9/2/19 Post contributed by: Marty Westerman- a friend of our blog.

Our nearly four years with the unprecedented candidate-President Drumpf-tRump-45, bring three movies to mind for me – The Producers, Sneakers (the original hacker movie) and Galaxy Quest (the Star Trek spoof J.J. Abrams loves).  You can get the day-by-day Presidency count from Brian Williams every night on his 11^th Hour MSNBC show – as of September 1, 2019, it’s 954 (excruciating) days.

The scene that provides my umbrella for this odyssey comes near the end of The Producers.  Zero Mostel’s character, producer Max Bialashtok, sits in the rubble of his theatre, looking skyward and asking, “I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?” 

Trump was the wrong candidate and is the wrong President for so many reasons:  misogyny & gaslighting; rich-boy entitlement, narcissism & white privilege; support for white supremacy, fascism; divisiveness & propagandizing; vengefulness, immigrant- and race-baiting; faux-patriotism & aiding America’s enemies; failed businesses & trade wars; climate change denial; personal and institutional disloyalty; dismissal of facts, opposing research & truth; epic dishonesty, religious indifference, and hatred of pet dogs. 

With all these negatives, he has become a catalyst for our time. Thanks to the dynamics of 45 he and his supporters, for all the wrong reasons, they have confronted us with all the “right” things the majority of Americans (the other 65-70% of us) must now address:

• #metoo, the roles of women in society & embedded misogyny;
• #blacklivesmatter, embedded U.S. racism (from today’s local neighborhoods back to the 1789 U.S. Constitution), police bias & responses to white supremacist riots;
• immigrants’ rights, the asylum process vs. “homeland security,” & U.S. Latin American policy (and international relations);
• news media false equivalencies: “balanced coverage” that makes chronic liars look equal to research, data and facts; #fakenews; & social media hacking;
• nepotism, emoluments, corrupt practices & accountability for public servants;
• undermining U.S. institutions, including courts, intelligence, investigative and policing services; and support and regulation agencies
• the dependably re-elected, legacy beneficiaries of political gerrymandering;
• money in politics, income disparities (& favoritism for the rich), and failures to apply federal anti-trust and state corporate charter regulatory laws, and
• governmental balance of powers, and the structure of the U.S. Constitution – including the continued efficacy of the Electoral College vs. popular votes, 2^nd Amendment, embedded racism, and whether or not the U.S. President and any other high-ranking official is governed by the law.

As much as I’d prefer Hilary, if she had become President, it’s unlikely the Democrats would have re-taken the U.S. House, nor won so many state and local offices, nor would so many Republican lawmakers now be resigning.  It’s unlikely that national revulsion at 45 would have brought all these “right” issues to a head.  Hilary would have been dogged by Republican hounds gnawing at her heels, yapping at & blocking her every move.  McConnell would not be known as Moscow Mitch, nor Graham as Leningrad Lindsey.

Looking ahead, I keep in mind the old warnings from Sneakers (1992) and Galaxy Quest (1999), for our future elections:

• Beware computer hacking – warns the villain Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) to the hero Martin (Robert Redford):  “The world isn’t run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money, it’s run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It’s all just electrons. … And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets. It’s about who controls the information.”
• Mind your history:  Guy (Sam Rockwell) snatches Gwen (Sigourny Weaver) back from walking into a trap, and barks:  “Don’t you watch the show?!”

Let’s appreciate how interesting are the times we live in.  And make sure we do the right things – for all the right (and/or even if for all the wrong) reasons

Protestor? Beat the crap out of him!

This is Trump talk at one of his rallies:

“Shoot migrants”, yells a trump rally attendee, and Trump actually responds:

“That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff” (that is shooting migrants).

Analyze that to get a fuller picture of Trumps ‘ hidden brain process. Isn’t Trump saying, its ok to shoot a migrant, so long as you do it in the panhandle where you can, presumably, “get away with it”? (an area where Trump received 80% of the vote (ie-Trump country).

We have a president who believes it is also ok to do anything he likes, so long as it is marked with a single criteria: he can “get away with it.” And he thinks he can get away with anything, so long as he has his brown shirt supporters and politician backups on board. https://crooksandliars.com/2019/08/el-paso-shooters-manifesto-uses-trump-and

6/30/19:

Outward signs of intellectual decline are quite pronounced now in Trump, as the devolution of our culture continues. We have pointed to Trumps’ long term use of finisteride, and its devastating impact on brain health (see earlier post), which combined with the”know-it-all” trait found in narcissistic personality disorder, puts us all at code level red risk.

Donald Trump Stumped By Terms ‘Busing’ And Western ‘Liberalism’ At News Conference https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-busing-liberalism-g20-press-conference_n_5d17df7de4b082e5536a499d DOWNLOAD_HUFFPOST

5/15/19

Everyone can easily recall how President Bushs’ war on terror, and his aggressive response against Iraq (whether you believe it was wise at that time or not) practically guaranteed his re-election. Indeed, for as long as written history, oligarchs and dictators have taken advantage of war mongering to reinforce their political strength and advantages.

Is it possible that Trump sees his bullying strategies of statesmanship as a “no lose” tactic? That is, if other nations, such as Iran or China yield to his demands, he wins. And if it gets us into a war, he sees an increase in the odds of winning re-election?

Nicole Goodkind is a political reporter at Newsweek

” Attorney General William Barr exonerated President Donald Trump of all wrong-doing in the Russia investigation last month, and now he wants to take things a step further. In a Senate hearing Wednesday, Barr suggested that the U.S. government had spied on Trump during his campaign and said that he would open another inquiry into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr told senators. “I think spying did occur, yes,” because of a probable “failure among a group of leaders in the upper echelon” of the FBI. Mueller delivered a nearly 400-page report last month with evidence that Russia had worked to influence the results of the 2016 election and that President Trump may have obstructed justice. Just days later, Barr released a four-page memo absolving the president of wrongdoing. But yesterday Barr indicated that he not only wanted to exculpate Trump of wrongdoing, he wanted to avenge him as well. It’s an odd statement to make because the origins of Mueller’s probe are already well-known. The FBI launched an investigation into the president’s campaign after their warnings of possible interference by Russia went ignored. The Department of Justice eventually started looking into some former Trump campaign staffers who had suspicious contacts with Russian agents. Multiple judges signed off on those investigations. There is no evidence that government agents were illegally spying on the Trump campaign. The “spying by the government” line is a conspiracy theory that has been touted by the right and by President Trump’s own camp. In 2017, Kellyanne Conway suggested that former President Barack Obama had used microwaves to spy on Trump. Still, the comments will most certainly please Barr’s boss, who has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a Democrat-driven witch hunt. “Barr knows how counterintel investigations work. He knows there was ample evidence of Russian attempts to infiltrate the Trump campaign and that the FBI took lawful action to stop it,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted Wednesday. “Giving a wink and a nod to this long-debunked ‘spying’ conspiracy theory is irresponsible.” House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff questioned Barr’s fitness to serve at the Department of Justice. “I had deep concerns about him given how he got the job, but this is far worse than I would have imagined,” he told Politico. Almost as soon as Barr made the comments, he attempted to walk them back. “I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now,” about spying Barr said during the hearing. “I do have questions about it.” Barr said he had not set up a team to investigate and that “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying I am concerned about it and looking into it. I believe there is a basis for my concern. But I’m not going to discuss the basis.” (Hey, why not state your basis? Why should anyone accept the statement “I am not going to discuss the basis”? “I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now,” about spying Barr said during the hearing. “I do have questions about it.” Barr said he had not set up a team to investigate and that “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying I am concerned about it and looking into it. I believe there is a basis for my concern. But I’m not going to discuss the basis.” Nicole Goodkind is a political reporter at Newsweek. You can reach her on Twitter @NicoleGoodkind or by email, [email protected]. This article, which quotes from Barr, reveals Barr’s principal transparent and outrageous communication technique which he uses to obfuscate reality. He thinks it is fine to state some- thing, as if it is true, and that he is “concerned about it”, and “take it back” the next moment, as if he didn’t really mean to say that it was actually true, thus not taking responsibility for saying it. Obviously Barr thinks it is a clever technique. It really is akin to some Trumpian tactics we have written about. And in the end, when the only answer he can give defies credulity, he simply says “I am not going to discuss that now”. And finally, what is this “protecting the reputations of “peripheral third parties”. So when we the see the blacked out pages containing references to Donald Trump, and children, you can be sure Barrs’ retort will be something like “I informed you that I would protect the reputations of peripheral persons, remember?” This was, after all an investigation into Russian interference, and an uncharged persons’ reputation, who can thus be deemed a “peripheral person” should not be sullied. (We honestly hope this isn’t the case, but we wouldn’t be surprised.) We believe that these tactics will expose Barr for who he really is, an insufferable hack, but a very powerful one. But he has, at least twice, outsmarted himself. He is just another emperor with no clothes on. A man, like Trump himself, who doesn’t understand the outrage people have when you treat them like stupid fools, thinking they will not grasp these kindergarten tactics, is an even greater fool..

Suppose that Muller’s report is not made public. Half the country is curious enough about it to want to either see it, or have people they trust to be allowed to see it, with them being able to report it out (leaving Trumps’ only recourse to be calling it “fake news,” or not).

If the public release is blocked, there is guaranteed to be leaks about it. It is just too “hot” an issue now. Remember how Trump talked about it as a waste of taxpayer funds? Well shouldn’t citizens be able to see the benefit from their paying of taxes? And one benefit would be seeing the report that Trump thinks they paid too much for, right? By saying that it was a “waste of tax-payer funds” he shot himself in the foot, as he always does.

Remember, Trump is not a strategist, he is a tactition, though a master at it.https://trumpuniverse.net/they-are-not-just-bad-they-are-incompetent-and-bad/tactition (though a master at it).

Will Trump ever admit that he boxed himself in on this? He will of course call the leaks (and leak it will), “fake news” and/or do something similar as witnessed in the Cavanaugh hearing, that is discredit victims and/or witnesses, and of course Muller. He has his bag of tricks.

Some tricks (tactics) that we recently saw in the latest Trump interview were worth sharing. Trump often says: “when you look at……..” and thus points the listener or reader to focus on his made up claim of “validity”, which is nothing but Trumps’ purposefully reframed and distorted version of a real event.

Trump knows that the “eyes don’t lie”, or “seeing is believing” is an almost ancient homo-sapien canard, which can thus be easily exploited by this tactic. Thus one of his go-to phrases is “when you look at…” That phrasing subtly traps his listeners’ mind to to see it in the way Trump wants it to be seen.

The dilemma is what happens when Trump runs out of tricks? Imagine him to be the “emperor” who finds himself really naked in public, completely discredited, humiliated, shamed, and possibly threatened with imprisonment and/or financial ruin. So many of his followers realizing that they were suckered. Will he go gracefully into the night? What are the odds?

At any rate, Trump would pointedly not say that he would be comfortable with the results being released publicly. He said: “I don’t know” “It depends. I have no idea what it is going to say.” Is that the same as saying that if only it is good for Trump, will Trump allow the release? And now, with the apparent full support of his new attorney general, William Barr.

What could the report possibly say that would be sufficient to block the citizenry from seeing it? Would the new Attorney General agree with that conclusion? How about any yet remaining republican senator with a conscience? Wouldn’t they want their constituents (whos’ tax money helped pay for it) have the right to see it? Only need a few.

2/25/19

The minute cost of the Muller report, attacked as a “waste of money” by Trump, is as an astonishing bargain for Trump, if it establishes the innocence of family Trump (and collaborators). Trump is not even burdened to spend a penny of his own money to defend his own behavior. Think not only of his relief (plus that of the rest of the Republican Party and Trump family). Wouldn’t that result also create much better odds of them winning future elections? Holding on and even expanding their current base and power?

This proves that future obstruction to its public release would almost certainly be due to an intent to conceal information detrimental to their future election chances, and/or Trumps’ self interests.

Further, if released, there should/will be a focus on redactions. Are they an attempt at concealment, and if so, is that legitimate or not? What is the rationale behind each redaction. These will be heavily scrutinized. History takes a very long view.

With nothing to lose, that is, if the report is exculpatory for “their group”, one could rationally expect a quick release of the Muller Report.

Delays of the report, critical redacted portions of it, underlying evidence, caused by Trump administration interference, will be the beginning of the end for America as we knew it. You can’t go back. History students will be studying these moments centuries from now.

We don’t wish to worry our readers, but we do have to follow the story and make rational deductions.

3/26/19

Expect that this will be a repeat of the “good guy, bad guy” routine, with Trump often “urging” the full public release of the Muller Report, with Barr insisting, for one reason or another, why it can’t be released.

Since we at least know one thing for sure, the report was not exculpatory as to the crime of obstruction of justice. Even though all that was in plain sight, Trump never sat for an interview with Muller, which may have established motive, a necessary component of an obstruction crime. Thus the evidence, in itself, never rose to the necessary certainty that a crime was actually committed, even though it clearly looked like an obstruction crime. It may have been. Thus the report doesn’t say Trump was innocent, but, critically it doesn’t clear him either.

Did Trump have a pre-existing understanding with Barr?

If Bill Barr was able to thoroughly read and mark up the report in the short time he had, you would think it would be simple to prepare it for public release, since he is so remarkably efficient. We hope to be wrong about this, but we don’t think that the Muller Report will see the light of day for many years.

Anyone would logically think that if the report is benign for Trump, it would be timely released. But we worry about the setup, the “good guy, bad guy” routine aforementioned. Let all the blame for failing to release it fall on Barr. Its the oldest trick in the book. And surely, if it is not released, its likely not benign.

Scott Turow just published an article in Vanity Fair, where he credibly found reason to say that Barr had used a fallacious argument to reach his conclusion, , and that “impugns his integrity and his reputation as a lawyer”. Strong words indeed.

Our worry is that there may have been a conspiracy between Barr and Trump. We don’t think that Barr would make central logical mistakes, such as appear in his short “summary,” without some unseemly motive.

We sincerely hope that we are wrong. But to be realistic see below:

The end of our democracy may be at hand now. We wonder how hard that is for everyone to see?

1/26/2019 Read the full story

Trump asks why “republicans sometimes break apart.” The answer is so obvious, why would anyone even question it?

““Why are they always so loyal?” Trump asked in one staff meeting, complaining that Democrats so often stick together while Republicans sometimes break apart, according to attendees”

Republicans break apart because some of them have a conscience, and/or they crave re-election which has become threatened by their affiliation with a failed president.

Obviously trump is delusional and has awful judgement as he can’t comprehend something so very simple. But we have already established that (see Trump- The Finisteride President in this blog).

Link above

“DISGRACE”: Trump likes to use this term to deride his detractors and anyone else interfering with his dominance. The latest, of course, applying to those “interfering” with the Kavanaugh appointment is an example, he calls them a disgrace. Trump said that these interferers are “harming” Kavanaugh’s family, and its not fair and a disgrace. One wonders how he would describe the situation of children being forcefully separated from their parents, and kept in the desert? The pain being suffered by these families is truly biblical and permanent.

The truth is that there are plenty of Supreme Court possible candidates that would nothave been burdened by Kavanaugh’s “baggage”. (We are sure that Trump agrees with Kavanaugh’s idea that a sitting president can’t be indicted for a crime.)

Moving on to the latest NY Times article revealing Trump family tax avoidance secrets. This article is really worth a careful read. Some of the tax avoidance schemes, such as minimizing taxable gift values of substantial assets, are fairly commonplace among wealthy families. And there are industry accepted methods to accomplish these ends. The Trump family stretched the rules in ways that were malfeasant, if not illegal.

And there were clearly some straight out illegalities too. Actually, Fraud. For example, using an affilitated Trump company, set up at inception, with the stock shares gifted to Donald and siblings (All County Building Supply & Maintenance Company), which was a purchasing agent for Trumps’ buildings. This gift, of a company which had no revenue at the time of the gift, was thus subject to little if any gift taxes.

All County dramatically marked up supplies, and services, purchased for minor sums, goods and services that were than used in the Trump buildings, which were than billed to each building as expenses. Actually marked up by millions of dollars.

As expenses, phony though they were, they created large, unjustified tax deductions for Fred Trump. True, All County had more reportable taxable revenue, but income taxes on revenue going to Donald and siblings was offset by deductible expenses  created by the ploy. And it is important to note that gift and estate tax rates were much much higher than income tax rates.

Thus, this money was effectively a further gift to “new” owners of All County, Fred Trumps’ children, though avoiding gift and estate taxes.

But worse, the marked up items, with these “trumped” up expenses, were than used to justify rent increases. Thus a double whammy, injuring both the US government and these low to middle income tenants.

By doing so, Fred Trump was able to skirt New York state rent control laws. It is OK to raise rents by legitimate maintenance and building expenses, which these were not. This was clearly and truly illegal.

New York State will undoubtedly litigate this, and easily prevail. It may take some years, and those renters might never recover the additional rents that they were forced to pay.

Our point is this. If the President and family could violate the law, and clearly harm their customers (renters), what harm are they doing to the United States?

Most Americans pay their taxes on the witholding system. That is how most Trump supporters pay too. They don’t have the luxury of using these Trump schemes. As citizens, we all have to worry that our tax system is fair to all of us. A loss of confidence in its fairness would be devastating to our country. That the president and his family is taking advantage (illegal advantage) of our tax system can lead to widespread extreme cynicism among our citizens.

who knows what the Donald absorbed of his dads’ tax tricks? What is he hiding in his tax returns anyway?

We often think about the harm that Trump is bringing to our country. Well this is another awful example. We are crying for America.

Newest development, chickens coming home to roost: https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fdonald-trump-sued-brooklyn-new-york-tenants-b1766794.html&data=04%7C01%7C%7C73dfbfe459554f23988608d89955b3cb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637427940644588739%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=0jtgpBquG4qLi6iXXhvyCNczAldhSad3YKRNr1LZcrI%3D&reserved=0

An anti-science president endangers us and our planet. At this point, it is already too late to prevent many of the harmful effects of global warming. Losing two or three years of efforts to mitigate global warming, in view of its’ logarithmic progression, is in itself a tragedy, but exactly what do the deniers actually deny?

Is it that human civilization is not the central cause of the phenomena? And therefore, global warming is of no human concern?

Or is it that global warming is not actually happening, that the climate is not actually changing, but weather patterns are simply in fluctuation?

In the first case, humans not being the cause, does that mean that the phenomena of global warming is not still a planetary emergency? Why wouldn’t that need to be addressed as soon as possible? Shouldn’t we be building dykes, addressing building codes, fortifying at risk structures, or at least talking about these things?

Or worse, does Trump (and his sycophants) actually think that global warming and climate change is not happening at all? That it is merely a “hoax,” even as it is in plain view?

This is a kind of delusion that blocks action to prepare and build infrastructure resilience. In either case, our nations leaders are failing us and endangering our grand and great grandchildren. What kind of world are we leaving to them?