Forget about the Black Death or Typhoid Mary. The most dangerous carrier of infection in the land today is Toxic Trump, a walking, politically radioactive isotope who destroys the immune systems of anyone unfortunate enough to enter his orbit.
Trump has done the poorest job of hiring folks to fill key administration jobs of any President in history, and his toxicity may make him fall further behind in this effort, as it seems to be shortening the shelf lives of the few minions who are in place.
Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was the first of Trump’s victims. According to his attorney, Flynn is excited to share “the story he has to tell.” (That’s shorthand for trying to shed his illness in favor of immunity by selling out his former colleagues.)
Vice President Pence has just hired a personal attorney and is already busy raising PAC donations to pay for his anticipated legal bills after being caught up in, or being an active participant in, “the Russian problem.”
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and campaign advisors Carter Page, Roger Stone, Rich Gates and J.D. Gordon have all fallen victim to the grim malady “Putin’s Revenge” and are reportedly receiving emergency medical treatment at an undisclosed facility within the FBI.
Recent lab-test results for longtime Trump attorney and White House advisor Michael Cohen were so disturbing that the lawyer has hired his OWN lawyer.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Education Secretary Betsy Devos’ brother Erik Prince are showing symptoms, too. They are both reportedly under investigation due to meetings they had with Russians after the November election about establishing back-channel communications with Putin.
Given their daily interactions with a highly infectious supervisor, every member of Trump's White House staff has been ordered to submit urine and blood samples three times each day to the special prosecutor.
There may be a silver lining to Trump’s killing powers, as his victims include the leadership of the government agencies most likely to cause Trump legal problems—the Department of Justice, the heads of the intelligence agencies, and the Congressional committees.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russian probe after his annual physical revealed that his close contact with Trump and the Russians had led him to be infected. Now it looks as if Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will also have to check into the Recusal Ward. Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats were all so stricken due to their constant contact with Trump that they were rendered mute when they tried to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. CIA Director Mike Pompeo has been asked to turn over details of his conversations with Trump about the Russian investigation to Bob Meuller’s medical team. And House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has been hospitalized after a psychotic episode resulting from repeated interactions with Trump.
What about the risk to Trump himself?
Trump and Typhoid Mary are examples of what the medical profession calls “asymptomatic carriers.” Such infected people have the power to sicken and possibly kill others, but are not themselves at risk of contracting the disease that they carry.
We don’t yet know what Trump’s fate will be, but we know what happened to Typhoid Mary. Mary Fallon, a restaurant worker who caused the deaths of between three and fifty people during the early 1900s, adamantly refused to believe she was a carrier of disease. She died alone, in quarantine.
A strange sort of vindication
Former FBI director Comey testifies under oath that Trump directed him to kill the FBI's Flynn investigation (obstruction of justice), that Trump told him that his job depended on his loyalty to Trump, that Trump fired him because of the Russian investigation (obstruction of justice) and then lied about it and defamed the FBI in the process, that Trump lied when he stated that it was Comey who initiated their dinner meeting, and that he took copious contemporary notes of his meetings with Trump because he thought that there was a chance that Trump would later lie about them.
Trump (through his lawyer): "I feel completely vindicated."
Calling Dr. Death
At this point--and things have been changing literally hour by hour for more than a week--it looks as if the Republican Party and Donald Trump and much of the media will be crowing later today about a remarkable, last-minute, "victory" on health care brought about by Trump's personal lobbying efforts.
This bill is probably the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress. It's not a health-care bill. This bill will take health insurance away from more than 20 million Americans who have insurance today in favor of tax cuts for the rich. Thousands of Americans who would have survived under Obamacare will die each year if this bill is passed. Thousands of Americans will again go bankrupt each year because of medical expenses if this bill is passed. The bill includes an exemption for members of Congress so that they can continue to enjoy better health care than the people they represent. The bill guts Medicaid. This bill does NOT protect people with pre-existing conditions. It would separate those people from the general insurance population and will allow insurance companies to deny those them insurance by making it prohibitively expensive. This bill denies affordable health care to lower income women by defunding Planned Parenthood. The Wall Street Journal revealed just this morning that the bill allow employers to not provide their employees with affordable, comprehensive health insurance--a catastrophic step back to the dark ages that ensures that this bill will have the potential to hurt ALL Americans.
How did the Republicans create such a monstrosity?
Despite seven years of opposition and more than 65 votes to repeal it, the Republcans had no health care bill ready when Trump was inaugurated.
No Republican has read this bill. There has been no draft of the bill to read.
This bill has been rushed through the House in less than a week.
There gave been no hearings on this bill. No input was allowed from the American people, Democrats, or health-care professionals.
No Republican knows what will happen if this bill is passed. They are voting on this bill before the Congressional Budget Office publishes an analysis of its impact.
This bill is a Frankensteinian construct designed by less than a dozen Americans: a handfull Republican representatives, Trump, Pence, and Paul Ryan.
The only criteria for the design of this bill was to get 216 Republican votes. The only reason the Republicans want to kill the ACA is because it has Obama's name on it. They know that they are lying when they say that Obamacare is collapsing, and they refuse to even consider fixing its shortcomings.
It's true that there is no chance that the Senate will pass a bill that resembles this one, but we should all be deeply fearful for our nation that such an immoral, corrupt travesty has passed the House. There can be no quarter with the Republicans. They care nothing about the American people or about governing. They are determined to take their crackpot economic theories--which have recently destroyed the economirs of Kansas and Louisiana--and implement them nationwide.
The only possible positive from today's national tragedy is that 216 or more Republicans will be on record as voting for a supremely cruel and un-American piece of legislation. The American people must prove this hellish tribe to be not winners but a group of political suicide bombers who have just detonated their vests today and thereby doomed the GOP to lose their House majority in 2018. If we don't use this treacherous bill against the GOP to transform the makeup of the House, this country may be damaged beyond recovery by 2020.
I would also hope that today's horror show in Congress will cause progressives and leftists who feel passionately that there is literally NO difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to soberly revisit that position, which is clearly and unambiguously refuted by today's vote. As lame, frustrating, and even corrupt as the Democrats can be, there is no way that group would ever submit, much less approve, such a vicious bill. The reality is that a vote for the lesser of two evils, as Dan Savage has pointed out, is LESS EVIL. If after today you still do not accept that sitting out an election because your own chosen candidate was not triumphant can wreak needless devastation and, literally, death on your fellow citizens, you need to own the fact that by doing so you are relinquishing your right to complain about--and fight--its real-world impact. This shameful day needs to be a juncture where we all look deep into our own hearts and respond to the impure complexity of reality by fighting for our fellow Americans and against the horror and profound cruelty of Trumpism and not with each other.
Trump and Ryan at the bat
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Health Care Act that day;
Without the Freedom Caucus, the bill could not be saved.
The moderates were terrified by the COB’s grim score,
And the Democrats just sat there—they’d seen this all before.
The old and poor will have insurance, but at half their salary;
The rich will get a tax surprise beneath their Christmas tree.
This is the ultimate health care defined by Ayn Rand—
Make it rich or prepare to join the heavenly angel band.
But Ryan couldn’t hide the fact that premiums would rise,
And if you read the fine print you could not be surprised
That millions upon millions would lose the coverage they had,
Thanks to that damn Obama. Even gone he made them mad.
The pundits got their knives out and called the bill a joke.
Kasich and the governors said their red states would go broke.
But Republicans inhabit an imaginary realm,
And they were sure they would prevail with Trump and Ryan at the helm.
At first the lanky Speaker in a firm voice did intone
That no amendments would there be—the bill was set in stone.
But after Mrs. DeVos helped him with the math
He found he held a losing hand—to 215 there was no path.
Then from the mouths of Reagan’s party there rose a lusty yell
That rumbled through the Capitol like a war cry straight from hell.
McDonnell almost fainted and in delight Pete King did squeal
For Donald, mighty Donald, was stepping up to seal the deal.
He brought them to the Oval Office and twisted every arm;
He blew such smoke his handlers dismantled the alarms.
If they couldn’t bring themselves to like it they got his ironclad guarantee
That all would be made perfect in Phase Two if not Phase Three.
There was ease in Donald’s manner, he had no doubt he would astound
He knew not what was in the bill, but he would bring them ‘round
He would bless each change they asked for, it wasn’t like he cared
And as he caved and caved again, the pilgrims marveled at his hair.
The Freedom Caucus fumed against the socialistic stuff—
Maternity care and Medicaid—they called the Donald’s bluff.
“We will only cast our votes for right-wing thoughts purebred.”
“But what about the Senate?” Ryan asked. “Strike one,” the alt-right said.
As rightwards moved the legislation, the moderates complained.
“My district went for Clinton—why must I bear all the pain?
Who will pay for my robo calls and bury all the dead?”
“Grow a pair,” said Donald. “Strike two,” the moderates said.
The smile is gone from Ryan’s face, for there is no Plan B;
This Wednesday midnight meeting will bring his charges to their knees.
The Donald is beside him as they make their final pitches;
Winning is for men like them and losing is for bitches.
Oh, all across this favored land the many millions can exhale—
The Republican death panels at least for now will not prevail.
Let the word go forth to all of deadly TrumpCare’s rout
For there is no joy in Mar-a-Lago—Trump and Ryan have struck out.
TrumpCare
After seven years of brave, full-throated opposition to the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans have unveiled their vision for health care in America. TrumpCare is a brilliant bill that offers bold solutions to the biggest health-care issues we face as a nation.
First: Too many Americans have health insurance. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, has made it clear that “insurance is not the end goal” of the Republicans’ health-insurance legislation. TrumpCare will ensure that 11 million Americans covered under Medicaid will lose their health insurance within the first two years. Longer term, the prospect of taking health insurance away from Americans is even brighter. TrumpCare’s funding provisions won’t work, so it’s entirely possible that all Americans currently covered by the ACA will lose their insurance when the TrumpCare goes into a predictable death spiral.
Second: The richest Americans, the neediest and most neglected sector of society, will finally get critical relief as their premiums are reduced dramatically.
Third: Elderly Americans on fixed incomes, who are killing this country with their outrageous demands for special treatment, will finally be appropriately punished with higher premiums.
Fourth: Women, that bewildering segment of society that insists beyond all reason that they have access to birth control, maternity care, pediatric dental and vision care, will be brought back to the real world. Insurance companies will no longer be required to cover such incidentals and “nice to haves.”
Fifth: Health-care-company CEOs will no longer have their freedom infringed upon by un-American salary caps. The GOP bill ensures that these brilliant business leaders will finally be allowed, just like other American CEOs, to grant themselves enormous salaries that in no way reflect their performance.
Sixth: Health-care fraud committed by lottery winners. Six pages in the bill are devoted to ensuring that lottery winners are not provided with health insurance. Finally!
Our new President is really stepping up to the plate and asserting his innovative, clear-eyed vision for the health-care crisis. Just yesterday he told Congressional Republicans that he didn’t care which health-care bill they passed as long as they passed SOMETHING.
And the GOP Congressional leadership has achieved what many thought was impossible—the crafting of a TrumpCare bill that has been universally condemned by all stakeholders (conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans, Tea-Party Republicans, all Democrats, health-care companies, the American Hospital Association, AARP, the American Medical Association, health-care experts, the Koch brothers, the real media (Breitbart), and the lamestream media (all news outlets except for Breitbart). You know you have a good bill when everyone is against it. The Republicans really ARE bringing the country together.
All the naysayers who contend that the anti-government Republican Party is no good at governing and that Donald Trump was completely bullshitting the country about his health-care vision have been totally silenced, probably forever, by this week’s jaw-dropping TrumpCare blitzkreig .
Now that the pesky health-care problem has been solved, it’s on to new challenges: reforming the tax code, giving the Russians and the banks whatever they want, taking immigrant children away from their mothers, making America less safe by taking TSA and Coast Guard funds to build a Mexican border wall, getting Trump trademarks for escort services approved in China, blaming everything on Obama, dismantling public education, and launching new wars with North Korea and the scientific community.
Two Crowds
I attended both the Inauguration and the Women's March in D.C. this weekend. As I posted on Inauguration Day, the crowds were surprisingly small. I've read estimates if 250,000, and although I had a limited perspective and am no expert, that feels about right to me. Spicer is correct that it took quite a while to get through security. When I left, right after Trump's motorcade went by, there were still a few hundred people waiting to get in. But the idea that hundreds of thousands of people tried to get in but couldn't is complete fantasy. This photo is one I took while I was standing at Pennsylvania Avenue and 8th Street NW and listening to Trump's Inaugural address as it was being broadcast over loudspeakers minutes after noon. The Inaugural parade went from the Capitol to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, so this photo was taken right on the parade 3/4 of a mile west of the Capitol, at about the halfway point of the parade. There were access points to both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. I was on the north side. As you can see very clearly in this photo, there were almost no people on the south side of Pennsylvania, and the viewing grandstands were empty. (There weren't many folks on my side if the street, either.) The Women's March, by contrast, filled the entire mall and all the avenues and side streets in the Federal District. EASILY four or five times the crowd at the Inaugural. Any statement that the Inauguration was the biggest in history or exceeded the size of the Women's March is an utter, and purposeful, lie.
The Women's March
It WAS a women's march. Many men and children made the journey, but this was an event organized by women, it was the response of women to the sexual predator who now lives in the White House, and the collective voice of this phenomenal outpouring was decidedly female. I marched for my mother, who is too old to march but who is still standing up for the sisterhood.
I'm staying at a motel in Falls Church, Virginia. I tried the motel shuttle to the subway, but it was full of women heading out. I called cab. It was 8:30 in the morning. Several hundred people were already massed in front of the station. I finally clawed my way into a packed car full of pussy hats. We spent the first three hours in a claustrophobic mob in the Mall. The sheer size of the crowd caused the plans for the event to be thrown out before the march even began. There was no visible organization and no instructions. After 1 pm people just started moving out. I ended up marching up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, but the entire Federal District was completely filled by protesters. The march was almost impossible to process visually. The crowd stretched on forever, in every direction, filling every boulevard and side street, for hour after hour. I will never forget the sights I saw today.
It was a lovely day, full of energy, good humor, helpfulness, and earnestness. Kindness was a major theme today. Our Predator-In-Chief was the primary focus, but the only real flash of group anger was when we passed the Trump International Hotel.
Three million people around the world in more than six hundred different protests marched against our new President today, on his first day in office. He responded predictably, angrily insisting that his Inauguration outdrew the protests. I was in the thick of both events, and this is a bald-faced, naked lie. The Women's March drew at least five times the crowd that showed up for the Inauguration. Today's protests were about millions of people serving notice to Donald Trump that they are acutely aware of his lies, his racism, his misogyny, his fascistic self-image, and, most off, his colossal smallness (if there is such a juxtaposition). It was a privilege to be there. It was thrilling to the bone. Everyone who marched today left with the understanding that this was the start of the resistance.
Trump's People
I spent a good bit of today in D.C. with Trump supporters and it'll take me some time to process it. I am benefitting from coming of age during the domestic civil war over Vietnam. I had a Nixon fan spit in my face in 1968, so I am not buying the notion that the nation has never been so polarized. Those were grim days. Father against son. Young versus old. Political leaders murdered and maimed. A President run out of town on a rail. But I saw better days down the line, and so while I can totally relate to the "I'm Too Old To Be Protesting This Shit" sign I saw today, I know what people can accomplish when they stand up and fight, and I know that these people, while they are as American as any of us, are NOT the majority, just as they weren't the "silent majority," as they claimed, back in the '60s.
They are certainly not the face of America--they are overwhelmingly white and fueled by male anger. Yes, many of them are the working poor who have been robbed blind for decades by corporatist Republicans and Democrats, but they don't speak for all of those folks, either. They haven't even bothered to do their homework on who it is that is engineering the flow of wealth to the robber barons of today. (They just elected one President!) This is a mean-spirited fringe that views the recent, pretty-much-standard-issue centrist Democrat President as a literal agent of Satan. This is an angry tribe with a seemingly endless capacity for blaming every challenge and setback in their lives on imaginary hordes of people of various colors who are stealing their jobs, destroying their religion, taking their guns away, usurping the man's proper place at home and at work, spending their tax dollars on booze and heroin, teaching their children to be godless communists, passing out mountains of booty to everyone in this country but them, and on and on and on. (These memes were all the rage in the Sixties, too.)
This group will be just as horribly double-crossed by Donald Trump as they were by the other politicians who promised them the moon and did nothing for them--even more so, because they believe him more. In an election year in which the entire country was desperate for change, the Democrats nominated a figure who represented the past, the FBI interfered blatantly, and, as always, most of us stayed home, the hard-core Trumpists provided the difference in putting a walking instrument of terror in the White House. They've succeeded in putting something in motion that will require a superhuman effort to roll back, but don't mistake them for the majority of Americans. And don't use their betrayal by politicians to excuse their racism, their misogyny, and their desperate thirst for an American strongman to start giving THEM the free stuff. Looking forward more than I can tell you to spending time with a different slice of the American demographic tomorrow and a much-needed reaffirmation of the true American spirit.
Day One in Trumpworld
My first day as a citizen (hopefully a very poor one) of Trumpworld began here in D.C. with "Let me in!" and ended with "Let me out!" Took me two hours to get through a security pat down and get to Pennsylvania Avenue. My first disappointment was discovering that barricades did not allow me near the Bikers For Trump rally, where they had formed a self-described Wall of Meat to protect the new President. The crowds were very small, even with the insane security hurdles. Split slightly in the protesters' favor. (At least in my section.) Listened to Trump's extremely disturbing speech (you could almost see the flying monkeys launching into the slate-grey sky from the Capitol dome) over a loudspeaker. Waited in the cold for another two hours for the parade and was finally treated to a very brief glimpse of four black SUVs abreast, inside one of which was the new President. There were two hours of parade left, but everyone regardless of persuasion streaked for the few exit points, which were quickly clogged. All in all, a grim, sobering day. Very much looking forward to joining friends at tomorrow's Women's March. Given the muted attendance today, that event has the potential to outdraw the Inaugural. Take heart, people!
Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus Acquired by Trump Circus
After 146 years in continuous operation, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus is folding its tent. The iconic “Greatest Show on Earth” is being acquired by Trump Circus, a new company owned by Eric Trump that in no way is under the control of, or operates to the benefit of, the new President.
We interviewed Ricardo R. Ringling, the 24-year-old owner of Ringling Brothers, yesterday in his spacious tent in Sarasota, Florida. Mr. Ringling was, frankly, inebriated, and our interview was constantly interrupted by sobbing and/or angry employees stumbling in and out to either say their farewells to him or to curse his name.
“I’m willing to go hoof to hoof with the animal-rights weirdos. I’m game for competing against television, movies, video games and the Internet. Whatever. Bring it on. But there’s no way any circus can compete with the new President. No fucking way. How’s a three-ring circus gonna compete with a show that’s got, like, 300 rings all going on at the same time, twenty-four seven,” groused Mr. Ringling.
“To be honest with you, these Trumps don’t want any other circus competing with them. They showed up at the tent at 3:30 in the morning two days ago and gave me one of those offers I couldn’t refuse. A buyout. Ten cents on my every dollar. But I’m gonna say no? Are you kidding me? They would slap the IRS on me in a hot minute, and believe me, one audit and I’m dead. So now everything you see here is the property of Trump Circus, as of last night.” Trump Circus is a new company owned by Eric Trump that in no way is under the control of, or operates to the benefit of, the new President.
“We’re like one big, weird family here,” Mr. Ringling continued between swigs from a large decanter. “My main concern was what happens to the animals. And the clowns. And the acrobats. The animals are all going to good homes. We got rid of the elephants already—a couple of them went rogue, but most of them got gigs with the Republican National Committee last year. Fine, I say. Let those guys clean up after ‘em, for a change. The tigers are going to Ivanka Trump’s fashion business, I guess. Not sure what’s up with that. We were hoping that the chimps would get placed at Fox News, but none of them are blondes, so I think they’re gonna become anchors at the Russian Television Network. They’ll make monkeys outta those commies, believe me. Why, Mr. Muggles can ride a bicycle! That’s more than anybody at RTN can do, I’ll bet. The clowns are getting all kinds of LinkedIn offers from the new administration. Chuckles just dropped by this morning to tell me that he’s gonna get the Secretary of State gig ‘cause Rex Tillerson isn’t going down to well in the hearings. Elastic Girl, our contortionist, got hired as the new President’s press secretary. If you think Kellyann Conway is flexibile with the truth, wait’ll you see Elastic Girl in action. She’s the most popular girl in the troupe, and for good reason! The Flying Wallendas are packing it in—retiring. Trump Circus wanted them to perform without a safety net. That’s a damn shame. Anyway, it’s not my problem any more. Trump Circus will have to figure all of that out.” Trump Circus is a new company owned by Eric Trump that is in no way under the control of, or operates to the benefit of, the new President.
We asked Mr. Ringling if he had any advice for Eric Trump.
“Not really,” he mused. “I guess I would tell him to not get confused between the circus and the real world. The circus seems like non-stop fun, and it truly is great when the lights are on. You talk about ‘make America great again’? We were the Greatest Show on Earth for like a hundred years. We were IT, baby. We were huuuuuuge. Then the people got tired of us. And the libtards starting coming at us. Life wasn’t so much fun after that. You’d take the greasepaint off every night and look in the mirror and it’d hit you that the whole thing was just a big con. A big fraud. As hard as this is, deep down I’m glad to get off this goofy merry-go-round. Hey, what the hell. Best of luck to Trump Circus.”
Trump Circus is a new company owned by Eric Trump that is in no way under the control of, or operates to the benefit of, the new President. Its first public performance is scheduled for January 20th in Washington, D.C.
the story of the century
If there was a competition for rhetorical gymnastics, it would be named after Donald Trump.
He’s the first politician in American history to not even pretend to have consistent positions. Each night the bombast screen is wiped clean, and with each new dawn comes a spew of statements that are typically the exact inverse of the statements from the day before. In a single, one-hour interview with the New York Times, Trump flip-flopped six times.
Trump has seemingly never held a consistent position on ANYTHING.
Actually, that’s not true. There is one issue on which his position is, and always has been, crystal clear: Russia.
Trump has been aggressively adamant to the point of hysteria that the Russians are our friends, that the future will be about an American/Russian partnership, that Putin is a real leader (like he will be), and that the Russians did not interfere in the recent elections. This is a remarkable anomaly given Trump’s endless elasticity about every other issue under the sun.
I was talking to a friend recently about how remarkable this was and about how it made no sense politically. The smart response for Trump to the Russian hacking would have been to meet with the intelligence community, tell them that he appreciated their conclusions and that he would act on them, and then ignore the whole thing and wait for the hoo-haw to die down. Instead, the President-elect completely torpedoed his relationship with his own intelligence agencies, hurt their morale, and appeared to the world to be at war with his most important advisors. Trump hasn’t even been sworn in yet and he’s speeding backwards at ninety miles an hour. I told my friend that if I were a reporter I would go totally deep on the Russian story because there had to be a big story behind Trump’s startling and unique consistency on this one topic.
Remember how Watergate unfolded? John Dean ratted out Nixon and his former mates in the President’s inner circle in extraordinary detail in several days of public testimony. His tale was completely implausible. The general consensus was that his claims were so outrageous that they couldn’t possibly be true. A President would never approve the payment of hush money to criminals, much less approve a slew of break-ins and robberies aimed at his political opponents. A President would never tell the director of the FBI to burn evidence in his fireplace or urge his employees to lie under oath and engage in a cover-up. Dean had no documents to back up his fantastic claims, and he was destined to go down in history as an unhinged sociopath who concocted a web of lies to bring down his former boss to save his own skin.
Then came Butterfield with his tapes, and nearly every bizarre claim and arcane detail that Dean made in his testimony turned out to be eerily accurate. And the tapes revealed other horrible truths that would have been branded as science fiction had we not had the President’s voice putting the noose around his own neck.
So a few days ago I told my friend that the only explanation for Trump’s obsessive defense of the Russians was that they had something on him. But that seemed so utterly fantastic and Manchurian-candidate-like that I added that I must have finally fallen prey to one of the hundreds of grotesque conspiracy theories that so many people embraced during this weird election cycle.
Now CNN has a new report out on the briefing that the heads of the CIA, FBI, National Intelligence, and the NSA gave to Donald Trump last Friday. That was a weirdly historical occasion in which the intelligence leaders presented evidence to a President-elect that a foreign country deliberately meddled in a Presidential election.
As it turns out, that’s not all they informed Trump about. They also presented him with allegations that are currently sweeping through the global intelligence community. Allegations from sources that some intel pros feel could be credible that the Russians have “personal and financial information” on Trump that they could use to compromise him. The intelligence heads deemed this information so explosive that they limited the disclosure of it to President Obama, President-elect Trump, the top four Congressional leaders, and the ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
That pretense of confidentiality turns out to have been a huge joke, because it turns out that these allegations have been an open secret in U.S. political circles for months. Mother Jones even reported on some of this a week before the election.
It was the anti-Trump Republicans who started this ball rolling. They hired a former British MI6 agent to try to dig up dirt on Trump’s ties with the Russians. Once Trump was nominated, it seems that the Clinton campaign moved this former agent over to their payroll, and the skullduggery continued. This explains the letter that Harry Reid sent to FBI Director Comey in October demanding that he disclose any information he had about Trump coordinating with the Russians.
It gets even weirder. Just last month Senator John McCain gave the FBI copies of written memos from the former British agent detailing exchanges of information between Russian officials and several members of the Trump campaign staff. McCain had been given them by a former British diplomat. (The FBI had already been given copies of these memos by the former British agent last August.)
So last week’s briefing was more historic, more bizarre, and much, much more troubling than we thought. For this was the first time (we hope, anyway) that a President-elect was informed by U.S. intelligence just prior to being sworn in that potentially credible evidence revealed that he might be the subject of a blackmail attempt by a foreign power.
It also reveals that the Russians were working the Republicans and not just the Democrats.
In addition, it indicates that the Clinton campaign had memoranda detailing collusion between Trump and the Russians and decided not to use it.
It also makes clear that FBI Director Comey had information that had the potential to harm both Presidential candidates, but chose to publicly reveal only the information about Hillary Clinton. There has to be a statute or two that was broken when the head of the FBI tried to determine the outcome of the election.
This would explain why Trump has been attacking the credibility of the intelligence community so vigorously and why the Trump camp rushed to announce a reorganization of the CIA before Trump was even inaugurated.
It may turn out that no Alexander Butterfield, Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward will surface with tapes, documents, or emails giving incontrovertible evidence that Donald Trump is being set up by the Russians. These charges, despite them being serious enough that the heads of the four biggest intelligence agencies included them in Trump’s personal briefing last Friday, may never be substantiated and thus pass into folklore as a fevered dream by the defeated Democratic faithful that was briefly given legs by the lamestream, liberal media.
Then again, it may turn out to be the story of the century.
The old-fashioned way
WASHINGTON, JANUARY 2, 2017: DONALD TRUMP TO REPORTERS: "IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT, WRITE IT OUT AND HAVE IT DELIVERED BY COURIER, THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY, BECAUSE I’LL TELL YOU WHAT, NO COMPUTER IS SAFE.”
I never woulda predicted how a new President would affect my chosen profession. Not in a kazillion years.
When I first started bein’ a bike messenger in D.C. back in the ‘80s, I couldn’t even begin to pedal fast enough to keep up with the business. Messages and packages was flyin’ all over the place, and we must’ve had fifty guys workin’ at just my company alone. And there was dozens of outfits, let me tell you.
Then in the ‘90s the computer showed up, email came in, and the all the tires went flat, if you get my metaphor. Overnight. By last year, we was down to just legal crap—papers that ya had to get signed and notarized—gift packages to the politicians’ girlfriends, and the occasional envelope stuffed with cash from K Street. There were about six of us left. We were a dyin’ breed, like the dinosaurs.
And then Trump gets in. This is where the irony comes in, ‘cause he won because of emails—Hillary’s secret shit that proved she was a child molester and all kindsa other awful stuff. A real monster, she was. Everybody’s sayin’ that Putin stole these emails off the Internet to throw the election to Trump.
But Trump’s not buyin’ it. This is when he showed me what a visionary he was. Most people think that to be a visionary you gotta be looking FORWARDS--to new stuff. That’s bullshit. REAL visionaries look BACKWARDS, because everybody older than ten understands that the old days were better. Just ask anybody. We all had work and everybody was happy. We had a system that everybody understood, and it worked. Then we lost our way as a society and everybody got dissatisfied and the eggheads and the computers started running the show. And then you have the lamestream media—Walter Cronkite and those know-it-alls who got us all confused.
Trump was the only politician who got this. The only one who saw that we had to go backwards so we could go forwards. He was way too smart to fall into the same email trap that that old bitch he beat fell into. So he calls a big fuckin’ press conference and says “Screw this computer stuff. It’s only confusing everyone. From now on, if it’s important, it goes by courier.”
Well, nobody believed he would pull it off, but nobody said anything against it, either. Everybody hates their computers. They never work right. And all that money for printer cartridges—what the fuck is with that? So he tapped into that adversity, and suddenly us bike messengers was back in business.
And I mean BACK IN BUSINESS. Within three fuckin’ months there was fourteen new courier companies. Every Federal building, including the goddamn White House, had a courier stand. Bikes lined up for blocks, just like the taxi stand at the fuckin’ airport, waiting for important secret messages in sealed envelopes. We’ve gone international, too. Half those secret documents go overseas, ya know. I flew business class to Moscow six times last year.
And it’s not just us bike messengers who are makin’ out like kings. My brother in law Eduardo works for Office Depot in Jersey and every time I see him, at Christmas or whatever, he’s telling me how the filing cabinets are flyin’ off the showroom floor. And paper—my god!—everything has to be in triplicate or fourplicate or fiveplicate, ya know. Those hanging file folders. Paper clips. Stamps and fuckin’ ink pads. That shit was just flyin’ off the shelf. ‘Course, by then it was all made in China. But if you worked at Office Depot like Eduardo, or you was a government secretary, you was happenin'.
It isn’t all peaches and cream for us couriers, though, I have to admit. Ya hafta wait a long time sometimes for the government folks to get the package ready for ya, and the receiving end is a freakin’ nightmare. You hafta bring back a receipt for every goddam agency. The State Department wants a receipt. The FBI wants a receipt. The NSA wants a receipt. Kellyanne Conway wants a receipt. So you gotta deliver all of them, too. Man, if people thought the government moved slow BEFORE, they’d flip if they saw it NOW. But, hey—it’s job security!
This whole racket has had a few setbacks recently, I have to admit. There was that guy—forget his name—who was stuffing all his top-secret deliveries into his closet and handing in phony delivery receipts. And—this wasn’t at my courier agency, mind you—they figured out a few months back that the Russians had hacked the text messages of a courier dispatcher and were using them to figure out where the secret messages were going and then stealing them the old-fashioned way—by using inside moles to make copies. So the microfiche guys have made a comeback, too!
So bringing back couriers hasn’t solved all the problems in the world, mind you, but with Trump’s backwards vision—I know several folks in the White House now that I’m there so often, and they say he’s NEVER used a computer—the bike courier business is great again, to coin a phrase!
Those folks in the White House tell me that Trump hates cell phones, too. Can’t wait to see how fast and how far he runs backwards on those goddam things. We’ll have pay phones again! Go ahead and laugh. Don’t underestimate this guy.
Trump want his enemies to define him
On September 11, 2013, when most of us were mourning the anniversary of a terrorist attack that took the lives of 3,000 fellow Americans, Donald Trump sent out this tweet:
“I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.”
Today, after winning a Presidential victory despite losing the popular vote by nearly three million ballots, our new Chief Executive had this message for the 74 million Americans who cast votes for candidates other than him:
“Happy New Year to all, including to my enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”
James Buchanan looked aside as the Civil War began. Warren Harding screwed his mistress in the White House while his Cabinet looted the country. Herbert Hoover didn’t understand that the Great Depression required bold measures. John Kennedy was a reckless philanderer who lied to the nation about his health problems. LBJ engineered the nightmarish quagmire in Vietnam. Richard Nixon’s penchant for petty criminality led to disgrace. George Bush invaded and conquered a foreign country on false pretenses and ruined the economy on the way out of office.
We had dishonest Presidents. We've had bad Presidents. We’ve had failed Presidents. We’ve had criminal Presidents.
But we’ve never had a President like Donald Trump.
He never laughs. He never jokes. He’s never poked fun at himself. He’s never displayed even a whiff of graciousness. He knows no history, and he has no interest in keeping up to date on what is happening today. He doesn’t read. He seemingly has no close friends. He has no attention span. His first and only instinct, in moments of both triumph and reversal, is to lash out. He’s demeaned every sector of this country, including his own family. His is the thinnest skin ever draped over a politician’s frame. His only hero is an international murderer and thug. His insularity and total self-absorption are even more deep seated than his overt racism and misogyny. He has no class.
So, even before taking office, Trump has made it clear that he thinks of me and many millions of his fellow Americans as the enemy. Personally, I don’t see Donald Trump as a personified enemy because I haven’t seen enough humanity in him to warrant that status. (“I alone understand the problem and I alone can fix it” are surely the most terrifying words to pass from a President’s lips.) Our next Chief Executive is too egocentric to grasp that, as much as most Americans are appalled by his temperament, it’s not him personally that they will turn on. It’s Trumpism that they will reject, and the depth of that rejection will start to become apparent--to everyone except Donald Trump--on Inauguration Day. It’s all too true that we underestimated Donald Trump. If he thinks that we’re paralyzed and don’t know what to do, he’s making a similarly profound mistake.
New Sheriff in Town
Attention, all you tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, this is the government of the United States of America speaking. Fuck you! Listen up, you sad, pathetic losers. Things have changed. There’s a new sheriff in town who was elected in a massive landslide and He makes all the decisions now, and He says you’re fucked. To the one hundred million people who are now banned from entering the most terrified nation on earth, fuck you. If you ask us why you are banned when none among you has ever carried out a terrorist attack, shut your fucking mouth. You say that you went through a years-long vetting process to get a green card and permanent-resident status from us and are only trying to return to the U.S.? Well, fuck you, too. Don’t tell us about being innocent people trying to rescue your families from horrific war zones. Go fuck yourselves. Hey, you Muslim, Sharia-law-loving bad guys—get the fuck out of the way and make room for the Christians. And to the REAL enemy, the American press, just shut your fucking mouths and listen to US for a while, because we alone understand the problem and we alone can fix it. And here’s a fuck you in advance for the pussy snowflakes at home who don’t like our methods. We’re making lists, and once we seal our borders to Muslims and brown people, we’ll be coming for you next. Don’t bother thanking us, world, you’re very fucking welcome. Signed, the government of the United States of America.
Obama's Russian Mistake Has Come Back to Haunt Us
President Obama offered up a confoundingly absurd defense of his administration's response to its early knowledge that the Russians were trying to hack the election. He claims that he personally warned Putin to "cut it out," and that he's now going to strike back--a month AFTER the election. Obama claims that, although he was convinced the reports were true, he didn't want the interference of a foreign government in our electoral process to "become a political football." God forbid! He felt that rather than retaliate immediately or make it clear to the American public what he believed was going on, he needed to stick to just stating the facts and not imputing any "motives" to the actions of the Russians. God forbid! Conservatives love to portray liberals as murky-thinking ineffectuals with no sense of how the real world works. It's usually an absurd stereotype, but every once in a while, like in today's presidential press conference, it comes to life.
Election Day
I voted for Clinton this morning so that a proud fascist is not elected President of my country. Trump’s very candidacy as the Republican nominee is a wake-up call for all of us. The reality that more than 40% of my fellow Americans will vote today for a proud racist who has no understanding of the Constitution is hard to deal with. But Trump will lose today because he has embraced the absolute worst aspects of our collective reality. It’s a good thing to shine the light of day on the seamiest parts of our nature in the process of rejecting them. Trump has been more honest than his recent Republican predecessors, who quietly tolerated racism and catered to the hate groups with coded language. We need to remember Trump when GOP leaders revert back to this slightly more subtle form of bigotry, and we need to remember the progressive vision that Bernie Sanders crystallized for us this year as we aggressively challenge the new President to move in that direction.
I’m thinking today of my mother and all of the women in my family. Women are voting today who were born before members of their sex were allowed to vote in this country. This is a long overdue step forward for our country. I was proud to vote twice for the first African American President, and I’m proud to vote today for the first female President. I had been feeling that historical significance of today’s vote was being lost in the horrific backwash of Trump’s campaign, but a friend recently signed me up as a token male member of an overwhelmingly female pro-Clinton Facebook group, and it’s been truly moving to read the posts by these women explaining what this election means to them. This is the significance I’ll try to take away from this election--not the dark, odious spectre of homegrown fascism.
