One Despicable Down - And 29 More To Go!

Mike Flynn, co-creator of the fake news 'Pizzagate' crap,  was forced to resign for violating the Logan Act. Now, we just need to get rid of the rest of Trump's pantry of despicables.

It was a kind of payback last night learning on The Financial Times website that Pizzagate purveyor and Hillary 'lock her up 'cause of her emails' asshole Michael G.  Flynn, had to resign. This for violating the Logan Act by carrying on putative covert conversations with the Russian Ambassador about 'sanctions' even while Obama was still President. Of course, the Trumpistas spun this a different way, asserting it was because national security adviser Flynn lied to Pence about the reason for the  call - but that's hogwash. That excuse had been circulating since last month, it doesn't wash.

In his resignation letter, Flynn claimed he had "mistakenly misled" the vice-president, Mike Pence, and other Trump officials about the nature of phone calls in December to the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kisilyak. When intelligence leaks about the communications began appearing last month, Pence and other White House officials insisted that the contact had only involved an exchange of Christmas greetings and arrangements for a future phone conversation between Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The White House issued a statement just after 11pm in Washington announcing the resignation, shortly after reports broke that the Trump administration had been warned weeks ago that Flynn might be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

However, subsequent leaks  (possibly even from NSA operatives who picked up the conversations) suggested that they had been more substantial, and concerned sanctions the Obama administration was about to impose on Moscow for interference in the presidential elections. Intelligence officials claimed that Flynn had given the impression the sanctions might be lifted once the Trump administration came to office on 20 January.

And all this occurred in the midst of a political maelstrom, as dumb Trumpies (like Stephen Miller) continued to try to argue that the President has "absolute authority" over any national security issues- such as travel bans. Using this to bash the Ninth Circuit for its recent decision against the Trump cabal. Look, maybe for a serious President (like JFK) who knew how to write an executive order  and understood the nuclear triad, that may be true. But not for a buffoon and orange orangutan like Trump - who couldn't even define the  nuclear triad in one debate with Hillary.

Then his judgement was called into question by appointing a jive turkey like Michael G. Flynn as national security adviser. Recall Flynn's assertion in one tweet that:

"Until Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story."

TO which I replied in my Dec. 6 post:

"Uh no, laddie. See you have it ass-backwards. It is logically impossible, indeed futile - to prove a negative. Tell me that 6 inch Martians are building tiny canals on Mars right now and it is my job to "disprove it" - and I will refer you to the nearest psych ward that offers ECT. That's not the way proof and disproof work - at least for those of us in touch with reality."

And then, as also reported last night, we beheld the spectacle of the clueless Trump  marching his general around with the nuclear football at his Mar-A- Lago redoubt- during a dinner. Then sharing classified information (about the North Korean missile test) , with his country club pals - a bright light highlighting their perusal - and without the sense to even isolate themselves in a secure space.   Indeed, paying club guests actually used their cellphones to post their images on Facebook and other social media, showing the reactions to the North Korean tests, See e.g.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/us/politics/mar-a-lago-north-korea-trump.html?_r=0

Of course, the Trump bunch spun more lies in the wake of the revelations, including that "nothing classified" was circulating or visible and also the assembled lot were  simply "reviewing logistics for the press conference".  And if you believe that horse merde I have a lot of seaside land in Barbados to offer you.......FREE!

Some logistics! The Orangutan -in -chief moving stage left at the podium to say with slurred voice: "And I just want everyone to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan.....its great ally....one hundred percent. Thank you!"

Wow. That must have required some really serious logistics planning!

Yes, fellow citizens, this is the asshole and lying schmuck we are supposed to entrust with our national security including what to do about immigration. It is little wonder, given such a moron and clueless child in charge we have witnessed:

"the latest and most dramatic convulsion in the most chaotic start to an administration in modern US history. "

According to the UK Guardian. And believe me, there are many more to come - perhaps next seeing Bannon ousted, or maybe the mistress of misdirection, Kellyanne Conway - who merits her own regular administrations of ECT.  Or maybe even ditching bimbo Nikki Haley who thinks the best response to the North Korean launch is nuclear saber rattling, threatening the North with this statement:

"We call on all members of the Security Council to use every available resource to make it clear to the North Korean regime - and its enablers- that these launches are unacceptable. It is time to hold North Korea accountable - not with our words but with our actions."

Uh, what actions, Nikki? What the hell are you and the Trump fools going to do? You guys don't even know what the nuclear triad is, or the START treaty.  As for the "enablers" that is, of course, China, who now have a nuclear arsenal of over 250 Dongfeng 5B missiles each of which can be fitted with  a MIRV upgrade. They have a range of up to 15,000 km, or nearly 10,000 miles -more than ample to reach U.S. mainland cities. You really want to go there, Nikki?

The evidence now is very solid that this lot of goobers occupying the White House and extended offices (like the UN ambassadorship) is short circuiting all over the place on national security. They really, literally, don't know whether to shit or go blind.  They are starting fires all over the place, careening incoherently from one irreconcilable position to another - almost emulating a drunk speeding on a dark highway at night- with the rest of us passengers.

In a world that is growing ever more unpredictable, to have the United States governed by loons and fuckups is intolerable. It is one thing for an autocratic child dictator in North Korea to be shooting off ballistic missiles, it's another for a deranged Orangutan to be saber rattling in the White House and driving insane policies toward a precarious end.  If the world was predictable we could maybe  afford to have a half looney "agent orange" sociopath in charge of our security.  But the world isn't that way so we cannot.

Let's also grasp, especially the deluded Trump voters, that Flynn’s – and the Trump administration’s – problems run far deeper than the December phone calls with Russian Ambasador Kisilyak. The former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief is also reportedly being investigated by the army for accepting money in late 2015 for a speaking engagement in Moscow, which could have breached military rules. Furthermore, the repeated and detailed leaks by a disgruntled and alarmed US intelligence community suggested that Flynn’s contacts with Kisilyak dated back to before the election, raising more questions about whether the Trump campaign had any knowledge of the Russian effort to skew the elections.

Add in the fact that Trump's maltreated, former NSC career staff began leaking copiously about his erratic phone calls with other world leaders and other missteps, and you have a further mini shit storm in a shit storm. Trump didn't help matters,  ordering  leak investigations, further deepening the discontent and dysfunction inside the White House. And as David Ignatius of the WaPo observed this evening on 'Hardball' it was disconcerting Trump focused his concern on these leaks rather than the national security lapses that have dogged his administration. (The latest aspect being the mounting pressure for a full on, no holds barred investigation of the Russian ties, as per a Financial Times headline this evening).

 A handful of intelligence agencies are looking into those suspicions, as are four separate congressional committees. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on one of those panels, the House intelligence committee, demanded to know when contacts with Russian officials started and how far up the Trump chain of command did responsibility for those contact rest.

Male no mistake that Flynn is only the top of the rotting "Shit-berg" that occupies the White House. There is also Kellyanne Conway, as I noted,  plus a small group of Trump advisors, led by Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and former head of Breitbart News, which has been a platform for the far right. Throw in Stephen Miller, another rightwing ideologue, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser and you have some of the next set of assholes who need to be removed.

One huge reason is that the preceding lot have set up the Strategic Initiatives Group, a parallel institution to the national security council inside the White House, which produces policies, in the form of quick-fire mock executive orders and memoranda, without consultation with the staff experts on the NSC.  In other words, all bogus. As I said before there is NO constitutional provision for executive orders anyway, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/01/bill-maher-nails-it-on-trumps-bogus.html

As per  the Wikipedia entry:

"There is no constitutional provision nor statute that explicitly permits executive orders. The term executive power in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution refers to the office of President as the executive. They are instructed therein by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 5 or face impeachment. Most executive orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties, the intent being to help direct officers of the U.S. Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the federal government: the consequence of failing to comply possibly being removal from office"

In other words, these more comport with a wish list based on appeals or pleas from a president to the legislative branch to formalize into law what he seeks to do..

We have to hope for all our sakes that the final check on Trump's insanity and overreach - the judiciary - continues to block and check his bid to expand his power to that of a dictator, like Hitler did with the Reich Court. See e.g. the relevant paper here

And what if,  somehow, the courts fail to check Trump's wanton reach for total power? Well, we will see a situation materialize not too different from the Nazi courts as discussed in the preceding link. To wit, English historian Allan Bullock writing that:

"the street gangs had seized control of the resources of a great modern State, the gutter had come to power.'

In this country, the 'gutter' has already come to power and now we must ensure that power is not consolidated through the complacency of the majority of sane citizens. I originally had believed the next Trumpie asshole to get rid of was Steve Bannon, but after seeing Stephen Miller's performance on 'Morning Joe', I believe he needs to go next. Click on.the link below for this asshole's total arrogance and Nazi authoritarian bearing, stare as he issues declarations and proclamations in assorted venues:

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-what-stephen-miller-said-should-worry-everyone-875968067895


 Note his cavalcade of lies, including  that the judges "took power to themselves that belongs to the President of the United States" and  "it is a fact and you will not deny it that,  there are millions of illegal aliens in this country who are not registered to vote"...Etc.    "You will not deny it?" Who do you think you are, you goddamned little imp? Also, as I pointed out to Janice, this little fucker bears an eerie resemblance to Nazi Propaganda Minister  Josef Goebbels. You decide by checking out this youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgypWo0DCps


The Trump base ("guttersnipes") can continue to delude themselves with the ongoing events, but the rest of us who value this country as our ancestors did - don't have that luxury. REAL patriots must now stand together and hold the faux patriots, the "paper" patriots, to account. Above all, we cannot allow this toxic nest of vipers to have the final say on which direction this country goes. Yea, we the real citizens will fight in the courts (and for the courts), fight in the halls of congress and fight in the streets - even in front of our representatives' home - if need be. And woe betide them if they try to write laws preventing this dissent or accuse us of being "paid" protestors!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/71194/the-white-house-mess

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/karin-kamp/71133/how-the-indivisible-movement-is-fueling-resistance-to-trump

Ninth Circuit Schools Trump Cabal On Basic Law With Latest Ruling

"Someone at the White House hasn't read the manual on 'Writing executive orders'  and the executive who signed the order couldn't tell an executive order from a large place mat and is, for the 20th time in one week, exposed as a dope. Isn't somebody supposed to be looking after the man?" Garrison Keillor, The Denver Post, Feb. 5, p. 3D.

With the latest slapdown of the Trump anti-government, the Ninth Circuit not only upheld the stay on his travel ban but schooled Trump and Company as well. They delivered, as part of the 29-page ruling, remarks that basically lectured the Donald and his crew like a patient teacher would a backward nursery school kid - on the law.

For example, in respect of the idiotic claim that the courts lack the authority to review executive actions (which are different from orders) the three judges wrote:

"Neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held courts lack the authority to review executive actions in those arenas for compliance to the Constitution."

In other words the Trump cabal that scrawled the "action" wasn't even aware of basic settled law applicable to the case.

In the wake of the ruling, Trump as usual tweeted  in caps like a twelve year old:

"SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

For which the Appeals Court already had a rejoinder embedded in its ruling,  even before Trump could tweet, i.e.:

"The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack on the United States."

In other words,  the "order" is all palpable horse manure designed to stoke fears among the brain-addled and woefully uninformed. Who - if they were informed - would know that domestic terror attacks by white right wing nuts have exceeded attacks by radical Islamics by nearly 2 to 1 since 9/11.

Trump's 'see you in court' bollocks is especially choice, given he is doomed to lose there(Supreme Court)  too, with the likely outcome a 4-4- split, although I predict at least 7 justices (excluding Clarence Thomas) will very possibly see it the Appeals' Court's way.  After all, they are also part of the Judicial Branch and it doesn't redound to their benefit to side with the executive. In any case this is all about the level of executive power. Is it absolute or must it have checks and balances?  Given we live in a constitutional system - a Republic - the Founders were adamant about checks and balances. And since we can't expect the cowards of the Republican Party to stand up to this mentally unbalanced demagogue, we are left only with the judiciary.

Of course, racist Jeff Sessions recently rammed through as AG, is just as bad as Trump, insisting

"when one is standing in court, representing the United States, there is no place for partisanship or bias"

implying the lower courts got it wrong. But in reality, what he is saying - which is why he ought to have been voted down by principled Republicans - is that there can be no independent judiciary that is not at Trump's beck and call. In other words, Sessions wants the judiciary to be a rubber stamp like Hitler had with the Reich Court.

As Rebecca Love Kourlis has noted (ibid.):

"The Rule of Law is a tough concept to convey. But it is really, really important to our democracy.  What it means is that as a society we accept that the law applies equally to everyone — the powerful, the powerless, rich, poor, rural, urban, whatever. The opposite of the Rule of Law is the rule of man: where one person or one group make arbitrary decisions based upon their own personal preferences and agendas without checks and balances."

This is a point Trump and his illegitimate cabal (including Sessions) will have to get through their fat heads, and even conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer concurs he's on a losing wicket (see link at bottom)

Getting back to the schooling of the Trumpistas in the recent Appeals Court ruling, that included the following statements:

-"The Government asserts that [unlike the President] the courts do not have access to classified information about the threat posed by terrorist organizations operating in particular nations, the effects of the organizations to infiltrate the United States, or gaps in the vetting process. Courts regularly receive classified information under seal and maintain its confidentiality. Regulations and rules have long been in place for that."

Following which the statement lists an extensive set of such regulations and rules. In other words, the Government clowns didn't even have elementary facts at their disposal pertaining to the reach of the courts!  It's one thing to tell the public or press "if you only knew the scary things we know", but another to say it to a federal appeals court already aware of their powers. In other words, it makes you look like a truckload of fucking clowns or total incompetents.

Let's move on to the next sign of total incompetence, pointed out by the 3 judges:


-  "The Government has argued that even if lawful permanent residents have due process rights, the States challenge to Section 3(c) based on its application to lawful permanent residents is moot because several days after the Executive Order was issued White House counsel Donald McGahn issued authoritative guidance, stating that sections 3(c) and 3(e) of Executive Order do not apply to lawful permanent residents.

At this point, however, we cannot rely upon the Government's contention that the Executive Order no longer applies to lawful permanent residents. The Government has offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the Executive  Order signed by the President and now challenged by the States and the proposition seems unlikely.

The White House counsel is not the President and he is not known to be in the chain of command for any of the Executive Departments. Moreover, in light of the Government's shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by the White House counsel - even if authoritative  and binding - will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings."


Now, let's process what this means. The clowns in the Trump gubmint basically fucked themselves by essentially saying "Oh uh, please don't rule on that part of the executive order...we decided to change that now...never mind what it says."    But the judges had to lecture these dolts that this is not how it works. (Ironic, given Trump tried to compare the Appeals court to 'bad high school students' the night before the ruling was issued - when he now looks like Captain Goober).   Thus, the WH counsel saying 'don't pay attention to that part of the EO' fucks it in its entirety because it is part of the EO. DUH!  In other words, the EO says 'don't pay attention to it', in that part.

This latest ruling, now making a trifecta, shows these Trump assholes are not only getting successively shut down by the courts, they are completely blowing it on basic A, B, Cs of legal knowledge.   The nub of this ruling is that the court wipes out any claim that the administration has the right to do whatever the hell it wants on immigration.  Again, in the court's words:

"There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of constitutional democracy."

Hence. NO president (maybe a dictator) has "unreviewable authority". Of course, the government authority is reviewable, not unlimited, which is why we have a Constitution in the first place! If you want a president with absolute authority - as 58 % of Trump supporters appear to (according to the latest PPP poll) then go and live in a dictatorship!  Get the hell out of the United States, you don't belong here!

Again, this all shows the Trump cabal is not about citizen "safety" but stoking fear to lay the groundwork for an autocracy patterned on Hitler's Reich Courts. So let's not mince words here.   These vermin basically want to eliminate an independent judiciary to do whatever they want. "If the President does it it must be valid" - to paraphrase Tricky Dick Nixon, but as he learned, that doesn't wash. So will the Trump cabal.


Meanwhile, the moron Jan Crawford this morning again put her foot in her mouth insisting Trump has "good legal arguments" Uh no, Jan, he does not. Not now, not ever. Unless you - like him - regard the Constitution as "just a piece of paper".   The best plan for the Trump cabal is to "fold its tent" as Michael Smerconish suggested last week on his CNN show, given all he stands to do is lose political capital from here on out. But given this asshole's yen for autocratic power - like Hitler - I wouldn't hold my breath. (In a future blog I will be comparing Hitler's psychiatric profile to that of Trump -showing the remarkable parallels)

But to paraphrase Chuck Schumer's advice:

"He should abandon his proposal,  roll up his sleeves and start getting to work as a real President as opposed to watching TV seven hours a day and tweeting in between."

See also:

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/09/trumps-travel-moratorium-is-a-hopeless-disaster/

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-feffer/71098/steven-bannon-s-real-vision-isn-t-america-first-it-s-america-alone