Hurry Up, Mueller

     "Genocide."
     Yes, the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico went there and said the "G" word, something never uttered except by yours truly his first year of blogging after Katrina hit New Orleans.
     And in the nearly 13 years I've been a political blogger, the first, last and only other time I have ever felt such a volcanic rage at an administration, out of all the countless evils they have visited on us and the world since late August 2005, was Bush's sluggish and apathetic response to the flooding in New Orleans during one of his many vacations.
     This matches that, easily.
     Here's a billionaire sitting on his fat ass at a country club he owns in New Jersey congratulating himself through the efforts of his proxies on the ground in Puerto Rico and petulantly pouting in the third person that the mayor of San Juan was "nasty" to "Trump".
     Really, does this surprise anyone, that this pouting Mussolini in a bad ball cap would be so completely indifferent to the plight of 3,411,000 American citizens who happen to be Puerto Rican? Are you really shocked at this after his response was hardly any better after Houston and its 36% Hispanic population flooded a month ago? Or Miami's 70% Cuban and Hispanic population?
     Are we seeing a trend here, folks?
     Bottom line, if you live in a Hispanic-majority or dense population that suffers a catastrophic tragedy as long as Trump's "president", don't expect help. You'll be labeled on Twitter a welfare queen, that you expect to have everything done for you, obscure shipping laws will take forever to be suspended, immigration slots will not be temporarily raised, even though you're already an American citizen.
     Instead, you'll get insults from the "Commander in Chief" and to rely on yourself so he doesn't have to get heavily involved even through proxies. Telling Puerto Rico to help itself is like telling a man without legs to pull himself up by the bootstraps.
     Let this be a teaching lesson to every child who's learning or will learn Civics that this is not the way a president acts during a national emergency, that it's not OK to treat a national disaster as if it's a tempest in a teapot in some little faraway Third World country, that it's not OK to put your feelings before the lives of people (the official death toll in Puerto Rico at this time stands at 16 although that will surely rise).
     So, Mr. Mueller, please wrap up this investigation because this orange turd in the crystal punch bowl has embarrassed us long enough. Please. Hurry. Up and flush this backed-up lump of shit once and for all before he kills more people.

The Family That Preys Together

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

“Wennerström was devoting himself to fraud that was so extensive it was no longer merely criminal–it was business.”
"You will be investigating thieves, bullies... the most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet- My family."
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Ages and ages hence, there will come that revelatory eye-rubbing period when everyone except for your dyed-in-the-wool Neo Nazi white supremacist (aka your die-hard Trump voters) will wonder, "What the fuck happened on Election Night 2016?" From the epicenter that was post-war Nuremberg, I'm sure many Germans who'd survived that war asked themselves the same question about Election Night 1933.

     "But... but, he swore he had the nation's best interests at heart, that he would make our nation great again!"

     Yet, it could at least be said that Hitler (even if only perhaps he had no family to speak of) never resorted to nepotism to position his family at the top echelons in the new government. But if Adolph Hitler had children, one gets the uneasy feeling they'd be alarmingly like Trump's two eldest sons Erik and Don Jr.

     As just one simple reminder of what we're talking about, let's look at a recently-unearthed fact within the Trump family dynamic: That Donald Jr. and Ivanka wanted to screw Tiffany Trump out of her inheritance. Trump admitted as much on the Howard Stern Show during the campaign and he may have said it for all 1% families when he told Stern, 

     “I have a friend who is also like a very rich guy. And he said how his children hate the new children coming along and everything else; I said, 'Yeah, because every time you have a child, it's 20 percent less to the people.”

     In normal families, it's expected for the older siblings to get jealous over the seemingly lessened attention to them whenever a new baby comes into the family. Eventually, however, in normal families the older siblings get over it and lovingly accept the new one into the family dynamic. In families such as the Trumps, it's not the lessening of attention they worry about but the lessening of their inheritance no matter how massive that legacy will be. And, in true psychopathic fashion, Trump seems OK and accepting of that.

     And maybe, some day, Tiffany will simply drop out of sight, ashamed to be associated with her family, and will wish to strike out on her own. Perhaps she'll fake her own death as had the 16 year-old Harriet Vanger in Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. But, knowing her three older siblings... who knows how it'll happen if it does?

Breaking Fast With Tiffany

Even though I don't personally know the girl, I and, I'm sure, several of you have always suspected that Tiffany Trump is the Marilyn Munster of the Trump family. It's her normality and likeableness that automatically makes her an outcast in this bizarre collection of freaks that in itself is reminiscent of the Vanger family in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Being a First Daughter, she'll dutifully do her part for the sake of the family, keeps her opinions to herself but not a bit more. Who can forget October last year when, after a debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump leaned in to kiss Tiffany and she gracefully leaned away like Esther Williams getting out of the path of a Great White?

     Trump himself admitted on Election Night, “I'm very proud, because Don and Eric and Ivanka and—you know, to a lesser extent 'cause she just got out of school, out of college, but, uh, Tiffany, who has also been so terrific...”

     So, it shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who knows the first thing about this Vanger family come to life, this personification of the DSM-V that Trump's pride in his children is predicated on how much money they can grub. And, speaking of which, apparently being each an heir to about a billion apiece isn't enough for some of the spawn who still dream of that three-way cut. 

     It bears repeating, especially to anyone who has yet to read the internationally bestselling Millennium trilogy by left wing Swedish novelist and journalist Stieg Larsson. Larsson was the kind of liberal this country needs in the field of journalism and at this precise time. With all due respect to the Mueller investigation, we need a left wing antidote to the noxious right wing fascists currently running loose over hill and dale.

     Mikael Blomkvist was little more than a thinly-disguised version of Larsson himself. Expo, also, was the real-life Millennium. However, even Blomkvist never spent 1977 training far left Eritrean female guerilla fighters in the use of mortars. Until virtually the day of his death, Larsson tirelessly pushed back against right wing extremism that, as in the US, sometimes in Sweden rears its ugly head.

     As with his creation Blomkvist, Larsson was primarily a financial journalist who went after far right wing industrialists such as the ones who tried to engineer a fascist takeover of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration in 1933. One would be hard-pressed if not outright confounded to think of a single American financial journalist today who would've considered it a calling, if not a quasi religious mission, to investigate fascist freaks such as the Trumps. These people have no loyalty to each other except when they share in the iniquity in which they're steeped, and have been steeped, practically from the cradle. And, as Tiffany shows, they will screw one of their own over a bigger percentage. Because that's what shockingly selfish people like the Trumps do.

     Barron, watch both sides of the street when you cross. Your father, after all, never even mentioned you on Election Night.

#BlackSunday

     It was a thrilling day for Patriots Nation (if, by thrilling, you mean coronaries every time the Texans were on the move with the defense unable to stop them). Down 33-28 with a few seconds over two minutes to go, Tom Brady engineered one of his patented two minute drills and led the Patriots to a 36-33 win over the Houston Texans. But that wasn't THE story of the day, was it? No. No, it was not.
     The real story was Donald Trump having yet another epileptic seizure on Twitter this morning and pre-emptively warning NFL players not to take a knee during the National Anthem and, if they did, Trump's billionaire buddies should fire or suspend them. It was the second time Trump egregiously violated federal law by trying to suppress free speech guaranteed to us in the First Amendment.
     The Patriots-Texans game began with many Texans across the gridiron taking a knee during the national anthem and Tom Brady himself, yes, Trump's #1 fanboy in the NFL, the one who figuratively took a knee and decided not to meet Trump when the Super Bowl champion Patriots went to the WH, Tom fucking Brady, he who had a MAGA hat in his locker, linked arms with his teammates in solidarity.
     So let us call today #BlackSunday (with apologies to Thomas Harris).
     Because Trump essentially tried to put out a grease fire with water and what happens when one does that? You make the fire spread. The Daily Mail in the UK, of all papers, was quick to pick up on the movement and show of solidarity for the excommunicated originator of this movement, Colin Kaepernick. And, don't forget, the UK is famously indifferent toward American football. But this wasn't about football, was it? Again, no. No, it was not.
     The statistics, including Tom Brady's late 4th quarter heroics, will dutifully be entered into the books and the wins and losses faithfully tabulated and the records adjusted. But the real story today, that 130 NFL players, including white players such as Tom Brady and even one or two of Trump's white billionaire buddies who's even chipped in a cool million bucks towards his tiny inaugural, stood behind their players and teammates.
     While Trump is now strutting around like a pigeon that just shat on a chess board and pretends it won the game, Trump was publicly humiliated by the entire NFL from the owners down to players and even a referee or two to the British newspapers. It's laughable that Trump called for a boycott of the NFL should Kaepernick's quiet, peaceful protest spread to other players. Yet, if Wembley Stadium is any indication, Trump couldn't even keep Londoners from attending the Raven-Jaguars game.
     Just as he's waged a war on the federal judiciary, women, late night comedians, the mainstream media and just about anyone of consequence who has officially or unofficially disagreed with him, Trump has lately waged war against the sports world. The man who'd been denied the chance to buy the Buffalo Bills (later making Trump, of course, disparage them on Twitter- Aesop would call it "sour grapes") was just humiliated not by one club but every club in two nations and on two continents.
     It all started when Stephen Curry, the NBA star of the world champion Warriors, floated the idea that if they go to the White House to meet Trump, it would be a great opportunity to make a statement. Well...
     When his Umber Umbrage heard that, well, he couldn't have that, a black man causing him embarrassment, So, naturally, he took to his shit stained blue perch once again and rescinded an invitation to Curry and the entire team that the Warriors front office said had never been made.
     Of course, Trump is ludicrously framing this for the benefit of his mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging MAGA maggot supporters as an insult to the American flag and the nation as a whole. Whether he's deliberately misinterpreting this growing movement or, like a typical out of touch white billionaire, he actually believes his own tweets, one fact is clear- Trump's heavy-handed and ham-fisted attempt to bring black players to heel blew up in his fat face like a prank cigar the size of Long Island.
     Of course, as any fairly well-informed child can tell you, Colin Kaepernick's quiet protests just prior to 49er's games last year was in protest of African Americans, especially the unarmed ones, getting killed by overzealous police. It had nothing to do with disrespecting the flag or the nation. If anything, Kaepernick's silent, seminal protests (that appear to have cost him his playing career) showed respect for the flag and an even better ideology than those which guided the Founding Fathers in the 18th century-
     Kaepernick did not wish for the flag to be synonomized with unchecked, racially-driven brutality and animus visited on African Americans on a daily basis, that those ideals ought to be rejected when paying fealty and allegiance to a flag and a nation.
     Trump doesn't get it either way, whether he deliberately misinterprets Kaepernick's stand or if he really believes that in his orange hamster ball at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, But black people as a whole do not like him, they never did and they never will. Trump showed his true color (because he recognizes just one- white- which, ironically, is all colors) after Charlottesville. He had a golden opportunity, several, to repudiate the white nationalist movement and he chose not to.
     The fact remains that Trump has gone after Colin Kaepernick, Jamele Hill and Stephen Curry with more viciousness and vitriol than he ever did the Neo Nazis, the KKK or white nationalists (that he called "very fine people.").
     And, to any right wing nut case reading this, let me close with this salvo: If you have much more of a problem with black players taking a knee during the national anthem than white Baltimore cops taking a knee on Freddie Gray's back, not only do you have a problem, this entire nation has a problem.
(Addendum: Next time Trump tries to wax pious about patriotism, the flag and the national anthem, remind him of this now infamous moment after a GOP debate.)

Slide, Kelly, Slide

     This is WH Chief of Staff John Kelly yesterday during Donald Trump's "Talk Like a Pirate Day" speech at the United Nations. I'm unsure at what part of the speech Kelly did this epic face palm. It could've been at the point where Trump called Kim Jong Un "Rocket Man" or threatened to completely destroy North Korea. Or it could've been when he was bragging about Trump Tower across the street. Or it could've been when Trump, in true right wing fashion, began ragging on the UN for not pulling its weight.
     It doesn't matter. Donald Trump's entire sham presidency has been nothing but an endless highlight reel for late night comedians (Oh, Jon Stewart, why did you retire just as Trump announced his candidacy?). Just a couple of weeks ago, it leaked out to Business Insider that Trump lawyer Ty Cobb wrote an email saying "me and Kelly (sic)" were the "adults in the room." The jury's out on whether or not Cobb qualifies as an adult but Gen. Kelly certainly fits the bill.
    That leaves two questions for the half-assed political analyst: If Kelly is so mature and competent, how the hell did he ever get hired by Trump in the first place? Trump's the guy who invited professional right wing assclowns Kid Rock, Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent into the Oval Office, who installed Joe Pesci's Goodfellas character as Communications Director, made the daughter of a drug lord who was caught with nearly 100 pounds of cocaine on one of his ships Transportation Secretary, made a witless, grinning charter school fuckstick billionaire his Education Secretary and shoehorned Savonarola 2.0 as Chief of the CIA.
     With such a track record for creating such an unprecedented kakistocracy that belongs in some work of dystopian fiction by Sinclair Lewis or George Orwell, you have to wonder how such a capable man found himself in this government that's straight out of Idiocracy.

     The second question we must ask ourselves is, What the fuck is keeping this man in this government? Indeed, when you look at Kelly's face at Trump's public appearances, such as his "many sides" speech about Charlottesville, one gets the feeling he's the First Mate who, instead of helping passengers on the lifeboats, was just ordered by the captain to shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic just after it collided with the iceberg.
     And sometimes, as Kelly showed in Phoenix, he refuses to share the stage with Trump.
     If Kelly's smart, he's thinking of a way to slide out of this government while he still has some credibility left. After all, look what the Bush White House did to Colin Powell after his now infamous presentation to the UN Security Council.

     Yeah, if he's smart, he's weighing his options.

Good Cop, Bad Cops Pt 3

(By American Zen’s Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

(Disclaimer: The proprietor of this blog and Mr. Wilson have an ongoing years-long friendship, in which the former has benefited on several occasions by the generosity of the latter. However, that in no way, shape or form has influenced the blog owner’s decision to post a series of articles about his case nor the content of what is written below.)

Part One.

Part Two.

As Trooper Wilson began to realize the actual particulars of his case, he began fearing for his personal security. Yes, a career soldier and policeman began to have misgivings about his safety.
     Yet, as we'll see at the end of this installment, that was but the start of his worries.
     About two weeks after the Bar Overseers responded, Tpr Wilson, an Army Reservist, was notified he was being activated to serve as a drill sergeant at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. This would separate him from his legal counsel but this inconvenience was leavened by his remove from Massachusetts, theoretically keeping him safe from reprisals. Like a plot out of a bad spy novel, Wilson was informed by his son that he and his mother were being shadowed by someone closely answering the description of a State Police Internal Affairs investigator attached to his case. Either he was very bad at his job or was deliberately making no attempt at discretion in the interests of intimidation. Either way, it was only after Tpr Wilson had notified his State Police barracks commander that he was ready to contact the feds that the harassment had ceased.
     In order to beat the statute of limitations, Tpr Wilson had filed a pro se lawsuit against the Franklin PD at the end of 2003. In it were charges of assault and battery, defamation and false imprisonment. His intention was to secure legal representation in order to launch that suit and, later, another against the MA State Police. The complaint, along with one to the Board of Bar Overseers, established his knowledge of the conspiracy. It's notable that, by early 2004, officers in both the Franklin PD and the State Police abruptly began retiring, including the Chief of the Franklin PD and Major John Burns, the head of the Internal Affairs unit that had been stalking Tpr Wilson's family.
     In late 2003, as his year-long duty stint came to its completion,Trooper Wilson had accepted a year-long posting to Ft Benning as a Drill Sergeant. Early on, he'd reached out to the head of the Mass Minority State Police Officers Association. By this time, however, he realized that this official had been systematically betraying him by informing the State Police of his strategies and intentions while making a hash of the investigation.
     Following the mass exodus that had already begun, by spring 2004 the Col. Superintendent and his Lt. Col. assistant tasked with Wilson's disciplinary action had also abruptly resigned. While resignations occur all the time, what made this noteworthy, if not newsworthy, was that the Colonel resigned well before his term was up.
      With this development Tpr. Wilson contacted local reporters to suggest that his case played a major part in the spate of resignations. What really should've raised eyebrows was when his assistant quit at exactly the same time. And as further proof the mainstream media is essentially worthless, the local newspapers here in Massachusetts never bothered to delve into the exact reasons why they were abruptly resigning. The closest the papers would come to revealing the reasons for the scuttling away was "dirty laundry." And it became clear to Wilson they were turning in their credentials to protect their pensions. But as for the who's, what's, when's, where's and why's? Well, that was another story. And by that I mean there was none.
     It was the gathering storm involving Trooper Wilson's allegations and the State Police coverup, not to mention the dereliction of duty on the part of his legal team who'd been working both tables, prosecution and defense, simultaneously. In other words, there was plenty of smoke but no one suspected or cared there was a fire under it.

One Shade of Grayer

As it turned out, Trooper Wilson's nightmare of thieving, duplicitous, incompetent attorneys was just beginning. This time, instead of waiting to be assigned another, he'd sought out C. David Grayer. Grayer came well recommended by his own sister who'd had him as a law instructor in college. To launch the pro se lawsuits against the Franklin and State Police, Grayer took a $10,000 retainer from Wilson. Finally, some traction!

     Or so he thought.

     Months after forwarding the retainer, Wilson received no subsequent contact from Grayer. When Wilson finally got hold of him, Grayer asked Wilson if he'd spoken with his associate, Harrison Fitch. Problem: Fitch was already very well-known to Wilson, namely through his affiliation with the aforementioned Major Burns and the Internal Affairs Division that was stalking Wilson's family. For his part, Grayer was unaware that Wilson knew about this alliance between Fitch and Burns (a strange assumption to make with a policeman). In the end, "no legal action was taken against the State Police and the case was subsequently dismissed from court for failure to comply," to use Wilson's own words. Bottom line: Grayer took $10,000 out of Wilson's pocket for doing absolutely nothing. Well, nothing to Wilson. From the Massachusetts State Police's viewpoint, he magnificently did his job in spiking the lawsuits against them and their brothers in arms in Franklin.

     By now, poor Trooper Wilson must have felt like a lead in a Pod People sci fi movie. Everyone to whom he'd turned wound up working for the bad guys or were the bad guys. His lawsuits now seemingly blown out of the water and given a State Police chopper ride to the legal morgue, Wilson had no recourse but to file complaints against his last two lawyers with the MA State Board of Bar Overseers. When he did so, he got some surprising news: Grayer didn't practice tort law (a revelation you'd think he'd make to Mr. Wilson but I guess he really needed that $10,000). Furthermore, in violation of legal ethics, Grayer then subcontracted Wilson's lawsuits to another lawyer and agreed to split the loot with him. That other lawyer was the morally, ethically, and most importantly, legally compromised Mr. Harrison Fitch, Esq.

     A thinking person acquainted with the particulars of this case would justifiably wish they were a fly on the wall just to see the look on Burns' buddy's face when he read the brief and saw Wilson's name on it. Then Fitch showed what a true profile in courage he was when he essentially hid from Wilson and failed to tell him of the conflict of interest and his failure to file the paperwork in time. Their reason for hoping their incompetent collusion was almost comical: They were hoping that Trooper Wilson would get deployed to Iraq and that his death would give them that permanent degree of blessed separation.

     Instead, these do-nothing shysters got much more time off than they'd bargained for- After a determination, the BBO had ruled to suspend Grayer for five years. Fitch is still suspended after more than a decade and was reduced to asking the BBO for permission to work as a paralegal. And before you ask, yes, their collusion in spiking Mr. Wilson's case was one of several reasons to suspend both lawyers. (Grayer's suspension order can be found here and Fitch's own ongoing suspension order can be found here. They both sound like something out of a bad John Grisham novel.)

Catch-22

Between the spring of 2005 and January 2009, Trooper (Now US Army Sergeant) Wilson did not go gently into that Iraqi good night as his so-called lawyers had hoped. He had, instead, served at various Army posts in various capacities ranging from Counter-Intelligence Special Agent, Military Intelligence Drill Sergeant and finished a six-year tour, again, as a Military Police Drill Sergeant. After getting mysterious phone calls from the MA State Police inquiring about his return, he'd learned his family's home had been burgled. Some legal documents were rifled through and, oddly, only a video game was stolen. The local detectives investigating the burglary advised him it was someone's attempt to send him a message. And they were completely ignorant regarding his legal situation.
     About a year later, his son's mother reported having been followed by a light-skinned African American man with a shaved head in a red Ford Taurus. Days later, he'd gotten another cryptic phone call from a trooper again inquiring about his return. This caller perfectly fit the description of the man who'd been following Wilson's son's mother. Wilson shot back he was aware of his ex-girlfriend's suspicions. Furthermore, he'd warned he would liaise with the Army's CID and contact the FBI. The stalking and burglaries ceased... for a time.
     For those unfamiliar with the laws regarding this, it's worth noting all military service spent during wartime counts toward state-service retirement. Trooper Wilson left his job with the MA State Police after 14 years of honorable service. He'd returned with over two decades and was already eligible for retirement. However, in spite of honorable service with both the DoD and Massachusetts State Police, Wilson encountered animosity from a Major who was his Troop Commander. It's also noteworthy that all returning service members undergo background, physical and psychological exams. After passing the physical and background check with flying colors, he ran into an obstacle with the behaviorist conducting the psych eval. In the spirit of openness, he informed the behaviorist about his Major's hostility and ongoing legal struggles with the MA State Police. Over the course of four counseling sessions, he'd even provided corroborating documentation.
     Incredibly, the behaviorist decided Trooper Wilson was unfit to return to duty and that, furthermore, his well-documented claims of persecution and retribution was evidence of PTSD, despite the fact Trooper Wilson hadn't served in any combat capacity. In other words, he could've either silently accepted this ongoing "conspiracy" (the psychiatrist's own word) to prevent him from getting relief from a court or he could have reported the abuse and detonated his law enforcement career. Fighting his persecution and betrayal at the hands of the State Police and his incompetent attorneys constituted grounds for rejection. In other words, Catch-22, only in reverse- By being cognizant of the potential danger he was in, he was deemed too crazy to take back.
     He disagreed with the diagnosis even as Wilson's Troop Commander illegally attempted to prevent him from attending drills conducted by his unit at Ft Meade, a strange turn of events considering Wilson had been rejected as unfit to return by the state police's own shrink. Only after complaining to the VA was he "allowed" to fulfill his duties to his unit.
     The stalking of his family continued until as recently as last month.
(Continued in Part 4.)

Facebook Posts From the Edge

     Some of my more interesting posts on FB for the last week or so. Sorry I haven't time for anything more substantial. I'm working on a new book plus I'm in the teeth of another article.

Caption Contest

Trump is advised not to go to Mar-a-Lago this weekend and why.

Top Ten Reasons Why Trump Fired Comey

     Late last month, special prosecutor and former FBI Director Robert Mueller obtained a first draft of the letter written by President Donald Trump and his top aides that resulted in the firing of James Comey as FBI Director. The final draft of the letter states Mr. Comey was terminated on May 9th because of his handling of the Clinton email investigation and Mr. Trump believing he could not effectively lead the FBI. However, the original draft was four pages long and had been characterized by its "angry, meandering tone" and listed, in fact, several reasons why Mr. Trump had decided to terminate Mr. Comey's tenure. What were they?

---

10) During January private dinner with Comey, was disappointed he had not brought Hillary Clinton's severed head for the entree.

9) Loyalty oath involved hazing ritual that included a panty raid on female senators' offices.

8) Used too many bigly words like "email" and "the".

7) Left slobber on his ring.

6) Originally used and was ultimately embarrassed by his Terminator tactic and fired three other James Comeys before at last finding the real one.

5) Refused to say grace during private dinner thanking Vladimir Putin for the food.

4) Comey refused to say whether or not Trump was under investigation  to determine if he was the greatest President ever.

3) During Comey's Trump-era tenure, ratings were bad, very bad.

2) Demurred when Trump asked him if he'd like to fuck Melania on the Resolute Desk.

1) Attorney General Sessions very uncomfortable with his and the 6' 8" Comey's three foot height difference.