Hillary Guilty Of "Political Murder" in 2016? - More BS From The "Pizzagate Wing" Of The GOP (Wm. McGurn - Lindsey Graham)

We must admit that one rapid consequence of Barr's  "summary" of the Mueller report has been a massive mindfuck,  mainly amongst the Neolib  corporo media.  But also affecting too many (originally) critical pundits  in said media,  including Joe Scarborough and George Will. Both now seem to believe "democracy has been vindicated" on the basis of a 3 1/2 page crib sheet from Barr, and all is well in the land of the free and home of the brave.  Well, it's no where near clear that Barr's effort was anything more than a get out of jail free card for Trump . Worse, a license  for this thug to commit even more depredations on our nation - even as it gives license for the rat protectors to mount specious investigations of their own. Into who or what? Well, Hillary Clinton - loser of the 2016 dumpster fire election!

Thus one beholds imps like the WSJ's William McGurn and lesser moron Lindsey Graham,  charging forward with crimes against Clinton under nutso conspiracy ideations. They have now proven they've joined the "pizzagate" crackpot wing of the Republican party.  McGurn, in his WSJ column yesterday ('Don't Lock Hillary Up', p. A15) claims:

"Thanks to two lucky breaks Hillary Clinton got away with political murder in 2016. The biggest break came when opposition research produced by one of her hired hands ended up being used by the FBI to spy on her rival's campaign".

Ok, hold strain there, Billy. We know you've already shown ample signs of senility and dementia, but we can't let that twaddle pass - even in a WSJ op -ed.   Hard as it is for McGurn to wrap his febrile brain around, the fact is the Fusion GPS oppo research was originally launched by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site. The relevant  WSJ editorial at the time noted it was funded by big GOP donor Paul Singer.  Singer wanted oppo research done on the Donald -  a two bit Queens' chiseler and lowlife he didn't trust. Singer and a group of old guard GOP donors hired Fusion to do the job of digging up dirt on the Queens' real estate crime boss and scumball.   

Subsequently, after Trump won the Repub primary,   the material was handed off to the Clinton campaign. This was NOT in any way sinister or illegal as McGurn tries to portray  - and certainly not a whit to do with "political murder" .  Nor in any way conspiratorial, certainly like seeking the help of a hostile foreign power to meddle in a presidential campaign.  Like Trump, who up to now has not disdained or objected to the Russians' help.

What was illegal was the Trump team holding more than 100 meetings - that we now know of -  with Russians, including GRU intelligence agents.  Specifically, as the NY Times has shown,  "Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration," 

If Mueller lacked the intestinal fortitude to call out what was staring him in the face -  in terms of Trump's conspiracy with Putin and the Russkies  -  then that's on him. We can say he was the wrong guy for the job. Or maybe he fell victim to membership in the 'chickenshit club" noted several posts earlier.  See e.g.

Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller Has Been Inducted into the 'Chickenshit Club'

But don't blame Adam Schiff for now sticking to the facts, and open evidence for what Trump has thus far gotten away with.   

As for McGurn's complaint about the FBI getting involved, that wasn't because of the Clinton team - or the Steele dossier.  That was because multiple personae in Trump's campaign orbit were making contact with GRU agents. (Which led Mueller to indict no fewer than 12 of them last summer.)  What? Everyone all of a sudden forgot that? Did Barr's BS summary spatter that much gray matter in the nation's collective hippocampus?

We know that contacts were made by at least 17 campaign officials and advisers who had contacts with Russian nationals and Wikileaks intermediaries.   Nor were these merely crumpets and tea gatherings at the (Trump) Tower.

Further, foreign intercepts of meetings of Trump cronies, e.g. Carter Page, with Russian  (GRU) agents meant that the U.S.  FBI  had to enter the picture with its own FISA warrants, surveillance, etc. Not to do so would have violated agreements with foreign intel sources, assets, and would have amounted to dereliction of duty.   

Hence, there was no evil conspiracy by the FBI.  It only exists in McGurn's mind as when he babbles later "there are those Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Warrants the FBI took out on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page". Uh, no, "there aren't."  The FBI needed to do a surveillance on Page after he disclosed he was a Russkie stooge by making contacts with the GRU.

So don't even think of egging Graham on to instigate another special counsel  (and another investigation) to go after Clinton. That dog is done and will no longer hunt.

McGurn then names the second "lucky break" enabling Hillary to "get away with political murder" (ibid.):

"She'd also lucked out in early July when the FBI director himself, even though he lacked the authority to do so, publicly and personally cleared her of any charges for having taken her emails as secretary of state off grid."

Ok, let's leave out for the moment that Ivanka and Jared have done the same - indeed  worse - not even bothering to try to secure their messages on What's App.   But never mind the double standard, in his high dudgeon and dementia McGurn seems to forget then FBI head Comey dumped all over Hillary with a 2nd interjection 10 days BEFORE the General Election!  

Most sentient observers of normal intelligence took that to be a totally undesirable intrusion that essentially sunk whatever chances Hillary had to win.  Seems to me McGurn -  and other Trumpies-   ought to be thanking Comey for helping knock HRC out instead of accusing her of "political murder" and "putting fingers on the scales of the election."  What planet or parallel universe do these mutts inhabit anyway?

But at least McGurn is gracious enough to admit that the Trumpies and their goons shouldn't lock her up.

Then there is the cowardly poltroon and political pipsqueak Lindsey Graham, also referenced in the piece.  He also seeks to be magnanimous...sort of...sputtering :

"I'm not so much worried about retrying her, but I want to make sure the public understands that she got away with something they wouldn't get away with."

Oh, please, you ridiculous piece of shit! She "got away" with nothing, She fucking lost!  Get over it!  Trump, meanwhile, got away with blatant conspiracy with the Russians and is still getting away with crimes and misdemeanors galore - every damned day.  As former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah put it back in January in an MSNBC appearance:

"Remember that GRU indictment - if you go back to that- one of the objects of the conspiracy is not just hacking but hacking and disseminating.  You can't look at them alone, you have to go back to everything we know, the Trump Tower meeting, the calling out by Trump to Russia (to grab Hillary's emails)...there's just so many other things."

Note here the crimes to do with Hillary's emails were not on her side, but Trump's goons hacking them in the first place, especially after he egged on Russian  bad actors, e.g. on July 27, 2016:

"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."

The emails showed Russkie contact and Brit music promoter Rob Goldstone telling Trump's dumbo son Don Jr. that “the crown prosecutor of Russia” had offered “to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father”.

Goldstone added,  in the exchange of June 3rd, 2016: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

He didn't mince words or soft soap it, absolutely pointing out the "support for Mr. Trump".  Any sensible individual with more than air between the ears would have run - not walked - to the nearest FBI office and turned in the material. What did Don Jr. do instead?

Seventeen minutes later, the jug-headed imp welcomed the email with the reply: “If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.”     He then forwarded the incriminating material to his comrades in crime, as his email betrays:

------------------------------------------------------------------
From:   Donald Trump Jr.
Sent:    Yesterday, June 8, 2016, 12: 55 p.m.
To:       Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort
Subject: FW: Russia - Clinton -  Private and Confidential
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Just a few weeks later the first batch of DNC emails were released.  If that isn't conspiracy - as Bill Maher so quaintly put it Friday night, then "what the fuck is it?"  

Still not buying it? Let's refer to the words of Mueller's own indictment of the Russkie GRU agents from last summer:

According to the indictment:
"On or about July 27, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts on a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. They also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign. '

Got the lingo there? Conspirators! Of course, this referred to the gang of GRU hackers and thugs doing the spearphishing. But were they just doing it by coincidence or happenstance?   No, they did it the very same day Traitor Trump appeared in front of the media cameras and pleaded for the Russians to grab Hillary's emails.  Only a certified imbecile would not infer conspiracy or at least coordination here, certainly after the Trump Tower meet.  

So why didn't Mueller call it out?  Well as I pointed out in my March 30 post on the 'Chickenshit theory', quoting Larry Beinhart:

"White collar cases are the toughest to make and there are multiple reasons for this. They tend to take place in linguistic fogs. Instead of money taken at the point of a gun, it's taken by promises and claims that can be made to appear as merely over-ambitious, misunderstandings of complex rules, just careless, or actually made by underlings."

I added:

 It's all about manipulating the language so that - by the end of the judicial process- there is no clear proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" by which to rest a case.  In other words, like the agnotologists who muddied the waters on the causes of climate change - delaying action by sowing doubts for decades-  it's nearly impossible to prove a crime attributed to a white collar crook. Especially one with tons of cash to toss around, i.e. to buy the best lawyers, meaning the best at manipulating the language for their client's own ends.

So, in effect, the semantic fog succeeds in diluting evidence to the point a special prosecutor may not be willing to use it. But bear in mind Carl Sagan's oft repeated quote: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

And now,  given Mueller's finding for "absence of evidence"  when faced with language distortion by Trump's lawyers,  we see their side emboldened.   McGurn and that execrable punk Graham want to turn the tables on Hillary for "political murder" and "putting fingers on the election scales".  David Corn, who's done extensive work on the Trump- Russia links has accepted none of it:

 "Trump and his minions have kept saying this didn't really happen, so in a lot of ways this is an indictment of Donald Trump, of all the people who said the Russia attack never happened. Here we have it in granular detail.  Read between the lines of this indictment and there's the other half of the equation. That throughout the campaign, and while the attack was going on, Donald Trump and his lieutenants were saying it's not happening. Even when he was briefed by U.S. intelligence he came out and said, 'nope, nothing happening, could be a 400 pound guy, we don't know that it's Russia'

Well, now we know it's Russia. Now we know while they were doing this he was providing cover, he was covering up what they were doing, which was for his benefit. "

But we're not done. Graham is so beside himself with self-righteous punkery and faux outrage at Adam Schiff's sticking to the conspiracy crime that he had the nerve to squawk to McGurn:

"Mr. Schiff really does represent the Oliver Stone wing of the Democratic Party".

Of course, this imbecile probably only has the faintest inkling that it was Stone's film 'JFK' (which he always said was "a counter myth to the myth of the Warren Report") actually paved the way for the JFK Records Act and the millions of files that have since been released from the National Archives. Among those, that Clay Shaw (under the alias "Clay Bertrand") was really a CIA contract agent as Jim Garrison had shown. As then released CIA Doc. (JFK 1993: 6.28.16.07.26.560280) noted:


"A memorandum marked for files says that J. Monroe Sullivan, #280201, was granted a covert security approval as of 10 December 1962 so he could be used in Project QKCHANT [Clay L. Shaw has #402897]"

Does Lindsey know any of this? Of course not! Otherwise he'd not be expelling brain farts about Adam Schiff being from the "Oliver Stone' wing of the Democrats  which in retrospect turns out to be a compliment to perspicuity and dogged persistence to get at truth. 

As opposed to being a collapsible, spineless worm like Graham, who wifey has even described as akin to a rotten shellfish, "white, slimy all over and yellow on the inside."  And especially as this South Carolina putz still wants to appoint his own special counsel to now investigate Hillary.  

Echoes of Devin Nunes? Maybe, even a clone. Quislings of a yellow feather stick together, after all. And almost certainly part of the whackadoodle, Pizzagate wing of the Repuke party. 

Stay tuned because one thing Barr did accomplish with his inane, skewed summary Mueller's report is to open the floodgates to even more polarization.

See also:

The Trump Administration | Donald Trump

Constitutional Law Expert Urges New York to Close the Legal Loophole Trump Could Exploit to Protect His Family and Friends

Avoidance of Reality Is Visible On Left & Right - In Aversion To The T-word

"Tweet for me, little Donnie Bird, and invite me to the White House".

"No matter how vulgar, gross, threatening, cruel, illegal  or insane the Right becomes,  it's always the Left that is warned against piping up too loudly".  Katha Pollitt, The Nation, July 30, p. 7)

"Many people tried to speculate on what it was,  what kind of Kompromat, the Russians had on Trump. When the answer - like infidelity or death-  was staring them in the face. Yes, Putin has something on Trump he helped him win. That's the Kompromat." - Julia Joffe, from 'GQ' and on 'All In' Friday night.

"There is a non-trivial chunk of the American population who think that Brennan is corrupt, that Clapper is corrupt, that this is made up and the Russians didn't do any of this. And even if they did it doesn't really matter. We cannot let this become normalized. This is not normal."  - Former NSA head Michael Hayden, in The Financial  Times.



Never let it be said that traitors have no defenders.  As we slip further down the rabbit hole, it is evident that the Traitor-in-chief's quislings, poltroons and media defenders are working overtime to upend reality and make people believe what they behold with their own two eyes doesn't exist.  Already this normalization trope is starting to infect otherwise rational and objective websites and outlets like slate.com,  where we are now informed that continued use of the T-word, say by left media and the progressive base,  is "making Trump more powerful".

Sorry,Slaters, but that is only in the distorted perceptions of his base and personality cult.  79 percent of whom on the Repuke side, according to a new Axios/ SurveyMonkey poll, approved of the way Trump handled himself with Putin in Helsinki.  One has to wonder what universe or planet these twits are living in  or on. It can't be the same one I inhabit.

Those who are patriots,and possess IQs over room temperature, know what they saw at the Helsinki farce and no bundle of lies spewed out by the TRAITOR is going to change that.  

Now, let me back up a bit, because I want to invoke former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance's parsing of the definition of treason from last Wednesday on ''All In.'  As she noted it does not mean conforming to the legal standard as espoused in Article III of the Constitution:

"Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."

Obviously, it can't conform to the Article III definition because we are not at war with Russia.  But, to Vance and others - like Robert Reich - that doesn't mean no treason has occurred.

The use of the word treason by those of us parsing the Helsinki travesty and now Trump's invitation of Putin to a White House  "summit",   is more centered on political grounds, such that: a) he is providing aid and comfort to a hostile adversary,  already shown to have interfered in our 2016 election (bolstered by Mueller' recent indictment of 12 GRU agents), b) Trump's own renunciation of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution by overtly siding with this adversary against his own intelligence community, and further c)  Trump continuing to ignore the intel community's verification that the attacks are ongoing, continuing into our upcoming midterms..  Again, standing idly by - and even using his soapbox - to denounce the Mueller investigation. 

Look, let's clear the fog. At the end of the day our Presidents - even illegitimate ones like Trump - are issued just one basic set of  instructions, as embodied in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution: "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the duties of the office."  Trump did NONE of those at the Helsinki debacle, and no one of sound mind or of IQ over 100 can tell me he did.  On the dais at Helsinki all Trump had to do - one fucking thing - is confront Putin re: the attack on our 2016 elections. The scum with the morals of a slug wasn't up to that task. Case closed.  And it's not just me that believes this turd is out of his depth or Putin's pawn. A number of historians do as well.  See  e.g.


 Michael Beschloss: “We are Living an a National Emergency” - Daily Kos

Lastly, Trump openly and brashly invited Putin and the Russians to hack his political opponent on July 27, 2016 - a day that will live in infamy. He said before the rolling  cameras:

"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."

So Trump, in full public view, asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton.  Did this just come out of the blue as a random brain fart? Not at all, given we know Russia has been funding Trump since the late 1980s. As per The New Republic (Aug./Sept. 2017, . p. 29):

"A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, or even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money .....Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics....It's entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters."

To quote Robert Reich:

"Never before has a President of the United States so brazenly sided with a ruthless dictator intent on destroying American democracy. If this is not treason, what is it?"

All these in tandem amount to treason in the political sense, as opposed to the purely legalistic sense.  And yet, we are informed by more and more nabobs that we are incorrectly grasping the reality unfolding before our  eyes, and it is we who are "unhinged" and suffering from "Trump Derangement Syndrome".   Or we are not applying reason in the proper sense.Hence, we were wrong to think anything malign was afoot when Trump cheered Putin's proposal  (at Helsinki) to drag Americans like Bill Browder and  former ambassador Michael McFaul  to be interviewed by KGB thugs.

We are also informed (even by leftie scribes who should know better) that what Trump has done the past week - including tossing allies under the bus - is mostly just more breaking norms or personal quirks. But see, when I read lefties' prose about "using reason rather than treason" and "there is no evidence yet" that tells me their brains have already been hijacked so that what emerges from their neurons can no longer be trusted.  They are no longer faithful reporters of reality, but dupes mired in Trump's disputatious, liar's fantasy realm - where up is down, black is white and left is right.  Oh, and right is wrong, and wrong is right!

As Exhibit A,  I  refer to blogger Tom Gallagher in his post last Friday on smirkingchimp.com, e.g.

May We Speak of Reason, Rather Than of Treason?

Like most left critics he overthinks his own arguments and ends up pissing down his own throat and choking on his codswallop.  Reading through his piece, for example, he conflates Trumpian violations of existing policies and norms - via his "transactional" modus operandi-  e.g. unraveling the North American Free Trade Agreement, with treason.  Failing  to grasp that the latter accusations have a real basis, i.e. providing cover for a hostile foreign power - for which Dotard has already been shown ample foreign intercepts and other intelligence - concerning active meddling in the 2016 election. 

So Gallagher mixes chalk and cheese in scolding those of us who opt to use the T-word, by himself dragging in irrelevancies to do with affronts to norms * - and not giving us the credit or common sense to see these would not be treason as I've defined it.  So, it's not a case of "hurling any charge at hand" or "the kitchen sink"  but rather citing the specific charges and actions. 

(* At the same time, in the wake of last week's Helsinki meet criticisms, Trump has become even more like an untrained mutt that needs to be brought to heel, cf  'President Digs In Against Critics', WSJ, July 21-22, p. A1,  "Trump ended a turbulent week by shrugging off criticisms of his use of tariffs to influence trade and pubic scolding of the Fed.")

For example, as we beheld at the Helsinki meet last week, Trump  hurled his own country and intelligence community under the bus to provide cover for a guy he knows instigated the  election attack!  He also, by the end of the week, invited the same putative attacker to a new "summit" at the White House this fall - awarding a rare honor to a known election meddler who got Dotard into office!  How fucking hard can this be? 


Another example of a vacuous non sequitur from Gallagher:

"perhaps the shortest route to recognizing the ultimate vacuousness of the charge of treason is remembering that what’s treason to some is heroism to others."

So, seriously, you're going to tell me that a goodly set of people interpreted Trump's actions last week as "heroism"?  Oh wait, wait! That's right, his low IQ base would ascertain that... but see, we are talking about normal people, not brain -jacked dolts drooling every second at Fox and Friends.

He also claims, for example:

"The bottom line is that treason is a vacant, rote charge; a wasted opportunity to talk about real things."

Huh?  A "wasted opportunity to talk about real things"?  Please don't compel me to believe you're like the Trumpies, Tommy. You mean, like Trump inviting Russians to hack Hillary's emails isn't a real thing? So it's a fantasy thing?  Like Trump willy- nilly finding it "an incredible proposal" by Vlad to send American citizens to Russia to be interrogated - if Russia sends its 12 GRU operatives here? Sheesh! We truly are through the looking glass.

But say one thing, say the next. As chowder-headed and myopic as Gallagher's essay is,  it can't compare to the manifestly pathological detachment from reality in Michael Anton's Friday WSJ op-ed piece, 'Why Trump's Detractors Cry 'Treason'' (p. A17).  No, for deranged freaks who badly need a high voltage dose from Dr. Pat Bannister's  ECT machine, Anton tops the list.  Among the  alter - realities ("alternative facts")  he asks us to accept in his screed:

- Mr. Trump said three times on camera that Russia meddled in the 2016 election"

He also contradicted that over 60 times and repeatedly called such claims a "hoax"

As David Corn noted: 

"Throughout the campaign, and while the attack was going on, Donald Trump and his lieutenants were saying it's not happening. Even when he was briefed by U.S. intelligence he came out and said, 'nope, nothing happening."

-  Mr. Trump does not side with Russia over his own intelligence agencies

Hmmm...could have fooled me with that Helsinki performance!

-There is plenty of  evidence of illicit American interference  in the 2016 election to defeat Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.

Yeppers, we saw how that worked out.  One question, if the goal was truly to get Hillary elected, and the FBI agent  (Peter Strzok) was as dedicated to doing that as James Clapper and James Comey, why didn't he just blow the whistle on Trump in the fall when he'd opened up the case?  One phone call to the NY Times would have sunk the Donald, and yet he didn't do it. Why not? 


 But alas, that's what it's come to, reality and actual logical reasoning are no longer a part of discourse.  Those grounded in reality and the use of appropriate language to correctly describe it, vs, those who wish to say we are unhinged for doing so. Who wins will matter, because if the "reality is unhinged" side prevails it means the full normalization of everything Trump has been doing- including his betrayal of nation and Constitution, and we sink even more into the distorted cesspool of his own unreality.


As Dr. Jeffrey Sachs aptly put it:

"We have a one person wrecking ball right now that is going to destroy global trade through his individual ignorance and whims. We have a one person wrecking ball who is undermining every alliance and the publics abroad are stunned....they want nothing to do with our country. Trump is breaking our alliances, endangering our security, endangering our economy and he's psychologically, absolutely unfit for office.

And, for god's sakes, by enabling this, the Republicans in congress must understand they are putting the entire country in jeopardy"

Excellent points, and at the end of the day his comment is a clarion call for more citizens to use the T-word, not fewer. 

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/ed-tant/80282/if-politicians-won-t-confront-trump-s-treachery-the-people-must

Excerpt:

"Some dare call it treason. After President Trump kowtowed to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin during the recent summit meeting in Finland, former CIA Director John Brennan fumed that “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.... If politicians will do nothing to curb the treason and treachery of Trump, then it becomes the responsibility of the people to do so in the streets and in the voting booth. As American author John Steinbeck said more than 50 years ago, “I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.””

And:

In Wake of Helsinki, Congress Faces a New Charge: Complicity

Is Donald Trump a Traitor? - YouTube

Update:

Now we've learned (7/23) from Huckleberry Sanders that Preznit Fucktard is considering withdrawing security clearances for any former officials who've criticized him including: former CIA director John Brennan; former FBI director James B. Comey; former CIA director Michael V. Hayden; former national security adviser Susan E. Rice; former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.; and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

According to Missy Inbred:

“The president is exploring these mechanisms to remove security clearances because they’ve politicized and, in some cases, actually monetized their public service and their security clearances in making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia,”

All the more reason to take this POS  Traitor clown down as soon as possible. Mr. Mueller, where is your indictment when we need it?

Re-Election? The Only Thing Traitor Trump Merits After Yesterday Is The Hangman's Noose!

Treason: def. Giving aid and comfort to one's enemy or a hostile force

""Trump's press conference was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican patriots where are you???" - former CIA Chief John O. Brennan

"This was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant."  Sen. John McCain, yesterday

The cognitive dissonance, on a mental Richter scale of maybe '10', arrived after I had read an article in The Denver Post that Donald Trump had amassed a "$90 million re-election fund".  Then there was the staged press conference with Putin in Helsinki, when all of the latter's  KGB tradecraft was on display. From arriving more than 30 minutes late, keeping Dotard chomping at the bit, to his decidedly low key demeanor in contrast to Trump's excitation.  Putin, as all could agree, "owned the room" by virtue of his savvy psych tricks, while Trump "looked like a slave boy with an electrified dog collar on his neck set to go off" if he veered too much from the planned script agreed upon in their secret meet.

By the end of this travesty, this sickening spectacle, there was only national humiliation via the most blatant and pronounced act of treason ever witnessed in American history.  Surpassing Benedict Arnold's - because this was committed by the highest executive in the land-  and one who should presumably know better than allowing himself to be a useful idiot for an adversary (not a "competitor").  A day and time, to quote one guest on Maddow last night, for which every person witnessing it will remember exactly where he was, what he was doing, as in the case of the JFK assassination and 9/11.    Think I'm exaggerating? Then see what historian Michael Beschloss stated while on Maddow yesterday evening, e.g.

"We are living in a national emergency. We may not have known it twenty-four hours ago. We do now. You know, I have been studying and writing about U.S. Presidents since I was twenty years old. I never thought I would live to say this, but this is a president who now has demonstrated that he deserves suspicion as acting on behalf of another country over his own."

 See e.g.  Michael Beschloss: “We are Living an a National Emergency” - Daily Kos

So nope, no hysteria here - none  - just an objective assessment  following a  disgraceful  press conference in which a sitting president - in front of millions of global viewers -  tossed his entire country under the bus, asserting "America is foolish".  Even brown nosing fool Newt Gingrich admonished Trump that this was "the worst mistake of your presidency".  But  in its entirety, that press conference should sink any remote chance of Trump's re-election once and for all. If he deserves anything it is the hangman's noose - from the tallest tree in the Beltway-   after that public display of treason that will live in infamy,  rivaling Pearl Harbor in betrayal and treachery.

As if that wasn't bad enough, we've learned in the wake of that Drumpf performance of a covert agent, Maria Butina, seeking to arrange a secret backchannel with the Repukes to expedite a Russkie- Republican coalition via the NRA by 2020.  This, of course, defines collusion of the highest order.
See e.g.

Russia-NRA Arrest:
This Is as Close as
It Gets to Collusion

As Maddow put it, "we have never had to confront a problem like this one before, and we have to get this right"

Of course, "getting it right" will mean disinfecting the government of all Republican controlling influence by 2020, including Drumpf. - who publicly took sides with Russia and Putin against his own country yesterday. Granted, we may never get to see the sorry traitor bitch indicted and hung, or shot before a firing squad, but we ought to see his name forever defiled and retired from any annals of historical decency and honor.  His name should now be, like Benedict Arnold's, formally ensconced in the shit pile of American history's foulest dregs.

 We all knew, those of us with sense and IQ over room temperature, this was going to be bad,  but it's exceeded all our worst expectations.  The Traitor occupying the nation's highest office managed to cross new and vastly more grievous thresholds of treachery and treason as he betrayed his country and actually bragged about doing so.

Some - mainly his diehard followers and certain centrist Milquetoasts - are squeamish or averse to using the "T" word, but after Monday's disgusting performance they shouldn't be. And I would go so far as to question their real patriotic bona fides if they refuse to call a spade a spade. The time for nicey nice is over. As Michael Beschloss put it, we have a national emergency. If you're going to provide cover for Trump - like Devin Nunes has - or make excuses, then you are a traitor too.

What's aroused the ire of so many to start using the T- word?

For starters, Trump not only downplayed (if not doubted)  Russia's 2016  election interference actions, but regularly volunteered defenses for Putin and repeatedly blamed both sides for the strained relationship.  It reminded many of the Chalottesville debacle last year, after which he referred to "many fine people on both sides"- thereby conflating Neo-Nazis and racists (who ran over and killed a protester, Heather Heyer) with anti-fascist protesters. In the latter case, many of those Antifa activists helped rescue innocents from the batons and bats of the renegades trying to play T-ball with their heads,  but then were on the receiving end.e.g.



Indeed, asked whether he blamed Russia for that strained relationship, Trump immediately reverted to the kind of both-sides rhetoric he employed after Charlottesville and admitted: "Yes, I believe both countries are to blame".

In other words, this guy lacks any moral compass. He is totally incapable of  parsing evil actors from good or neutral ones and only awards "winner" points if the subject kowtows to his ego or somehow charms him.  This, of course, is the master trick of former KGB agent Vlad, who played Dotard like a one note harp.  The saddest aspect is the dummy never realized he was being played, but then likely didn't care anyway.  Even before leaving for Helsinki, while still in London standing next to Therese May, the rat blabbed-  after learning 2 days earlier of the Mueller indictments:

"I think I have a very good relationship with President Putin.  I think we're being hurt very badly by this witch hunt, I would call it the rigged witch hunt. You know,  in the United States we have this pure stupidity but it makes it very hard to do something with Russia"

This led Mother Jones journalist David Corn to remark:

"Throughout the campaign, and while the attack was going on, Donald Trump and his lieutenants were saying it's not happening. Even when he was briefed by U.S. intelligence he came out and said, 'nope, nothing happening, could be a 400 pound guy, we don't know that it's Russia Well now we know it's Russia. Now we know while they were doing this he was providing cover., he was covering up what they were doing."

In other words, Trump - aka "the Donald" - is effectively a Russian intelligence asset and blatant actor on Putin's behalf, to undermine the U.S. national security interests. This is by way of enabling meddling in our elections to propel Trump to power and act as said agent on Putin's behalf.  Trump's just complete chummy chum happy meet merely confirmed Corn's suspicions that our President is indeed a "Manchurian candidate".

While ninnies may recoil at this appellation, as well as "traitor", let's make it easy for their  febrile brains to grasp: Rather than defend America against those who would threaten it, he attacked his own citizens and institutions while hailing the leader of a hostile power.  Indeed, he literally bent his butt over for this hostile power in a shameless and debased way.   In the words of Sen. John McCain - alert enough to comment even after undergoing treatment for brain cancer:

“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.  Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are—a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad.”

Process those words carefully, because they are not rendered lightly or frivolously. At each stage of the farce yesterday we beheld more and more evidence we are in a national emergency, to use the words of historian Michael Beschloss.  

Challenged to condemn Russia’s actions and warn Putin against future interference, Trump spun into a recitation of counterclaims and conspiracy theories about supposedly missing computer servers and Clinton’s emails.  This is the tried and true behavior of an owned (i.e. Kompromat) asset or a willing traitor.

Former CIA director John Brennan, who was among the first to warn that Russia was waging a campaign to help Trump, said in a posting on his Twitter account that Dotard's “press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.”  Brennan's term, not mine, but I absolutely concur.

Daniel Coats, the intelligence chief whom Trump treated as no more credible than Putin, issued a statement Monday saying that the nation’s spy agencies “have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling . . . and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.”

  But the most outstanding evidence for a traitor or Manchurian candidate inevitably resides in his overt reaction to the specter of potential prosecution.  Thus, the scorn Trump heaped on U.S. spy agencies - while mind boggling  - was exceeded  by the attack he launched on Mueller whose probe he called a “disgrace” and a “disaster for our country.” He was speaking of an investigation that has racked up indictments and guilty pleas against some of the top advisers to Trump during his campaign and presidency — as well as leveling charges against 26 Russians, including military intelligence officers, for their alleged role in hacking Democratic computer.

In the words of David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section who had helped lead the Russia probe:

“The repeated accusation that the special counsel’s investigation is a ‘witch hunt’ is belied not only by the integrity and professionalism of the special counsel and his staff, but by their demonstrable and formidable accomplishments to date,  And to have lodged such an accusation on foreign soil, standing alongside the very individual believed to have sanctioned the 2016 assault on our electoral process, is a betrayal of the law enforcement and intelligence communities on whom we all depend to protect the national security of the United States".

Or, to quote Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, this is a "national security crisis"   National security crisis, national emergency. What the hell are we going to do about it?   Things have now far surpassed the Dotard gaming era, as Dr. Jeffrey Sachs explained this morning, and his comments on 'Morning Joe' again suggest a 25th amendment solution, e.g.:

"Trump the man is unstable, showing very deep signs of personality disorders.  Many experts I've spoken to believe he is evidencing dementia. What is alarming about all this is the extent to which our nation has become  a one -person game, because congress doesn't do anything but enable.  The Republican side needs to see right now this is not a partisan game. He is putting our entire nation at risk. 

We have a one person wrecking ball right now that is going to destroy global trade through his individual ignorance and whims. We have a one person wrecking ball who is undermining every alliance and the publics abroad are stunned....they want nothing to do with our country. Trump is breaking our alliances, endangering our security, endangering our economy and he's psychologically, absolutely unfit for office.

And, for god's sakes, by enabling this, the Republicans in congress must understand they are putting the entire country in jeopardy"

Strong words, but it is doubtful the Repukes will let go of this toxic toad, given how many "conquests" they fancy he can still deliver for them. Hence, since invoking the 25th amendment requires their cooperation, that remedy is off the table.

But let's continue with Trump's treason spectacle from yesterday's press conference, which Russian media is now proclaiming as "fabulous" and "better than super".

They'd especially have to rejoice after Trump made clear that he saw the consensus position of U.S. spy services as offset by Putin’s persistent denials, counterclaims clouded by too much ambiguity for the American president to make a judgment.  In other words he's become Putin's public defender and cover imp, saying:

“I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,"

Extremely strong in his denial?  Well, only to a lapdog slave with a collar on his neck, set to deliver shocks if the mutt is uncooperative. Trump also seemed to nod approvingly as Putin disputed American claims against Russia. “Who is to be believed and . . . who’s not to be believed,” Putin said, a line that closely tracked Trump’s position.

At one point, Putin seemed to be mocking the United States — offering to help American investigators pursue their theories about Russian culpability, while imposing a condition that he knew the United States would never abide- going after Bill Browder who is almost single- handedly responsible for getting the  Magnitsky Act passed..   The fact Trump, by effectively agreeing with Putin's proposal,  would see Browder in equally malign terms to the indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers shows he has the moral -ethical discrimination of a slug.   

The preceding in concert meets the standard for what David Corn terms "providing cover" for our enemies.  In other words not only giving them aid and comfort but actively siding with them against his own people and country. In other words, treason.

Former CIA Assistant Director John McLaughlin has said in the wake of yesterday's abomination to the nation that "we need an intervention".  He went on to confide false hope that the Republicans will now find patriotic honor and do this. But don't hold your breath. The Republicans will ride their toxic traitor so long as they believe he can deliver goodies, even at the risk of destroying the country.  (Let's also grasp - as former CIA chief John Brennan observed, every word Trump spoke in his private meet with Putin has been "memorialized on tape", so it can be used against him in the future.)

The only source for any viable intervention will have to be the intelligence community itself, Trump's prime whipping boys. I am ok with whatever means they use because as my Revolutionary War ancestors would put it, the welfare of the nation comes before the welfare of one derelict traitor.

Make no mistake, things will not get any better! So long as Republicans stand by and enable this turd, he will remain Putin's puppet, doing his master's bidding:


Update:  Asshole. traitor and  mutant mutt Trump has now tried to walk back his remarks but that is laughable - given this shitwad lies with each breath.  Now trying to claim he "really" meant to say was:  "I don't see any reason why  it wouldn't  be Russia."  Failing to process that his use of a double negative translates to the same meaning as his original!

What does he take us for? Low IQ morons like his base? (Quoting one from nightly news: "Man, it was jus Trump bein' Trump!")

The House quislings, we also understand, are trying to make a case to impeach Rod Rosenstein by the end of the month. Needless to say, ALL of these enabling traitors need to be hung, drawn and quartered then burned up in a massive pyre if they seek to protect a traitor in so disgusting a fashion.

Footnote:

It was incomprehensible this morning to behold radically different headlines in The Denver Post and The Wall Street Journal.   While The Post headline correctly read:

'Trump Embraces Putin, Doubts U.S. Agencies'

The Journal had this dubious and deplorable version:

'Trump Questions Russia Meddling'

Conveying the false notion that Dotard was an active and aggressive inquisitor - when he was really a passive lapdog, echoing his master's denials. Strangely, when one got to eh main text it essentially agreed with the Post's account, i.e .that (WSJ) Trump "questioned the U.S. intelligence conclusion that Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, a move that was a stunning alignment with an adversary."   So why the misleading headline? To save space? Not good enough.

See also:

He Doesn’t Read: Ex-US Ambassador to Russia Details Putin’s Strategic Advantage over Trump Ahead of 'Dangerous' Helsinki Summit

And:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/opinion/trump-russia-investigation-putin.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region