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Mueller

Republicans: Mueller Report Confirms Putin Deserves Congressional Medal of Honor

April 17, 2019
by Peter Feinman

In an unexpected development, Republicans today unequivocally declared that the Mueller report conclusively proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vladimir Putin deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor for service above and beyond the call of duty on behalf of the United States of America. The Mueller report documents Putin’s sustained, systematic, and comprehensive violation of the United States of America presidential election on behalf of the Republican candidate. His relentless attack on Crooked Hillary helped to save America from a fate worse than death. All true Americans owe Putin a debt of thanks for his efforts. We the People are grateful to Robert Mueller for showing to the American People what Putin did on behalf of this country. It is altogether fitting that in return we award him with highest medal we are capable of bestowing on a true hero of this country.

PERSON #1 CALLS FOR REPUDIATION OF THE 22nd  AMENDMENT

As everyone knows, FDR was elected 4 times to the office of President and served 16 years. Now Person #1 has had the greatest first two years of a presidency in the history of the United States. Why then should he be denied the opportunity to serve for 16 years as well? It’s not as if the proposed amendment would enable someone to be president for life like his autocratic cronies. After all Person #1 might is still likely to be alive at age 84 despite being clinically obese. The extra time will provide Person #1 with the opportunity to groom Madam President for her position as his successor. She will then be the first female president and together they will be the first father-daughter presidents…and Person #1 won’t even have to leave the White House. Plus he can count on being pardoned if the statute of limitations has not expired and he is convicted of everything. Reversing the 22nd amendment is all part of God’s plan to save America.

PERSON #1 TO DISCLOSE HIS TAXES NOW THAT THE IRS AUDIT IS COMPLETE

At long last the IRS audit of the income taxes of Person #1 has been completed.  As a result, he is now free to disclose his taxes to the American public just as he was in favor of all along in the first place. Since he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and not lose any of his supporters, he has no concerns about releasing his tax returns.

So what If they show he is not as wealthy as he claimed to be?

So what if they show he has not earned as much as he claimed to have earned?

So what if they show he has used every trick in the book and some that aren’t to minimize his taxes?

So what if they show his income comes from laundering funds from the Russian mob through banks on the sanctions list?

So what if New York State will now begin an audit of his taxes? Do you think he paid property taxes on the alleged value of his properties in New York State as claimed to insurance companies and banks? Think of how much he owes Cuomo!

His worshipers don’t care about process crimes. So what if he doesn’t pay his taxes and his income is criminally earned? It’s all part of God’s plan.

PERSON #1 TO REVEAL HIS SAT SCORES AND GRADES

Person #1 is the smartest person in the room when in a morgue. He is a very stable genius. Remember how he figured that the solution to the forest fires in California was to MAKE AMERICA RAKE AGAIN. All those experts with all their degrees and experience could not figure out what he could. Only he can solve our problems. He is finally tired of people making fun of him for being a stupid ignorant moron. How many Americans know the difference between the Balkans and the Baltics anyway? Canada, England, what’s the difference. The White House was burned. It’s hard enough keeping track of where his father was born so how can be expected to know that 306 electoral votes is not a landslide? The time has come once and for all to prove that he is not the bozo SNL portrays him as being and so many foreign leaders, elected officials, former cabinet and administrative officials, and real estate developers in New York know first-hand from their working with him. Person #1 will now razzle dazzle us with his SAT scores and his grades. He will show us that Daddy Dear did not have to buy his child’s way into Wharton like those La La land Democrat parents did so their loser children could get into college. In fact, Person #1 will even deliver a 30-minute speech on a single topic without saying “Lock her up,” “Build a Wall,” or “Who is going to pay for it.”  He will deliver a coherent 30-minute talk thereby proving he is at least as well-spoken, intelligent, and thoughtful as a porn star or a Playmate and is not some 7th grade smart-aleck dumb aleck. And he will do that on Fox as soon as his network stops giving time of old socialists. He will do this soon, very soon, you’ll see.

PERSON #1 TO SUE ALL THE WOMEN WHO CLAIM HE HARASSED THEM

During the 2016 campaign, Person #1 promised to sue each and every single woman who had falsely accused him of improper behavior. As we all know, he is a stickler for keeping his campaign promises. Since he has not sued anyone so far it must either be because none of the accusations are false so there is no one to sue or else he has been too busy with the Russher thing to have the time. Now that he has been completely exonerated, he has so much free time he is even bored watching TV all day or playing golf.  Person #1 finally has the time and lawyers with nothing else to do so he sue all these women.

PERSON #1 EAGER TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS, TELLS NADLER TO BRING IT ON

With this President, everyday is April 1. It’s his Groundhog Day.

 

The White House Ship of State (The Sequel)

March 1, 2018
by Peter Feinman

The White House ship of state is not the Love Boat. Is it the Titanic? Perhaps a better metaphor than something crashing into an iceberg would be the meltdown of the ship where the motto is “ABANDON SHIP! ABANDON SHIP!” Let’s examine the different components of the ship of state and determine what if any general observations may be made separate from the “Breaking News” limitations of the cable TV talk shows.

The Crew

For the crew of the White House ship of state life is a combat zone. To some extent such a description would be apropos for any White House. It is a high pressure environment of relentless stress punctuated by moments when it all seems worth it. There is a burnout factor associated with the job even in the best of times and these are not the best of times when people are dropping like flies.

Each day begins never knowing when Kratatoa east of Java will erupt. Under ordinary circumstances, White House staff know that on any given day something outside their control – a mass shooting, a North Korean missile launch, a terrorist attack – could disrupt their day. However in this White House, the explosions are internal. At any given moment our insecure immature child President could unleash a barrage of hissy tweets leaving the stressed staff to clean up the bull trump. No preparation or advance planning can be brought to bear since there is no telling what will trigger the outburst. It’s a little like the situation with the 7th grade smart-aleck-dumb aleck student. The teacher never knows exactly what will generate a smart-aleck-dumb-aleck remark by the student, but you know sooner or later it will happen. It is inevitable.

For the first time since the War of 1812, White House staff may qualify for combat pay. This time the White House may not be literally burning but it is a metaphorical “Is the Bronx Burning?” This is not what they signed up for. PTSD was not part of the job description. The white trumper is the most recent casualty following a day after the resignation of her close friend Josh Raffel. You can’t tell the players without a scorecard and in a moment’s notice that scorecard may be obsolete. Suppose there is a real emergency and We the People need the White House staff to be a its best to steer us through the crisis. Given all the effort and energy to deal with self-imposed crises, what will be left for the real ones?

The Lawyer-Facilitator

In the original Battlestar Galactica series, the facilitator was a (female) member of the crew whose job it was to facilitate the needs of the (male) members of the crew on their long voyages. The network decided that such a job description no matter how realistic would not play well in Peoria. As a result, the position was redefined in something more like Julie McCoy, Love Boat cruise director.

In some ways, the issue of the adultery with a porn performer has come and gone. People, especially evangelicals, don’t care if their President committed adultery before becoming President or while President. The irony of the situation is that he paid $130,000 for nothing. The story came out and his supporters are just as likely to be high fiving and back slapping each other shouting “You the man! Way to go Donald” as they are to condemn him.

The issue here is not sex but “follow the money.” Although not part of Mueller’s probe, the payment of the funds through the lawyer-facilitator has spawned its own investigation and legal case. At some point, the source of the money may be traced back to the President. In the meantime, isn’t it comforting to know the lawyer-facilitator of our President has no ethics?

The Abuser

Besides the stressed out staff and the unethical lawyer-facilitator, our White House ship of state has a crew including abusers, in this case, men who beat women. Naturally, the abuser in-chief takes the word of the men in these situations.

He took the word of Putin over his violation of America in 2016 elections.

He took the word of Judge Moore.

He took the word of senior aide Bob Porter.

So far this decisions have led to the indictment of 13 Russians, a Republican defeat in Alabama of all places, and a resignation. Truly it is shame that good men can be ruined by mere allegations and from women who are always wrong. Look at his own life as proof.

But the abuse like the adultery is the mere tip of the iceberg for the White House ship of state. There is a lot more going on below the surface than realized. The most immediate issue is security clearance. The revelations of Porter’s actions unexpectedly shone the light on an aspect of White House operations in complete chaos. Instead of being an isolated case of an overlooked person lacking the proper security clearance for a given position, the number of people without such clearance mushroomed into the dozens. Did anybody outside the military and intelligence agencies actually have the required clearance to do their assigned job?

People have been wondering when Mueller’s investigation will hone in on Jared Kushner, son-in-law to the current president and husband to a future one but the F.B.I. may beat him to it.  In a still unfolding story, the senior advisor now has been stripped of his access to meetings and files he is supposed to have access to given his vast responsibilities. The revelation that four countries admit to seeking to manipulate the financially-exposed naïve son-in-law inevitably leads to the issue of the Russian manipulation of the father-in-law. It will be interesting to see what the F.B.I. turns up in its investigation of Kushner’s financial dealings and whether the first “pardon” will be to grant this compromised person who lied on his application through omission. In the meantime, the internal war in the White Hosue heats up to the level of the Congressional Schiff/Nunes conflict. As Steve Bannon of all people correctly noted, the House Intelligence Committee is a misnamed joke. If it had been tasked with determining who bombed Pearl Harbor we never would have entered World War II.

Related to this commotion over security clearance is the entire issue of chaos. After more than a year of operation, the White House should not have had this issue. The fact that it does is another reminder of the management by chaos style that defines this presidency. I have seen people on cable TV talk shows expound on how this President prefers the chaotic style that puts him at the center. This viewpoint makes it seem as if the Wharton student made a careful study of the different styles of management and then came to an informed decision that the management by chaos style is the one he preferred the most. What nonsense! As an immature child the management by chaos style is the only one in which he is capable. He simply lacks the mental necessities and emotional maturity to manage in any other way. Chaos isn’t his choice, it’s his nature.

Captain   

What does all this mean about the captain of the White House ship of state? We can learn that in a real emergency or crisis he has no experience to draw on. His preferred venue is the professional wrestling arena where the action is scripted and the results are predetermined. Even his vaunted “You’re fired” was scripted and based on the decisions of others. He’s not even man enough to fire Jeff Sessions face to face, he needs to act through Twitter and hope Mr. Magoo gets the message. The real world, however, isn’t scripted and his shortcomings are exposed every time he makes a decision on the spur of the moment. In the movie or TV show in his mind, he can charge unarmed into a building consumed in gunfire; in the real world, not so much. Here he is in the eighth decade of his life, still playing hero in his imagination just as 7th graders do when they read comic books and watch John Wayne or the superheroes.

Our insecure immature child President is relentless in his need to belittle others to assert himself. His Republican primary opponents were little and losers. His Democratic investigator is little and a loser. The North Korean leader is little and will be a loser to the man with the bigger button. The only foes he doesn’t call little are female. He doesn’t belittle them as individuals the way he does his male foes, he demeans the gender. They are someone he would grab, they are unworthy of being treated as an equal.

From this perspective, it is easy to understand his devotion to macho-macho man himself, Vladimir Putin. It is easy to understand why the insecure immature child would want Putin to be his BFF. What more validation of himself as a real man could there be than to be Putin’s BFF? Even putting aside the Russian money that rescued him or his escapades during the Miss Universe pageant in Russia, one should not lose sight of the importance of Putin’s appeal to him. “Macho, macho man. I want to be a macho man.”

Courtesy discogs.com

America doesn’t need a parade, he does. How many people will have to die so Trump can prove he is a real man? How many will have to suffer? Let us pray that in the real world, our ship of state never hits an iceberg, because the person who is supposed to be at the helm lacks the right stuff to be captain.

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre to the Titanic: The White House Ship of State (Part I)

February 21, 2018
by Peter Feinman
Adult: It's about time you learn the universe doesn't revolve around you. Teenager: Maybe YOUR universe. Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

When the President of the United States learned of Japan’s attack on America on December 7 did he exult or strike back?

When the President of the United States learned of Al Qaeda’s attack on America on 9/11 did he exult or strike back?

When the President of the United States learned in 2018 of Russia’s attack on America from 2014 to 2016 did he exult or strike back?

To even ask these questions serves notice of the perilous world in which we live. For the first time in the history of the United States, the President of the United States declines to fulfill the constitutional responsibility to be commander in chief, the one job title/description actually in the Constitution.

To some extent on a human level, it is reasonable to understand why the target of the Mueller investigation would breathe a sigh of relief when the Russian indictments did not include him or his staff and went back to 2014. Indeed the Bull Trump network shared in this exultation declaring it a day of victory and vindication for the President.

To be fair, the Mueller indictments reflect no loss of American life, occurred years ago, and were well known to the American intelligence community, Facebook, and Twitter, and the American public excluding Republicans. In this context there was no sense of urgency as there was on 12/7 and 9/11. So for a first reaction, the sense of triumph is understandable.

What about the second reaction?

Did it occur to him or the Bull Trump network that there might be a second and equally exhaustive report on the hacking of the DNC?

Did it occur to him or the Bull Trump network that there might be an equally exhaustive report of money laundering for the Russian mob in violation of U.S. law and sanctions?

Did it occur to him or the Bull Trump network that there might be an equally exhaustive report and detailed timeline of the contacts with Russia during the campaign?

Did it occur to him or the Bull Trump network that there might be an equally exhaustive report of the obstruction efforts to prevent the documentation of the Russian violation of America?

Exactly what to Devin Nunes, Jeannine Pirro, and Sean Hannity have to celebrate about their efforts to prevent Mueller from exposing the Russian violation of America? The new indictments of Manafort and the guilty plea of a lawyer following Gates’s cooperation hints at the indictments to come given the still-secret information Mueller has. The lawyers who don’t want their president client to testify because he cannot tell the truth undoubtedly realize how much greater the risk is now. Don’t they realize that these indictments are the beginning and not the end? It’s not going to be over soon.

As it turns out there was a second reaction and it was about the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Suddenly the Huckabee Huckster spewed forth the bull trump that of course the President knew and said so all along that the Russians had meddled in the election. Now the line was such meddling hadn’t made a difference (a claim difficult to prove or disprove) and that it was all Obama’s fault since the violation of America began under his watch and he did nothing. Imagine what the Bull Trump network would have said in 2016, if the administration then had announced that Russia was meddling in the election to support Trump!

So maybe the third reaction would be about fulfilling his responsibilities as commander in chief to defend America from outside attack and to attack the attackers. The idea that this third reaction would occur to him is so preposterous and so silly that it is embarrassing that anyone would take it seriously and even ask the Huckabee Huckster about it. Let’s look at the record.

First, any time Putin wants to end this presidency he can do so. He knows the hidden tax returns reveal ties to the Russian mob. He knows that the dossier is true or at least those portions which are. He knows what contacts were made during the campaign and probably could produce reports documenting them if he wanted to. He has the means to destroy the current American president if he chooses to do so.

Having said that, he has no reason to want to at this point in time. His immediate goal is the removal of sanctions. The American President has been a good little boy and not applied the most recent set of sanctions authorized by Congress. The American President has been a good little boy and not called for any additional actions to be taken against Russia for violating America. So why remove him? Who would do a better job of protecting Russia than the current good little boy?

Second, people have forgotten that oaths have no meaning to him. As I previously wrote concepts like separation of powers and oaths to the Constitution are adult concepts beyond the mental necessities of our immature child president. His mind genuinely does not function on that level. He may say the words but they cannot sink because his brain never reached the state of development where he can absorb adult ideas. The question he asks is are you loyal to him? The question he asks is who is his Roy Cohn? He never acknowledges anyone else’s oath to the Constitution, loyalty to We the People, or professionalism so why should it be any different when it comes to him? The oath he took at inauguration was simply lines from a script to be performed; they have nothing to do with how he thinks or operates. The only way he can act to defend America is if he thought not acting would make him a loser.

Although I can’t prove this, my first reaction to the idea of his running for president, was that it was just a stunt. There were two things I thought he had no interest in, couldn’t do, and would not want to do. The first was that he could never be America’s Comforter in Chief. The thin-skinned narcissist was incapable of feeling yet alone expressing the sympathy and empathy necessary for the discharge of this duty. I think it is safe to say that events have proved this prediction true.

The second was that he could not start every morning with a security briefing. It would make no sense to him. He didn’t know where the places were. He didn’t know who the people were. He didn’t know what the issues were? And if he didn’t have resort there, why should he care? Furthermore, during the daily briefing he would be in a room full of people who knew their stuff. How long before they caught on that he was ignorant moron with nothing constructive to contribute? You can fake it in the professional wrestling arena where you have the right to your own facts; that won’t work in the briefing room. I acknowledge that at the time when these thoughts first occurred me I didn’t know that he couldn’t read more than a page. I think it is safe to say that events have proved this prediction true.

Tom Friedman is exactly right to declare that our democracy is in danger but let’s not get carried away. We have seen so many James Bond movies showcasing the vaunted power of Spectre/KGB that we may think it is real. While we should resist and respond to the Russian violation of America, we should not exaggerate its effectiveness. We should not be building Putin up, we have a President who does that!

We know that our President will never act directly against Putin. He will be as dismissive of Russia’s violation of America as he was of Putin’s assassination of political opponents – after all we kill people, too. We meddle too.  It’s no secret that the Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln. Now it would seem it is no longer the party of Reagan either. What is the political downside for the failure of the American President to be Commander in Chief? Do the American people really want him to act against Russia? Does his base want him to act against Russia? Who knew that all those white males shouting USA! USA! USA! We’re Number 1. We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! actually have no objection to being violated by Putin?