FEDS RAID TRUMP ATTORNEY

10 Apr 2018 Dwight

Attorney–client privilege is dead!

There is a big difference between someone “breaking into” your property and a group of G-men knocking on your door holding a search warrant. We’re about to see that attorney-client privilege is not a loophole to get away with committing a crime.

If any people in the Trump circle who may have been witnesses to wrongdoing, or who may have been involved in illegal activities, believe that being a buddy with the Donald is a “get-out-of-jail” card, they are terribly mistaken.

Michael Cohen is a lawyer who is so close to the President and his companies that he has the status of a fixer and consigliere. This makes him more than an attorney of record. He was an employee of the Trump Organization. Trump and Cohen are so tight that, according to Cohen, he paid hush money to a porn star out of his own pocket without even telling Trump. This is bad legal form and, in the state of New York where Cohen practices, it’s a kind of proxy power of attorney that could place Cohen’s legal license in jeopardy.

When we heard from candidate Trump that he would hire the best people and that the government would be a well-run, efficient machine, we wondered what would happen. Now we know. This is a giant, rolling ball of confusion. Things said and things done have no clarity or purpose. The quick knee-jerk reactions and reparsing of verbal pronouncements by the President’s staff show a lack of organization, forethought and concentration.

We get it. One of the people who knows more about what Trump did and didn’t do over the last ten years has been raided. His computers, phones and tax documents were confiscated by the FBI. The Donald is completely freaked out. He opened a high-level meeting with top-ranking military personnel with these words, “So, I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys—a good man, it’s a new level of unfairness.” Trump’s unscripted moment continued with, “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.”

It’s funny that the President would use the same words to describe this federal crime investigation as many intelligence experts and Congressional oversight members used to describe what Russia was doing during our elections. Trump has never used the words “attack on what we stand for“ to describe the interference and conspiracy to disrupt our elections.

With a meeting to decide what to do about the possible chemical warfare being waged against the Syrian people by their own leader, our kingpin was sitting with his arms folded across his chest in a protectionist position, whining about this latest move by our Justice Department. His priorities are obviously misdirected and horribly inefficient. He should have never let the press into that Pentagon meeting. It’s clear that he can’t kept his eye on the ball and concentrate on being President. If you have nothing to hide, then stop telling the world you have nothing to hide.

What our Great Orange Leader doesn’t comprehend is that Mueller’s investigation didn’t carry out these raids. Here’s what we learned from Michael Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan, “Today, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients.”

If the State of New York and the U.S. Attorney’s office there handles the case against Michael Cohen, Trump will not be able to pardon Cohen. This is a brilliant move by the Special Counsel’s office. It puts Cohen in a bind and cuts the communication cord between the White House and the Department of Justice, thwarting any interference Trump might attempt. Prosecutors in the Southern District will simply say, “We’ll take it from here.”

If Trump were to fire Jeff Sessions or Rod Rosenstein because they refuse to fire Mueller, someone else would have to be appointed. This would lead to a tough hearing in Congress asking for a guarantee of independence. It would all continue from where it is, and that is the beauty of our system and government structure. The Judiciary, Executive and Legislative branches must operate legally and independently.

As Trump cancels his trip to South America this weekend under the premise of wanting to watch the Syrian situation, we know he’s agonizing over the domestic legal problem he faces. Trump thinks that if he was away, he would be out of the loop, such strange paranoia.

Trump is not only an anti-globalist and isolationist, he is also someone who likes to stay home when things are going badly. His cocoon this week will be filled with only those who can boost his self-esteem and give him the advice he wants to hear. Some of those surrounding him could be legal minds suggesting ways to battle those who are out to get him. Today, Trump tweeted, “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”

And in the end, we will learn the truth. The most important goal of this whole mess is finding a way to bring trust, honor and respect back to the office of the President of the United States. We must all know that no one is above the law. For someone who called himself a “Law and Order” president, there seems to be very little order or respect for the law. How did this happen?

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

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Now available on Amazon.

9Apr

PAIN & BIG PRICE TO PAY

9 Apr 2018 Dwight

Trump’s Premature Pull-out

We knew it was going to happen. People warned us that it was going to happen. But now we see the result of someone who doesn’t calculate his comments or comprehend the weight of his words. Let us review.

Just last week, seemly out of the blue, President Donald Trump said, “I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home.” And he added the snarky comment, “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.”

It reminds me of a wild New Year’s Eve party I had one night at my home where there were so people they could hardly move. A woman dropped her plate of food on the carpeting and started to walk away from her mess. I suggested she clean up the dropped plate, she turned to me and said, “They have people to take care of that.”

For most of Trump’s life, someone else has always taken care of things. When he wanted to keep someone from talking about him, he would have someone else write and execute a Nondisclosure Agreement. When he was tired of the woman he married, he would call in some lawyers to clean up the mess.

But now, Trump is the President of the United States and the words he uses, whether out loud or online, have major consequences. There isn’t a fixer to call. Clearly, he was suggesting an almost “mission accomplished” moment when he said, “We are knocking the hell out of ISIS and that once that’s done we’ll be coming out.” The assumption that ISIS is anywhere close to giving up shows this man’s inability to follow the intelligence and understand fundamental facts from the front line.

One of the things that makes Trump so effective with his base is his way of talking in simple terms and use of generalizations. He makes bold, naïve statements, and the bobblehead dolls of the heartland nod and believe in their Great Orange Leader. He discounts basic facts, like we have fewer troops in Syria than Mr. Trump is sending to the Mexican-U.S. border: 2,000 vs. 4,000. Does that mean ISIS is less dangerous than women and children in the “caravan” coming from Honduras? These facts don’t matter in Trumpworld.

Something happened right after Trump made his careless statement about Syria. The ruthless dictator, Bashar al-Assad, once again dropped chemical bombs on his own people. John McCain was quick to suggest that Assad did that because of Trump’s premature pullout statement. Wow, the senior Senator from Arizona is suggesting culpability on Trump’s part.

The last time Assad used chemical weapons, Trump finished his second large piece of chocolate cake and launched an airstrike on an airbase in Syria.

This time, Trump was quick to Tweet this reaction: “Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”

In just days, we’ve gone from pulling out soon, rubbing our hands and saying basically our work is done here, to the realization that ISIS is only part of the problem. It’s a complicated civil war with three or four factions, interference coming from Russian and Iran and the desire to push the Hezbollah party into power. Both Russia and Iran will not take any aggression sitting down.

Not only are the Russians warning Trump not to retaliate in Syria, they are reacting to an early Monday morning bombing of a major air base in central Syria. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that two Israeli F-15 jets launched eight guided rockets from Lebanese airspace into Syria. Will Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu upstage Trump and take the frontline for him in this war?

If Trump would have just slowed down and gathered advice from his experts first, he would have avoided this kind of embarrassing international blunder. There is clearly no diplomatic filter on the @realDonaldTrump twitter account. We knew it was going to happen; people warned that it was going to happen, but this vain and uncontrollable man doesn’t care what smart people think. He cannot separate the smart from the loud.

The Donald told us that we might feel a little pain with his Trade War that he is conducting against China, Canada and Mexico, but he’s now asking us to pay more for his imaginary long-term gain. It’s a giant trickledown con job. The price increases will wipe out any gains people achieved with the tax cut.

Trump cares more about putting down Obama’s Syria “red line” comment than acknowledging that, no matter what he does, someone will have to pay a price in Syria. If our President gets involved and starts to drop bombs, he will piss off his boyfriend Putin. If he does nothing, he will look weak and all the Trump haters will accuse him of hypocrisy. There are no right choices here. We need, and don’t have, a president who puts America First, not his ego and shallow knowledge of the political landscape in the Middle East.

Gee, where is Trump’s big Middle East peacekeeper Jared Kushner? I guess a person who owns properties on the West Bank in Israel would not be that objective in this discussion. I’m not sure why Jared Kushner is even a part of this story.

The cunning military intellectual, General McMaster, is gone. Now Trump gets to test his brand-new security adviser, John Bolton, on his first day at work. To bomb or not to bomb? Action or inaction? As Trump says when he is befuddled and flustered, “We will see.”

Whatever the Russian spy network has on Donald Trump, or whatever embarrassing bank entanglements he is keeping from the American public, they probably don’t mean anything now. Trump is trying to figure out whether he wants to go up against Russia on the world stage. Putin could release what he knows about Trump, but that is too obvious for a former spy.

With Syria in Bashar al-Assad’s grip, nothing is going to change. Like his father, he will bomb and poison his people until they bow to his authority. Trump best be wearing his big-boy pants this week. He might also want to have a few spare trousers on call. When he finally hears the truth about Syria from Bolton, he will be losing more than his credibility.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

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6Apr

PREFORMANCE ART PRESIDENT

6 Apr 2018 Dwight

Trump Adlibs His Way Through Everything

There are times when I feel like I am watching our president drift into a mental condition, the early onset of an ailment. We should remember the signs of someone heading into Alzheimer’s: changes in mood and personality, decreased or poor judgment, confusion with time or place, difficulty completing familiar tasks. Hey, this is not a diagnosis. It’s just a question.

Donald Trump tends to repeat himself as if he is following a well-rehearsed script, but then turns on a dime and jumps into his extemporaneous and unhinged reality character. Improv can be a blast, but when the fate of the nation is cast aside for a good line or a guffaw, then we are in trouble. Like a performance artist, Trump must get a laugh or reaction, but deep down inside he needs to be loved. Most performers have the same desire.

After being urged on by his Fox News and friends, the Donald came out last weekend tweeting his heart and soul to please his base and satisfy the immoral TV hosts who are manipulating this unstable human in the White House. Quite frankly, I am sick of hearing about his fucking base. I am not in the base, but a taxpayer living in my country. I should be part of his focus.

The important thing to remember is that our Great Orange Leader is doing exactly what he pledged on the campaign trail. And there are two questions the American electorate need to ask when a politician makes promises. One, Is the proposal good for America and, two, what would happen in the aftermath? When Bernie Sanders proposed free college for everyone, it wasn’t hard for the neoconservatives and right wing talk radio hosts to reveal the cost and the socialist nature of his proposal.

When Trump was on the trail, he was fast to attack China, saying that China was raping us. Strange how important the word “rape” is to Donald Trump. But when he finally met the leader of the largest economy in the world, he kowtowed like a teenaged girl. Trump said that Xi Jinping is “a very special man” and bragged about the “great chemistry” he had with the communist leader. He congratulated Xi on his newly found authority to be the Chinese leader for life. Trump went so far to say, “I don’t blame China. Who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.” But that didn’t change Trump’s base belief that the country needs to be punished.

This week, Trump fell into the arms of protectionism and threw the first salvo in his trade beefs with China by warning of tariffs on steel and aluminum. The actor adlibbed a line that pleased himself and sent the markets around the world slumping into suspicion and fear. The Donald said that trade wars are good and then clarified that with “We’ve already lost the trade war.” He cast the blame on everyone who was in power before him.

China was ready and as they countered the tariff threats Trump felt the need to say that we will do more. China said $3B, we said $50B. Then they said $50B back at you, and Trump released a $100B intimidation last night. What looks like a tit-for-tat tariff trick has been called a negotiation ploy by Trump’s new economic adviser, Larry Kudlow.

The seriousness of $100 billion of additional tariffs against China prompted this reaction from Chinese trade officials, “We will immediately fight back with a major response. We feel America is very arrogant. They have taken a wrong action. The result is that they will hurt themselves.”

Some have reported they even used the word “war,” as in TRADE WAR. That is what Trump wants. Even though he denies it, he wants to be the war president. And these unrehearsed remarks and reckless policy statements cause problems in the Republican party. Trump acts on ideas without the consideration of how they might affect working Americans. It is another indication that he is truly unfit to lead.

Here is just a sample of reactions from the heartland politicians in his own party: Ben Sasse, [R] Nebraska: “Hopefully the President is just blowing off steam again but, if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts! China is guilty of many things, but the President has no actual plan to win right now. He’s threatening to light American agriculture on fire. Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us. This is the dumbest way to do this.”

Republican Senator of Iowa, Joni Ernst, said, “Just because you’re slapping tariffs on steel doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be repercussions in other areas. We export a lot of our soy beans to China, and we know that China is a bad actor. But there is a delicate balance out there, and we need to have thorough negotiations. We haven’t gone through that process.”

Trump also said he would hire a Minister of Agriculture to draw up a plan “to protect our farmers and agricultural interests,” but he provided no details. WTF? Are we in a communist country? Doesn’t the idiot know that since Abraham Lincoln we’ve had the U.S. Department of Agriculture which is tasked with those duties? The current Secretary of Agriculture is former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. He’s your man Donald. Get him involved. You don’t need to appoint a “minister!” This is not a religious thing. It’s our food supply and you should let your people do their jobs.

While Scott Pruitt upstages the orange actor of the Oval Office, Trump wraps the protectionism blanket around his shoulders and hunkers down for a long cold summer of trade wars and volatility in the markets. During an interview (4-6-2018) on the Bernie and Sid in the Morning show on the New York radio station 77 WABC, Trump said, “I’m not saying there’s not gonna be any pain.”

He admitted that the initial reaction from markets is likely to be negative and that investors “could lose a little bit.” China can inflict more pain on America, than we can on them. We have too much debt for this over-acting. Trump should be careful that Chinese banks don’t call in all the loans.

The old actor’s makeup is running, and his sad, dark personality shows that his deal making is more machismo than masterful maneuver or proper policy. When he cannot defend his ideas with intellect, he lies. When he is confronted about his distortions of the truth, he finds someone to say he’s right. He’s not a president that means anything to thinking people of the United States of America. Trump is a fake president.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

Now available on Amazon.

4Apr

THIRTY DAYS IN THE HOLE

4 Apr 2018 Dwight

First Sentence in the Longer Story

Because of Donald Trump’s diversions, the first sentence handed down in the Russian interference investigation got little attention in the bigger scheme of things. Trump has been tweeting more frequently because he now believes to be running the show at the White House. Those who were there for moderating his puffery and misstatements have either left the building or have given up. It’s time for an intervention.

Alex van der Zwaan, a 33-year-old London-based lawyer, was ordered to serve 30 days in prison by a federal judge in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The lawyer lied to the FBI in September and October of 2016 about his contacts with a business associate of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and with Manafort’s deputy, former Trump aide Rick Gates.

The sentenced lawyer is a Dutch citizen and the son-in-law of billionaire German Khan, who owns the Alfa Group, Russia’s largest financial and industrial investment group. REALLY? A Russian relationship to this and we are NOT hearing the media and press making a big deal about it? His father-in-law, Kahn, is a banker! He knows about Trump’s investments.

While the sentencing was underway, Trump was chattering about our terrible laws on border crossings and immigration as well as a “caravan” in Mexico, a word that was planted in his head by Fox News.

Now he surprises everyone about pulling out of Syria, which would please Putin and the Russians. We must remember that Bashar al-Assad, takes aid from Russia and Iran. Turkey also wants the United States to pull out of the region and stop giving aid to the Kurds. We have several thousand troops in Syria, with their primary order being the taking out of ISIS. Trump believes that effort is almost done so he, like Obama, has decided to bring the boys home, even when his commanders in the field urge against withdrawal.

Trump is bitch-slapping China with tariffs and rhetoric and they are not taking it sitting down. The U.S. stock market has been unstable and volatile since Trump has been complaining about how unfair the world is.

It’s amazing to me that when the President of the United States provokes a major trading player in general terms, China fires back slamming tariffs on specific products. The Chinese appear not only very prepared for Trump, but clearly more organized and faster acting than our pontificating phony President.

Gary Cohn was smart to have gotten out before the shit hit the fan. It’s unclear whether the administration’s predictions that this will all work out perfectly as planned, but the drama, grief and pain of the U.S. citizens are unnecessary.

If the Donald was the great deal maker he professes to be, all of this could have been taken care of behind the scenes or through the World Trade Organization. Then the transparency would have worked in our favor. But, no, Trump must be the bully. It’s the only method he understands, and other countries know that they cannot trust a word he says. To put it bluntly, Donald Trump is a two-faced liar.

Robert Mueller is a smart man. As the judge was handing down a small slap to the Dutch lawyer, Mueller was releasing a document to the judge in the Manafort case. Manafort has over 30 charges hanging over the former Trump campaign director including counts of bank fraud, tax fraud, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, conspiracy to launder money, lying to the executive branch, and conspiracy against the United States. In this latest document, Mueller’s team answers the charges that he has drifted out of his investigatory focus.

The Special Counsel’s office said that Paul Manafort committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law.

Well, there you have it. They are using the word “colluding” and linking Manafort to the campaign and to possible crimes.

Alex van der Zwaan, the sentenced lawyer, is connected to Manafort and the campaign. They not only met with Russians, some of the people they talked to were Russian intelligence officers. To put that in plain English, they met with spies. This is more significant and leads the way for Trump to go under oath and probably deny a connection to any part of the mess. The President will lie and try to make it look like he was simply an uninvolved candidate. We already know he’s a second-rate executive and a horrible judge of people, but this is what we have. I didn’t vote for him.

Yesterday, Trump barked that he wants to send troops to the border with Mexico. And, while teachers’ strikes broke out around America, Trump’s Secretary of Education was AWOL.

The school and workplace shootings continue with little action on the part of the president. He plainly dropped that ball.

We have snow falling in April and no one in power thinks that climate change is real. We have cabinet secretaries accused of wasting taxpayer money, and our Great Orange Leader says he has their back.

What happened to the tough guy? What happened to the pro-business president? He’s attacking U.S. companies and success stories just to get even with people he doesn’t like. When our corporations and people are hurt by his complaints and lies, he demonstrates how he’s only a small, little man with an over-sized ego on his sleeve.

The longer story is that 35% of America have been taken to the cleaners. 65% of us are waiting for the other shoe to drop. If the result of Mueller’s investigation shows that Trump was just a bystander to the evils of over-zealous campaign people, he will still be responsible for dividing the nation, promoting xenophobia and racism and making it harder for less advantaged people to have a better life. He has made America less great, and we must figure out a way to stop him in his tracks.

The clouds around Stormy Daniels have been blown away for now, but in the end, Trump will be exposed as the person who feeds himself the two-scopes of ice cream, while everyone else gets only one. He’s nothing but a fornicator and an over-weight egotistical elitist who deserves more than thirty-days in the hole, without ice cream.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

Now available on Amazon.

2Apr

DACA, AMAZON AND SINCLAIR

2 Apr 2018 Dwight

Confusion and Lies from a Desperate Donald

There is a funny episode in the original HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David hires a chef for his restaurant who has Tourette syndrome. This is the ailment which can produce involuntary tics and vocalizations, some of which include compulsive, obscene utterances. The chef turned out to be very good with food, and Larry wanted him to feel at home and stay on as his chef, so, Mr. David’s character convinces the customers to randomly scream out obscene words and phrases. It’s a very funny scene, but I am starting to see a similar plot playing out with our President.

Last weekend at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club in West Palm Beach, Florida, the guests for dinner included Fox News’ Jeanne Pirro and Sean Hannity, former Fox News head Bill Shine, boxing legend and convicted and pardoned felon Don King, convicted felon and former New York City Police commissioner Bernard Kerik and the creator of the My Pillow company and “Made in America” activist Mike Lindell. The Donald’s guests, along with a Fox News report on a “caravan” of people fleeing Honduras moving through Mexico, sparked a weekend tweet storm that proves a link between all of Trump’s whisperers and his policy remarks and decrees.

Trump fomented, “Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large “Caravans” of people enter their country. They must stop them at their Northern Border, which they can do because their border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country, which has no effective border laws. Congress must immediately pass Border Legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop the massive inflow of Drugs and People. Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!”

And so it begins, the twisted misinformation campaign to confuse more than enlighten, polarize rather than unite and push Congress without a roadmap showing where the President wants to go. His aggressive attitudes and distortions of the truth hurts him, hurts Congress, and hurts America.

This kind of tweet doesn’t help anyone: “DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon… No longer works. Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!” No pun here, but his stonewalling reform to get what he wants with a wall is probably going to drive the far right and far left into their respective corners and mystify the moderators into inaction.

Trump feels the need to compliment the right-wing NeoCon Sinclair TV network and ignore the draconian methods of mass editorial control of their local TV stations. At the same time, Agent Orange was bad-mouthing Amazon as if it was some evil concept. Amazon, applying the same rules on the books to avoid taxes that the Trump Organization has been using for decades, is now seen by Trump as a treasonous company. In fact, no thinking person believes the cracked veneer of Trump’s logic in these attacks. They know Trump hates Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, because Bezos owns the Washington Post, the newspaper that uncovers leaks and points out the hypocrisy of the Donald’s administration.

It’s the same reason Trump pushed the Department of Justice to take up arms against the Time-Warner merger with AT&T. Republicans don’t usually rail against mega-mergers. In fact, they have promoted them in the past. So, why is a group like Sinclair allowed to buy up what amounts to 60-70% of the smaller market TV stations without challenge, while a merger of different class companies is being hassled? It’s all about who Trump likes and dislikes. Someone needs to check Trump!

It’s funny the way things work. Trump complains about how the FBI and Justice are so bad, but when he gets sued under the Emoluments Clause, the D.O.J. is defending him. Several hotel owners are suing the government and Donald Trump, claiming that the Trump hotel a block from the White House is causing damage to their businesses. They say it’s illegal scheme to make money for the President. This is probably not hard to prove.

The problem with most of what Trump said this weekend is that there is a little lie packed into every statement. He claims that people are trying to exploit DACA by coming into the country now. That is impossible. Trump claims that the post office is losing money because of Amazon. That is untrue. The United States Postal Service lost money before there was an Amazon and it will always lose money. It’s not because they are ill managed but rather because they aren’t structured as a typical capitalist company. At the end of each year, whatever money is left over in the USPS bank is taken back by Congress. The applied profits or cash flow cannot help them get off to a big start each year. They have raided that service and taken as much as $29 million from them for non-profit mail, while the USPS has put billions of dollars into their employee retirement fund each year.

Amazon turned to the USPS to help them with deliveries of smaller items but, more importantly, weekend deliveries. According to the New York Times, “…. in its latest annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Amazon said it paid $957 million in income taxes in 2017. The company previously reported paying $412 million in income taxes in 2016, $273 million in 2015 and $177 million in 2014, according to the commission.”

According to CBS News, “Packages and shipping are one area that’s growing for the postal service, bringing in more than $19 billion in revenue last year even as the volume of letters and magazines declined. In fact, its projected revenue growth ’is driven entirely by increases in shipping and packages,’ the postal service said in its latest annual report.”

One of the reasons historians and political theorists will never see Trump as a serious President is because he doesn’t do his homework and uses lies in place of facts. He watches Fox News and takes their opinion and poorly researched news stories to write his tweets. He is totally under the rapture and control of Fox News. Donald Trump has become fake news and the worst president ever.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

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30Mar

BLINDED BY THE WHITE LIGHT

30 Mar 2018 Dwight

Drama Queen in the Oval

If Donald Trump was a TV show, oh, wait a minute, he is a TV show. He is the main character in a dark comedy that robs viewers of their souls. When tuning in, we hear, “Previously on DONALD TRUMP: The first stupid President,” and then see and hear the same things he has been preaching over and over. But now, the leading lady, the orange drama queen, has his hands full. Russia is the problem, over there and over here.

The overtones of racism have always been part of this President’s character. He is silent on the challenge and problems of apparent police brutality and mistakes. Even the judicial branch cannot see the pain the people are feeling, and the lack of justice when it comes to brutal force of the police.

Trump doesn’t like Washington. Notice how often he runs away to Mar-A-Lago to get away from the trappings of power. He fires off tweets that show what he is really thinking, and then his staff must hustle behind the scene to edit the script to match the queen’s pronouncements.

As the Special Counsel digs deeper into the caper of Russian interference, we get little bits of scraps. The latest is that Rick Gates had met with Russian spies in October and November in 2016, right before the election. This is someone from the Trump campaign directly contacting Russians and Trump knew it, which is why he denied it so vehemently. Trump clearly lied, and now it’s beginning to look like there actually is a case of collusion, a case for obstruction of justice and maybe just plain treason.

The report that aides have leaked said they had been told not to publicize sending arms to the Ukraine or anything that would anger President Putin. The drama queen seems to be keeping some secret about her relationship with the villain.

In Paul the Apostle’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians he said, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.”

This being Good Friday, I’m not sure why it is good but let’s keep a biblical analysis here, I would content that there is a great amount of wisdom in that passage. The lawless is Hillary Clinton, as presented by the Lord, who, in this case, is Donald Trump (the way the evangelicals see him). And he killed her with the breath of his mouth. This is saying that any opposition to Trump’s rule is the work of Satan, or the anti-Christ, or, in Trump’s mind, the “deep state.”

As Trump sees it, those against him are using all of their power, signs, lying wonders and wicked deception to thwart the Great Orange Leader’s movements. It’s because the enemy refuses to love his truth.

Trump is the anti-Christ and Satan incarnate. God has sent this powerful delusion to throw us all off the track of truth. He is doing everything he can to make us believe what is false. If we just turn to the scriptures, we will clearly see what is going on with this false prophet in a passion play of the destruction of democracy.

With the Russians launching ICBM missiles last night (it is called SATAN 2, not kidding), missiles that Putin claims cannot be shot down with our defense system, Trump has a real problem with Russia and he should back off talking about how the Russian investigation is a hoax and witch hunt. He must finally admit that Russia is not his friend, and that Putin is playing him like a fiddle and that we might be getting closer to the end of times. Ooouch!

Trump, with his bad thinking, just may wake up the witches of president’s past. On this first day of Passover, it might be good to go old school (Testament) and quote Leviticus 20:6, “I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.”

In the time this was written, “mediums” and “spiritists” were the people who said they had special ordained power and could know the thoughts of gods and predict the future. Clearly, the Holy Bible is condemning those who have prostituted their values by following Trump, and, indeed, they have been cut off from their people. The delusional maniac at the helm of the good ship U.S.A. has driven far away from anyone who disagrees with the Donald.

We can only hope that there is a God and that he will rise and send us some help to deal with the antichrist we have created in the image of ourselves. I guess, in the image of Roseanne, if you believe the hype of the holy babble of TV.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

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28Mar

KIM JONG-UN SLIPS INTO CHINA

28 Mar 2018 Dwight

Stormy Daniels Applies Maximum Pressure

Well look what we have here, a President who is pushing a certain domestic agenda while the rest of the world is wary of our inconsistent leader. There is substantial proof that many of the ideologically driven beliefs of this man are being pushed through the system with even some codified into law. No one in the Republican party is pushing back on his bad ideas.

On the world stage, countries no longer look to America as the main player in foreign policy affairs and détente. They have gotten together on their own despite this president’s desire to take credit for everything that happens.

Last night Donald Trump tweeted, “Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!” It’s strange to hear him say that it’s “unfortunate” to maintain sanctions, I mean, tough guy, wasn’t that the whole point?

And speaking of tough guys, Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, filed a motion last night (3-27-2018) asking the judge in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to grant him permission to question Trump and depose the president’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. If you remember, Cohen admitted to paying the Stormy hush money out of his home equity account to help his friend Trump.

The porn star’s lawyer claims, “It is firmly established that a sitting president is not afforded special protection from a civil suit regarding conduct before he or she entered office” and went on to cite the landmark 1997 Supreme Court ruling in Clinton v. Jones, which established that a sitting president isn’t immune from civil lawsuits related to activity that occurred before he took office.

The old saying of what goes around comes around is best suited for this predicament. And for those evangelicals reading, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” You have been deceived by this man and you may make the joke of giving him a “mulligan” but you are responsible for the weeds in your garden. And for those people who don’t play golf, a mulligan is an extra stroke allowed after a poor shot, not counted on the scorecard. A do over.

I’ll wager that the discussions which took place in Beijing included a serious question about what they should do about Donald Trump. It’s no longer a question about how to deal with the American agenda. It’s a deliberation of how to handle our crazy, raving President. While Trump believes his unpredictability and harsh tweets have accomplished something in this matter, other world leaders are just waiting for him to leave office so they can get back on solid ground.

China is controlling this diplomatic effort, while Michael Avenatti is piloting an effort to stain this presidency. Lawyers are leaving the Donald and it seems like the Trump’s inner circle is getting smaller. That isn’t necessarily bad for this frothing lunatic. With fewer people around him, there will be fewer people to blame when this all blows up. And it will.

With Avenatti chipping away on Trump’s fornications and Robert Mueller examining the Great Orange Leader’s financial webs and obvious lies, it won’t be long until the whole country knows all the facts behind Trump’s tactics and fear of Russia.

He’s afraid of something, and everyone agrees it’s not a hoax or a witch hunt. Just now, CNN News is reporting that Rick Gates, Paul Manafort’s partner, had contact in September and October of 2016 with, who some believe, are Russian intelligence operatives. Note: Rick Gates pleaded guilty and is working with the Special Counsel’s office. Remember when Trump said that no one from the campaign had any contact with Russians? He lied. Both Manafort and Gates worked for the campaign.

The Mueller investigation is looking into a corrupt manipulator and con man. We all know Trump is immoral and a sexual predator. We will soon learn, in detail, about his fraudulent behavior in business and government. He paid off the porn star and the Playboy bunny, and now he wants to screw anyone who gets in his way. He is a dangerous person.

Last night on the Daily Show, actor and author Sean Penn summed it up nicely when he suggested that “the American government needs to impeach the current president.” And that is a great way to say it. The government represents the people and the people need to count on their own government for course corrections. Without a vote in the Senate, we will have to deal with this dingbat for much too long. The day Donald Trump is removed from office, America will be made great, again.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

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26Mar

A POST PARKLAND PRESIDENT

26 Mar 2018 Dwight

Trump Trips Over an Opportunity

President Donald Trump attempted to shame Congressional leaders in a White House meeting by saying they are afraid of the National Rifle Association. He ranted about how strange it was that an 18-year-old could buy an assault rifle, but not a handgun until he turned 21. He boasted that he had instructed his Attorney General to investigate executing a ban on “bum stocks” a device that turns a semi-automatic firearm into an automatic killing machine. That device was used in Las Vegas during the largest American mass shooting. It’s important to point out that the tragedy happened more than five months ago.

The President has done little. Congress has passed an omnibus bill, a catch all of budget funds, that had some “school safety” money in it, but they haven’t addressed any of the fundamental issues. A casual observer might suggest that the NRA got to Trump and turned him around. The NRA controls Congress and if they don’t act, nothing substantial gets done.

The student protest last weekend (3-24-2018) took place in Washington, DC and cities all over the country and the world. But the old white guys in Washington missed the reality that these protestors are feeding the voter rolls. The youth of the nation has taken up a cause to march for their own lives.

When Donald Trump was shown pictures of Syrian children being gassed, he dropped a couple of bombs within days. I guess no one showed him the pictures of American kids in classrooms lying in their own blood. Maybe someone should confront him with those images. Maybe that could break the spell the NRA has cast over all those with power in Washington. This organization claims their root origins are rifle and gun safety, but their rhetoric is political and ideological. The organization is no longer just a lobbyist. They are, in-effect, a political action committee with guns.

One could ask a simple question. If President Trump cares so much about going after radical terrorism in America – in the name of Mexican cartel gangs – why is it so easy for them to get assault weapons? The NRA fights hard to thwart any gun control, meaning they are complicit with arming the bad guys. Can’t our governmental leaders see that?

I had the pleasure of going to one of the many rallies (Sarasota, FL) and was totally impressed with the young people who spoke. Many of the people I heard graduated from Stoneman Douglas High School, had friends who attended the school or were just kids with a strong message. These are fresh and honest voices who understand the game. They know who is responsible in Washington for their lack of action. This isn’t Pollyanna optimism.

The messaging of the one million student marchers was consistent. It was as if a schooled marketing expert had guided the way, or maybe these kids are experts. They learned social media techniques from a very early age and they used those skills to bring masses of protesters together. They also know that they have to change the system, or at least the people who rule, to get what they want.

And what exactly do they want? First, safe schools. That is a non-partisan issue. Then more gun controls. They want the age limit raised to 21-years of age for gun ownership. They talked about universal background checks, which, from this writer’s perspective, means a national database. Those words make a certain organization nervous.

When kids cheer, “Hey, Hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today?” they get the clenched fists and jaws of the NRA. And they get Fox News with blowhards saying that they are somehow part of a left-wing conspiracy. That is not going to deter these young thinkers. They have figured out that gun violence is the problem. Even Sir Paul McCartney marched in New York. He pointed out that one of his best friends was killed by gun violence. You might remember him, John Lennon.

Trump was presented an opportunity to unite one demographic group here, and he blew it. The message that was sent must have been written by the weekend communications intern. It read: “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today. Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President’s.”

Yes, this is the moment you realize that no one is steering this ship and a person named Lindsay Walters, White House spokeswoman, was the only connective tissue between the issue and the President, who was busy playing golf. Donald Trump doesn’t care about gun law reform. He’s another do nothing President.

After Trump’s dinner with the NRA, he sold his soul and the lives of thousands of students in America by trying to please a group he believes controls his base. As we walked from the protest last weekend with our signs, a large truck came around the bend and I could see the NRA sticker in the window. The driver leaned out and yelled, “You fucking idiots!” Then it dawned on me. There are millions of NRA members who fear their guns will be taken away. These are the Trump people.

According to the Celebrity Net Worth website, the CEO of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, is worth $10 million and his annual take averages around $1 million but has been as high as $5 million. So, he’s not only protecting guns, he’s guarding a sizable income. Think about it. He makes more money than the President of the United States. The NRA is the opposing force to getting better laws and systems for gun regulation.

If Trump would have watched the TV coverage of the marches, he would have seen the crowds were much bigger than his inauguration. The President should realize that many of these kids will be voting in 2020. If he has any serious desire to get re-elected, he should have responded with a little more gravitas and meaning than the plastic drivel of that canned statement. Maybe he was thinking more about a porn star, a bunny and a singer than the safety of Americans in our schools.

Donald Trump has deeply sunken in his own swamp. He is complicit and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a con man politician looking out only for himself. In the end, this New York political boss will get richer from being President because he’s changing laws to benefit himself and his family. His attempt to become an American oligarch must be foiled, now.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

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23Mar

THE COLD WINTER OF WAR

23 Mar 2018 Dwight

The Real Dangers of the Donald

The irony of the statement candidate Trump made on the campaign trail was that we should not elect Hillary Clinton because she would surely get us into war. Now, as Donald Trump makes his emboldened moves toward shaping the government in his very image, we are much closer to what he described in his imagination.

When Trump began his reality TV presidency, there were many people who didn’t take him seriously. There were some who were amused that a man who ran a reality TV game show and rouge businesses could make a difference. Without knowing that this philandering hypocrite would carry out most of what he said he would do points to another irony. We are so intellectually numb from most politicians not achieving their promises, we assumed that Trump would moderate once he became President. Wrong.

While TV wails away with a porn star, a Playboy bunny and a singer, we can’t find the punchline for what appears to be the setup of a joke. Donald Trump’s loyal followers, the Orange Cult, will not be thrown from the train over these detailed descriptions of Hollywood bungalows and liaisons with unprotected sex. Is there not a point when the men of God who believe in Trump will be tested? When did infidelity get a pass with diehard Christians? What do Mike and Karen Pence think of the President now?

Meanwhile, more important issues have gotten swept under the carpet due to all the noise from all the charges. Trump lost his lead attorney and he fired his National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMasters. And, in case you didn’t notice, he signed retaliatory tariffs against China. There is a certain coverage fatigue here that works well within the news cycle, but for the busy American the changes are coming too fast to comprehend.

First, let’s talk about trade. Donald Trump promised that we would win so much we would be tired of winning. He kept talking about how good the stock market has done since he became President. In a sense, he sold America the notion of getting rich. To this writer, however, it appears that our Great Orange Leader is simply “getting even” with countries he claims have been screwing America.

The method here is primal. Make the Mexicans, the Chinese and the Iranians the bad guys and ignore the threat of Russian interference in our elections. Is Donald Trump afraid of Russia or something that Russia knows about him? While we slept, Trump remodeled foreign policy and built trade walls, pushing us closer to wars of two kinds.

While Trump’s lawyers are focusing on silencing the porn star, the bunny and the singer, the changes within our government are remarkable. The Donald is clearly tired of listening to the military logic of “his generals” and is now replacing them with people who agree with his deep confusion. He is a guy who believes his own shit doesn’t stink. He watches Fox News and hires those of their talking heads he enjoys hearing. In a way, Fox News is controlling the president. This is frightening.

His new economic adviser is a recent Fox contributor. When the headline screams, Larry Kudlow: TV pundit to replace Gary Cohn as Trump’s top economic adviser (Guardian) we should all worry. When the President of the United States feels more comfortable with pundits than experts, we are doomed to life in a bubble with no escape. Sucking on the Fox feedback loop is the most threatening thing a president could do.

With the appointment of John Bolton as the new National Security Advisor, Trump has once again moved toward an ultra-conservative, pro-military action figure who thinks that America’s mandate is nation changing. This might seem out of sync with Trump’s critical views of the military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Trump has slowly removed people who were there to talk him out of war. Bolton’s final solution for Iran and North Korea involves bombs and boots on the ground. Trump joked that he made Bolton promise him that he wouldn’t get us into war. Did he actually have to say that? WTF!

Holding China’s hand to the fire on trade might warm the hearts of the hardcore Trumpettes, but will inevitably start a NO-WIN trade war that will suck dollars out of the wallets and purses of the people who put Trump in office. China has already announced that they will strike back with $3 billion tariffs on 128 US products which include wine, fresh fruit, dried fruit and nuts, steel pipes, ethanol and, believe it or not, ginseng.

All this is happening before Trump turns his head toward the EU and the NAFTA agreements. He might get even with the countries where some of his own products are made, but he doesn’t understand the gravity of his actions and their effect on our economy. Trump’s short terms goals conflict with the stock market.

While Donald Trump checked off another campaign promise, we saw our 401(k)s diminish. Is he really helping us, or is he just another blowhard who has the power to enact his fantasies and try out his half-baked opinions? It could be that he will erase all the gains we have made so far. He is a destructive whore who wants to screw other countries just as much as he wants to screw every woman he sees.

Under oath, we will eventually learn more about our President, but much of the damage will have already happened. In May, John Bolton will urge Trump to tear up the Iran Nuclear deal. Then Iran will be able to move forward with creating a nuclear weapon store, putting them in the same league as North Korea. This will pit the US against our allies in Europe and create another crisis in the Middle East.

Trump is mentally incapable of understanding all of this. He now believes that his twitter attacks brought Kim-Jong Un to the bargaining table, totally disregarding the efforts made by South Korea. In fact, this will be a three-way meeting with the South, the North and the President. He will not be able to take full credit and that will piss him off. With John Bolton in the drivers’ seat, I wonder if the meeting will ever take place. Google some of the things Bolton has said about North Korea and you will see.

Even as spring comes to America, it remains a cold winter. A trade war might not be understood by Americans until they start to run out of money. A real war will be grasped when our sons and daughters are sent into harm’s way, again. The citizens of this great nation will come to see that the man behind the curtain lied to us. Only then we might start to ask, why did we elect a liar?

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

Now available on Amazon.

21Mar

ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM

21 Mar 2018 Dwight

Trump’s Tactics and Indiscretions Exposed

Don’t let the Latin get in the way. Ad hominem means “to the man” and adds precision to the title of this piece. It means employing a fallacious, argumentative strategy to cloud the subject of a discussion by attacking the character, motive, or any other attribute of the person making the argument. This tactic attempts to move the listener away from the substance of the point, fact or argument. There is also a risk that one could be making things worse in the long run by employing the fallacy of irrelevance.

When Donald Trump was accused of sexual misconduct by more than 17 women right before the Presidential election in 2016, he basically said they were all liars. Trump believes that a man can simply deny to make these cases go away. And when the complainants keep up the pressure, he turns to his argumentum ad hominem routine by discrediting people or buying them off with an NDA, a Non-Disclosure Agreement that keeps another from talking about something or keeping the knowledge of some business matter confidential.

One of the aspects of the #MeToo movement is allowing women who have been sexually harassed or violated, and then forced to sign an NDA, to be unchained from these agreements so they can tell their stories. There is some tradition in U.S. law that if revealing information helps other victims, or prevents future wrongdoings, a court could find that public good outweighs a piece of paper. While Harvey Weinstein probably used power and influence in his industry to keep women quiet, Donald J. Trump simply whips out his checkbook and buys silence. This is a matter of record, therefore a fact.

By attacking the character, motive, or some other attribute of an adversary, Trump attempts to force the viewer’s attention away from any substance that person may be making. By calling Marco Rubio, “Little Marco,” candidate Trump took the focus off any productive plan Rubio might have laid out for America. By continually using the term, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz,” the Donald was able to position the Texas Senator as someone who shouldn’t be believed. Now that Trump is the President of the United States of America, every statement, tweet and comment becomes the policy of the White House. It’s very clear that after a year into this mess, our Great Orange Leader doesn’t care about truth, facts and real policy. If confronted, he will lie.

Today (3-21-2018), Trump is pouting around the White House about leaks from his administration. If the stories in Michael Wolff’s best seller Fire and Fury are true, one of the biggest leakers just might be Trump himself. He spends endless hours watching TV and talking on the phone to people who massage his frail ego.

What might be an uncorroborated rumor that comes up on a late-night phone call with one of his cronies, gets codified by the Commander and Chief. History will show that Trump’s own loose lips were the source of many of the leaked items that piss him off. He’s like a teenage girl gossiping about the day’s events at school.

As more and more journalistic and legal heat is applied to the 45^th President, we see more push back and ad hominem from this narcissistic, soulless human being.

Just minutes ago, as the snow came down around the White House, Donald Trump tweeted a quote from Alan Dershowitz: “Special Council is told to find crimes, whether a crime exists or not. I was opposed to the selection of Mueller to be Special Council. I am still opposed to it. I think President Trump was right when he said there never should have been a Special Council appointed because there was no probable cause for believing that there was any crime, collusion or otherwise, or obstruction of justice!”

Besides being a well-known author on legal matters, Alan Dershowitz was one of the attorneys for O.J. Simpson. He’s a strange person to be supporting Trump. Dershowitz is a Democrat and he supported Hilary Clinton. He is strongly pro-Israel and holds a rare position on the Second Amendment and gun control. Dershowitz says that the right to bear arms has “no place in modern society” and has even supported repealing the amendment.

The interesting opinion that “there was no probable cause” in the attempts to gloss over many facts of the 2016 election is wrong. We now know that Russian operatives attempted to manipulate the opinions and attitudes of voters in America. We know that a company named Cambridge Analytica clipped 50 million Facebook profiles and the Trump campaign used these to push Trump’s narrative. We’re not sure just yet whether laws were broken, but it’s certainly probable cause for an investigation. If we believe Jim Comey, former Director of the FBI, Trump did ask the FBI to “go easy” on his National Security Director, Michael Flynn. I’m not sure what planet Alan Dershowitz is on, but Flynn did plead guilty to charges of lying to the FBI. Does that suggest that appointing Special Counsel was a good idea, or just some frivolous act by a partisan United States Deputy Attorney General?

Is Dershowitz, a TV commentator, planning to pitch for the position of Attorney General if Trump fires Jeff Sessions? Time will tell, but Trump’s attempt to move the listener away from the substance of the point, fact or argument is obvious. Argumentum ad hominem might not be a term Trump has ever heard, but his constant negative putdowns and attacks on America citizens begs this question. When do we get back to a normal president with his or her focus placed on the task of doing the people’s business? Until things change, we have nothing but a large, steaming pile of his business to handle every day.

The First 200 Days Of Trump – ONLY ONE MILLION LEFT

New Book about Terrorism

Now available on Amazon.