Bill Maher's $1 Million Offer For Trump To Resign May Be Best Way To Get Rid of the Loathsome Orange Cockroach

Wonder of wonders, President Donald J. Trump, aka Capt. Bonespurs,  said on Saturday that he would no longer hold next year’s Group of 7 meeting at his luxury golf club near Miami, a swift reversal after two days of intense criticism over awarding his family company a major diplomatic event.

Did Donnie Bonespurs do this out of a sober acknowledgement he was violating the domestic emoluments clause against presidential self- dealing?  I.e. selecting his own property as the venue for a major diplomatic event, and thus a "decision unprecedented in modern American politics with a president awarding himself a massive contract." (WaPo, Saturday).  

Of course not. This pinhead spouted about the "phony emoluments clause".  What do you expect from a dolt  that  has never read the Constitution and struggles with a 'Garfield' comic?  All Dotard knows is self dealing and hence actively embraces his own narcissism directed to self- enrichment. That is the sum and substance of his miserable existence.  If he can't make a deal that benefits himself he wants no part of it.   And bear in mind, like most grifters and criminal con men his "deals" are always inflated, exaggerated.  An AP examination of Trump's Twitter feed turned up 1,200 mentions of the words "biggest,", "smartest",  and "best".  (Denver Post, Oct. 20, p. 7A,  'With Trump It's Always 'The Art of the Big Deal'")  In his most recent transgression Trump claimed a crowd of 30,000 for a rally crowd in Dallas.  The Dallas Fire-Rescue Dept. made an actual count of 18,500 or below the 20,000 capacity of the American Airlines Center and 38.3 percent less than Trump claimed.

Why does this deranged man-baby employ such excess claims, hell outright LIES? Because like all practicing con men he understands that employing them is the best hook to sucker the gullible, lower IQ segment of the populace.  Thus, rather than offering solace to the Kurds slaughtered in the wake of his unseemly withdrawal of U.S. troops in N. Iraq, he chose to brag on his "deal"  as a "great day for civilization".  In fact, it was among the worst, and put a rubber stamp on allies' justified suspicion of the U.S. as credible partner in most global initiatives.

But as odious as Trump's withdrawal from Syria, it was not an impeachable offense.  However, his self- dealing to enrich himself via his Doral resort was.  As blogger Robert Weissman put it on smirkingchimp.com:

"President Donald Trump no longer sees fit even to pretend that he is constrained by the law or the U.S. Constitution. It’s hard to imagine a more blatant violation of the Constitution’s anti-corruption provisions than the president steering foreign governments to stay at his luxury resort.."

Nevertheless it took a firestorm of outrage to get  him to retract his decision, and even then it was done grudgingly and rife with serial insults and complaints at any critics.

 Trump wrote on Twitter  over the weekend, interspersing one tweet with the usual hyperbole, exaggerations and BS:

“I thought I was doing something very good for our country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 leaders.  It is  big, grand, on hundreds of acres, next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, has tremendous ballrooms and meeting rooms and each delegation would have ...its own 50 to 70 unit building.  Would set up better than other alternatives."

Let's pause here to note this is all horse manure   As Chris Hayes' guests pointed out on 'All In' Thursday, all the costs vis-a-vis Trump's Doral resort are already "sunk" - meaning underwater. In debt up to Miami's tallest condo. The Doral has struggled financially since the Trump family bought the resort out of bankruptcy in 2012, reportedly paying $150 million for the property. More than $100 million in loans to help finance the project came from Deutsche Bank. The property itself - as noted by Hayes -  has also been plagued with "flying vermin"  and had some not too good inspection reports of its facilities.

Given the conditions and  debt status at Doral,  having hundreds of  personnel from G7 advance teams first arrive to check it out and then return in June with their full delegations,  would merely provide a rescue for Trump to dig his sorry ass out of a financial hole. Problem is that G7 bunch would land in the midst of Miami's worst mosquito season - as noted by Hayes' guest Natasha Bertrand.  So, Trump isn't doing any "good" other for himself.  And as Ms. Bertrand also agreed,  any number of other places would be far superior alternatives.

Trump then carried on in his loopy rant tweet:

"I announced I would be willing to do it at no profit, or if legally possible at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & Democrat partners went CRAZY!”

Ok, let's back up again to shovel more horse shit before moving on.  As Bertrand also reminded viewers there is no way profits would not accrue from the choice of the Trump dump. Especially as the arriving dignitaries would need several helipads - likely provided on the golf course. After the conference the helipads would then need to be removed and the golf course restored - all at cost to U.S. taxpayers.   Far from "going crazy" too many realized the fell, unconstitutional nature of Dotard's proposal and took him to task for it. Democrats (and many newspaper editors, e.g. The Denver Post)  immediately portrayed the plan as a blatant act of self-dealing corruption, and ethics lawyers said payments from the visiting delegations could violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which forbids the president from accepting gifts and funding from foreign governments.

Democrats in the House and Senate - to their credit- quickly introduced legislation intended to block the use of the Doral, a bill they called “Trump’s Heist Undermines the G7,” or the THUG  Act. The measure would have blocked the use of federal funds for the Group of 7 if the event were held at the Doral.

 The one who is crazy then, is Trump - for not grasping that is how his wacky nonsense would be received.

The fact this deranged  asswipe and certifiable moron could even be serious enough to write this claptrap shows he belongs in a straitjacket.  Do the country a favor? By letting foreign nationals stay at his flea and bed bug, mosquito -ridden dump that passes as a "resort"?  And then making the dignitaries pay for the privilege - to line his own pockets, of course.  (But one wonders if he'd pay their medical bills if they contracted dengue fever from a mosquito bite)

Trump added: “Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020.”

In the wake of what we've seen the past week, let us accept as a proposition that things will only get worse in the next year - especially with impeachment hanging over Trump's head.   As NY Times political columnist Peter Wehner put it on 'Last Word' Friday night:

"Republicans to whom I've spoken have known from the start that this is a person who's really problematic, psychologically unwell. At the beginning it was wishful thinking that they could contain or control him... What's happening now is Trump's pathologies are getting worse  and the guardrails are disappearing. So what we're seeing now is the worst of Trump, but it's going to get worse going forward."

The problem is that if his Senate cult followers then fail to remove him, he will become vastly more emboldened and make even more atrocious decisions- say than the Kurd betrayal, the Ukraine shake down call to dig dirt on political opponents, and the Doral G-7 self dealing .  As WaPo columnist Ruth Marcus said on 'Last Word' Friday night, when asked if the "dam" would finally break in the wake of the week's events:

"No. The Republican lawmakers will just stick with Trump. They have a 'me first' approach and fear Trump's base and being primaried. Until Republican voters turn against Trump it is very very dangerous - no matter what they privately think, say about Trump giving himself this big contract, or Trump in Syria. So they're not going to break with him in public."

This fear is also what led HBO ('Real Time') comedian Bill Maher to warn at the end of September of the potential political ramifications of pursuing Trump's impeachment, but failing to remove him. As he observed:

"If we do this, the country is going to be paralyzed.  I'm not saying don't. ... It's going to be paralyzed for a very long time, and all of the oxygen in the room will be taken by this," 

But then voicing the much more ominous danger of the GOP -dominated Senate failing to do its constitutional duty to remove the thug (which requires a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes.)  So what other alternative is there, short of invoking the 25th amendment (even more improbable), or Trump losing the election next year.? (Still not a slam dunk by any means.)  And we know how the Trump cabal will stoke the "fear the socialists" meme.

By Friday night, Maher had conceived of potentially the only real solution to eliminate the orange fungal parasite and blight on the Republic.    He offered to pay  $1 million for the orange mold to leave the office. (Which in truth he ought to seriously consider after Admiral William H. McRaven torched the traitor in a NY Times op ed and accused him of being a "threat to the Republic".)

Maher, a long-standing Dotard critic who actually got a Trump-filed  lawsuit tossed out (after he vowed he could prove Trump was the spawn of an Orangutan) said:

"Just take my check for $1 million. I bet I could get another 1,000 people just from here to the beach — including Malibu, of course — who would pay that much to see you resign," 

Bill  concluded, "Mr. President, it is really very simple. You love money. We hate you."

At first blush I agree with Maher this plan could work - knowing Trump's mendacious nature. But is $1 million enough to get Trump to move his fat ass out of the Oval Office for good?  I doubt it. I suspect it would take at least $100 million - and I doubt all the actors' contributions in Hollywood would make that threshold.   Besides, most would- be contributors would justifiably worry that this slimeball would renege. After all, look how he stabbed the Kurds in the back barely a week ago.  He'd probably do the same for this effort then holler at one of his rallies: "Ya see what I did to them dumb liberals and Dems! I stiffed 'em good!"

So we are stuck with hoping, as Marcus went on to say, that the polls favoring Trump's impeachment and removal hit at least 52-55 % of Republican voters to force the Repuke Senators to have their 'come to Jesus' moment and ditch the Dotard.

Either  that, or find a candidate who can beat him next year in the general.

See also:

Robert Weissman

Donald Trump

The Antidote to Trump's Corrupt G7 Deal? Impeachment and Conviction

Sadly, Ousting Trump In 2020 Probably Requires The Collapse Of The Economy

Yes, it's an extreme viewpoint to take, but examining all that's transpired in the past few weeks it appears to be the only logical conclusion, as I will show. That is, that no Democratic presidential candidate alone will be sufficient to knock Trump out of office no matter what policy proposals are put forward - so long as the economy continues chugging along - bestowing an unwarranted advantage on the Dotard.

There is little dispute that since Robert Mueller punted on his Report, it's been a case of Trump Unchained.  He's now been emboldened to go all out on his plan to turn the U.S. into his own autocracy, even as he stonewalls all efforts of the House Dems to check him at every turn.  Worse, the soaring economy  - as reported in The Denver Post Saturday - is almost ensuring that he will get re-elected, unless.....well, unless the economy collapses before the 2020 general election.  This means a stock market crash, recession or both.

Extreme medicine? Not at all,  What the Post indicates is robustly reinforced by a Financial Times piece yesterday ('US Economic Strength Poses Challenge For Democrats In 2020'), noting:

"With unemployment at a half -century low and steady wage growth, Democratic contenders in the 2020 race face a conundrum: how to challenge Donald Trump on the economy"

Adding:

"I'll be running on the economy", Trump told reporters on Friday."

Then we beheld the ominous note sounded (ibid.) by Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a center left think tank: "The only issue where Trump is remotely competitive with the Democrats is on the economy."

Swiping away all nebulous fantasies of finally removing this orange fungus from the White House, it means unless the economy tanks - and badly - the same putrid essence is in like Flynn for another 4 years.  And it won't matter much how much charisma any Dem candidate has, or what his or her remedy for the country may be. Because at the end of the day all most voters will care about is the share value of their mutual funds or stocks.

Bill Maher's hysterical Friday night Real Time New Rules rant about being in a "fetal position":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPi2QcQVCuY

Echoed Janice's own hopeless feelings that "Trump seems to be winning at every turn" and this is basically spot on.   Not surprisingly also, nearly a year ago Maher had openly hoped for the economic crash to finally mark Trump's end, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuIp5DYf8Lc

As  expected, at the time most of the red state yahoos (offering youtube versions)  and mainstream corporate media went into a tailspin at the "outrageous" suggestion - perhaps believing then (a year ago) there was still a chance to oust Trump normally.  And hey, Bob Mueller was still on it! But no more. That mask, that veneer, has been ripped off once and for all. Only an extreme solution will save this nation from the likes of Trump and his traitorous enablers.  It is true the Great Recession WAS a "terrible event" to quote the Daily Beast, but it was also "a survivable one"  to use Maher's words. A Fascist dictatorship is not.  Ask the Germans who lived in 1933, friends.

Why has this desire intensified now?  The bad guys and fascists are in the ascendant and feel empowered to treat congress like errant school boys rather than a co-equal branch of gov't according to Article I of the Constitution.   Mueller, bless his heart and pardon his lack of testicular fortitude, basically blew it and handed these reptiles a loaded weapon which they will use with impunity over the next 18 months.  Beyond that the plan is simple: to utterly eviscerate all the post-Watergate checks since enacted on the rise of executive power. Paving the way for a proto-dictatorship, by you guessed it -Trump.

Scared? If you're not you're already brain dead or nearly so, unaware that the takeover of a nation happens in increments like the proverbial (but erroneous) trope of the frog being slowly boiled in water.

Even worse, these crypto-fascists have mounted a deadly serious program of co-opting or controlling every branch of government, now including the DOJ - as well as Supreme Court and Senate - even as they render the Demo congress toothless in terms of oversight power. Perhaps one of the best perspectives on what's happening was offered by former House Oversight Committee adviser Kurt Bardella in a recent NBC Think piece ('Trump's Obstruction Has Fractured The Constitution's System of Checks and Balances') As he notes:

"Thursday, May 2nd, 2019, felt like the end of checks and balances in America. It was a day that Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee stood by and supported the executive branch's decision to ignore a lawful subpoena issued by the legislative branch. At this moment in time we no longer have co-equal branches of government. And without this system created with care by the Founding Fathers we edge ever closer to a dictatorship.

This executive branch is flagrantly undermining the legislative branch and it clearly thinks it can get away with it."

In a discussion on the piece this a.m. ('Morning Joe') Bardella emphasized this is "no longer a theoretical - if an executive decided to ignore congress- it's happening".

Bardella went on to say that when he served (during the Obama years) on the GOP House Oversight committed he always "believed that we were co equal. We didn't believe that he (Obama) didn't respect the authority, the autonomy on what the oversight powers were - even if we disagreed. At the end of the day they would show up for hearings and produce documents because they respected that authority.  That's no longer the case and now meets the situation described in The Washington Post where 'democracy dies in daylight'"

However, Post columnist  Ruth Marcus responded that it was "too early to declare the end of checks and balances" and Bardella's take was "too dire".  This is given the Dems are "asserting themselves" and the issues will eventually go before the courts. However, as Bardella pointed out to her, if the court decisions are made a year or more down the road and not in real time, they are of no use - and Trump wins by running out the clock.  This is exactly what's going on now and the source of Maher's and others' frustrations and rage that he could even get away with it.

This is why the collapse of the economy may be our democracy's only salvation.

Note that although the Post story (see image clip) focused on how Trump's fortunes (tied to the economy) are currently rolling along they don't mention how he's also attempting to push the Federal Reserve into lowering rates to jazz up the markets even more   Let us carefully note here the Fed is not part of the federal government per se but was founded as an act of congress in 1913 and as 12 separate private banking corporations. (James Livingstone ('Origins of the Federal Reserve System- Money, Class and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913 ).

In Friday's WSJ one read ('White House Escalates Row With Fed', p. A1):

"It isn't unprecedented for politicians to lean on the Fed to cut interest rates and give the economy the kind of jolt that voters reward at the polls...But it is rare for the White House to take on the Fed so openly analysts said.

'It not only breaks the norms, it shatters them', said Laurence Meyer a former Fed governor. 'It's just amazing."

Amazing indeed, and worrying. Because if at any point the Fed does cave in to Trump's ravings it will mean the need for an economic crash is amplified. Any boost, especially artificial - which acts like a coke hit for a junkie - will require a powerful antidote.  We need that antidote by next year to ensure Trump is not re-elected, especially if he keeps winning these political battles.

The latest is running out the clock to keep the Dems locked up in court challenges as they issue subpoenas and try to make headway with oversight (cf. 'Trump Team Resists Oversight; Dems Dig In',  Denver Post, May 5, p. 4A).   Thus:

"They're talking about jailing people at the Capitol. Imposing steep fines. All sorts of extraordinary, if longshot, measures to force the White House to comply with lawmakers' requests for information about President Donald J. Trump stemming from the special counsel's Russia investigation."

And we learn the reason for these extreme proposals, see e.g.

Congress Should Be Ready to Arrest Attorney General Barr if He Defies Subpoena

Is that congressional Democrats have been "stunned by the administration's refusal to allow officials to testify or to respond to document requests."

Again, go back to Kurt Bardella's NBC Think piece on these continuing refusals and ongoing obstructions and what they mean for constitutional checks and balances.

Truly, everyone who knows an ounce about the U.S. Constitution or who has ever taken a high school Government class, ought to be stunned, if not shocked. Because what is happening is that one sector of government is maliciously obstructing another co-equal branch from fulfilling its oversight role. In other words, the entire thrust of checks and balances at the core of our system of governance is being spat on and turned on its head. Indeed, recent news releases indicate the Nazi Trumpers are no so emboldened by Mueller's punt they are prepared to "investigate the investigators".  The vermin Trump bunch has also dispatched Nosferatu Giuliani to the  Ukraine to try to dig up dirt on Joe Biden's deceased son, Beau  - to use against Biden if he becomes the nominee.

And this is just the beginning.  If indeed Trump gets another four years the lawless, renegade behavior and flouting of norms and laws we see now will be like a walk in the park compared to what will then unfold.

This is why in my opinion there is no issue or question on it: We need this economy to crash - utterly and completely - to spare the nation and its people from an even more terrible fate. No, an economic crash would not "guarantee" an end to radical Trumpism and his efforts to subvert our nation  - but it would enhance the probability of disinfecting the country immensely.  These are desperate times and desperate measures are needed if the USA is to be in even recognizable form in 4 years.


See also:
Trump’s Diabolical Plan to Blow up Democracy, Get Reelected and Avoid Jail Just Might Work

And:

Donald Trump

Creeping Toward Tyranny

by Chris Hedges | May 6, 2019 - 6:04am | permalink

— from Truthdig

And:

Economic Policy

The Untold Story of Trump’s ‘Booming’ Economy

Did Obama Diss Bernie In A Recent Speech? It Seems So!

Even as parts of the 'librul media' now claim Bernie Sanders is running a "con" (cf. Rachel Maddow Friday night) or "pandering" (Elizabeth King on salon.com) in getting younger citizens to buy into his concept of a political revolution, it appears the Prez is bearing down on Bernie too.  In her recent WaPo column, Ruth Marcus claimed that Obama - the day after the NH primary- delivered a speech in which he "lamented the poisonous political climate"  and mourned that "the tone of our politics hasn't gotten better since I was inaugurated, in fact it's gotten worse".

Well, duh! What would you have expected from hardcore Repukes who actually vowed (like Mitch McConnell in 2009) that their numero uno goal was to block Obama's plans at every turn?  And even Obama later conceded that obstruction by having to resort to a number of executive actions on a host of matters from immigration to the environment. So don't act so damned surprised, Mister Prez!  And also, if I may add, it took you way too damned long to admit what these rat fuckers were doing - to the point you actually tried to appease the bastards with Social Security cuts - via your now (thankfully)  defunct "Debt commission".

But I digress. The main thrust of Marcus' column was that Obama had a chief bone to pick with Sanders. Marcus wrote that "some correctly interpreted Obama as criticizing Trump" but "the more interesting aspect of Obama's speech was its implicit disagreement with Bernie Sanders - the previous day's winner."

She even went so far as to insist Obama's speech (which she admits was "bumped off the front pages and most media") "can be interpreted as a rebuttal to Sanders and a rebuke of the Vermont Senator's approach to politics and an unstated endorsement of Hillary Clinton's plodding pragmatism". Which  latter I already wrote about and took to task as essentially useless, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-hillarys-proposed-extension-of.html

Also noting:

"After all, if as Obama and Hillary demand,  health care be kept a business (since insurers are part of the mix) then profits will be incorporated. The profit expectations will also be continuously  increased so higher and higher premiums must be expected"

In other words, without calling out the term, I deliberately identified both Obama and Clinton as Neoliberals - which they are. Also known in Left parlance as "DINOS" or corporate democrats.  But again, I get ahead of  myself.

The point here is that no one with good sense ought to express surprise that a Neoliberal would "rebuke" the Bern. Hell, his whole legacy and identity depends upon it. And lest some forget, let's remind them of one of Obama's biggest, proudest Neolib badges, defending the TPP against fellow Dems, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/obama-needs-to-tone-down-his-rhetoric.html

 While we're at it, David Bromwich (at salon.com),   in an article Obama’s Disappearing Act- What Happened to the President He wanted to be?  put it in great context - much better than Marcus as to why he wouldn't have the courage to back a real Dem like Sanders:

"The truth is that Obama’s convictions were never strong. He did not find this out until his convictions were tested, and they were not tested until he became president.

 

Perhaps the thin connection between Obama’s words and his actions does not support the use of the word “conviction” at all. Let us say instead that he mistook his preferences for convictions — and he can still be trusted to tell us what he would prefer to do. “

Leading Bromwich to then revive the term "leading from behind". Waiting and waiting until a popular furor builds up and catapults the issue before embracing it. Marcus herself endorses this perception noting Obama's "ingrained tropism" (tropism being a feature of plants) to "move toward middle ground".

Sure, JFK would have ‘preferred’ also such lackluster behavior, e.g. so as not to face down U.S. Steel and earn the wrath of the corporatocracy, but he knew he had to do it for the welfare of the nation. Hence, he threatened that corporation with removing its defense contracts unless it complied and didn’t raise steel prices in the spring of 1962.  Similarly, Kennedy would have ‘preferred’ not to have to confront his Joint Chiefs over their intent to bomb and invade Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, but he did so because he realized the preservation of life on Earth may well depend on it. 

Well, Bernie is THAT mold of President! One we haven't seen in the White House for over 53 years.

But what really annoyed the hell out of me is that Obama's middle ground "tropism" arose from Bernie's "call for political upheaval". Jeezus Peace, you'd think the woman was portraying a call to firebomb buildings, take over the Army bases and oust the high roller CEOs and banksters from their plush offices.

At no point did it sink into her thick cranium that when he calls for "political revolution" he doesn't mean it in a literal sense, say like the Marxist-Leninists did with the 1917 Russian Revolution! He meant it in the sense of a collective revolution in consciousness - much like author Charles Reich once proposed in his marvelous book, 'The Greening of America'.   The first step, as Reich notes, is hurling off the yoke of false consciousness - that infection of mind which leads us to only see reality through the lens of the System. Hence, leading us to accept such travesties as an economically rigged economy, a rigged banking system and a hopelessly defunct healthcare dinosaur.

Thus,  Sanders is correct when he avers that any real change must be stoked by the people - this after they doff the false conscious cocoons.  THEY must incite their reps to act on their behalf and do the right thing to make the system work for them and not against them. In this sense, it is true that Sanders (as he himself admits) is "no magician".  At the top of the list we have to override the mainstream media in its lies about Sanders' proposals - making them appear as if they're mere flights of fancy - say like constructing a gigantic space ship to go to Proxima Centauri.

Lastly, even as Obama was reciting his pabulum about uniting red and blue America" (which will NEVER happen!)  Marcus was bloviating how Sanders's depictions were too "dark" in terms of the business model of Wall Street being a fraud, the economy being rigged, and the billionaire class purchasing a "choke hold" on Washington. Hmmm.....methinks I need to send her a copy of my book, 'The Elements of the Corporatocracy'.

Anyway, even as she and Obama were blabbering their Neolib nonsense, the news from the February 12 Wall Street Journal was headlined: "A Warning Signal Flashes' (p. C4), the article noting how the market for credit default swaps - the same buggers that nearly crashed our financial system in '08 - are now on the rise again.  According to the Journal (ibid.):

"At the end of June the global CDS market was $14.6 trillion as measured by the total amount of default protection outstanding according to the Bank for International Settlements"

This is serious but confronting growing CDS toxic crap and also avoiding another massive bank bailout, depends on level-headed realists who see our craven, rigged system for what it is. Not on Neolib cheerleaders who value their legacies more than the truth! So Marcus can yap all she wants that we ought to follow Obama in his Kumbaya -unity themes and not Sanders "by manning the barricades". But if this CDS racket is on track to explode again, I believe we need the latter, and Bernie need make no apologies for his anti-establishment positions - nor should those of us who support him.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/65987/bernie-s-political-revolution-is-actually-happening-although-the-corporate-media-won-t-tell-you-that

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/donna-smith/65989/its-the-political-and-economic-establishment-stupid

Excerpt:

"Here's the list of issues I heard Bernie Sanders address at the Denver Convention Center on Saturday night: crumbling infrastructure, climate change, youth unemployment, mass incarceration, Medicare for all healthcare, campaign finance reform, tuition-free public education grades K-16, Social Security, poverty, income inequality, income equity, a woman's right to control her own body, and more. Was there one single thread running through his firebrand speech? Of course. And that single thread is the tie that binds people to Bernie's campaign."

Rhetoric and Radicalization - Controlling the Terror Meme

Even as many (especially Reeps) have already rushed to judgment on the origin of the San Bernardino mass shooting, former CIA security specialist Michael Morrell - as well as columnist David Ignatius - have warned about getting ahead of the story. Morrell on CBS Early Show observed, while admitting the couple may have been "radicalized":

"They may not have been planning this particular event. They may have gone to this party, got angry and decided to do this event based on that anger rather than a series of plots they were actually planning"

Which would explain the huge store of weapons left in their home, including 4500 bullets and 12 pipe bombs.  It also discloses the case may not as be as simple as labeling it "Islamic terrorism' when a workplace anger issue could have been the proximate trigger. Indeed, one of the victims - a 52 year old health inspector - Nicholas Thalasinos was one of the victims and a "Messianic Jew" who also "wasn't afraid to give his political and religious opinions" according to reports on MSNBC yesterday afternoon. One can then easily imagine him getting into a ferocious argument with Syed Farooq leading to him rushing out in a fit of anger then returning with a hell-bent Pakistani wife (who indeed may have radicalized him as some co-workers believe). The argument scenario is backed up by this report from The Times of Israel:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-victim-of-california-attack-had-argued-with-shooter-about-islam/

The piece notes "a heated argument weeks before the attack" but it may well have been revived at the party before Farooq "lost it" and decided to respond with violence. This also may be a lesson for us all, when we gather with family at Christmas to leave out politics and religion as topics for discussion! Because it turns out close family members are the prime murderers though you wouldn't know it from the media reports.

Morrell added one of the most salient points of all and Reepos ought to take note:

"Although they may have been (radicalized) terrorists, this may not have been a terrorist event. It depends on their motivation."

Morrell isn't being cute but simply separating proximate from distal causes. If in fact Farooq was enraged by what Nicholas Thalasinos said weeks earlier or at the party, say that he also "needed to be saved"  - then the motive wasn't explicitly a terrorist one, to sow fear in a community. It was to get even with Thalasinos and any perceived as backing his views.

As for David Ignatius, he warned on 'Morning Joe' that it is unwise to jump to conclusions (as the Reeps have done) just based on the names of this pair, and also added that Obama is wise not to move too far ahead of the actual facts.

What worries many of us, as Charlie Pierce framed it on Chris Hayes last night, is how hateful rhetoric may stir the pot even more - leading to brutal attacks on peaceful Muslims just trying to live their lives - and who condemn this recent attack as vigorously as any white Anglo.  This take recognizes how hateful rhetoric can prey on weak minds and lead to tragedies such as we've seen lately,

While the GOP candidates' histrionics is now forming a convenient political prop for exploitation, they forget that the actual nature of the shooters is not so critical as their access to mass destruction weapons and the rhetoric that triggered their radicalization. This is where "the bear sits with the buckwheat".  Whether lone wolf killers infected by right wing memes (Robert Lewis Dear), or garden variety lone nuts (Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Adam Lanza), or right wing terrorists (Dylan Roof, Tim McVeigh)   or Muslim terrorists (Nidal Hasan) - none could have wrought the slaughter they did without: a) access to lethal weapons, and b) having brains triggered by hateful rhetoric.

In the case of (a) irrespective of who or what group, none of the mass slaughters and mass shootings would have transpired if this nation had serious gun laws such as Australia's. (See the end of yesterday's post for details). Nattering gun lobby nabobs always insist "guns don't kill people, people kill people" but that trope got demolished when the first doggie that accidentally plopped on a loaded shotgun (resting on a couch) killed its human owner.  One exception disproves the rule, or the trope.

The unholy truth is that most shootings are  NOT ideological or random but rather domestic (in people's homes) - either suicides or one spouse (usually male) killing the other after a fiery argument.   Assaying all mass shootings between 2009 and 2015, the Huffington Post found that 70 percent occurred in the home. Of these, 57 percent involved a family member or current or former intimate partner. 81 percent of the victims were women and children. These killings were not done by 'crazies' but usually normal people who simply lost it in the midst of a heated argument and reached for the weapon nearest and dearest - a gun.

The true fact here is that over the past several decades, the U.S., which once scrutinized the use and ownership of guns, has now been gutted by the crazies and their lobbies, mainly the NRA. Meanwhile, craven politicos genuflect to them at every turn and even yesterday the Repukes didn't even have the balls to vote for a sane law to close the terrorist watch list loophole (allowing those on the terrorist watch list to buy guns).

In respect of the hateful rhetoric issue (b), no, it doesn't have to be ISIS that creates the rhetoric to turn people into murderous zombies. In the case of Robert Lewis Dear, even in the wake of his butchery at the Planned Parenthood clinic here in the Springs, politicos were making excuses and blaming the target. The Denver Post in its Dec. 2nd Editorial ('Disgraceful Talk After The Shootings'), noted the vile words from Rep. JoAnn Windholz (R-Commerce City)   even as the victims' bodies were laid to rest:

"Violence is never the answer but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves"

Which is nearly as disgusting as Hitler blaming the Jews for being gassed in his Auschwitz death chambers because they should have been sensible enough "to leave when they could".  (cf. 'The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler', Robert Payne) . As the Post put it, the words:

"are almost chilling in their implicit acceptance"

Not only that, but many of us understand those  words as a cue for other weak minds, or frustrated, angry ones - to take violent action.

On the same page, an article ('The Moral Blame for Violence in Colorado Springs')  by the WaPo's Ruth Marcus makes this very point and ties the despicable rhetoric of the Right and Repubs in the months leading up to Dear's violent act. As she writes:

"If initial reports of alleged gunman's Robert Lewis Dear's comments about 'no baby parts' prove true - and logic suggests it was no coincidence, the Republican politicians who fueled the overwrought and unsupported controversy over selling baby parts bear some measure of responsibility"

Indeed, and as reported on the front page of the same edition, Colorado Dem Diana DeGette - on the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives- reported that in the course of the hearings eight Republican member used the phrase "baby parts" no less than 33 times. Did they not realize what they were seeding with their rhetoric? I have to believe they knew as much as ISIS does when it seeds the social media landscape with its own PR, hateful rhetoric and propaganda.

The ultimate source of the anti-PP rhetoric is encapsulated again by Marcus:

"The current effort to demonize Planned Parenthood....is a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotapes and overheated accusations. The organization has been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and manipulated by lawmakers and politicians that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them."

This again, re--introduces the issue of the limits of "free speech" and whether it can be prosecuted when it veers into hate speech or terrorist instigation. If we can prosecute ISIS renegades for spreading ISIS crap (like making homemade bombs) then surely we can go after right wingers for sowing mental bombs in the febrile minds of too many of our fellow citizens..

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/65051/what-rough-beast-slaughter-is-the-standard-in-the-us

WaPo Neocons Despise the Pulitzer Prize and Snowden's Role - Can You Believe It?

Ordinarily in the realm of human affairs and especially journalistic achievement, a media source or newspaper would have all its denizens aboard giving resounding accolades for its win. Such was supposed to be the case earlier this week as the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was awarded to the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper for disclosing the NSA transgressions of the Fourth Amendment.  Alas, not all the little scribes of the WaPo are on board with the award. Some have rebelled and even "staged their own demonstrations" against the award, if you can believe it.

One such malcontent is Post columnist Marc Thiessen who on Wednesday, pitched a hissy fit about the Post getting the award and Snowden being responsible. Thiessen, who writes a weekly online column for The Post, hosted an event at the American Enterprise Institute devoted in large part to denouncing the Guardian, The Post and the Pulitzer committee for their actions.

All you need to know here is that Thiessen is also an AEI "fellow". And we know AEI is a rat's nest for neocons as well as for liars about climate change. Recall that AEI sponsored a propaganda program a few years back whereby any "researchers" would be awarded $10,000 each for writing anti-climate change articles and getting them into major newspapers. I counted at least 12 who got success in this dubious outcome, once more causing delays for action. 

Anyway, in terms of the recent Pulitzers, this little rat Thiessen said journalists at The Post — “my newspaper,” as he put it — "should not have published the articles and had done something incredibly damaging to national security."

Thiessen had previously written that The Post’s actions "broke the law"  (if you regard the existing law that legalized the Bushie illegal wiretaps as a proper law), . Meanwhile, Thiessen’s guest, British member of Parliament Liam Fox, went further.

“What sort of world do we live in where that gets a Pulitzer Prize for public service?”

he asked the AEI audience.

“An award for public service for possibly the greatest betrayal of our national secrets of all time strikes me as quite bizarre. . . . I do think that there is a real danger of a very cozy media world patting itself on the back without fully understanding the consequences.”

Of course this is irredeemable rubbish. The so-called "national secrets" were in fact illegal mass searches that violated the much more fundamental law of the land embodied in the U.S. Constitution. The heart of which is putatively the 4th amendment with its proscription on the use of mass warrants and mass searches without cause. That this Brit doesn't get that is perhaps understandable, as he's not an American, but then the AEI ought not have had him bloviate about national secrets and bogus laws. But then Fox himself doesn't seem to be able to tell dog shit from chocolate.  Fox didn’t seem to know much about the Snowden dispute on this side of the Atlantic — at one point he actually  confused The Washington Post and the New York Times — and, in any event, he was much more aggrieved by what Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian had done than anything else. Clearly, the dope probably never even read the words of the Fourth Amendment - so why should he give two shits about preserving its basis?


The two miscreants then kicked around the idea that journalists "might be to blame" for future terrorist attacks. Thiessen actually asked:

“If there is another 9/11, another London subway bombing, how is this debate going to look in retrospect?”

His nincompoop Brit pal  Fox then babbled:

“The next time you get a bomb going off in the subway or a marathon, when someone’ s child is abducted by a pedophile ring, you might want to thank those who made it easier for those people to do those things.”

Oh please! Put a freakin' sock in it! The sober realist could retort here that we have tens of thousands of deaths by gun each year and basically snooze about it, and maybe we prevented 50 deaths from terrorists - if that- and yet we go batshit crazy and extirpate all our 4th amendment rights on the possibility of an attack that may take barely a tenth of the lives?

These wimps - Fox and Thiessen - need to get a life, and a pair of balls! If we can tolerate thousands of gun deaths each year and do squatto about it, I say we can tolerate huge risks to preserve our precious liberties. Journalist Robert Scheer in a blog last summer (‘The Terror Con’) has referred to “threat inflation” by which the security state keeps weak-kneed "citizens" panting for more protection like screaming school girls petrified of spiders. They will dangle any kind of threat out to try to scare the bejeezus out of wimpy Americans, the better to make them give up their 4th amendment rights.

Scheer also referenced a June 11, 2013 column by Thomas Friedman  with similar fear overtones to the shtick of Fox and Thiessen. Friedman warned that if there was a second 9/11-type attack, "we would lose all of our civil liberties, so we should be grateful for this trade-off".

WHY lose our civil liberties? Because a bunch of zealots take out maybe thousands of lives? Fucking LESS than lost each year to gun violence! Shit, we who lived through the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis – minutes from nuclear annihilation - find this preposterous! That a nation priding itself on freedom could give up all rights like a bunch of screaming sissies just because of a limited attack! NY Times columnist Bill Keller also seemed to support the “Screaming sissy” hypothesis as when he writes:

“Tom’s important point was that the gravest threat to our civil liberties is not the NSA but another 9/11-scale catastrophe that could leave a panicky public willing to ratchet up the security state, even beyond the war-on-terror excesses that followed the last big attack.”

A panicky public? How about a bunch of pusillanimous pussies that don’t deserve freedom? A bunch that really wants their asses kicked to wake them from their scarified terrorist-bogeyman coma....which has repercussions on the rest of us (real citizens - not consumers) who value liberty over security! But maybe Fox and Thiessen - like Keller and Friedman - are on to something as when Friedman wrote on June 11:

“I believe that if there is one more 9/11—or worse, an attack involving nuclear material—it could lead to the end of the open society as we know it,”

Yeah, so the deep politics citizen must ask: What isn’t he saying?  Maybe that he knows COG (continuity of government)  will come into play and under its mandates, martial law will be permanent and we’ ll inhabit a full Nazified police state. How quickly that freedom went! Barely lasting 230- odd years!

As Scheer puts it:

“No nation in history has ever possessed such an imbalance of military superiority and the ability to ward off foreign threats without sacrificing its core values. Never has this country been as vulnerable to foreign attacks as when the founders approved our Constitution with its Fourth Amendment and other protections of individual sovereignty against an intrusive government. They did so out of the conviction that individual freedom makes us stronger rather than weaker as a nation. In short, they trusted in the essential wisdom of the people as opposed to the pundits who deride it.”


But evidently, as soon as too many citizens became mostly consumers they devolved into crying infants and fucking babies who needed the Pappy Spy State’s protections.

"WAAAAHHHHH! Please Gen. Alexander, hold me widdo hands! I don't wanna die from dem dere  t'errists!"

More important to get that new X-box, Ipad or Notebook than to tend to one’s liberties, after all. Gotta make the country safe for shopping! In this case it may be too late, and the nonchalance evident now amongst the 48 percent will mutate into memory loss of the seventy percent in another few months, evoking Bradley Manning’s and Edward Snowden’s greatest fears: that their leaks won’t have made a difference at all.

Fortunately for us, most other sensible WaPo columnists believe Thiessen is an asshole, which he is. But then anyone ensconced at a place like the American Enterprise Institute has to be at least part asshole.

Then there is Thiessen's female counterpart, a harridan and Neolib tool and fool named Ruth Marcus who I've raked over the coals before, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/12/of-tweets-and-twaddle.html

 Evidently, she's none too pleased about the attention Snowden has received, and had to spout off in one of her columns about it, writing:

" Time has not deflated Edward Snowden’s messianic sense of self-importance. Nor has living in an actual police state given the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower any greater appreciation of the actual freedoms that Americans enjoy.

Insufferable is the first adjective evoked by Snowden’s recent interview with Barton Gellman in The Post, but it has numerous cousins: smug, self-righteous, egotistical, disingenuous, megalomaniacal, overwrought.

The Snowden of Gellman’s interview is seized with infuriating certitude about the righteousness of his cause. Not for Snowden any anxiety about the implications for national security of his theft of government secrets, any regrets about his violations of a duty of secrecy."

Why should he have regrets?  And how in hell can this overpaid harpy dare say Snowden lacks " any greater appreciation of the actual freedoms that Americans enjoy" ? Obviously, if he leaked files on how American freedoms were being undermined, violated and devalued he had more than ample appreciation!  The other fact to which Miss Marcus is oblivious is that the U.S. was a signatory and primary defender of the Nuremberg Principles (first laid out after the Nuremberg War Crimes trials). The U.S. insisted (given all the Nazis in the dock had "followed orders")  that violating a government order was mandated by Nuremberg Principle VI that clearly states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to orders of his government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

Note this Principle’s injunction is exactly analogous to what Edward Snowden followed. He had allegedly binding orders and “oaths” by which the government found it expedient to limit his actions, but he saw (as the U.S. military leaders did at Nuremberg) that the option of a higher moral choice dictated he inform the American people – whose liberties were at stake and threatened – of what was being done in their name. As Robert Scheer noted in his June 25, 2013 blog: ‘The Good Germans in Government’):

Read the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and tell me that Edward Snowden is not a hero in the mold of those who founded this republic. Check out the Nuremberg war crime trials and ponder our current contempt for the importance of individual conscience as a civic obligation.

Marcus, the NSA toady, is also oblivious to the fact that Snowden didn't "steal government secrets" but rather exposed Government misdeeds and violations of the 4th amendment. But then, such a narrow-minded little toady wouldn't see that anyway - hence she is the classic "Good German". In the Nazi era she'd have easily been one of the millions who reported on those fellow citizens hiding Jews  and she'd have been the first in line to volunteer on providing the Gestapo any information on her neighbors. Oh, she'd also have been amongst the first to declare she knew nothing about any concentration camps.

She'd also have been among the first to be led by the neck to the scene of the camps, by a U.S. military escort - to have her nose rubbed in it, lest she miss it. 

But Marcus isn't content to provide us with clues that she's the ultimate "Good German" in American guise, she sets out to prove it by writing:


" The whistleblower personality is rarely an attractive one. Whistleblowers tend to be the difficult ones, the sort who tend to feel freer to speak out precisely because they don’t fit in. So perhaps it is not a surprise that the biggest whistleblower of all time has an unpleasant personality to match. And personality would not matter — at least it would not be so grating — if Snowden’s behavior were more upstanding and his actions more justified.

On behavior, if Snowden is such a believer in the Constitution, why didn’t he stick around to test the system the Constitution created and deal with the consequences of his actions? "

Of course, we know and have learned from history - especially the German experience-  that whistle blowers are indeed a special type. But this is understandable to those of us who have personalities that "don't fit in" - because we are enabled the opportunity to perceive things from without, by altering our perspective, which our compatriots seem unable to do. Because we can do this, we are more apt to detect things that are amiss and hence feel obliged to report them. But that doesn't mean Snowden has an "unpleasant personality" as Marcus portrays it, only that she - as a toady 'Good German' type, can't abide it. Can't abide his forthright moral honesty and adherence to higher principles, which she is so prepared to sacrifice (as a paid propagandist) at the drop of a hat.

As for her ridiculous question about Snowden not sticking around to "test the Constitution" - well obviously because given what he unearthed he knew the Constitution had been perverted by a gangster state - prepared to undermine basic principles to achieve its own lawless outcomes.  Hence, he wouldn't be able to properly defend himself or his principles. (At least until the Constitutional principles are restored - which was the purpose of his leaks.)

He would be in an analogous position to a whistle blower German -exposing the Nazi riff raff- brought before the Reich Courts - which also had twisted the (Weimar) laws to fit their agendas.  But recall that in the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, it was those Reich Courts and Reich laws, that were on trial as well.

What we learn from the likes of Ruth Marcus and Marc Thiessen is that the archetype of the Good German lives on in the modern U.S. of A. These people will easily don the garb of patriotism, just like the Nazis of old did, but we know it's all a sham designed to advance their own despicable agendas. After all, patriotism is the "last refuge of scoundrels" in the words of Doctor Samuel  Johnson.

 

High Fives All Around As Coloradans Get High - Legally!

A new buyer at a retail store delivers high fives to all and sundry.

A huge influx of Coloradans lined up to buy legal pot on January 1st, the first day that the state's Amendment 64 (passed in 2012 with overwhelming voter support) allowed retail sales of up to 1 ounce to all Colorado citizens, age 21 or older.  Buyers had to produce an official Colorado ID and al the time there were enforcement observers ensuring that things ran according to expectations.

Contrary to the hysteria fed by anti-MJ zealots there were no riots, nor did pot-crazed maniacs take to the streets and begin trashing homes and autos, or hijacking innocent virgins to take to their pot dens. It was all very quiet and the only thing remarkable was the long lines, oh, and the worry by some retail stores that they might run out of product (enticing some to increase the price.)

Make no mistake, the problem of supply is real. Denver's 3D Cannabis Center owner Terri Fox recently told the press that she originally thought she had enough MJ to last through next month when she opened her store for recreational  pot sales. But at the rate the sales took place she will now have to close two days to re-evaluate supply. Incredibly, she served 450 customers and had to turn 60 away on account of diminishing product.  Still, Ms. Fox said the occasion was momentous and wished more stores could have opened in Colo. to relieve some of the load on  Denver area stores. (Colorado Springs is among hundreds of communities that were too intimidated by regulatory details and the "hassles" they might see, to permit any retail sales.)

Also, incredibly (or perhaps not if one thinks about it) many of the customers are first timers - who've never tried pot before - but have expressed a "curiosity" about its effects and at least trying it once "for this historic occasion". One young woman quoted in The Sunday Denver Post proclaimed that after her first toke she felt "relaxed" and then "wanted to laugh". (Another reason enforcement officers tell people to just go home after they purchase).

Meanwhile, Wyoming state police - aware of the steady traffic into Colorado to buy pot, have warned "Don't bring your Colorado-purchased marijuana into Wyoming."  Indeed, the new state MJ regulatory laws prohibit taking MJ across state lines - so any "tourists" are obliged to use it in Colorado. This is also one of the things the feds will be watching, to determine if they will swoop down with massive future  MJ raids or not.

A good guess is perhaps 1 in 5 of the new customers are "curiosity seekers" - though they've been warned by some that "curiosity killed the cat". And also there are media mavens out and about who have made clear their distaste for the new Colorado law, or legalization in any other states..

Both Ruth Marcus of the WaPo and David Brooks of the NY Times, have come out swinging, Marcus because of the risk of increased negative behavior associated with pot and Brooks because pot represents a lower grade degree of happiness - and we ought to all be aspiring to a higher grade. Well, true, yes if you have the money! As a one-percenter Brooks can afford to lecture the hoi polloi on enhancing their moral habits and aiming for "higher happiness", while continuing to defend Neoliberal market policies that keep people depressed, miserable and searching for relief.

Meanwhile, the WaPo's uber-blogger Matt Yglesias has skewered the complaints that MJ will be a "devil weed" and turn people -users into monsters. As he puts it:

"The main way smoking pot is likely to have a negative impact on nonsmokers is through driving under the influence, but booze has that exact same problem. Then on the flip side pot simply isn't associated with violent misconduct in the way that drunkenness is.

Consequently, a world in which commercially legal marijuana leads to a lot more pot smoking is potentially a much safer and healthier world if that extra pot smoking displaces a lot of boozing,"

Yglesias goes on to note the other primary worry is whether dual use of pot and alcohol could feed off each other, to create one grand horrific effect. But the evidence so far in sociographic studies is that pot and alcohol users are largely mutually exclusive demographics. Those who use pot tend to disdain alcohol and vice versa. Having used alcohol  - to the point of excess in college- I can see why pot users might avoid it. You can reach the level of some very high contentment but as is often the case, the price paid is getting violently ill. That's why I now only imbibe alcohol in moderation - maybe a beer while watching a football game, or a glass of wine with Christmas dinner - and that's it.

There is also the problem of how to prevent the black market in pot from overtaking the legal market, as The New York Times editorial observed yesterday.  Terri Fox, for example, has invoked locating wholesalers to solve the supply problem. But where will the wholesalers get their product? It seems to me the only practical solution to address supply is large scale MJ farms - like the farms that produce soybeans, corn and so forth.

Let's make no mistake here: the MJ supply problem for legal recreational retailers is inextricably tied to the problem of subduing the black marketers. If the latter can (illegally) reap more supply and thereby sell their illegal wares at lower cost than the legal retailers, then there is no way to quash the illegal black market in pot, as The Times noted.

Meanwhile, legal retail stores are having to up their prices because of inadequate supply. It's clear to me that the state has a vested interest in solving the legal supply problem asap.