Tuesday, December 10, 2019

A Constitutional Crisis Just Got Worse


                                       Good Day World!

This. Is. It.

America is in a Constitutional crisis this winter. Trump's going to be impeached this week. The House announced two articles of Impeachment this morning.

His supporters haven't been able to contest the facts against him, but they've made a show of challenging the entire hearing by trying to discredit it with outright lies, and procedural complaints. 

On top of this historic moment, there was another blow to our system of checks and balances that was announced yesterday.

AG Barr and the US attorney he picked to lead a probe into the origins of the Russian investigation, don't like the results that the Justice Department Inspector General reported yesterday.

Barr was hoping to give his master Trump an early Christmas gift when the report came out verifying his conspiracy theories... but that didn't happen.

Simply put, the IG found that the FBI properly opened its investigation into Russian election interference. 

This was bad news for Barr. He wasn't able to bring the "deliverable" to Donny. He better hope the $30,000 "Appreciation Party" he's throwing for Trump at his foreign fund outlet in Washington DC, pleases him.

There's never been such a stunning display of outright corruption in American history. No president has ever tried to cripple Congress and it's oversight abilities like Trump has, and is currently doing.

Congress can't wait until the next election because Trump will attempt to rig it with the help of Russia (or China, or the Ukraine as he's already publicly stated) again. 

It's scary that Trump's case will be tried before a Senate majority who are afraid of him.

It's scary that he believes the senate will ignore facts and spare him from justice.

It's scary that the senate majority leader Moscow Mitch has already declared the trial will go nowhere before the first piece of evidence has been examined.

With toady Barr's resistance to reality in order to remain in Trump's favor, our system of government is showing cracks in the checks-and-balances that threaten to destroy our Republic.

America has survived other threats to the Constitution in the last 247 years. We must trust that we'll survive these trying times, and freedom will continue to ring in the United States of America.

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Monday, December 9, 2019

4-Ways to Filter 24-Hour Cycle Breaking News and Still Be Informed

Good Day World!

Breaking News stories don't just happen on a daily basis in the 21st century... they burst hourly on social media platforms, and news organizations.

Keeping up with rapid-fire headlines is impossible for the average American.

Heck! It's even difficult for a hardcore blogger/writer, like me, to have a good grasp of what's happening in the hourly news cycle around the nation, and the world.

That doesn't mean it's necessary to spend endless hours researching like news devotees to be well-informed about the world around you.


Filtering Out The Bullshit

Unless you enjoy living in a tribal bubble, the alternative is to open your mind and make decisions based upon facts, not partisan rhetoric.

1. When getting your news from TV, choose media outlets that aren't blatantly partisan. I recommend PBS, but CBS and ABC also do a fair job of presenting news. There are others.

2. Like TV, radio/podcasts can be partisan creatures that call upon people to suspend reality in favor of an ideology. PBS and other relatively neutral platforms are available.

3. When it comes to the print media (a pleasant surprise that people are still subscribing to newspapers and magazines), I recommend looking for a local newspaper, and a national one like US Today, to get a good overview on what's happening in the world.

4. To avoid responding like a puppet to hourly bombshell reports limit your daily news-gathering time to no more than a couple of hours. Less time, is probably better. 

As a journalist, I've always felt it was important to inform the public of news events around them, and the world. We all should have a basic knowledge about our government and the laws of the land.

However, there's nothing better than living in the here-and-now, and interacting with family and friends. 

(Photo: My wife Shirley and I)

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Trump Downplays Saudi Connection To Murderous Attack Against US Military Members


                                        Good Day World!

The realization that a foreign terrorist targeted a US military base and successfully murdered and wounded American service members, opens up a new front in the battle against worldwide terrorism.

As new facts about the Saudi student who committed the atrocity continue to leak out one thing is clear... this was a premediated attack and more than one person is involved.

The Associated Press reported the killer hosted a dinner party before his murderous attack where he, and three other Saudi students, watched videos of mass shootings.

We know that one of those students who were at the party was videotaped outside the building where the shooting was taking place at Naval Air Station Pennsacola.

The other two students watched from a car. Authorities have arrested them, and at last report, they were holding ten Saudi students for questioning. Apparently, several Saudi students are still missing according to officials (at the time of this post).

We also know the shooter posted criticism of US wars and quoted Osama bin Laden on social media before opening fire on his unsuspecting victims.


Too many questions remain

** Was it a conspiracy involving some - if not all of the Saudi students?

** How effective is the vetting process - both from the Saudis side. and the US side? 

** How did the killer get a handgun into a secure base that prohibits anyone, with the exception of the base police force, from having weapons?

** Just how closely are foreign students being monitored while they're here training at our military bases?

** Is it time to re-examine the training programs between other countries military, and ours?

** Should we ban some countries from training programs when we know they're bad actors, or even suspect it?

While the Saudi government (and Trump) were quick to decry the act, it sounds similar to the insincere effort made to help find out who murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

No one, but Trump (who could care less), thinks the Saudi's ever came clean on that brutal assassination. Thus, their offer now sounds just as hollow.

Watching Trump get in front of this mass shooting is reminiscent of the ploy Trump used to discredit the Mueller investigation.

The last thing Trump wants is to lose his personal good standing with The Kingdom, who he plans to do more business with again in the future.

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Is a Good Economy Justification For Not Impeaching Trump?


                                        Good Day World!

Trump and minions were touting the robust economy yesterday, while pretending his impeachment wasn't hovering over the White House.

Trump refused to send his legal council to the House impeachment proceedings at the deadline yesterday in an act of childish defiance that can be likened to cutting one's nose off to spite their face.

Should Trump get credit for the healthy economy Obama left him?

Should Trump get credit for lowering the wealthy one-percent of Americans taxes, thanks to his tax law scheme?

Yesterday's positive economic news is going to be short-lived as we move into another year of crippling tariffs for farmers. 

They were forced to live on government subsidies again this year, that were larger than what the failing banks got when bailed out by Obama after he took office in 2008. 

According to this Bloomberg article the job market's decade-end bang risks fizzling in less-roaring '20s.

One basic question.

Is a good economy justification for not impeaching Trump? The Republicans Trumplicans are hoping the current economy will overshadow Trump's attempt to fix the 2020 election.

On the face the two issues have nothing in common. 

One is about our economy, and the other is about a rogue president who worked with the Russians to get elected in 2016, and is still doing Putin's bidding today.

Traditionally, a good economy would carry a lot of weight for an incumbent president. But Trump's presidency is anything but traditional. All norms have been shattered.

GOP lawmakers have been following Trump like helpless zombies, creating the biggest swamp in presidential history. They managed to make the House impeachment hearings a circus at times to cloud Trump's crimes.

Political pundits say that when the Senate gets the articles of impeachment, senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will try to avoid having a circus at all cost. I'll believe that when I see it.

Despite publicly admitting Republican senators are not going to vote against Trump, Moscow Mitch is going to try to put up a façade of fairness, according to some experts on the subject.

To me the answer is clear, a good economy is hardly an excuse to enable the corruption that's thrived under Trump's regime to continue.

What do you think?

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Friday, December 6, 2019

A Christmas Impeachment and a 'Mysterious' Gift To Trump From Kim

Good Day World!

This is not a traditional Christmas this year, in case you hadn't noticed.

Parents are reading the articles of impeachment to their children instead of Christmas stories. 

There's even a good chance that Christmas Day will feature Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.

Partisan Christmas tree ornaments are a hot item online. 

Store-side Santa Clauses are wearing blue outfits in Democratic strongholds, and the Republicans are wearing Orange Santa suits in GOP stomping grounds.

There's rumors that Santa's workshop is experiencing trouble with the elves who want to serve Republicans with subpoenas to testify in the Senate trial, and elves who are printing up conspiracy theories to pass out against Democratic lawmakers.


A Foreign Christmas Greeting

Meanwhile, North Korea's bat-shit crazy leader Kim is promising a Christmas gift for America.

His minions sent out a notice to Washington warning the Trump Administration's Christmas gift "depends on the coming days."

That mysterious statement certainly sounds ominous, especially since Kim has set a deadline (the end of the year) before taking some action that America isn't going to like.

Because Trump is a diplomatic moron, he dissed Kim during the NATO summit by calling him Rocket Man (remember that one?) and threatening the US could kick his rotund ass.

That, of course, didn't put Kim in the holiday spirit, and he called Trump a Dotard (another oldie but goodie). 

I have a feeling Kim's Christmas gift is going to be - in Trump's own broken words - "nasty."

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Thursday, December 5, 2019

The Open Secret is Out: World Leaders Think Trump is a Joke

Good Day World!

For the last three years world leaders have tried flattering Trump's massive ego to maintain good relations with the United States.

That tolerance seems to have worn thin with them.

In a hot mic moment at the Buckingham Palace reception for world leaders, following the 70th NATO Summit in England, a group of world leaders were caught on camera joking about Trump.

British prime Minister Boris Johnson, French president Emmanuel Macron, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte were yucking it up at Trump's expense, unaware they were being recorded.

The bad news is only snippets of their jocularity were understandable, but the basic message was clear... they thought Trump was a clown.

Trump's clashes with Macron and Trudeau were among the highlights featuring a rampaging Trump attacking NATO and its leaders.

In fact the whole Summit was a joke. World leaders couldn't discuss important agendas with Trump who got butt hurt when they suggested he screwed up by helping Turkey and turning on the Kurds.

No real world issues were addressed in that historic 70th anniversary. 

The specter of Trump rumbling through meetings while ranting about how great the US economy is because of him, was a haunting reminder of how low America has sunk in the eyes of world leaders.

Trump has the dubious distinction of the being the first US president to be laughed at by some of America's closest allies at a NATO summit, a sign if his increasing isolation on the world stage.

When the conference was over Trump skipped his usual diatribe about how well things went, and sulked aboard Air Force One... 

confident that when he got home his minions would applaud him like a conquering hero.

Time for me to walk on down  the road...

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Trump's Going to Learn a Lesson From Al Capone's Downfall


                                         Good Day World!

While political pundits are reading the tea leaves to see if Trump will survive a Senate trial after he gets impeached by the House, there's actually a bigger threat facing Trump.

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that two banks (Duetsche Bank and Capital One) must turn over Trump's financial records to the Democrat controlled House of Representatives.

Let's turn the clock back for a moment to the roaring twenties when Al Capone ruled Chicago's underworld. His corrupt connections always bailed him out when he was taken to court.

After a while it seemed like nothing, not the FBI or local law enforcement, were ever going to bring Big Al to justice. But, the IRS got a hold of Capone's financial dealings and locked up him in prison. It was the money trail that got Capone, and it's going to be the same for Trump.

All of the president's minions delaying tactics could not stop the banks from eventually turning over his information, as proven by this recent federal court decision. In desperation Trump's cronies will take it to the Supreme Court.

Two things: the Supreme's could kick it back to Congress (thus far they don't have the appetite to interfere in Congressional conflicts), in which case Trump is shit-out-of-luck.

But, let's say the Supreme Court does takes up the case. It would likely be heard next spring - around June - five months before the elections.

Not a good optic for Trump. The chance that the Supreme's will rule against Trump's argument that he can't be held to justice, is good. In the end, I suspect they will uphold our system of justice that says "No man is above the law."

Meanwhile, the Republicans who have decided to buy into Trump's fairy tale that everything is a hoax if Trump doesn't like it, are going to have egg on their faces when justice finally prevails. History will mock their antics.

Capone's men followed his orders without question, killing people and intimidating others with no qualms. The parallel of Trump, and the way he uses his minions, is obvious.

Trump has acted like a mob boss throughout his toxic tenure. Like Capone, he speaks underworld jargon and demands undying loyalty.

If indeed, taxes become Trump's Waterloo, he'll join the likes of Capone and other gangsters who finally payed the price for their vile deeds.

Time for me to walk on down the road... 

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

On a "Monster" Black Hole and the GOP Rabbit Hole


                                          Good Day World!

Scientists have recently discovered a "monster black hole" so massive, in theory, it shouldn't exist.

GOP lawmakers meanwhile, are pretending that Trump isn't taking them down a rabbit hole so deep, there's no end in sight. 

As scientists are scratching their heads about the sheer size of the new discovered black hole, GOP lawmakers are blithely following Trump down his bottomless rabbit hole of conspiracies and lies.

Despite be warned by every intelligence agency in our government that Putin has been spreading conspiracy theories about the Ukraine interfering with the 2016 election, Republicans in the House and Senate have ignored them.

Indeed, these GOP enablers of Trump's corruption, are doubling down on the lies he's spewing while ignoring facts and evidence to the contrary.

Scientists are busy pondering the monster black hole's existence and questioning the realities they assumed were right, forcing them to examine other possibilities.

Republicans following Trump down his rabbit hole no longer question truth, or what's right or wrong. They fear Trump more than doing what they were elected to do - to uphold the Constitution.

While scientists are gaining more knowledge about the universe and black holes, Republicans are getting dumber by the day as they spiral out of control down Trump's rabbit hole.

Time for me to walk on down the road....

Monday, December 2, 2019

Will Trump's "Unswayables" Deliver an Electoral Victory?

Good Day World!

Republicans in the last seven presidential elections have only won the popular vote once, when George Bush pulled off the feat in 2004.

Since then, the Republican Party has relied on the Electoral College to get their candidates elected. By concentrating on swing states in the last decade the GOP has managed to build up a red firewall.

They accomplished that through voter suppression and gerrymandering. The combination has allowed Republicans to fill offices in the key states, effectively controlling the voting process in each one.

Trump is counting on his "unswayable" base to hold the red line in each of those states - Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

But this is not 2016. 

The 2020 election is going to be referendum on what's happened during the Trump regimes four years of chaos.

What about those "unswayable" supporters though? They'll still be there in 2020.

Let's drill down on that hard core base to see what their chances are of keeping Trump in office in the next election:

Let' warm up with an analysis of Trump supporters in a recent report from Psychology Today.

Next, a Nov. 3rd Fox News poll showed 41 percent of registered voters are against impeaching Trump. Of them, 57 percent say no new evidence could cause them to change their minds.

If that poll is accurate, it would put Trump's true base at 23 percent of registered voters. Not very impressive for a president trying to get re-elected.

It comes down to where the majority of Trump's unswayable base are in the five critical swing states. Can they duplicate 2016? 

Or, has the political landscape shifted the other way with the Democrats repeated electoral victories in 2018, and 2019?

There's a lot of variables to consider, especially with Trump's impending impeachment this month. It could motivate some people to vote for him, or against him. 

Another consideration that could sway the election against Trump is the numerous lawsuits he's fighting to conceal his taxes.

The chances of getting his taxes, and accounting firm records, have been improving with recent court victories for the House of Representatives. There's a very good chance that could happen next spring.

If they show that Trump was cheating the IRS, his captive Republican support in the Senate would melt like butter on a hot stove. Some facts are unassailable, even for partisan Republican senators.

Are there enough "unswayable" Trump minions to carry him to another victory? 

For the country's sake, I hope that the empowered minority of fanatics don't carry Trump across the finish line again.

Time for me to walk on down the road...   

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Just in Time for the Holidays: Millions of Americans Could Lose Food Stamps


                                           Good Day World!

The Trump regime is preparing to cripple the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to usher in the holidays.

The goal of the SNAP program is to mitigate hunger and its consequences in the United States. The program was never designed to be a work for food deal.

Trump minions held a three-day comment period last week in preparation for the three new rule changes that will see an estimated 3.7 million people a month no longer getting help, and another 2.2 million would see their average monthly benefit drop by $127 a month.

As if the above wasn't enough harm to hungry Americans, a study released by The Urban League last week showed that in addition to the above consequences, the changes would affect 982,000 students across the country who would lose access to free or reduced lunches.

All of this bad news is just in time for the holidays. It's a Trumpian way to say Merry Christmas to everyone... except the poor and hungry.

The clown in charge of this Grinch-like attempt to ruin people's already challenging lives, is Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, who joyfully said it was going to save taxpayer's money.

How's that for justifying taking food out of hungry people's mouths?

What the Trump trolls don't get is SNAP was never intended to make money or to exclude anyone who was hungry. It was a program created on a bi-partisan basis meant to address food insecurity in the nation.

Simply put, food is not a luxury. No matter what Trump and his ilk think.

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Look on the Senate Floor! It's a Speeding Bullet... No! It's Stall Man!

Illustration Courtesy of MAD Magazine

Good Day World!

He's able to block democracy in a single bound...

He's bound by no loyalty but to himself...

He shoots down House bills with his Trump-Ray vision...

Some call him Moscow Mitch...

Other's like Mad Magazine, call him Stall Man for his ability to stop any legislation Trump doesn't like.

Call him what you will, Mitch McConnell has become the Grim Reaper where non-Trump bills go to die in a partisan graveyard.

Like all partisan hacks, especially the one's who drink a dose of Trump Kool Aid daily, McConnell has no scruples, no morals, no conscience, but the sucker is really connected.

With his wife's (Elaine Chao's) connection - she's Secretary of Transportation - the pair are both in bed with two of our worst foreign enemies.

Chao with her China connection which is currently being investigated by Congress, and Mitch with his Moscow connection to a Russian Oligarch, are just one example of current Washington DC power couples. (Think Jared and Ivanka.)

Both are blissfully corrupt in the Age of Trump where the swamp was supersized to envelope every branch of our government.

Even Mitch's fellow Republicans in the Senate are getting tired of not passing any legislation in favor of a parade of wannabee judges being confirmed (after an oath of loyalty to Trump) to infect our judiciary system - from top to bottom.

I would suggest to those GOP sleepwalkers in the Senate that they need to wake up fast, and stand up for their constituents... not Stall Man!

Time for me to walk on down the road...

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...