weeks after that storm passed through. Try multiplying the damage and recovery of a small town with 20,000 to a large island with 3.5 million people, and then add onto that how Maria was more powerful than Irma.

There has long been this dread, ever since November 9th, of how a trump-led White House would respond to genuine crises. Up until now, most of the disasters of this trump Era have been self-inflicted. But now we're here: an honest to God national crisis of watching our territorial members Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands suffer through the aftermaths of a powerful hurricane season (which isn't over yet), and "trump goes golfing" replaces the "Nero fiddled while Rome burned" meme in the national consciousness.

The reports coming out now aren't good. There may be 16 confirmed deaths, but it is still far too early to know the final death toll because of the lack of power, food, clean water, and air conditioning. Hurricane Maria hit the entire island, and Puerto Rico has 3.5 million residents to account for.

Right now, this dog has done more for Puerto Rico than trump has.

It is clear trump does not care what is happening in Puerto Rico.

62 million of you voted for that.

God help us.

Aid to Puerto Rico

If trump is too busy to tweet about Puerto Rico's financial woes before the hurricanes hit, the rest of us might actually try to do something about HELPING OUR FELLOW AMERICANS (yes, Puerto Ricans are citizens ever since 1917):

Charity Navigator

Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas

All Hands Volunteers

ShelterBox USA

Unitarian Disaster Relief

United for Puerto Rico

National Voluntary Organizations Active In Disasters (supplies)


Do take the time to make sure the charities you're donating to are legitimate and have a history of helping out.

Take A Knee, America. Tell trump to Go F-ck Himself.

So how can we tell donald trump is a racist white supremacist bastard?

he goes to Alabama and makes a public display of himself:

Speaking to a crowd in Huntsville, Alabama Friday night, President Trump said he hoped NFL players who knelt during the national anthem—which they've done to protest unjustified police killings of black Americans—would lose their jobs.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,  when somebody disrespects our flag,” Trump said, “to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out. He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ” ...The president appeared to be referring to  former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who last year began kneeling during the national anthem to draw attention to unjustified killings of black men by law enforcement.

Just to note, Kaepernick is currently out of the football league because NFL owners are refusing - even when the coaches and GMs want to sign him - to hire Kaep because of his Black Lives Matter stance.

Hold on, there's more.

...On Saturday morning, Trump singled out Steph Curry of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, saying he had rescinded an invitation for them to come to the White House. “Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!” the president tweeted. (Curry had announced in June that he did not want to go, and had recently reiterated that opposition.)

In response, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers tweeted that Trump was a “bum,” writing, “U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!”

The president’s harsh condemnations of Kaepernick and like-minded players, as well as (ESPN pundit Jemele) Hill, stand in stark contrast to his earlier, sluggish reaction to the white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, in which a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was killed, allegedly by a white supremacist.

That protest, the president insisted, had “very fine people on both sides.”

We're talking about a guy in trump who uses these outbursts to stir up HIS voter base, which happens to be mostly White, mostly male, and mostly racist.

Meanwhile, here's hoping the NFL players use this Sunday game schedule to #TakeAKnee in solidarity with Kaepernick and in direct opposition to trump's divisive, foolish, spiteful rhetoric.

We all need to, America. For the Love of GOD, tell this bullying shitgibbon he doesn't speak for you.

Update: I also rant about how bad the Tampa Bay Bucs play from time to time over at BucsNation.com, and this week's observations included this bit:

9) I know I shouldn't use this as a moment to rant politics - I have other places like my own blog to do that - but having donald trump abuse Colin Kaepernick's right to protest this weekend underscores a serious problem our nation still has regarding racism. What Kaepernick - and the Black Lives Matter people - are protesting is a long history of police brutality aimed at Black communities that has exploded in the past decade into the public spotlight. Trying to label it as an unpatriotic protest against the Flag, or the National Anthem, or our troops and veterans ignores that problem of race. When you see trump continue his attacks against Black athletes and Black sports media people like Jamele Hill, you see him doing it to huge crowds of angry, confederate-flag-waving White audiences at his rallies. It's not that he's employing the "dog whistle" of racial politics, he's using a damn sound system from a Ted Nugent concert.

That a lot of players and coaches - and even a few owners - today signaled their solidarity with Kaepernick - either by Taking A Knee themselves, locking arms with each other along the sidelines, or refusing to come out for the National Anthem period - is a good sign that people will oppose trump's efforts at racism and his efforts to silence criticism aimed at himself or his beliefs. Whether or not you believe racism is a problem in the United States is still up to you. Whether or not you believe this kind of talk doesn't have to involve sports, you'll be ignoring a history of sports where baseball was segregated for decades, where Jesse Owens was treated like crap by his own Olympics team leadership, and you've still got rich Black athletes roughed up by cops under questionable circumstances. And that's just three things I can recall off the top of my head.

I know this is going to get people commenting below, as long as the moderators will leave this up. If you do comment, please avoid severe profanity and questions about my parentage. Thank ye.

I may get some heated responses...

Off Topic: Starting a Death Metal/Punk/Dance/Techno Cover Band

Okay, so, during the cleanup from Hurricane Irma, news got out of a Catholic nun in full uniform grabbing a chainsaw and helping clear out the fallen trees around her Catholic school.

Sister Margaret Ann

So it hit me: Chainsaw Nun. BEST NAME FOR A ROCK BAND EVER.

I created a band logo:

And made some half-serious comments on Facebook about what songs the band would cover, like "Communion Breakdown" "Benedict and the Jets" and "Hells Bells" (well, straight covers would work too).

But I dunno. It's in my head and won't go away. Part of me wants to grab a bass guitar, learn the basics, and form a real band to at least try making one crazy album. Just to say I did.

It'd be fun.

Thing is, it'll cost money (even filing a trademark cost about $275 minimum). So if I want to pursue this, I'm going to start up a GoFundMe page. But that's a serious step. No turning back if I go that far.

Should I? Should I start a GoFundMe page, start up Chainsaw Nun as a real act (need to find a lead guitarist who can make the guitar rev like a chainsaw, plus a drummer and a singer)?

Please leave a comment, Yes or No.

World's Darkest Punchline

In another round of "He said WHAT" today, when Loser of the Popular Vote trump spoke to the General Assembly of the United Nations (via Washington Post):

The president warned of growing threats from North Korea and Iran, and he said, “The scourge of our planet is a group of rogue regimes.”

He praised the U.N. for enacting economic sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. But he emphasized that if Kim Jong Un's regime continued to threaten the United States and to destabilize East Asia, his administration would be prepared to defend the country and its allies.

“We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump said, before calling Kim by a nickname he gave the dictator on Twitter over the weekend. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.”

So basically trump just publicly insulted a military-backed dictator perfectly capable and willing to attack our regional allies like South Korea and Japan, as well as our territorial places like Guam.

In a place where diplomacy is the religion, and showing public decorum and manners is important.

trump is basically spoiling for a fight in the one place you're NOT SUPPOSED TO PUBLICLY SPOIL FOR A FIGHT.

Saturday Night Live was not kidding about this:


via GIPHY

Man bursts into tears. "But doctor, I *am* Pagliacci."

Laugh all you want. But it's a deep bleak laugh at the joke we've pulled on ourselves.

And the whole world is going to have to make a choice: Save themselves by ostracizing a major power, or let themselves sink into the black hole that is trump.

We are so royally fucked.

Republican Congress Trying to Kill Health Care. AGAIN.

It's the circus that never ends, kids.

Even after three failed tries while in majority control of both wings of Congress, the GOP Senate is pushing one more plan to gut the everloving shit out of Obamacare (via Jeffrey Young at HuffPost):

For what feels like the 1,000th time this year, the Republican Senate is looking to ram through a hugely consequential health care bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and “replace” it with ... a lot less.

The GOP Congress only has until Sept. 30 to advance health care legislation with a bare majority in the Senate, because that is when the special procedural rules enabling them to avoid a Democratic filibuster expire. That deadline seems to be motivating Republicans to line up behind a bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.). This could mean a vote next week.

That’s despite the fact that this legislation has never been the subject of a public debate or the normal congressional committee process. The Congressional Budget Office also won’t have time to analyze how many people would have health insurance as a result of the bill, or how much the premiums would cost.

In other words, Congress would be passing a bill with major ramifications for many millions of people without first finding out exactly what it does...

You'll notice the Republicans in charge of the Senate do not care about procedure. They do not care about the costs of what they're trying to pass. They do not care to debate this in public.

They only care about the goddamn tax cuts for the rich they'll get out of this move.

I've said this before: Republicans can't help themselves. There's this terrible mix of sadism and greed that drives the party leadership to repeat themselves on achieving their obsessive goals towards tax cuts and deregulation and privatization. Even after decades of evidence that shows every promise they make about all that never pans out, and even after their efforts make things worse with collapsing economies and collapsing (or exploding) infrastructures.

So it's back to the phones, everybody. Call the Senate, call your Senator's local offices in-state, and register your horror and anger that Congress is trying to gut health care coverage. Again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN...

You wanna stop making these phone calls, America? STOP VOTING REPUBLICANS INTO OFFICE.