What Kind Of Coward Fires A Guy Via Tweet? Hint: "Captain Bonespurs"

Let's concede first that Donnie Dotard- a.k.a. "Captain  Bone Spurs" - who actually fancies having a military parade - is the last person who should. This is because he is NO military guy-  i.e. five times he ran away from the chance to serve by using the excuse of  bone spurs.  So what better way for an utter, loser coward to try to portray himself as a rough, tough "military" hombre?  No one is fooled other than his Trumpkin groupies.  Rather than be man enough to face former FBI Director James Comey directly and explain his real reasons for his firing,  the spineless putz asked his bodyguard to tell James Comey back in May.

Now, in what we can only call "Coward Redux" - this yellow haired, yellow bellied slime ball - for some reason adored by clueless Trumpkins - has fired Rex Tillerson, this time by a tweet.  Can we finally say, those of us with enough spare brains and eyes to see, that this good for nothing, chiseling,  con-man  coward has more business being in charge of a diaper service than being President of the United States?  

Basically,  the latest move of this walking turd disgrace to the race threw U.S. diplomacy into fresh turmoil yesterday by firing his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson – said to have discovered his fate via Twitter. Meanwhile, Dotard compounded his mental disease and degeneracy by promoting two officials condemned by human rights groups for endorsing or overseeing torture.  One (Gina Haspel)has also come under scrutiny for her role in CIA torture under George W Bush and the destruction of evidence. 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) interviewed this morning about the pick didn't mince words:


"I don't want to send a message to the world that torture is okay, because our young men and women can be captured too. And if the whole world thinks it's okay to torture prisoners they'll do the same to ours. She is the poster child for what went wrong with water boarding and she should never, ever be the head of the CIA."

Well, let's hope enough senators agree and vote down this egregious Trump pick at the hearings.

To get a fair idea of what Haspel's spooks were up to readers should check out the film Zero Dark Thirty. The CIA honchos deny it's of a factual basis, but anyone familiar with some of the records released by Snowden, know it's on the mark.

Taking Tillerson's place will be another degenerate and a puppet of the Koch billionaire brothers, Mike Pompeo.  As John Nichols put it in an article e-mailed to me by a  fellow Freethinker last night:

"Now Pompeo is positioned to become a Koch brothers–influenced secretary of state.

After serving for a little more than a year as Donald Trump’s top yes-man at the Central Intelligence Agency, Pompeo is Trump’s pick to replace Rex Tillerson, the administration’s listless placeholder at the Department of State.

In a measure of the extent to which Trump and Tillerson had disengaged from one another, the outgoing secretary of state apparently learned of his firing via Twitter Tuesday morning—when an aide showed the nation’s top diplomat a tweet from the president announcing the transition. A statement from the department indicated that Tillerson was “unaware of the reason” for his removal.

Tillerson displayed a measure of independence from Trump on issues ranging from Russian cyber attacks to the aggressive approach of Saudi Arabia to Qatar and other countries. "

Reflecting on his tenure, Tillerson claimed “we exceeded the expectations of almost everyone” regarding North Korea. He acknowledged that much works remains to be done on the relationship with China. In what some interpreted as a parting shot at Trump, he singled out the “troubling behavior and actions” of Russia.  Tillerson added.

“Russia must assess carefully as to how its actions are in the best interest of the Russian people and of the world more broadly. Continuing on their current trajectory is likely to lead to greater isolation on their part, a situation which is not in anyone’s interest.”

It's no secret Tillerson differed violently with Dotard on many issues, specifically North Korea and also Iran, and Russia.  But the real reason he was booted, which the mainstream media won't tell you,  is that Trump was still stewing over Tillerson  calling Bone spurs a “fucking moron” last summer. This was after Baby Dotard rendered a number of particularly stupid tweets and remarks aboiut North Korea and issues to do with the Iran nuclear treaty.


Seething in the immediate wake of the comment, Dummy Dotard actually proposed challenging Tillerson to a "test of IQs" adding "And we know who would win!"  Of course! Tillerson - , by about 50 points!

Trump is also considering replacing  veterans affairs secretary, David Shulkin with the energy secretary, Rick Perry, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, was questioned by a congressional committee on Tuesday about a habit of using charter flights on government business. This follows a recent scandal over the housing secretary, Ben Carson, overspending on office refurbishments and longstanding criticism of the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, regularly flying first class at taxpayers’ expense.

Make no mistake this administration is in a major mess and roiled in chaos largely thanks to Trump. As for the so-called meeting  with Kim in North Korea, now that the State Dept. is even more hollowed out,  few people believe it will transpire. As  retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson put it ('All In' last night), the chances now are "remote" at best especially with all the adults at State gone, so no one of experience is still around  to master plan the meet. And hell, we can't let Baby Dotard Bone Spurs waddle in there alone - Kim will eat him and his diapers for lunch.

What's so strange is how so many Trumpkins feel compelled to hitch their sorry, misguided wagons to this coward, who is probably the biggest snowflake in history - not only terrified of firing his own appointees face to face,  but of the NRA's wrath as well. (After he backed off from his brash talk two weeks ago.)

Incredibly, this asshole is actually making plans for a 2020 run and new campaign. He doesn't grasp that by then he may well be either in Bellevue getting ECT in a strait jacket- or in Ft. Leavenworth breaking rocks.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-kiriakou/78159/bloody-gina-should-not-lead-the-cia

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-hamilton/78166/illegitimate

Yes, "Identity Politics" Will Be With Us For The Forseeable Future

"BWAAAAHAHA! Dat Bob Mullah goin' after me Daddy Donald!"  (A portrait of a typical Foxite Trumpie)

Donald Dotard tends to his "tribe", but what is this tribe? How best to define it? Is it like a menagerie of the downtrodden under a Stockholm syndrome, who fancy having their master abuse them with phony tax cuts and repealed health care? Or is it more like a clan of clueless infants endlessly bawling for "justice" and importance? Or maybe it's a bit of both.  We do know many of them actually back Dotard's policies - including getting rid of the ACA and giving $800 billion in corporate welfare to the rich in the GOP tax "reform" bill. This despite the fact those actions will wreak the most havoc on the Trumpies.  They also seem to be A-ok with repealing net neutrality despite the fact if that happens most of their blogs will get cold and inactivated since they won't be able to afford keeping them - at least functioning expeditiously - i.e. without taking nine hours to get a post up.

In any case, there is no way the nation's tribal politics and polarization are ending anytime soon. And it would be unwise for the Left to surrender its own identity politics.

In a recent WSJ column ('Selfie Politics', Nov. 9, p. A15) Daniel Henninger wrote:

"Democrats found validation for the politics of identity in the Virginia results. Some 77 percent of unmarried women voted for Ralph Northam. Ed Gillespie was standing in front of an anti-Trump train."

Let's point out here that child molester Roy Moore in Alabama was also standing in front of the same train. As noted in a recent TIME article (December 25, p. 30):

"Moore and his allies distributed appeals  about preserving Confederate monuments, NFL players kneeling at football games and dangerous criminals registering to vote. The Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in Virginia, took a similar tack. If either had won Trump's divisive tactics might have become the 2018 campaign blueprint for countless candidate."

But instead (ibid.):

"The tide has started to turn away from the insanity we have been living through. It is time to return to decency and compassion."

WHY has the "tide" started to turn? (At least for those of us who accept facts.) Because the Dotard Tribe's playbook is now a losing one. Sensible people, voters across the nation, are simply tired and fed up with the Steve Bannon- Dotard style of destroying the civil fabric of the nation and doing so under the banner of "destroying political correctness" - unaware they are also mangling civility and democracy..

Of course, the damage extends to international relations as well, as we've seen  with micro-Nazi Nikki Haley warning the 128 nations in a UN vote that condemned the Trumpie Imperium.  This was after Dotard declared Jerusalem as formal capital of Israel - thereby demolishing the entire peace process. To add fuel to the fire this incompetent shitwit also declared the U.S. would move its embassy there. See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/12/brace-for-wave-of-terror-after-dotard.html

So, of course, the sane nations of the planet would come out against this fell move. But there was Haley, five brain  sizes too small for her role as UN Ambassador, declaring....eerrr whining: "The United States will remember this day for which it was singled out for attack.. This vote will be remembered and have consequences."     Oooooohhh! What, exactly? Disallowing any Dotard visits? Halting the puny 2 percent funding you've failed to provide anyway?

Uh no, dope. The U.S. was not "singled out for attack", rather its reckless attack on the Mideast peace process was simply condemned in a democratic VOTE at the UN. Deal with it, idiot.  But this is the grievance mentality the Trumpites have stoked to a tee which yes, has spawned separate national identities in this now rapidly declining nation.

Why this anger and stoking of phony outrage? Because in Trump's as well as Steve Bannon's playbook: "tribal grievance is more powerful than tired policies."  That's why, before the Alabama Senate special election, Bannon tried to rile up the base of cracker Trumpites with bombastic blather such as:  "They hate the Trump miracle and the nullification project. They're trying to get you to shut up. They couldn't beat Trump becausxe they couldn't beat you."  And so on, with endless  whining full of mock grievance.

And yeah, it's easier to get your tribe worked up over kneeling NFL players during the anthem, or abortions or removing Confederate monuments than it is to craft and implement policies that redound to the benefit of all citizens. It's easy to pull chords of emotions of your tribe and get them worked into a frenzy than not.

Henninger's WSJ piece goes on (ibid.):

"The Democrats not unreasonable takeaway from Virginia will be that identity politics works, so do more of it."

Well, kind of, but not quite.  He misses the point that the identity on the left has accrued and developed as a reaction to the free for all hate fest on the Right. In other words, it has been developed in order to preserve civil society by amassing a truly democratic counter weight, as opposed to a mass of screaming zombies only out to tear down the nation by draining an imaginary "swamp".

The most derelict balderdash of all in Henninger's piece is:

"For all the antipathy directed at Mr. Trump, he in fact speaks for the Everyman of America's selfie politics. Embrace Me! Self interest, the old normal in politics, has been replaced by insistent self regard."

Which is to say, whining as an art form based on relentless  navel gazing and scapegoating. As pointed out in a recent New Republic article ('It's the Culture, Stupid!', November, p. 14):

"In last year's election, according to an analysis by political scientist Tim Wood, 61 percent of the poorest whites - those in the bottom third of income distribution - voted for Trump."

Who are these whites?   A Dec. 5th, 2016 article in The Economist gives us a jarring insight (p. 30):
"The anxiety Trump supporters betray by looking for scapegoats says most, of course, about themselves. Typically members of the white lower middle class, they are at once jealous of the small privileges that distinguish them from the toilers below, and bitterly resentful of the faraway government that provides their Social Security, VA care and Medicare."

Bitterly resentful. An attitude that reached its nadir once Barack Obama took office, and these poor whites couldn't bear to see an intelligent black man reach the acme of governance in our nation. To them he was an alien, and a "Hussein" - always making sure to use his middle name when characterizing him. Bitter and resentful. Deplorable.  But deplorable is not a deserved epithet unless and until it crosses over into blatant racism - which it did- leading them to circulate vile, hate-filled images such as:

These are the "everymen" to which Henninger refers, who are a disgrace to any true "Everyman" worthy of the name.   Thus, what drove the aberrant vote in 2016 for Trump wasn't income but identity. An identity connection which Trump has  fostered by pandering to their insecurities, stroking their pathetic egos ("You will never be ignored again!") then more recently attacking the Mueller probe and our justice system - Constitution ("We have a rigged system").

Henninger also claimed (ibid.):

"The only thing the Democrats self categorizers can see staring back at them from their screens is whatever awful thing Trump has tweeted about....Me!"

Missing the essential point that each focus of a Trump tweet attack has been an element of our democracy - whether James Comey, Bob Mueller, the courts that thwarted his Muslim ban, the NFL players exercising free speech, the press and media or - more recently, the FBI in toto ("They are in tatters!")  If I was any self respecting FBI agent, I'd yearn to put this guy's head on a pike.  But there it is.

Henninger's delusion is to believe the normal citizen response (as in the Resistance)  to Trump's attacks is simple solipsism. In fact, it translates to  a defining counter attack against Trump's OWN attacks on civil,  democratic society. Hence, Elijah Cummings recent injunctions to those of us who seek to protect it, to do so. This is especially in the wake of the ongoing attacks by Trump TV flunkies  on the CIA, the FBI, Bob Mueller, and the current Trump-Russia investigations by fifth columnist traitors like Devin Nunez, Trey Gowdy and their cohort .

THIS is the danger missed by the illustrious Henninger in his myopic effort to scapegoat the Democrats and those of us who inveigh against Dotard's attacks. Because we understand, like Henninger does not, the dangers posed by  degenerate support for a minority faction of the populace - who are severely propagandized (via FAUX News)  to follow their leader (like the "Good Germans") - and also to despise their fellow citizens.  The dynamic enables easy identification with fellow Trumpies via their mutual hatred of  "political correctness"  and  "establishment elites".  Hence, Bannon's blueprint to encourage this faction to disbelieve anything the mainstream media reports no matter how credible or damning.

  Their narcissistic hunger (in some cases driven by a sense of inferiority) mirrors Dotard's and has compelled them to identify with Trump in his destruction of norms and regulations (i.e. citizen protections), which has exacerbated political divisions in the country.   Thus, Neal Gabler's trenchant and pithy words in a recent smirkingchimp.com blog post:

"Historians may determine that November 8, 2016  was the date America’s second civil war began. By that perspective, just as the first Civil War was the last gasp of slavery, this second is very likely the last gasp of aging white Americans — their full-throated death rattle against an America that they detest for having changed so dramatically.."

Naomi Klein in her recent book, 'NO Is Not Enough - Resisting Trump's Shock Politics'), argued that, pp. 90-91:

"It is short-sighted,  not to mention dangerous, for liberals  and progressives to abandon their own focus on identity politics",

because:

"To a terrifying degree, skin color and gender conformity are determining who is physically safe in the hands of the state, who is at risk from vigilante violence, who can express themselves without constant harassment and who can cross a border without terror."

Bottom line? So long as the Right embraces identity politics and tribalism  - seeking to stoke their voters using hate and distrust,  we on the sane side  must adopt a counter identity politics - appealing to the angels of citizens' better nature - not their worst.  Those appeals to citizens' better natures then are all about protectively circling the  "wagons" - whether on behalf of the 800,000 DACAns Trump wants to ship out, or the decent Muslims he wants to block from coming in, or the Puerto Ricans he has abandoned as "too costly" for federal assistance after Hurricane Maria. In other words, our tribal identity must be to protect those minorities threatened by the howling banshees of the Right.

Oh, and lest I forget, that protective brief extends to Robert Mueller's remaining as special prosecutor, and repelling any and all attacks against the integrity of his investigation. As we know, and anyone who's followed "Trump TV" is aware, the Foxites have been going batshit insane the past few weeks trying to foment a conspiracy from whole cloth rubbish. They've conjured up  and woven together disparate nonsense such as the already disproven "uranium one" (which eight federal agencies approved), Clinton donations, and the Steele dossier to arrive at a "coup" attempt  to oust their little asshole, Donnie Dotard.   These Reeptards - hysterical that the FBI and Obama-Clinton surrogates want to "undo"  Trump's ascension-  are pulling on any straw a drowning rat might. That  includes the use of willing toadies like Devin Nunez and Trey Gowdy - as well as Chuck Grassley - to scuttle the congressional investigations. They're primary objective is to also  discredit Robert Mueller's investigation because one FBI agent made negative email comments about Donnie the Dotard..  Failing to process or notice that Peter Strzok also made damning remarks about Bernie Sanders and Hillary.

He was, in other words, an equal opportunity texting bomb thrower. But the poor little crying tribe of Trumpies just zoned in on what he said about the Donald i.e. that he was an "idiot". Well, at least he didn't call Dotard a “fucking moron"  like Rex Tillerson did.  But this is what gets the panties of the Dotard tribe all in a twist, to the extent that many of these knot heads claim Strzock's email texts show such extreme bias against Trump that the Mueller investigation is compromised.

These Reeptardos can't get it into their noggins that nothing was compromised. As Rod Rosenstein pointed out to the House Judiciary 'pukes, even FBI agents are entitled to their own opinions. Yeah, this guy Strzock did get caught, but he was also fired back in July last year. So the Reeptards foaming at the mouth are all beating a dead horse that left the "barn" 17 months ago..  But this is what what they want to do for their tribe, to keep them stoked with misplaced fury. sowing even more division, more polarization.

The other reason tribalism and identity politics can never cease is that we have nearly a third of the nation following the lies of FAUX News.  Ingesting daily the lies that Mueller's investigation is "biased" (never mind most of these imps were singing Mueller's praises back in May as a Republican and "straight arrow"), and a "coup" is afoot to "undo the election" of their  little bastard, Dotard. 

Since by its nature truth and national advancement can never be in league with lies, destruction and chaos, then there can be no common cause or polity with the Trumpie Foxites. Their tribe must hang by itself, on all their lies they are ingesting. We on the other side - who value genuine science, proper regulations and stable governance -  cannot be one with them.

Hence, the national scene is set for perpetual division: tribalism and identity. When will it end, or can it end? Only when the minority side now creating "mischief of faction" (as warned about by James Madison) comes to its collective senses - ditches Dotard, and returns to embrace truth,  democracy and national unity - including abiding by the rule of law and whatever finding Robert Mueller's investigation arrives at.

If not, we shall remain a nation divided, possibly to the point of another Civil War.

See also:

www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/marjorie-cohn/76808/trump-apologists-are-gunning-for-mueller

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-berkowitz/76848/white-house-press-secretary-sarah-huckabee-sanders-obliterates-and-obfuscates-the-truth-at-will

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/76851/the-big-picture-of-how-we-got-into-this-mess-of-trump-and-how-we-get-out-of-it

Will Trump Launch A Nuclear First Strike On North Korea? One AF General Vows To Refuse Any Illegal Order

The malignant narcissism of Dotard may be enough to hurl the world into nuclear war.


In the early 1960s, physicist Herman Kahn's books “On Thermonuclear War” and “Thinking About the Unthinkable”, were must- read fare for those of attending Loyola.  Hours were spent discussing the perils of nuclear war, this barely two years after JFK - using utmost temperance -  saved the collective ass of civilization. He did this by rejecting the Joint Chiefs' demands to bomb and invade Cuba at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Kahn warned his readers with words still are relevant today, and more than 50 years after they were written: “We must guard against many types of events – psychopathic or irrational individuals, mechanical or human failure, sabotage, irresponsible behavior, and so on".  He also cautioned leaders that “we must not look too dangerous to the enemy. This does not mean that we cannot do anything that threatens him … We must not appear to be excessively aggressive, irresponsible, trigger-happy, or accident prone, today or in the future.”

This is exactly the problem with Donnie Dotard and why now -  after the latest North Korean Missile launch -  we may be even closer to nuclear war.  Dotard - let us make no mistake (and despite how Peter King (R, NY) tried to defend his sanity this a.m. on 'Morning Joe' - is a deranged fool, whose malignant narcissism and sociopathy could get us all incinerated - maybe even before Christmas. But hell, don't take my word for it.

In the book, 'The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump' clinical psychologist  Michael J. Tansey informs us (p. 121):

"Although there are several areas in which DT's particular version of personality disorder is vital to understand, none is more compelling or terrifying than his control of the nuclear codes.  Surpassing the devastation of climate, health care, education, diplomacy, social services, freedom of speech, and liberty and justice for all, nothing is more incomprehensible than the now plausible prospect of an all -out nuclear war.

For all but the few remaining survivors who witnessed the atomic bombing of Japan and its aftermath we simply have nothing in our own experiences to imagine the instantaneous annihilation. Quite literally we are here one second and vaporized the next along with everyone and everything."


Let me pause here to interject that although none of us except the Japanese survivors have experienced an atomic bomb attack, you can get a very good inkling of what happens to humans by watching it in this clip from the movie 'Threads', e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHoMSRZOS4


Watch it then watch again- especially the last 2 minutes of the clip-  to see what we may be in for with this goddamned lunatic.

Back to Michael Tansey's take (ibid.):

"Because of this very real existential threat, it is absolutely urgent that we comprehend the titanic differences between a president who is merely 'crazy like a fox' versus one I have termed crazy like crazy (possessing core grandiose and paranoid delusions disconnected from factual reality."

The evidence Dotard is literally crazy like crazy is abundant and Tansey (and the books' other contributors) references it with numerous episodes over the past 10 plus months, such as (p. 123) "his early morning tweets that his phones had been tapped by Obama." See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/03/trump-reverts-to-psychotic-blames-obama.html

Prof. Tansey like the others is adamant that Trump must not be enabled to launch a first or pre-emptive strike. Every general worth his salt has to either prevent this catastrophe (say by snatching the football from the bastard) or plainly refusing any other orders connected to launching ill -advised attacks, say a "decapitation strike" on the North.)

Enter now a REAL patriot, not a paper one: Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of the US Strategic Command.  On November 19, Gen. Hyten declared he would refuse to follow an illegal presidential order to launch a nuclear attack.   At the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia he explained:

"If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail," the general explained . "You could go to jail for the rest of your life."

For those in the military, there is a legal duty to obey a lawful order, but also a legal duty to disobey an unlawful order. An order to use nuclear weapons -- except possibly in an extreme circumstance of self-defense when the survival of the nation is at stake -- would be an unlawful order.  Many more military, as well as the media and citizens need to process this.

Now with the latest North Korean ICBM test launch there is increased cause for concern that Trump may order a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea. Dotard, indeed,  has indicated his willingness to use nuclear weapons. In early 2016, he asked a senior foreign policy adviser about nuclear weapons three times during a briefing and then queried, "If we have them why can't we use them?"

Of course, after hearing that  idiocy - if it were up to me - I'd take this fool, strap him down in a chair with his eyelids taped open (like Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange') e.g.


And let him watch the 'Threads' nuclear attack scene on an endless  loop.

Then in April, "multiple senior intelligence officials" told NBC News that the administration was "prepared to launch a preemptive strike" if they thought North Korea was about to conduct a nuclear test. Preemptive strikes violate the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of military force except in self-defense or with permission from the UN Security Council.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) requires that all military personnel obey lawful orders. Article 92 of the UCMJ states, "A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States...." Additionally, both the Nuremberg Principles and the Army Field Manual create a duty to disobey unlawful orders.

Article II of the Constitution states, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." However, Article I specifies that only Congress has the power to declare war. Taken together, the articles convey that the president commands the armed forces once Congress authorizes war.

The president can only use military force in self-defense or to forestall an imminent attack. There must exist "a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation," under the well-established Caroline Case. A president has no lawful authority to order a first-strike nuclear attack.

As the heated rhetoric with North Korean president Kim Jong-Un escalated, Trump tweeted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was "wasting his time" by pursuing diplomacy with North Korea. Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea. During his visit to South Korea earlier this month, Trump distinguished his administration from prior ones, who refrained from using nuclear weapons against North Korea. "This is a very different administration than the United States has had in the past," he said. "Do not underestimate us. And do not try us."


Well, Mr. Dotard Putz, do not try us,  the citizens of this nation. My paternal ancestors have been here since before the Revolutionary War and one even fought in it - for the Pennsylvania Regiment. We are not about to let a vermin rat like you destroy everything this country stands for - no matter how much your sick fuck "base" eggs you on in your psychopathy. In the meantime, we applaud those like Gen. Hyten who vow to stand against any reckless orders issued.

A Nation On The Verge Of A Crackup? Not If We Get Rid Of Dotard ASAP

Most sentient citizens are now aware the state of our Union has descended to an inherently uncivil cesspool riven with crudity and coarseness - and no bottom appears to be in sight. One would have thought a presidential candidate who bragged about grabbing women's genitals was rock bottom - but no, we've passed through even more degrading lows, the latest disrespecting the widow of one of the fallen. 

The alarm has now reached into the Senate with Republicans who are as revolted by the downward drift as the rest of us. Let us agree then that one of the roles of a President is to project decorum and respect for this office, and from this office to the world - and to his fellow citizens. It is essentially from his example that the standards of the nation become manifest. If then the person in charge is deranged, unstable and disrespectful of anything and anyone - even those in his own party- we are at a major transition point.  That transition is indicative of a malignant cancer on the highest office which now must be removed for the good of the whole, the body politic.

This brings us to Barton Swaim's WSJ piece, 'A Country On The Verge Of A Crackup' (Oct. 20-21) making a kind of case that the pretender playing a president has the nation approaching a "crackup". He even quotes one genius who claims Trump is A-ok,  it's the nation that's losing it.  Trump is just carrying on like "normal" for his personality type.  If this is normality we are in dangerous waters indeed, or to quote the psychologist Steve Mason:  "One of the ways I know a guy is wacko is if he claims everyone else is crazy.".   Indeed.   So let's chuck that nonsense right away. This is not to say that-the deranged con man with his fingers near the nuclear codes and showing all the signs of a narcissist sociopath isn't having deleterious effects on the rest of us. But these angry reactions and yes, judgments,  are simply the expected reactions of normals to one who is profoundly abnormal - i.e. a mutant in their midst.

  For example, former Republican Sen. Gordon Humphreys take on Dotard is spot on, e.g.

http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/former-nh-gop-senator-gordon-humphrey-we


When Humphreys depicted Dotard as "so reckless, careless and cruel in the conduct of his office as to be vile and corrupting of the American system." - he was describing an anomaly- not something normal or merely a variant of style.  Let's get that straight once and for all that we are  not parsing any "style" here because grabbing pussies and disrespecting the family of the fallen is not style in any normal society's lexicon.  Only a degraded society, an uncivilized and uncivil one, would refer to Trump's "style".

Let us also emphasize one time, as Sen. Jeff Flake did yesterday, that calling out a twitter troll pretender who isn't qualified to run a toxic dump is not a "crack up" reaction. As Sen. Flake clearly stated:

"We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now. We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal.  Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.”

Sen. Flake added that such behavior was “dangerous to our democracy” and projected not strength but a “corruption of the spirit”. He then asked his colleagues: “When the next generation asks us: ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? What are we going to say?’

Is Sen. Flake's reaction to the filth and swine vermin occupying the Oval Office a sign of paranoia or over the top nutso? No, his reaction to a clearly malevolent and unfit, unstable goon shows the Republic still possesses citizens of sane perception and the moral mettle to call out the obvious when they see it.  That includes Sens. Bob Corker and John McCain who have also called out the  resident turd who pretends to be a leader but can't craft a more comprehensive thought than 140 characters allows.

Hence the new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists And Mental Health Experts Assess A President, edited by Bandy X. Lee, is worth a read.  She is part of the "Duty To War" movement of mental health professionals who - like Jeff Flake - see this disgraceful bastard con man as the danger he is, as he assaults all traditions and institutions while polarizing the nation into a state of near civil war.

As Dr. Lee explains: "The public trust is violated if the profession fails in its duty to alert the public when a person who holds the power of life and death over us all shows signs of clear, dangerous mental impairment."

And contrary to Swaim's take, i.e. that it's  "delusional to believe you're warning Americans" when "so many believed our political culture needed a shock" - nothing in the remarks of Sen. Flake's or former Sen. Humphreys is disproven. Those deranged imps who voted Dotard in for that "system shock"  reason also need to be put on the psychiatrist's couch. Or to quote my psychologist niece, "They're all fuckin' nuts!" Indeed!  But that subset of "nuts" who inserted this  "hyperactive agitator" into office are not the whole nation, They were only a minor faction of its voters -roughly 46 % - and less than 22% of the proportion of all eligible voters.

And the vileness of Dotard, as Sen. Gordon Humphreys noted, surely goes far beyond Swaim's claim that he "sometimes says things that are obviously untrue, or flatly contradict his own previous statement". No, this happens all the time.  Consider his bald faced compulsive lies about Obama wiretapping him, then barely a week ago the phone call to LaDavid Johnson's widow Myeisha and how he disrespected her - not even knowing her husband's name and then saying "he knew what he signed up for" - then denying it. It took John Kelly to get up and  confirm Dotard's words, though in a hyperbolic manner, while savagely attacking a black congresswoman.

Swaim also makes a big deal out of the book's authors "differing in their diagnoses" but as Shayl pointed out to me, that's "natural because many diagnoses overlap" . Also, many disorders can exist simultaneously. For example, borderline personality disorder can exist along side schizoid personality disorder, as psychologist Judith Cauwels pointed out in her book, 'The Borderline Personality'. These pathologies then are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  Hence, two seemingly different diagnoses might be given for the same mental malady, especially for a detached, approximate diagnosis.

Then there is the beef:  'How do they know what is going on if they don't actually have him in for analysis?' This is ridiculous too.  If I see some mangy, orange-haired character slogging down  Uintah Street grabbing pussies every step of the way as he calls out nonsense and then threatens bystanders with tweets I don't need to get him on a psych couch to know he's "fuckin' nuts", as Shayl puts it.  You just have to look at his behavior and what he says, including the twitter taunts at a guy with his own missile arsenal - Kim Jong Un.

In the case of Trump there isn't a coherent, sane or rational element in his being. Neither is there any element of basic decency or civility, hence his lying reaction to the widow of  warrior LaDavid Johnson.  Donald Dotard's a total misfit and a loser besides. Read Naomi Klein's most recent book, 'NO Is Not Enough', to see how this asshole really made his riches. Hint: It was all about classic con-man deals and rip offs - like using half baked seminars on real estate and then calling the random set "Trump University".

Another point Swaim misses is that the extremes of behavior or thought are not necessary to deem a person unfit or unstable.  As Gordon Humphreys makes clear,  one needn't be absolutely stark raving mad to pose a threat. One really only needs an agitated, chaotic personality occupying the highest office and with access to the nuclear codes. Also one, as WSJ's Gerald Seib pointed out in his piece two days ago, who's become so unpredictable nothing he says can be trusted, so governance itself is undermined.  This is what Sen. Flake meant by "dangerous to democracy."

Recall also barely two weeks ago Sen. Corker warned that Trump’s rhetoric and threats, especially toward North Korea, could set the nation “on the path to World War III”.  This followed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  calling Trump a “fucking moron” and considering resigning.

In a separate interview with CNN yesterday , Sen. Corker went even further, stating of the president: “I don’t know why he lowers himself to such a low, low standard and debases our country in that way but he does.”

Coupled with Flake’s scathing remarks on the Senate floor, the growing list of Republicans sounding the alarm over Trump’s presidency marks a potential watershed moment within the party.  That watershed moment has long since arrived in the rest of the nation where we contend that the removal of his piece of trash from office is now the highest priority. (Curiously, Sen. Flake said in a CBS interview this morning the 25th amendment "wouldn't work" to remove Trump, but I beg to differ - as do many hundreds of others including Constitutional and legal scholars like Richard Painter.)

There are also darker sentiments expressed, especially by average blokes on media forums. To quote one commenter on a political forum in The Financial Times after word spread about Gabe Sherman's piece regarding White House staff fearing Trump might make a "rush for the nuclear football":  "Why hasn't the CIA offed him yet when they took out JFK for much less?"

A more sober and powerful take is provided in the following passage from Michael Gerson's WaPo piece ('Republicans, It's Time To Panic') . It puts our situation in the most cogent perspective:

"It is no longer possible to safely ignore the leaked cries for help coming from within the administration. They reveal a president raging against enemies, obsessed by slights, deeply uninformed and incurious, unable to focus, and subject to destructive whims. A main task of the chief of staff seems to be to shield him from dinner guests and telephone calls that might set him off on a foolish or dangerous tangent. Much of the White House senior staff seems bound, not by loyalty to the president, but by a duty to protect the nation from the president. Trump, in turn, is reported to have said: “I hate everyone in the White House.” And also, presumably, in the State Department, headed by a secretary of state who apparently regards his boss as a “moron.”

Adding:

"The security of our country — and potentially the lives of millions of people abroad — depends on Trump being someone else entirely. It depends on the president being some wise, strategic, restrained leader he has never been.

The time for whispered criticisms and quiet snickering is over. The time for panic and decision is upon us. The thin line of sane, responsible advisers at the White House — such as Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — could break at any moment. Already, Trump’s protests of eternal love for Kelly are a bad sign for the general’s future. The American government now has a dangerous fragility at its very center. Its welfare is as thin as an eggshell — perhaps as thin as Donald Trump’s skin. "

One hopes more Repubs see it and also read the recent book on Dotard's mental state. The sooner they remove this bag of filth from office the better for us all.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-feffer/75884/the-crack-up-donald-trump-and-the-fourth-great-shattering

Trump's Dereliction And Nuclear Security Risk Shows The Electoral College Needs To Be Scrapped

At the end of last year, I warned that the Electoral College had ceased to be what it was intended for: the final backstop or check against "mischief of faction" and an unqualified,  Queens' real estate  con man getting into the highest office to defile it and ruin the nation.  The electors - members of the  Electoral College - had one chance, and one only, to prove once and for all it wasn't an archaic, useless anachronism and they blew it. That chance occurred on December 19th  last year when electors had the ability (and responsibility) to prevent a totally unqualified nitwit and looneytune from occupying the highest office in the land. And they fucked it up big time, let's not mince words.

Alexander Hamilton himself-  in Federalist #68 -  saw the need to stop such an egomaniacal, autocratic demagogue from becoming President,  so why not an ordinary citizen elector? Especially when, as Kathleen Parker noted in a column days before the Electoral College met:

"Without consulting advisers or “sleeping on it,” for which he is not known, Trump can authorize a nuke upon the slightest provocation — or none. All previous presidents have had the same authority, of course, but all have also been experienced statesmen, nary a reality-show celebrity (nor snake-oil salesman) among them."

Hamilton for his own part was blunt and to the point and his words in The Federalist  #68  bear directly on Trump's entanglements with foreign businesses and diplomats:

"Nothing is more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to a cabal, intrigue or corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.

How could they better gratify this than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?"

Hamilton was particularly emphatic when he wrote:

"the office of President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications"

"Shall never fall to any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications". The words could not be any clearer! What has  manifested since Trump's inauguration is that he is the very embodiment of the classless rabble rouser and degenerate the founders feared taking office - which is WHY they established the electoral college.

The mutt not only lacks the requisite qualifications but poses a mortal danger to the Republic, as is becoming ever clearer with time. Especially when the sources inside the White House question whether Jim Mattis or Gen. Kelly will be so brave as to "tackle" Trump if he tries to execute a nuclear all out first strike (a la the fictional character Greg Stillson- who imagined it in the film 'The Dead Zone').

This is something that my Revolutionary War ancestor (Conrad Brumbaugh) would see in a heartbeat, and why he'd also agree Trump needs to be removed from the seat of power now.  He has mutated to the most severe national security risk this country has ever faced. Far exceeding any threat from Iran, North Korea or Russia. Why? Because he has exclusive access to the nuclear codes which he can punch in at any time his ginormous ego  and sufficient pique "demands" it

Don't believe me? Think this is over heated imagination or partisan puffery? Then you need to read conservative columnist Michael Gerson's recent piece in The Washington Post ('Republicans, It's Time To Panic')   In the following passage he puts it perhaps best:

"It is no longer possible to safely ignore the leaked cries for help coming from within the administration. They reveal a president raging against enemies, obsessed by slights, deeply uninformed and incurious, unable to focus, and subject to destructive whims. A main task of the chief of staff seems to be to shield him from dinner guests and telephone calls that might set him off on a foolish or dangerous tangent. Much of the White House senior staff seems bound, not by loyalty to the president, but by a duty to protect the nation from the president. Trump, in turn, is reported to have said: “I hate everyone in the White House.” And also, presumably, in the State Department, headed by a secretary of state who apparently regards his boss as a “moron.”

Adding:

"The security of our country — and potentially the lives of millions of people abroad — depends on Trump being someone else entirely. It depends on the president being some wise, strategic, restrained leader he has never been.

The time for whispered criticisms and quiet snickering is over. The time for panic and decision is upon us. The thin line of sane, responsible advisers at the White House — such as Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — could break at any moment. Already, Trump’s protests of eternal love for Kelly are a bad sign for the general’s future. The American government now has a dangerous fragility at its very center. Its welfare is as thin as an eggshell — perhaps as thin as Donald Trump’s skin. "

And yes, I've deliberately bolded the words so they stand out. I want them to embed themselves in people's minds.

What it all adds up to - as the nation (including Puerto Rico) unravels on account of Trump and his deranged policies -  is that we are living on borrowed time. It also means that the Electoral College has proven once and for all to have been a useless artifact of the past. It did not live up to the intentions of the founders to prevent an outright fool, fraud and mentally  unfit reprobate from taking office. The electors became mere rubber stamps as opposed to proactively acting in the nation's interest.

Note the poll result in the graphic at the top. What it discloses is that more citizens realize the person holding the highest office lacks the mental capacity and emotional stability to do the job. He is as out of his depth as a sociopath con man would be commanding our armed forces, Wait! That's the situation we have!

Bottom line? You don't just put into office those who appear to have captured the zeitgeist of some deranged notion of populism. We need men or women who are mentally and emotionally capable of taking criticism, of learning on the job (including reading all PDBs, or presidents' daily briefs), and being capable of remaining focused on the security of this nation. By contrast, Dotard has shown himself incapable of even providing security for the American citizens of Puerto Rico - while  insisting "FEMA can't stay there forever". Oblivious that no Puerto Rican wants FEMA or the military to remain there "forever". They just want them there until the island territory of the U.S. is stabilized and in particular to deliver drinkable water and food NOW!

Then there is Dotard's "decertifying" of the Iran Nuclear Accord when that nation has been in technical compliance as even Rex Tillerson admitted. France, Germany and the UK all have repeatedly confirmed Iran's compliance and that 98 percent of nuclear fuels for weapons have been disposed of.  Trump's circus act also alienates all the European signatories to this deal and effectively converts the U.S. to a rogue state on the nuclear scene - and one that can't abide by treaties. (The trope that it needs "Senate confirmation" to be a "real treaty" is codswallop as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists notes,)  John Kerry - then Secretary of State who worked on it - put it bluntly:

"This is a reckless abandonment of facts in favor of ego and ideology."

As for Gen. John Kelly's boffo spin performance the other day - to squash the source reports Dotard is unravelling-  no one with an IQ over room temperature believes a word of it. In fact, all Kelly has succeeded in doing is proving the opposite: that if a chief of staff has to go out and clean up the doo doo there really is an unfathomable shit storm going on behind the scenes.   As Council Of Foreign Relations member Max Boot put it two nights ago in an MSNBC interview:

"The message is not credible. If you're having to call a press conference to deny that you're leaving the administration and that the president is unstable,  that's kind of like Richard Nixon calling a press conference to say I am not a crook. The very fact that you're denying it seems to confirm it. 

And we see the confirmation with our own eyes. Let's not forget  yesterday the president of the United States said it was crazy that a news outlet can write whatever it wants to say. He is attacking the first amendment. And today he's attacking the people of Puerto Rico 86 percent of whom still have no electricity. This is not normal and lends a lot of credence to these stories that yes, he is spinning out of control."

Make no mistake that is one aspect of  why the founders proposed an Electoral College, i.e.  as a rational check on popular over exuberance, the other being mischief of faction.  Recall the latter was noted by James Madison in The Federalist #10. As Madison described it:

"Mischief of faction is when citizens - whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole - are united and actuated by a common impulse of passion to cast their votes adverse to the rights of other citizens or the permanent and aggregate interests of the community". 

This is exactly what the Trump voters did, motivated by inflamed passions, gullibility and moral recklessness via Trump's often violent rallies to give a middle finger to the rest of the country. They thereby militated against the majority's interests.

The Electoral College was established to pull the plug on such popular recklessness, to prevent its expedient, hastily chosen 'avatar' from assuming power.  This was not achieved because the electors did not do their due diligence. They opted instead to simply rubber stamp the state electoral tallies without question.

But given the parlous pass Dotard has taken us to - which any sane citizen can see- then the dereliction of the electors' actions is self evident in retrospect.  Thus, the Electoral College  never fulfilled its primary directive to halt the assumption of power by an unqualified, mentally unbalanced person defined by breathtaking moral turpitude. Since it did not fulfill that mission then it is clearly useless, and indeed, dangerous to the nation - since we cannot assume that if citizens commit mischief of faction once they won't repeat.

It is time this dereliction and insanity now be corrected and the most likely vehicle will be the  25th Amendment to the Constitution,

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jefferson-morley/75705/is-the-25th-amendment-a-solution-to-trump-madness

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/kali-holloway/75715/10-examples-of-trump-unraveling-before-the-current-unraveling-began