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Donald Trump

The 306 Electoral College Vote Landslide: What Will Historians See through this Window into the Mind of a President?

December 19, 2019
by Peter Feinman
A Real Electoral College Landslide

As part of the impeachment process, the President of the United States released a six-page letter signed with [the Alabama?] Sharpie. Whether it was a rambling irate tirade or a demolishing of the impeachment effort as a hoax witch hunt is for another blog. The focus here is on how history will view this document. Of course, I cannot know the answer to that but I can note that the document was composed with history in mind.

First, everything signed by the President of the United become part of the historical record.

Second, the document displays a conscious awareness of history….

History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment.

It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American people. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.
One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.

This conclusion calls attention to the generally overlooked issue of what changes need to be made by the political parties in choosing a candidate and Congress needs to make in defining the powers of the Presidents and in establishing more effective checks and balances. That, too, is a topic for another blog.

In this blog, I wish to focus on one small item:

Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227).

What is this statement doing in this impeachment letter? Why add the concluding phrase “in an Electoral College landslide (306-227)”? What is the added value gained by making this assertion?

An historian analyzing this document will determine that this claim originated right after the election in 2016. The winner tweeted the claim on November 27, 2016. It was part of a tweet claiming that he also won the popular vote once all the illegal votes were deducted. The landslide claim was repeated the following day by Kellyanne Conway in a tweet:

3:35 PM – Nov 28, 2016
306. Landslide. Blowout. Historic.

This claim was months before her claim about the inaugural parade size. In these actions, the historian will begin to observe a pattern now characterized as “alternate reality.”

At this point, the historian analyzing just this one statement in the letter already will have multiple avenues of research to pursue:

1. What was the basis for the claim of millions of illegal votes other than wishful thinking? Why did the winning Electoral College candidate need to make this bogus claim?
2. Why did the Electoral College winner need to claim that 306 votes represented a landslide?
3. Why does he continue to do so to this very day?

The historian investigating this one sentence will know the following based on the historical record.

The final vote was 304 votes and not 306. This is a technical point. Based on the election results, the candidate was entitled to 306 Electoral College votes but there were two defectors. That does not invalidate the claim that he won 306 votes on Election Day.

The bigger question involves the non-legal term “landslide.” What constitutes a “landslide”? Is there legitimate reason for wiggle room to allow a candidate to declare 306 Electoral College votes to be a landslide?

As soon as the “landslide” victory was asserted, people checked the historical record. Here is an excerpt from my blog dated January 27, 2017 entitled “2020 Presidential Election: The Battle Is Engaged”

So let’s look at the presidential elections of the last century without compensating for Hawaii and Alaska becoming states.

Republicans with over 400 Electoral Votes

1984 Ronald Reagan 525
1972 Richard Nixon 520
1980 Ronald Reagan 489
1956 Dwight Eisenhower 457
1928 Herbert Hoover 444
1952 Dwight Eisenhower 432
1988 George Bush 426
1920 Warren Harding 404

Democrats with over 400 Electoral Votes

1936 Franklin Roosevelt 523
1964 Lyndon Johnson 486
1932 Franklin Roosevelt 472
1940 Franklin Roosevelt 449
1944 Franklin Roosevelt 432

Under the old math, the above elections were landslide; thanks to alternative math, 304 = 404. Pity the teachers who have students who embrace alternative math. Pity the people who buy products designed by people who embrace alternative math. Pity the passengers on a plane where the pilots embrace alternative math.

But there are other presidents who also won in landslides based on the Trump landslide.

1996 William Clinton 379
1992 William Clinton 370
2008 Barack Obama 365
2012 Barack Obama 332

Who knew that Donald Trump considered these Democrats to be landslide winners as well, even bigger winners than he was?

There are some results more comparable to the Electoral Votes totals for 2016.

1948 Harry Truman 303
1960 John Kennedy 303
1968 Richard Nixon 301
1976 Jimmy Carter 297
2004 George Bush 286
2000 George Bush 271

Some people have created similar lists based on the percentage of Electoral College votes received. Some people have created lists based on the spread between the top two candidates. Some people have created lists beginning with George Washington. No matter how one lists the vote totals, the 2016 election results were not even remotely close to being a landslide.

Historians will note that the 2016 winner was alive as an adult when some candidates won over 500 Electoral College votes.

Historians will note that the 2016 winner was alive as an adult or in college when some candidates won over 400 Electoral College votes.

Historians will note the 2016 winner predecessor whom he denounced often won more Electoral College votes than he did.

Historians will note that the longtime Democrat and Clinton supporter did significantly worse than did Clinton.

Historians will then ask how come the 2016 winner did not know any of this.

Here the historian will have to seek help elsewhere, from other areas of expertise. The historian/biographer will seek to understand whether or not this person is genuinely an ignorant human being and whether or not this person is genuinely capable of learning. The historian will also seek to know how come no one in the White House who worked on this letter suggested that this one phrase be removed…or did some suggest the bogus claim be deleted only to be overruled?

Ultimately, I think the historian/biographer will conclude that the 2016 Electoral College winner is a genuinely ignorant human being incapable of learning new information that undermines or invalidates his own view of himself. The perfect letter itself will provide the historian the proof. It was written for history. It was consciously written to be an historical document. It includes bogus information in a phrase that did not need to be included to deliver the same message. Yet the fact that the 2016 Electoral College winner and his supporters still make this bogus claim over three years later demonstrates the importance of the term “landslide” to them. And once the historian determines from this one phrase that the Electoral College winner is an ignorant person incapable of learning or leaving his alternate reality, all the other assertions made in the letter will be judged through that prism.

You may think I am putting too much emphasis on a single phrase. When I heard the future 2016 Electoral College winner say “Two Corinthians” and not “Second Corinthians,” that was all I needed to know: he was an ignorant con artist who would never man up and did not need to either. The inclusion of the claim that 306 Electoral College votes is a landslide in the impeachment letter for history is a window into the mind of the 2016 Electoral College winner. Looking into that window should frighten anybody who lives in the real world except Putin.

IMPEACHMENT POSTSCRIPTS

1. Democratic ineptitude – Where are the Democratic ads on Fox asking “Can you count?” with these Electoral College vote totals? Remember, Trumpicans like mainland Chinese get their news from the Government propaganda network.

2. The Dingells – My position is that Little Donee Waney is a seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck. I have said so many times. When the seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck wakes up in the morning, he does not know what disruptive and demeaning insulting remark he will make in class that day…but everyone knows that he will make one. Something in class will trigger him and off he will go. As his Press Secretary said:

It was a very, very supportive and wild crowd, and he was just riffing on some of the things that had been happening the past few days.

Exactly. The seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck goes with the flow and insults accordingly. Every opportunity he has. That’s who he is. That’s who he has been since he was a child. That’s who he will be until he dies. Nothing can change that.

3. Jonathan Turley – When the Republican witness said the House should wait for additional testimony, my immediate reaction was the House should vote for impeachment and delay sending the bill to the Senate until the additional witnesses have testified. Maybe something like that will happen after all.

Time Magazine Awards You May Have Missed

December 15, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Who Really Should Have Been the Person of the Year?

As the year draws to a close, it is the time of awards. While the Time Person of the Year garners a great deal of attention, other awards bestowed by the Magazine may go unnoticed. To rectify that shortcoming, here are some of awards you may have missed.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ADULT AS A 13 YEAR OLD

The nominees are:

Tom Hanks in Big
Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30
Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday
Adam Sandler for practically everything
Little Donnee Waney for the past 60 years.

And the winner is

LITTLE DONNEE WANEY for the past 60 years.

The other nominees have filed a protest with the judges. While they were acting as thirteen year olds, the would-be winner actually is a thirteen year old. They have subpoenaed medical records of his brain scans which show that portions of his brain have never developed beyond that of a thirteen year old. Little Donnee Waney has refused to comply with the subpoena for his brain scans. The case is expected to go to the Supreme Court.

BEST FLYING MONKEY

The Flying Monkeys are people who have sworn to take a bullet in defending the Wicked Witch of the White House from attacks. The assaults from Dorothy, Nancy, and Mueller are to be resisted at all costs.

The nominees for the coveted Flying Monkey of the Year award are:

Nunes the Crooked Clown
Ridiculous Rudy, attack mutt
Clueless Jim Jordan, he never knows what is going on
Mattculate Conception Gaetz, house frat boy
Thank God He Was Passed Over Collins.

And the winner for locating the 400 pound Ukrainian who violated the American elections is

Ridiculous Rudy, attack mutt. He is the hero now just as he once was.

KING GEORGE III LOYALTY AWARD

The King George III Loyalty award goes to the person or people who place loyalty to the person above all else. The nominees for this coveted award are:

Trumpican members of the House of Representatives
Trumpican members of the Senate
Trumpican voters.

And the winner of the King George III Loyalty award is

IT’S A TIE. ALL THE TRUMPICANS ARE WINNERS OF THE LOYALTY TO KING GEORGE III AWARD. Bring back the good old days!

THE TRAITOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

The Traitor of the Year Award goes to the person or people who have been the most disloyal.

The nominees for the Traitor of the Year are:

The professional career staff of the State Department
Patrick Henry
Thomas Jefferson
Alexander Hamilton
George Washington
Adam Schiff
Nancy Pelosi
Whistleblower.

And the winner of the biggest traitor of the year award goes to George Washington. While the other candidates were all worthy of being traitors, Washington was the one in the group who really put his life on the line in defiance of the king. He showed the least loyalty. Therefore he wins the award.

THE VERY STUPID MORON OF THE YEAR AWARD

This award goes to the adult who demonstrates that he is the smartest person in the room as long as it is a morgue or a nursery school class with no adults present.

The nominees for the Very Stupid Moron of the year award are:

Little Donnee Waney for building a wall in Colorado
Little Donnee Waney for not finding North Korea on a map because he thought it was part of the ocean
Little Donnee Waney for attempting to close the border with Mexico the very next day
Little Donnee Waney for asserting that securing the Washington, D.C. airports was crucial to the disloyal traitors winning the American Revolution
Little Donnee Waney for thinking that Seoul, a metropolitan city of 25 million, was a small village
Little Donnee Waney for thinking that 306 Electoral College votes was a landslide
Little Donnee Waney for thinking that if he said to relocate Seoul that the South Koreans would do it or the Americans would do it for them.

And the winner of the Very Stupid Moron of the Year award is LITTLE DONNEE WANEY, if he were any dumber he would have to be institutionalized for his own safety.

BULLY OF THE YEAR AWARD

This award to the person who best exemplifies the characteristics the American people find repugnant unless it is being done their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed be his name.

The nominees for the Bully of the Year are:

Little Donnee Waney for bullying the winner of the Time Person of the Year award since he should have won it
Little Donnee Waney for bullying a teenager
Little Donney Waney for bullying a girl half his size
Little Donney Waney for bullying person with Asperger’s Syndrome.

And the winner of the Bully of the Year award is

LITTLE DONNEE WANEY.

There is no award for most submissive to alpha males otherwise Little Donee Waney would have won that too.

MESSIAH OF THE YEAR AWARD

Who will be the anointed one? Who will be the lord and savior of the human race? Who will be the chosen one? Every year there is a lottery to choose the messiah of the year. The winner then chooses who in the community will be stoned to death. That is why the award is so coveted. The Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed be his Name, gets to select the person or people who will bear the brunt of the vitriol to be unleashed by him. That person or people will be attacked relentlessly without mercy for the coming year in every professional political wrestling arena throughout the land, on every show on Fox, and on as many social media sites as he can buy.

The winner of the Messiah of the year award naturally is Little Donnee Waney.

The person selected in his lottery is Joe Biden.

The most dangerous game for America’s future has begun.

A Tale of Two Countries: December 9, 2019

December 11, 2019
by Peter Feinman
A Tale of Two Countries (https://www.ancient-origins.net)

Report Debunks Anti-Trump Plot in Russia Inquiry (NYT, December 10, 2019)

Deep state in deep legal jeaopardy (sic) (Sean Hannity on Foxnews.com)

In which country do you live?

Do you live in the country that sees the Inspector General Report as one which asserts there is no Deep State and no political assault on Donald Trump? Or do you live in a country that sees the Inspector General Report as one which validates that every claim made against the Deep State is true and the perpetrators of the single biggest abuse of power in American history are in deep legal jeopardy?

Should Comey be taking a victory lap on the Fake News talk shows or is Duped-Again-by-Hannity right to warn him about doing exactly that?

There is only one Inspector General Report but according to the President of the United States the current Director of the FBI must have received a different one then he had. Putting aside the obvious fact that the President of the United States lacks the mental necessities to read the report and is relying on what his Attorney General told him, the comment nonetheless goes to the heart of the matter. The response to the Inspector General Report documents that we live in two countries within a single political entity. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that political entity or any political entity so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

As I listened to the two factions in the Civil War, I was struck by the difference in tone. The Fake News talk shows were relatively measured in their tone. The word “debunk” frequently was used. The texts related to the lack of political bias were quoted often. Ironically, people in the past who have objected to how easily the FBI could open an investigation now deployed that shortcoming to solidify the argument that no political bias was involved. In this regard, the report confirmed what many already feared about the broad powers of the FBI to launch an investigation even as it showed the Trump investigation was a legitimate one.

Obviously, the cool, calm, and collected mature President was having none of it. Instead he launched a hissy fit tirade against the report, the very report that Duped-Again-by-Russia Hannity said vindicated everything he had said about the Deep State. In the show following his, the host practically had steam coming out of her ears such was her fury about the report. She demanded that action be taken so there could never be an abuse of power by the Deep State again.

The President’s new Michael Cohen promised to fix things. The new Michael Cohen declared that the conclusion of the report made clear that the FBI investigation into the candidate was fraudulent from the start and never should have occurred. The Trump-appointed Attorney vowed not to relent in his pursuit of the truth until he had a report he wanted. It would exonerate the President and indict the Deep State. No matter how long it takes as long as it is before the elections so the voters will see the truth, there would be a report. Nunes the crooked clown hadn’t produced the goods, Horowitz hadn’t produced the goods. The Durham Bull would.

What does this all mean for the Third Civil War? Right now the President is all-trash talk all the time. His seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb aleck self will be on display nonstop from now until the election if not afterwards. He will be joined by Duped-Again-by-Russia Hannity who cannot refer to Adam Schiff by name without adding the pejorative “compromised, corrupt, congenital liar.”

The needle will not move.

Minds will not be changed.

The intensity of emotions will ratchet up.

At some point it will boil over.

At this point, it is not exactly clear when the war of words will go to the next level. The question is not whether or not we will become Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq, or Iran but when. There are any number of potential explosive points.

Impeachment and the Senate trial will not be one of them. Everybody on both sides has known for weeks how it will end so there will be no surprise when it does end without removing this President from office. Therefore it will not be a catalyst for widespread demonstrations that lead to violence.

In case you think I am over-reacting, consider this line from The New York Times on December 8 written even earlier and therefore before the Inspector General Report or Articles of Impeachment:

…the poll also revealed that Americans feel deeply pessimistic about the nation’s future and fear that worse political conflict is coming. Some military analysts and historians agree and put the odds of a civil war breaking out in the United States frighteningly high.

What might trigger the demonstrations?

One possibility is the President of the United States will openly defy a Supreme Court ruling. So far he has only openly defied Congress and declared that check and balance void. There easily could come a time when he will do the same to the Supreme Court. It may not come to that, but it should be recognized as a possibility that such defiance will a flashpoint, the straw that breaks the camel’s back leading to demonstrations that result in violence that cannot be controlled or stopped.

For example suppose, the Court rules that Congressional subpoenas are valid and that people have to testify. If the current President of the United States defied that ruling how would the Supreme Court enforce it? Not much has changed in that regard since Andrew Jackson. Do you think any of the Trumpicans would testify in defiance of the President because their loyalty to the Constitution trumps their loyalty to this President? And then tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Are you serious?

Suppose instead the current President of the United States decided to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, what would his people say under oath? There are four possible responses to any questions posed to them.

1. I refuse to participate in this witch hunt.
2. I refuse to participate in this hoax.
3. I claim executive privilege.
4. I plead the 5th.

In fact they might even ask questions of their own.

1. Where’s Adam?
2. Where’s the whistleblower?
3. Where are the Bidens?

In short, Jonathan Turley was completely wrong. A delay in the impeachment vote would not produce any additional information from the co-conspirators.

Then what about the tax returns? Suppose the Court orders the tax returns to be released to Congress, would the current President comply? Obviously not. Would that lead to riots and demonstrations because the current President placed himself above the law? No.

Suppose in an act of civil disobedience, someone in the IRS releases the tax returns following the Court ruling and Presidential defiance? It would led to a fury of legal actions but probably not to any demonstrations.

Suppose the tax returns reveal that this President had been laundering money for the Russian mob? Would the Department of Justice take action against this President? Obviously not? Would Congress take up new articles of impeachment? Obviously not.

What all this means is the flashpoint for in-the street action will be the presidential election itself. At this point it is too early and uncertain to know how that will play out in the Electoral College, the popular vote, and in the legal proceedings following the election.  It will be an apocalyptic battle between the forces of light and darkness. It will lead to tens of millions of people being traumatized. It will be a time when people take matters into their own hands. It will be Putin’s finest moment.

Putin Declares Candidacy for 2020: “Make Russia Great Again”

December 3, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Little Donee Waney will never be a macho macho man

Vladimir Putin declared his candidacy for the American Presidential elections in 2020. His campaign theme is “Make Russia Great Again.” He is running for re-election in 2020 based on his success in his first administration. Putin cited as examples of his triumphs:

  1. the destabilization of NATO
  2. the destabilization of the American-European alliance
  3. the destabilization of the United States
  4. filling the vacuum left by the United States in Syria
  5. filling the vacuum left by the United States in Africa
  6. making the United States an unreliable ally who will only provide assistance if compensated
  7. the abandonment by the United States of its leadership position in the world
  8. the abandonment by the United States of its view of being a “city on a hill” and American Exceptionalism.
The Shining City on a Hill: Commentary on Reagan by Bryan Caplan
Quarantined

Putin champions the “American Alone” approach where the United States has no allies, provides no leadership, and takes no action. He is not there yet but he has made remarkable progress during his first term and is dedicated to completing the job in the second.

Open items include:

1. removal of the sanctions
2. occupation of the Baltics
3. return to the G-7
4. the withdrawal of the United States from the global arena except when it suits Putin’s purposes.

Despite having a weak hand, Putin has played it remarkably well. I do not mean to suggest that he has some carefully developed highly detailed plan worthy of a spy novel or a Hollywood movie. But he has stumbled into opportunities and taken advantage of them. So even with a second-tier economy he strides the world as if he is as significant a threat to the world order as mainland China is. At some point the gig will be up and he may even face a Russian spring. In the meantime, he can take advantage of the opportunities presented him by a weak America.

Putin foreshadowed his campaign platform in an op-ed piece “A Plea for Caution From Russia” in the New York Times printed September 12, 2013.  He wrote:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.

His candidacy is based on opposition to Obama, opposition to American Exceptionalism, and opposition to America thinking it is better than everyone else.

Putin is well aware that since he is not a native American, he cannot appear on the ballot. Technically, he cannot run for President of the United States. Therefore it is necessary for him to govern through someone who is eligible to be President but who will be submissive to him. In 2016, Putin was strongly against the Democratic candidate. Her “John McCain, Republican” attitude towards Russia was completely unacceptable to Putin. She was a threat to him politically and economically given the wealth he had accumulated running an oil-and-gas kleptocracy. While he knew little about her opponent, obviously he was not a “John McCain Republican.” Far from posing a threat to him, Putin soon learned that he was desperate to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. This person was someone Putin could work with.

Everything that has happened since then has only confirmed the unexpected bonus of the Trump presidency to the “Make Russia Great Again” theme that defines Putin’s agenda. It did not take long for skilled KGB agent to get the measure of the man, or rather the immature child, after meeting with him. Putin quickly realized that his American counterpart was a passive, ignorant, simpleminded child who could be manipulated to fulfill Putin’s “Make Russia Great Again” agenda.

How hard is to figure out that Putin is doing a superb job of dominating the weeny child desperate to be a macho macho man? Think of the real photograph of Putin riding a horse bare-chested compared to the weeny faking a photoshopped “Rocky” body. Bonespur boy loves to play with his soldiers, “win” rigged professional wrestling matches, insult people, and champion Hollywood-cast SEALs. He especially loves being a bully. Putin is well aware that Bonespur boy will never go into the arena in the real world. No matter how many times Little Donee Waney plays YMCA, he will never be a macho macho man in the real world.

His shortcomings as a man are hardly a secret. An American letter-writer to The New York Times wrote:

President Trump is Vladimir Putin’s patsy. Blinded by a compulsion to become the first American oligarch, Mr. Trump cannot see how expertly he is being played. The American president struts around attacking those he perceives as weak. Yet it is the bully who is vulnerable….

Meanwhile, Mr. Putin, the master manipulator, knows a bully’s ways and sees how he can exploit Mr. Trump’s desire to be an omnipotent ruler like himself.

While this Texan does not realize Little Donee Waney is an immature child, she is spot on in her assessment of the Putin-Trump dynamic. Is there anyone in the American intelligence services who lacks the mental necessities to have figured out what this ordinary American knows? How stupid a human being would you have to be not to know that Putin is the dominant male in the relationship?

In fact, Putin, himself, may have been astonishingly surprised at how easy it has been to manipulate the American President. The Ukrainian maneuver will be remembered as one of the great deceptions in American-Russian relations. Putin undoubtedly knew that Little Donee Waney would fall for this concoction. But he probably never anticipated how far the “Chosen One” was willing to go to act on this non-existent conspiracy. The subsequent wild goose chase led to Russia’s most valuable American asset being impeached. Surely that can be what Putin had in mind when he fed this bull-trump to the American President.

Still the Ukrainian maneuver has proved that Putin could control Congress through the simpleminded President. At least the Trumpican members. How long did it take for Congressional Trumpicans to start babbling about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 elections? Historians will compare the John Kennedy of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the John Kennedy who recites Russian talking points and wonder what happened to America. Remember when Fox angrily asserted the need for “due process” in the kangaroo-court so-called impeachment hearings sham? Yet what evidence did it take to convince Fox of the Ukrainian involvement in 2016?

Putin’s dominance extends then into the American people…or at least those who accept his Pence as their lord and savior. The polls showing that Trumpicans prefer him to Abraham Lincoln as the better president testifies to the complete subjugation of the Trumpicans. It also shows that that there is a residue of Republicans left in the Confederate-dominated party. Fortunately for the Trumpicans, the Democrats have no interest in reaching out to the Lincoln-admiring Republicans. If the Democrats had an alternative for whom Lincoln Republicans could vote, the 2020 election would be a Democratic landslide by even more than 306 Electoral College votes.

In the meantime, in the 2020 elections all roads lead to Putin, especially Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

P.S. In less than a week, Duped-by-Russia Hannity’s wait will be over and the Deep State, scared for its life, will be running for cover.

Deep State versus the Trump State: Will We Celebrate the 250th Anniversary of America?

November 17, 2019
by Peter Feinman
New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2019, by Paul Sahre

The 250th anniversary of the birth of this country is only a few years away. At this point, preparations are slight but there is an awareness that the time to start planning is now. If back in 1776, you had asked the Founding Fathers about the United States of America one day celebrating its 250th birthday, they would have looked at you as if you were nuts. They knew the country was an experiment. They knew the country was a work in progress. They knew the country might not last. When it reached its fiftieth birthday on the same day as the deaths of the second and third presidents and co-Declaration writers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson truly it was a sign from Divine Providence that this country was blessed.

Now we live in a time when it is reasonable to ask if we will survive another few years…or if so in what form.  Back in July, I wrote a blog about the “formal” commencement of the third civil war in the United States (July 14, 2019 = April 12, 1861 II: The Third Civil War Is Engaged). Previously I had written a blog about an earlier proposed date for the “formal” launching of the war (America’s Third Civil War: Kava-Noes versus Kava-Yeses). Occasionally, I wrote updates on the state of the ongoing culture wars since then.

Recently the intensity of the conflict appears to have escalated. While some news outlets would employ the war metaphor from time to time, such usage was not typical or routine. The declaration of war against Congressional subpoenas was one major exception. Now there have has been two rather dramatic expressions of the war terminology.  The Sunday Magazine of The New York Times on November 10 (print edition) has an image of a White House defended by tanks. The caption below reads: “What happens when the White House responds to Congress’s impeaching the president by declaring war on Congress?” Inside the magazine was an image I did not see online. It depicts a battle being fought between the White House and the Capital replete with images of Civil War charging cavalry, World War I trenches, propeller planes and paratroops, and more tanks. To the right of the image is the phrase “Impeachment Wars.”

The second example is the December issue of The Atlantic. The cover has a hand partially in red and partially in blue. The text reads “How to Stop a Civil War.”

The related articles in these two publications focus mainly on the culture wars. How are the Democrats doing in the impeachment and what are the stakes for the Republicans given the demographic changes which the country has and is continuing to experience? I certainly do not mean to diminish the importance of the culture wars that are dividing the country. My periodic blogs about Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day address that topic. I will continue to do so in forthcoming blogs.

But there is a second war that is being overlooked. This is the one between the Deep State and the Trump State. The confrontation is related to the culture wars but it is not one.  It is not about abortion, immigration or the politically correct – hot button culture war issues. Instead it is about the Trump State versus the Deep State, between people who are loyal to the person who happens to be president versus people who are loyal to the Constitution. I daresay given this individual president something like it was inevitable once he was elected. How come he was elected is a separate issue. It is important to recognize that the issues raised in this war are relevant no matter which party claims the presidency.

The recent events in the impeachment hearings have made clear what should have been obvious but which has received minimal attention compared to the culture wars.  In the Trump State, Article II means he can do whatever he wants. In the Trump State, it means he cannot be investigated yet alone indicted for anything he does including murdering someone in broad daylight in front of security cameras and a live TV audience on Fox & Friends. In the Trump State, Congress has no oversight power unless the President grants it. Is this really what Trumpicans want? Is this really what conservatives want? Is the President really above the law immune to any Constitutional restraints?

What we are learning now is that Deep State refers to the career professionals who place loyalty to the country and the oath they took to the Constitution to serve it first.  These people have disobeyed the Presidential order not to comply with the Congressional subpoenas or invitations at great risk to themselves. These people have been viciously attacked. The seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck cannot control himself and launched an attack on one career professional even while she was testifying.  He continues to lash out as the next witness prepares to testify. Would Trumpicans have enjoyed it more if he had intimidated the career diplomat into crying? He has no sense of decency. Do they?

Meanwhile, the seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck has surrounded himself with people who are equally vicious. His Mean Girl Press Secretary has been especially nasty and belittling. Duped-by-Russia Hannity erupts in tirades night after night about the psychotic individuals who are attempting to bring down the duly-elected President. Little Donee Dimwit exclaims that his father was elected to drain the swamp of precisely these people, the career bureaucrats who dedicate their lives to serving their country. Only someone living in an alternate reality could claim that the professional career employees are the swamp and the cabinet created by Swampbuilder represent the people we need in the military and the State Department.

By contrast the people who have obeyed the command of this President not to testify have been his political appointees. Anonymous has informed us that Little Donee Waney has meetings with his political appointees only and in secure quarters without any career officials loyal to the Constitution present.

Last December I wrote a blog about this exact situation: MAD DOG BANISHED TO THE CORNFIELDS: TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE BECOMES REAL. The episode was It’s a Good Life first televised in 1961. In that story there is a six year old, not 13 like our President, who has extraordinary powers. He makes life a living hell for those around him subject to his whims and fancies. I will cut to chase and quote one portion of the blog relevant to the impeachment hearings today.

In that episode, one person, who is not anonymous, has had enough. He erupts:

You monster you, you dirty little monster…. maybe some man in this room; some Republican with guts, somebody who is so sick to death of living in this kind of a place and willing to take a chance will sneak up behind you and lay something heavy across your skull and end this once and for all.
Somebody sneak up behind him. Somebody end this now….
Will somebody take a lamp or a bottle or something and end this.

The printed word cannot capture the intensity of the anguish of this emotionally wrought person who can no longer endure the reign of the child. Aunt Amy tentatively reaches for a fireplace poker but refrains. She is past her prime. No one has the courage to act. The child banishes him to the cornfield. The adults are horrified at what he had done but no one does anything,

Then Thomas Friedman said, “I believe that the only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself — and I think that is unlikely — the party’s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.” But Friedman’s words were as flat as his world and everyone at Fox just laughed. There are no Republicans left.

The Trump State consists of the Flying Monkeys who have taken an oath of loyalty to the Wicked Witch of the White House. These are the people with first-hand knowledge who have declined to participate in the impeachment hearings. These ae the people who could become profiles in courage and do what did not happen in that Twilight Zone episode. Any day any one of these people could chose to tell the truth:

Vice President who does not defend his own staff
Acting Chief of Staff
Secretary of State who does not defend his own staff
Attorney General
National Security Chief

but none of them will. Even his personal lawyer who said in the end he would be the hero has the opportunity to save the country and really be the hero. We are still waiting.

The one possible exception is the millionaire donor who simply wanted a cushy job and the opportunity to show off that the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES calls him directly. His memory keeps improving and he is likely to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth now that he has seen what has happened to Roger Stone and heard what the other witnesses have said. Will that be enough?

Perhaps the straw that breaks the camel’s back has been placed. Perhaps the verbal assault on the former Ambassador to the Ukraine was the insult that forces the Trumpicans to face the truth. Perhaps at last the seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb aleck has crossed the line such that even Trumpicans are disgusted and are willing to become Republicans. Perhaps now they see that

Without their support he’s nothing.
The evil remains within him.
Look how ugly he really is.
Look at him after Kentucky and Louisiana and don’t be afraid.

It is time. It is time for the party of Lincoln to take back its party from ugliness.  It is time for non-elite heterosexual white males who love their country and are in pain to catch on that they are being slicked, conned, hustled, flim-flammed, bamboozled and lied to by a staggeringly ignorant narcissist who just as easily would rip them off at his phony university for their desire to live the American Dream as he would for their vote. It is time to realize that our weeny President is submissive to alpha males who are our enemies while abandoning our allies and attacking patriots who are loyal to the Constitution. It is time for loyalty to the Constitution to trump loyalty to the president if we want to celebrate the 250th anniversary of this country as a constitutional republic. Now is the time for first-hand witnesses to rise to the occasion. Now is the time for Trumpicans to regain their decency. Don’t hold your breath.

No One to Throw Under the Bus

November 12, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Who Are you Going to Blame?

The Wicked Witch of the White House and his Flying Monkeys are at the proverbial fork in the road with no Yogi Berra to guide them. On one hand, there is

NO EXTORTION, NO EXTORTION, NO EXTORTION.

On the other hand, there is

SOMEONE ELSE DID IT, SOMEONE ELSE DID IT, SOMEONE ELSE DID IT.

On the other other hand,

EVEN IF HE DID IT, IT IS NOT IMPEACHABLE.

On the other other other hand

THE DEEP STATE, THE DEEP STATE, THE DEPT STATE IS THE CORRUPT ONE.

Of course, sometimes the Flying Monkeys babble all the scenarios at once. This approach is based on the old standby: run it up the flagpole and see what sticks when you throw it against the wall!

NO COLLUSION TO NO EXTORTION

The phone call was perfect. Never in the history of the United States has there been a more perfect phone call between the President of the United States and a foreign leader. In fact, the only more perfect call is the one about to be released this week when the witch hunt hoax hearings begin.

No president comparable to Lincoln and Washington should be impeached.

The first thing every former Republican now Trumpican representative should do when they get up in the morning is to check and see what tweets have been issued since Fox & Friends began. Your loyalty is to the President and not to the Constitution. No collusion. No extortion. Read the transcript.

EVEN IF HE DID IT, IT IS NOT IMPEACHABLE

The Democrats took this approach the last time around. In January of that impeachment year all the Democratic talk was about the vast rightwing conspiracy. There was no truth to any of the charges. It was all bogus. Nine months later, it was “Yeah, he did it. So what? Get over it.” While there are closet Republicans who would like to take this approach, as Trumpicans they cannot. It will be fun in a tragic sort of way to watch former decent people wrestle with having to sell their soul to show their loyalty.  No collusion. No extortion. Read the transcript. Remain loyal or else. The threat of “or else” may not work on Republicans who are retiring and/or who have a conscience.

THE DEEP STATE, THE DEEP STATE, THE DEPT STATE   

This approach seeks to duplicate the success against the Mueller report now against Schifty Schiff. The subtext of the counterattack against the Mueller report was that the real collusion was by the Democrats with their bought and paid for Steele Dossier. It was really the Democrats who were in collusion with the Russians and the Democrats who should be investigated and charged.

But the Russian never interfered in the 2016 election as Putin publicly declared in a joint conference with the beneficiary of the actual interference siting right beside him. But the Democrats should be investigated and charged anyway even though it was not Russia but the Ukraine which interfered. Are you following this? I am having trouble doing so even as I type it!

The counternarrative believed by all Trumpicans was that the Deep State has instigated the effort to remove the duly elected and legitimate President by any means possible. Duped-by-Russia Hannity has identified the perpetrators of this covert operation. He has been salivating since the summer in expectation of the Inspector General Report that will nail these traitors to the wall. He is still drooling in anticipation as winter approaches

Once the whistleblower is exposed, the truth of the Deep State operation in the Ukrainian hoax will be revealed. The Flying Monkeys are just waiting for the opportunity to trash that person. We witnessed their assault on a decorated soldier who dared to tell the truth who really was a double agent. The Flying Monkeys do not want the whistleblower to testify so they can question this person. They want this person outed so they can destroy this person just as they will do to Anonymous once they discover that author’s name.

Meanwhile Bill Barred-for-Life apparently actually has limits to what he will do on behalf of his client. This shocking development raises some interesting questions. He was involved at some level in the extortion attempt. That means he knows first-hand at some least some of what happened. This is a different situation from the Mueller report. Suppose his global gallivanting to discover the truth of the Deep State Russian witch hunt has not turned up sufficient evidence for him to even go to a grand jury to indict Hannity’s hit list. What then? It is possible that he has a modicum of self-respect and decency to want to preserve what’s left of his integrity rather than turn into Vice President Brown Nose.

None of this will stop the Flying Monkeys in the House from launching a scorched earth assault on the Bidens. That effort will get full coverage on the Bull-Trump network and will be believed by Trumpicans. It will not stop the impeachment but it will provide an alternate reality scenario for Kellyanne Conway to live in.

As a result, there will be two televised hearings of the impeachment. One will be reported by the Fake News networks, newspapers, and websites and the other will be by the Bull-Trump counterparts. Since Trumpicans, like the mainland Chinese, only get their news from one source, the government propaganda network they will only see what Clueless Jim Jordan asks, Duped-by-Russia Hannity reports, and Little Donee Waney tweets.

WHO ARE YOUR GOING TO THROW UNDER THE BUS?

Yes, extortion did occur but it was a rogue operation conducted by people without the knowledge or approval of the world’s worst manager. He had no idea what was going on. Even the Ukrainians knew more about the extortion attempt than the President of the United States did. How could he be expected to know what his personal lawyer, chief of staff, or rich donor with no diplomatic experience were up to?

So will Man Overboard Mulvaney be the one thrown under the bus? Here is what I wrote about him last December:

Mick Mulvaney Parachutes onto a Ship in Chaos the Rats Are Abandoning

Back when Mulvaney was a normal human being, he made disparaging comments about the immature child candidate: he did not like him, he was an unfit role model for his children, and he was not a very good person. And this is from a conservative Republican….

Mulvaney considered the two candidates in 2016 to be the two of the most flawed human beings who had ever run for president in the history of the United States.

“Should either of these people be, be a role model for my 16-year-old triplets? No,” Mulvaney said on a South Carolina talk radio show in October 2016, CNN’s KFile reported. “In an ordinary universe, would both of these people’s past activities disqualify them for serving for office? Yes. But that’s not the world we live in today. The world we live in today, it’s either him or her and for me that’s still an easy choice.”

Then like so many other actual Republicans, he sold his soul and became a Trumpican. But even more than Bill Barred-for-Life, Manoverboard Mulvaney knows what really happened in the failed extortion attempt. He even said so. In public. Without a subpoena. Get over it. Now he has requested legal permission to testify before Congress and the American people. Presumably he is doing so because he intends to tell the truth once the Courts provide that permission. If he dares to tell the truth with first-hand information, what will happen to him? It will be too late to throw him under the bus if the Courts call upon him to tell the truth. But if he is thrown under the bus now, why would he even wait for the Courts to go public with the truth? Despite all the MAFIA talk and the admiration for Putin and Saudi OJ by the extortionist, it is unlikely that a hit will put on Manoverboard Mulvaney to prevent him from testifying honestly. Is there someone else close to him who can be threatened?

WHAT HAPPENS IF VICE PRESIDENT BROWN NOSE DISCOVERS THAT HE IS NOT THE HEIR APPARENT BUT NIKKI HALEY IS? WHAT HAPPENS IF HE REALIZES HE SOLD HIS SOUL IN VAIN? SUPPOSE HE LEARNS THAT NOW AND NOT SIX MONTHS FROM NOW? IS IT TOO RISKY TO THROW HIM UNDER THE BUS NOW? IT’S NOT AS IF HE WILL EVER BE A PROFILE IN COURAGE. (Will Mike Pence Become a Profile in Courage?)

Do you really think he will throw Ridiculous Ruddy, Attack Mutt, under the business? There really is not anyone who can be pinned for the blame except the person in charge. That’s why the message for all the Flying Monkeys, House Trumpicans, and Senate Trumpicans has to be NO EXTORTION, READ THE TRANSCRIPT, THE BIDENS AND THE UKRAINIANS ARE THE CORRUPT ONES.

Making Russia Great Again

November 5, 2019
by Peter Feinman
"You the Man!" Trump honored to be in the presence of alpha-male Putin (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty)

“We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore.’ You’ve heard this one. You’ll say ‘Please, Mr. President, we beg you sir, we don’t want to win anymore. It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else.’” Vladimir Putin said. “And I’m going to say ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning, We’re going to make Russia  great again.”

Russia is on a roll. Despite limited economic resources, it is moving ahead to disrupt the Western Alliance and the United States. Where it can divide peoples, it does so. Where it can fill a void, it does so. Where it can reap the benefits from the America Alone policy, it does so.

Recently Putin’s Pence handed Russia a win. The sudden and abrupt withdrawal of the United States from Syria was an unexpected gift. Putin could not even take credit for it. He could not claim to have initiated the sequence of events that led to this victory. Out of nowhere, alpha male Erdogan in a phone call to the submissive child president of the United of the States suggested that it was time for America to go home and let Turkey take care of business. He readily agreed to the surprise of everyone who was an ally or enemy of the United States.

Let’s look at what this strategically brilliant, dare one say “perfect,” decision led to.

American allies know they cannot rely on America anymore

Roger Cohen: “Europeans now shrug when they don’t laugh. The consensus is that the United States has lost. There is nobody home.” (Trump’s Gut, and the Gutting of American Credibility, NYT 10/19/19, print).

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, former Iraqi national security advisor: “This guy is all emotional. It is unpredictable….For Americans, their friends are disposable. The Americans, you look for them and they look for the closest exit. You turn around and you don’t find them.” (“Policy Zigzags by Trump Put Mideast in Fog,” NYT 10/13/19, print).

Shimrit Meir, Israeli columnist: “If you are someone that is a rival on the other side ⸺ you’re Iranian, Russian, Turkish, ISIS, Hezbollah ⸺ you understand that this is a time for gain.” (“Policy Zigzags by Trump Put Mideast in Fog,” NYT 10/13/19, print).

Who is the reliable partner to whom countries should turn? Who is it who touts its stability and consistency over the years?  As America bombs its own military facilities before the Russians can occupy them, who is exulting? Besides the Russians there are others.

Now, let’s consider what Putin has done and gauge whether he has overplayed his hand. I am not referring to his ventures into Africa. Trumphole countries that do not want to be vassals of China cannot turn to the United States for assistance. This bigoted President has no interest in them not even to build a resort. He will accept no refugees from them since the United States is full up…and he does not want any immigrants either. The result is void for Putin to fill. And he gets to test the disinformation techniques he will use in the 2020 elections.

Instead, I am referring to the Ukraine. As I previously stated, What Do Seth Rich and the Ukraine Have in Common? Answer: Sean Hannity, Putin’s tried and true tactic to discombobulate America is to give people what they want so they can make a mess of it.

It worked with the Seth Rich story on Flying Monkey Sean Hannity.

It worked with the Steele Dossier for the Democrats. The disruption still has not ceased after the Mueller report. Secret testimony now disclosed is shedding more light on the activities within the Trump campaign and White House on what they did. Meanwhile Flying Monkey Bill Barred-for-Life is traveling the globe seeking to indict the Deep State in part as a result of the Steel Dossier.

It probably worked with some voters when exposed to social media telling them exactly what they wanted.

It worked with the Ukraine.

Did it work too well? Putin advanced on three fronts in the Ukraine. First, it was the Ukraine and not Russia which interfered in the 2016 election. That initiative commenced in 2016 though the manipulation of Paul Manafort. Recall the press conference where the two national leaders joked about whether the Russians had violated the United States. Now we know that not only did Putin say “no,” but he steered the gullible American President towards the “true violator” that even the American intelligence services had yet to discover: it was the Ukraine.

The second Putin ploy was that the Ukraine had the infamous server that the longtime-Democrat-and-Clinton-supporter now pretending to be a Republican sought. We are beginning to be able to see how much he really wanted to locate those 33,000 emails. Somehow all Duped-by-Russia Hannity’s tirades about how crooked Hillary had acid washed the server and destroyed the emails was ignored. They had not been scrubbed, they were in the Ukraine! What a perfect example of the child-mind at work. And this is the very stable genius who is steering the ship of state.

The third Putin ploy is that Joe Biden and son were involved in a corruption scandal just waiting to be exposed. Unearthing this scandal would make Ridiculous Ruddy, attack mutt, the hero as he once had been after 9/11. His discovery of the reality of what originated as a figment of Putin’s mind would validate Ridiculous Ruddy’s shallow life. Clearly Putin knows how to play the conspiracy-minded President.

In each instance, Putin was providing the exact false story that the mark would eagerly embrace. But the results in the Ukraine maneuver may not be to Putin’s liking. The would-be hero is now facing potential indictment. His assorted cast of lowlife associates may now be ready to spill the beans. Never-Trumper and Deep-State operative Sondland posing as an ambassador-buying Trump-donor may now be ready to tell the truth and expose the abuse of power, cover-up, and obstruction even more: Of course, it was a quid pro quo. Get real. Sondland thought he was purchasing a nice cushy job where he could enjoy the good life in Europe. Little did he know how the Trump State operates. He apparently wants no part of it. Would that Vice President Brown Nose reach a similar epiphany! (Will Mike Pence Become a Profile in Courage?  so Nancy Pelosi won’t become President?)

Impeachment was the consequence Putin did not factor into his Ukrainian subterfuge. True if the red wave had not been successful in the 2018 elections in drowning House Republican candidates, impeachment never would have happened. Unfortunately for Putin, the Democrats now are in charge in the House and Putin’s most valuable asset in the United States is now at risk. Even though Putin will not lose his Pence though Senate removal, it is quite possible that a majority of Senate will vote for removal. The American people will see that the President of the United States exploits the power of the presidency for personal gain, lies about, and orders people to obstruct justice. Fortunately for Putin, Trumpicans do not care what this President did or did not do as long as he remains in office fighting for them. Putin has played weak hand well exploiting the submissiveness of the simpleminded immature child President but he may have overreached with the Ukraine since the United States may still be governed by the Constitution.

Do Republican Senators Have the Civic Integrity of Paula Duncan?

November 1, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Bubble Boy Ventures Out into the Real World (Getty Images)

Trumpican Paula Duncan was a juror in the Paul Manafort trial. As such one might have expected her to acquit Manafort on all charges. She would know that the trial was perpetrated by the Deep State witch hunt to remove her Lord and savior, the chosen one, blessed be his name from the presidency. Therefore one could expect with reasonable confidence that her loyalty to the president would trump her loyalty to the Constitution.

Such an assumption proved wrong. The exact opposite occurred.  She voted to convict on all charges. She voted guilty even on the chargers where one and only one other juror voted not guilty.  Reporters asked her about her votes after the trial concluded. Her reply demonstrated the primacy of her civic responsibility. It was not enough to not convict someone simply because of his ties to the president. Instead she examined the evidence, weighed its meaning and voted accordingly. That vote was GUILTY. GUILTY AS CHARGED, all 18 times.

Another exercise in evidence examination just occurred in a different venue (“The History Class Focuses on an Extraordinary Era: The Present,” Audra D. S. Burch, NYT October 24, 2019, print edition). In the Chalmette, Louisiana, high school, world history teacher Chris Dier, conducted classes on impeachment. He provided background material on the three previous impeachment-related American presidents before turning to the current example. The instructor recognized an opportunity to teach a real-time lesson in civics and political science. He devoted two 90-minutes class periods to the subject. He considered it a civics class at a time when many Americans are not familiar with civics.

His goal in the class was for the students acting as [better-behaved] Representatives and Senators to answer the same questions the American people are going to be asked during the impeachment process. In the two classes, the students would deal with the questions to be faced by both the House and the Senate: should the President of the United States of America be impeached and if so should he also be removed from issue? The question of should a President who is removed from office remain eligible to run again for the office, say in 2020, was not included. Since many of the students are 17 years old, their first presidential election may revolve around these issues.

The students followed a more rigorous approach than adult voters are likely to. They studied impeachment as developed by the Founding Fathers and the procedures used in the two houses.  The students then examined the Ukrainian evidence as provided by the teacher, evidence which is growing by the day and will grow more so by the time of the actual impeachment and vote to remove.

Initially the 21 students divided into 12 to impeach, 4 not to impeach, and 5 undecided. After another round of discussion by the students the vote shifted to 14 impeach and 7 not to impeach. The district was won by Trump with 65% of the vote. Presumably not all the students told their parents how they voted.

These two examples from two different venues, a courtroom and a classroom, provide the Democrats with a blueprint for conducting the actual impeachment hearings. Both the jurors and the students examined the evidence presented to them and then discussed it. One sees hear the importance of the prosecuting attorney and the teacher. It is essential for them to present sufficient evidence in a clear narrative format accessible to the deciders to reach a desired outcome. The Kavanaugh hearings won’t work. Apparently the Democrats have wisely chosen to let lawyers make the case rather than the politicians. That process worked in the Manafort case and in the classroom. Although the teacher did not take sides, he did present the relevant material (at least in a condensed manner) sufficient for the class to work He also did instruct the students to behave in a respectful manner, a far cry from the way Congress conducts itself.

One issue for the Democrats to address in the impeachment is to recognize that there are two audiences. I do not mean the House and the Senate. As we were reminded again and again during the Mueller investigation, the confrontation is a political one which will be fought in the public arena. One side did an extremely effective job in poisoning the jury pool while the other was lackluster to the point of nonexistence. The Mueller report and the Congressional appearance turned out to be the most anticlimactic events in American history. If the Democrats do not learn from the Mueller fiasco, they are doomed to the same unsatisfactory results.

While certain events in the impeachment will take place televised during the day, the battle also will be fought in the media and on the web during and after the televised hearings. We already have seen the scorched tactics that will be unleashed against anyone who dares to tell the truth under oath. The number of people who anticipated Vindman be characterized as a double agent loyal to the Ukraine is probably about the same who foresaw the purchase of Greenland and sharpiegate. Naturally the so-called whistleblower is not one, but a Deep State operative working for Biden. The firestorm will be fierce.

One strong possibility is the impeachment hearings and removal hearings may not have the stage alone. Last summer Duped-by-Russia Hannity repeatedly stated that any day, the Inspector General would release his report documenting the abuses of the Deep State in initiating the Mueller report in the first place. He could scarcely contain himself as he anticipated the indictments of all the people he had identified as being part of the witch hunt. So far that has not happened. It is only a matter of time before the report it is released and when it is it is likely to be during the hearings. Who will be best prepared to deal with that report when it happens?

In the meantime there is a second report or action to consider now. Bill Barred-for-Life has been tasked with indicting all the people Duped-by-Russia Hannity has identified as being part of the Deep State witch hunt. The integrity of the DOJ attorney is irrelevant. Look at how Barred-for-Life spun the Mueller report and quashed an investigation into the Ukrainian incident. Is there any doubt that he will attempt to indict the entire Deep State? According to Bull Trump station talk shows, all these conspirators are now quaking in fear and lawyering up for onslaught to come. They are sore afraid. The day of reckoning is soon upon when the true guilty parties of the fake Russian collusion inquiry are exposed. That exposure will then spill over into the fake Ukrainian impeachment. The impeachment and removal hearings will not have a monopoly on the news. The war will be fought on multiple fronts.

That war already is underway. By the time Rachel Maddow has completed one of her long extended essays, Duped-by-Russia Hannity will have excoriated corrupt Schiff and his Soviet-style secret hearings a dozen times. He will do so relentlessly and persistently every single day from now until the 2020 elections if necessary. He will use the exact same words and phrases to do so as he instructs his Trumpican audience in what to believe. That audience is the one Republican Representatives and Senators fear…unless they are retiring, are not worried about backlash or primary challenges, or have a conscience.

To answer the question then, “Do Republican Senators have the civic integrity of Paula Duncan?” the answer is “NO!. WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME! IS THAT A TRICK QUESTION?”  However, they are not all blithering idiots. They know that the President is guilty on all charges. What they may do then is attempt to thread the needle and adopt the Democratic strategy from the last impeachment: “Yes, he is guilty but his actions do no rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors warranting removal from office.” They may soothe their conscience and satisfy the Trumpican voters with that maneuver but it may not satisfy the President. After all how can he be compared to Lincoln and Washington if the House impeaches him, a majority of the Senate votes to remove him from office, and the other Senators think he is guilty as charged but the infraction was too small to justify expelling him. What infraction? The phone call was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Read the transcript!

Acting Presidential: How Long Can He Keep It Up?

October 28, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Beetle Bailey (October 27, 2019) the same day the crowd chanted "Lock him up"

The President of the United States has the power to set the agenda. Given that position, the individual holder at any given moment can set in motion actions, ideas, and events which reverberate throughout the nation and the world. The President may act on the basis on well-thought out decisions in collaboration with others. The President may give a speech which sets a new course of direction and initiates actions by others. And the President may act impulsively without talking with others or thinking of the consequences.

In the past few days and weeks, We the People and the world have had the opportunity to see multiple forms of decision-making in operation. We have seen a decision made as the result of a telephone call. It was with a dominant male with whom the President wishes to conduct non-presidential business for money. In that instance, there was no thought as to the consequences of the decision. There was no thought as to the actual implementation of the decision. There was no thought at all.

We the People and the world also have witnessed the execution of a carefully planned elaborately detailed operation to take out the leader of the foremost terrorist group in the world. The plan required the involvement of multiple players, was meticulously developed, and was something that required the occupant of the office of presidency to be presidential. Such grownup moments have been few in the years of the presidential campaign and presidency by this person.

Ever since he glided down that escalator, the media have been wondering when he would grow up.

When he won the nomination, some people said now he will act like a grown up.

When he won the election, some people said now he will act like a grown up.

When he delivered his first State of the Union, some people said now he will act like a grown up.

So far they have always been wrong.

Even the recent killing of Al-Baghdadi exposes the dual aspects of this president. There have been moments when he can sound presidential, when one can think that there is adult in charge in the White House instead of the adults in the White House acting to control the immature child President. These moments of adulthood and of seeming presidential usually occur when he is reading words he never wrote from a teleprompter. Such moments do not last long. He always quickly reverts to type.

Undoubtedly, it is these fleeting moments when he acts presidential by reading words he did not write from a teleprompter that produces the rigid figure he loves to mock and parody when he imitates a “president” in a professional political wrestling arena. Those stiff awkward gestures expose what he really thinks about those moments when he is obligated to act up grown up. No wonder he does not want to do it often.

But once he finished his recorded speech on the killing of Al-Baghadi and began to ad lib, the seventh-grade smart-aleck-dumb-aleck emerged. It was like watching Edward Norton transition from Aaron to Roy in Primal Fear. Once unleashed the true figure emerged untethered to an adult considerations.

1. Barack Obama failed. I succeeded.
2. My terrorist killing was greater than Obama’s terrorist killing.
3. I did not inform the Democratic leadership because it would have leaked the information.
4. The CIA does excellent work when it focuses on what it should be doing.

Even the repeated mentions by Bonespur Boy of how Al-Baghadi died whimpering and crying like a coward ring false. It certainly is possible that is how Al-Baghadi did die, but independent confirmation will be needed before the words of this President can be trusted…and so far it has not been given. But one has to wonder why Bonsepur Boy who cannot even fire someone face-to-face kept repeating this description. The person mocking Al-Baghdadi has been a whining crybaby throughout the entirety of his presidency. His was a whining crybaby during the Mueller report. He is a whining crybaby during the impeachment. He even falls short in decorum of the way the last two impeachment Presidents behaved. He will never man-up.

Now let us suppose for a moment that this President decided to fake being an adult for a more extended period of time. Everyone is assuming that in the presidential election he will go low. Everyone is assuming that he make any insult and tell any lie that he thinks he needs to do in order to win. He will be a non-stop punching machine where every blow is below the belt.

Now consider a wildly improbable alternative. Suppose he instead, he tried a different tack. Suppose he said:

I now realize that global warming is real.
I now realize that global warming is not a Chinese hoax.
I now realize that global warming is the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced.
Only a very stable genius can solve this challenge.
Only I can solve this challenge.
I must go beyond what George Washington did in creating this great country.
I must go beyond what Abraham Lincoln did in saving the union.
I must save the world.
I now realize why God placed me here is this time and this place: to be the anti-global warming President who will save this planet.

Dear reader, you may be thinking that I am nuts and that our immature child president could never say such things. Actually he could say such things. He has no ethics, He has no conscience. He has no morals. He has no values save narcissism. If his gut enabled him to realize that acting adult would turn the tables on the Democrats he could do it.

I am not saying he has the mental necessities to make such utterances. I am pointing out there is no telling what this President might do. He controls the agenda. On any given day, he could say or do anything, leaving everyone to scramble in response. I am not saying he would chose to act responsibly and pretend being an adult. Most likely, reading from the teleprompter is the limit of how long he can maintain the façade. He cannot be Aaron in Primal Fear for long; the real Roy cannot remain hidden.

But suppose he did embrace global warming and become the champion who will overcome it, how would Democrats respond? Suppose he did embrace the California pollution and mpg standards, how would Democrats respond? Suppose he did embrace the job opportunities available in reducing carbon emissions, how would Democrats respond? By impeaching him?

Interesting to speculate what the wild card in the White House might do.
Tonight’s tale from the Twilight Zone.

The Trump Doctrine: Foreign Policy with THE DONALD Captaining the Ship of State

October 22, 2019
by Peter Feinman
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest. And now it’s the tallest.” [Donald Trump in radio interview with WWOR as reported by Timothy Bella, The Washington Post: it’s always about him]

From time to time, Presidents of the United States become known for their foreign policy doctrines. Washington had “no entangling alliances.” Monroe had the Monroe Doctrine. Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick. Truman had the Truman Doctrine.

Certainly, it is not incumbent on a President to develop a formal doctrine or set of principles by which he is guided in his foreign policy decisions. Sometimes it is only after the fact when outsiders seek to make sense of what has occurred can some semblance of a coherent doctrine be determined. On the other hand, sometimes people lurch from event to event as they occur simply reacting to the chance circumstances of whatever happens.

And then there is the Trump Doctrine. It wasn’t always clear that there was a Trump Doctrine. So much of his decision-making seems impulsive and happenstance devoid of any coherent principles. Perhaps the best known and most consistent policy has been his submissiveness to Putin and other alpha males plus his love of theatricality centered on him. He does love playing with his Hollywood-casted toy soldiers. At least until they think they are actual people with minds of the own with loyalties to the Constitution and have to be fired/resigned.

Foreign policy has not been a big part of his administration until now. As I have written, for THE DONALD except for Mueller much of his presidency has been playtime. Now he is operating in the adult world and he is out of his league. The continual revealing of his actions taken in the Ukraine and to cover up those actions are important for two reasons. One, they will lead directly to his impeachment. Two, they provide insight into how this President who eviscerated the State Department conducts foreign affairs. His actions in Syria are a beacon to the world: he can be rolled by dictators and abandons allies without any awareness of there being consequences to his actions – there are no adults in the White House.

What does this all mean?

MIKE MULVANEY

Let’s begin with Mike Mulvaney, a former adult who regressed into being a babbling baby. He actually was a pretty good predictor of his own situation.

Mulvaney added he believed Trump’s emotional appeals and cavalier attitude might prompt him to try going around the Constitution.

“I wonder who is more interested in going around the Constitution in order to get things done. Barack Obama or Donald Trump,” Mulvaney said. [CNN, December 21, 2018]

We all know the answer to that debate! We all know that once Mulvaney became a member of this administration he had no qualms about circumventing the Constitution. Of course there was a quid pro quo! Get over it – perhaps the very words that will define him for all eternity on his tombstone.

In my blog entitled Mick Mulvaney Parachutes onto a Ship in Chaos the Rats Are Abandoning, written at the same time as the CNN article, I wrote the following about Syria then:

The more the real world presses in, the more the immature child president will lash out without any concern for the consequences. He lacks the mental necessities to understand the concept of consequences or even to care. He must give in to the impulse of the hissy fit not just in his tweets but in his decision-making. Consider his decisions to withdraw from Syria and half-withdraw from Afghanistan. Far from being well-thought decisions carefully implemented, they are case studies in the decision-making process of our immature child president who feels more and more trapped by the real world. Look at what has happened in just a tweet.

– He has granted Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the coveted 00 O.J, license to kill previously awarded to Putin and MBS.
– He has shown no loyalty to the Kurds who put their lives on the line to fight with us as allies against ISIS.
– He has shown that the very concept of “allies” has no meaning to the transactional President – unless you can offer something to him he could not care less about you.
– He has no interest in America being a world leader and does not care who fills in the vacuum.

All things considered, I think I nailed that one. While I did not exactly predict the current situation, I think I described a reasonable facsimile of what has and is transpiring.

What I did not formulate was the Trump Doctrine of foreign policy that now can be seen more clearly.

1. Be submissive to alpha males especially if there is the prospect of a business deal with them.
2. Actions 7,000 miles away do not matter.
3. There are no allies, everything is transactional.
4. There are no alliances, everything is individually transactional.
5. We should only help people fighting for their land if they were with us at Normandy.
6. We should only help people fighting for their land if they cover our costs.
7. We will ask you to provide dirt on political opponents even if it is not true.

Hard as I may seem to believe, these guidelines one day will be studied in school along with the other doctrines previously mentioned. Students will even be tested on their ability to recall and recite the Trump Doctrine.

In the present, countries have no problem understanding what the Trump Doctrine is. They may have grave fears about what it means for them but they have no doubts that as long as the current President remains in office, these guidelines remain in place.

Saudi Arabia can afford us even though it was not at Normandy. And it buys Trump properties. Yet we did nothing when Iran attacked it. One has to wonder what our President will do even if our troops are paid for when Iran attacks again.

The Baltic States cannot afford us and they were not at Normandy. If Russia ever decides it has the resources to invade the Baltics, we will do nothing. In this regard, the Ukraine imbroglio works to the advantage of the Baltic States. The longer Russia is bogged down there and the sanctions remain, the less likely it is to attack any Baltic State.

Taiwan can afford us but was not at Normandy. Even if it does not pay us now, China is probably too preoccupied at present to invade so there is no urgency to Taiwan paying us. However, if that moment of truth comes in the present administration, Taiwan better cough up the money fast if it wants our assistance.

Israel can afford us but was not at Normandy. Even if it does not pay us now, Iran is probably aware of what Israel would do in retaliation to an attack. In addition, Hezbollah is too busy trying to maintain control in Lebanon to attack Israel now even if it acquires sufficient precision missiles to eliminate Israel’s retaliatory ability.

The Trump Doctrine marks the end of the post-World War II era of international diplomacy. We have been in transition since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the “end of history.” Now a new doctrine has been implemented. Coalitions and alliances have been replaced by the rule of alpha males, transactional relationships, and foreign interference in American Presidential elections on behalf of the President. The old saying of “commander in chief and leader of the free world” is obsolete.

Allies are abandoned, enemies are emboldened. They don’t watch Fox, They don’t attend his professional political rallies. They don’t worship THE DONALD. They know the truth of the immature child masquerading as the adult THE DONALD. Trumpicans are still living the lie. Perhaps by the time of the impeachment and the trial to remove him, the Trumpicans finally will see the truth behind the act. Perhaps watching THE DONALD be rolled will achieve what the Mueller report did not. Perhaps the sacrifice of the Kurds will achieve what the Democrats have been unable to do. Perhaps the real world will expose the lie that is THE DONALD and bring this show to a close.