Deal Or No Deal?

Well, it's been awhile since I have blogged, mainly because I have been busy and the holidays were a whirlwind.
I hope whoever is reading this had a lovely time and a happy new year.
Now we are dealing with a new year and I guess we'll see if anything new will happen?
What happened this week, was pretty interesting.

First, the timing of Michael Cohen's testimony in congress and Trump's Art of Not Getting a Deal with North Korea. 
I am guessing that Democrats knew Trump would be in Hanoi, since this meeting was announced on September 11, 2018.
They probably needed a big enough headline to  distract from Trump trying to grab a peace prize.
Looks like whatever Trump tried, didn't do much, except for a giant photo opportunity and waste of money so people would stop talking about Lyin' Michael Cohen.
Either way, Cohen's testimony made Republicans look like they were in some kind of cult, they are all in with Trump, all the Trump voters I know, think Cohen is lying about everything.
Maybe he is.
 They are full on board with Trump, and are voting for him in 2020, all except one, only one defector in my circle.
He now hates Trump and says he will never vote again.
 His life is watching TV.
 I wish I was kidding, but I am not, that's why he voted for Trump.
He didn't watch Michael Cohen's testimony.
Like other Trump voters, they don't care what he does. It's pointless to even talk about it.
They keep watching the Ministry of Truth to tell them what to think and do.
The National Emergency that Trump called for to build the wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for, might also be a problem.
 On Tuesday, a resolution was passed, overturning Trump's National Emergency.
13 Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats. It passed the House of Representatives and is on the way to the Senate. Republicans barely have a majority there.
Anyway you look at it, this wasn't a good week for Trump.

Other than a photo opportunity for Trump and Kim this week, with Trump saying that North Korea wants all sanctions lifted and North Korea saying they only wanted partial sanctions relief, it's he said, she said, and Trump will spin his nuclear reality show any way he can.
Which won't be hard since he has plenty of options for damage control.
The internet was trying to not laugh at Cadet Bone Spurs going to Hanoi, since he dodged the draft and missed an opportunity to go to Vietnam many years ago, that irony was not lost on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is going to run for President and so is Joe Biden.
Isn't there anyone the Democrats haven't recycled yet?
We all know what happened with Bernie in the last election.
They keep churning out candidates no one wants.
Biden? If he gets elected it will be a fear vote, anything but Trump.
I can't help wondering if there isn't someone besides Beto, who couldn't even beat Ted Cruise in Texas.
There's Elizabeth Warren who has Universal Childcare on her platform.
However, I doubt Democrats will go for a woman again after Hillary.
The Governor of Washington, Jay Inslee is running for President on a platform of Climate Change, which Republicans say doesn't exist.
We are the biggest polluters with US military bases everywhere, multinational corporations, yuuuuge billion dollar contracts for weapons that we proliferate worldwide.
 Ongoing wars, in countries we have no business being in and CIA coups.
 Probably Venezuela is next on the list. It's never enough for the Indispensable Empire.

While all of this is churning, we get the Pope actually having his own summit on the pedophiles that have been running Rome and wherever there's a Catholic church near you.
Even in my tiny town in New Jersey, we had a Pedophile transferred, but hey, that church still has people praying there.
Francis handed out a bunch of excuses, and wants measures taken to stop child abuse. Yeah right Pope, I wouldn't want my kid within 10 feet of a church.
This organization has done nothing but terrorize humanity for centuries. If anyone's going to hell it's these depraved disgusting people in costumes lecturing us all on sin.
I feel so sorry for all the victims of these monsters.
I hope Catholics everywhere know the money they give to the church is going to pay out billions in reparations to sex abuse victims and it's hardly even begun.
I can't believe the church isn't bankrupt, but owing to the billions of dollars worth of priceless art and real estate these perverts own, I guess they have money to burn and urges to satisfy.
The farce of these once pillars of society controlling everyone is degrading before our eyes.
The US government is a joke and the only one's who don't know it, is us.
Michael Cohen is a liar and I wonder if people think he paid $130,000 because HE was having sex with Stormy Daniels and not Trump?
Because I am not sure I understand what people are thinking? The President is a joke.
God only know how many women he's paid off?
 But that's nothing new for presidents.
Our national emergency has been a long time coming.
Mueller's investigation is ongoing at least six people are going to jail and more have been indicted.
It's 1972 and Nixon all over again, except it's way more complicated.
What I wonder is what kind of deal is Trump going to be able to make?
So far I haven't been impressed with his deal making skills.
 Maybe his last deal will be his best deal?
If Trump is removed from office we get hyper religious Pence.
Another joke of a no nothing, making the Indispensable Nation, dispensable indeed.
The American New World Order is a shambles. With over half US citizens living in poverty and corporate fascism taking over.
We still don't have decent Universal Healthcare, because "Nobody knew it could be so complicated"
Our overlords in Washington DC made a deal with the devil long ago, there's too much money flowing into their bank accounts. They become millionaires when they leave office and get a gig consulting and lobbying for more of the same. 
Impeaching Trump or removing him from office won't change anything.
There's deals and money to be made.

Federal Courthouse Blackout is it Trump or Pence?

There's a secret re; Grand Jury Subpoena in Federal Court that happened to day. The entire floor was sealed off.
No reporters were allowed.
Word is that this is about Pence.
Pence was hand picked by Manafort and I can't find any information about whether or not Mueller has talked to him.
This would explain Pence's baffling thousand yard stare, he knows he's screwed.

It could even be Trump himself as suggested by the Politico article.
This would also explain why Democrats want Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
Constitutionally she is next in line.
There's only one other example of the floor of Federal Courthouse being cleared which was during the 9/11 hearings https://twitter.com/SpicyFiles/status/1073634623740088327?s=19
This article suggests that oral arguments would be today, Dec. 14. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/31/has-robert-mueller-subpoenaed-trump-222060
Trumps schedule for today;
https://factba.se/topic/calendar
There is a whole afternoon of time for him to be in court or watching FOX and eating cheeseburgers.
Trump’s sole appointee to that court, Gregory Katsas, recused himself.
Whatever is going on is unusual. Just like almost everyday since Trump took office. 
So maybe that request for a take home test of Mueller's questions, was a courtesy?
We may never know what this was about since this will probably remain sealed.
Curiouser and curiouser.  

Dirty Deeds

I saw the pictures of Michael Cohen going into the courtroom with his daughter,today, she was limping with a crutch like in a Christmas Carol and he was Bob Cratchit and she was Tiny Tim.

Michael? Is that you?

I mean how low can you get, to trot your daughter out for the sympathy sentence?
I guess it worked.
3 years for helping a cover up to get Doughnut elected.
Michael Cohen's conspiracy against America got him only 3 years at some country club resort "prison"
I guess we would have to look at Nixon's White House plumbers to get an idea of what a sentence would be. turns out it's anywhere from 2 1/2 to 8 years!
Michael Cohen will never serve 3 years.
He'll get off early, for good behavior. Then he'll bounce somewhere.
People get more time when they get busted for pot.
So, he'll have to pay restitution, after maybe a year long rest.
Well, at least there was NO COLLUSION! Lol
I am curious as to what will happen when the Witch Hunt catches actual witches.
Speaking of which. the particular show last night I saw, where DoughNut Donnie wouldn't shut up and told everyone he was going to shut down the government, for the wall Mexico is supposed to pay for.
 Looks like Pelosi shut him down, but seriously, did anyone see Pence sitting

Photo-The Hill

there like a corpse at Weekend at Bernies?
 I mean that was so bizarre.
Mr. Mother's Husband just sitting there, looking at his hands.
What the heck is that all about?
Like is he praying for it to stop?
You know what I am praying would stop?
The war in Yemen. An undeclared war that actually went up for a vote today in the Senate to end. 10 Democrats decided not to vote and it was short 5 votes to end the misery that's going on there.

The 5 Democrats that worked against their own party to block this vote were;
                                                           Jim Acosta
                                                           Al Lawson Jr.
                                                           Collin Petersen
                                                           Dutch Ruppersberger
                                                           David Scott
                                  7 abstained
                                                          Raul Grijalva
                                                          Alcee Hastings
                                                          Bill Keating
                                                          Lujan Grisham
                                                          Jared Polis
                                                          Tim Walz
                                                           Keith Ellison 
So the carnage in Yemen will continue. We will  fuel Arab jets with fuel we pay for, to continue bombing that country.
                                                   FOR NO DAMN REASON.
Millions of dollars we gave away to Saudi Arabia, so the jets they bought from the US can go on their missions and the lobbies of the corporations that build the jets. and the bombs. bribe our supposed representatives, to continue to vote for undeclared wars.
                                It's business as usual, with the psychopaths in charge.

                                             

"I Am Not A Crook" = "Totally Cleared"

4 months ago, I wrote a post, about "Individual 1." (Donald Trump)
I also wrote about Watergate, and Spiro Agnew, Nixon's Vice President, who was forced to resign for felony tax evasion.
The reason I bring this up is Vice President Mike Pence's involvement in heading Trump's transition team.
A week after Pence was put in charge, he hired Michael Flynn.

Pence defended Michael Flynn, on TV. I am only guessing maybe Jesus told him to keep covering for Flynn. What he did, was become a willing accomplice in crimes against the people of the U.S.
It is conceivable that Pence will go down, just like Spiro Agnew did, all those years ago.
Mueller's filing, suggests that Pence was doing everything he could, to cover for Flynn's crimes.
For someone who's so damn religious. he sure does a lot of lying.
Will Pence be held accountable for any of this?
In light of the news of Cohen (remember, he was head Finance Director of the RNC) being implicated with the Russian Trump Tower deal, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, don't forget, Trump wrote a press release about the Moscow Meeting, that Cohen was illegally, coordinating perjury regarding that meeting.
Not to mention paying off porn stars on behalf of Trump.
Will the GOP congress be implicated?  After the Annapolis Raid in 2017
Remember when Trey Gowdy got clued into the Mueller Investigation? He decided not to run for congress again. (See this)
What about the NRA? Accepting money from Russian Nationals. Is there anyone who isn't taking money from the Russians? (Or the Saudi's or Israel?)
Did Trump get elected because of fraud and should he be stripped of office?
Now, on the heels of the latest Mueller disclosure, John Kelly will be leaving by the end of the year. The rumor is that Trump refuses to even speak to Kelly anymore.
Kelly, decided to have a go at Rep. Frederica Wilson, back in 2017, but I doubt anyone remembers that. This guy is full of it too, but somehow everyone was praying that he was "the adult in the room."
Now that things are looking even uglier for Trump, Kelly is going to cut and run. His reputation in ruins.
However, it seems like there's no end to the amount of takers willing to grab onto Trump's coat tails no matter how crazy or messy the ride is. The New Year looks like it's going to be more chaos while Trump gaslights America and Trumpers keep drinking the kool-aid.
It just looks more and more like a cult to me. Maybe Q will fly down in a metallic flying saucer and rescue the Trump family and warp speed into the sunset. These people are so desperate for a savior, they'll believe anything, especially if it's on FOX Ministry Of Truth. Trumps probably gorging on cheeseburgers watching it now.

I'm Dreaming of an Orange Christmas

Christmas is Carnage!

Cohen's plea today, marked the first time that Trump and his private business dealings in Moscow were named in open court as part of Mueller's investigation into Russia's ties to the Trump campaign.
(I can’t wait to see what happens to Manafort now that he fucked himself over and broke his plea deal.)
Explains Donny's panic attack after a phone call while attending the WH Christmas Tree lighting ceremony last night.
 But word is that Whittaker may have tipped Trump off last night what was going to happen this morning.

This explains the manic tweets about the “Witch Hunt.” 
Stand by for the firing of Mueller during Christmas recess...
MSNBC  reported that Trump is now contradicting himself and saying he was allowed to do business during the campaign. Thus corroborating Cohen. Trump has previously said he had no business dealings during his campaign/presidency.
Considering how he was the RNC deputy finance chair and Hannity's lawyer, the entire right wing political sphere must be shitting their pants on what Cohen may have given up
I think tomorrow is shaping up to be a pretty big Friday. There has been so much so fast this week. Mueller was clearly waiting for Trump to submit his take home test before he started laying down the justice hammer.
100% guarantee Trump lied about Trump Tower Moscow in his written response
"What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?
President Trump was asked about the Trump Tower Moscow project among a list of written questions by special counsel Robert Mueller, sources familiar with the president’s responses tell @ABC News. 
No details about his response.
So we have;

Corsi admits to a bunch of stuff last night.

Deutsche Bank HQ got raided for the Panama Papers

Now Michael Cohen is pleading guilty to this and still cooperating with the Special Counsel?

What should not be forgotten is the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who died in a car bomb for publishing the Panama papers. 

Trump's tax lawyer in Chicago was raided today. 

Bad day for Trump.

I am writing on the fly, enjoy your evening. 

Wow, just wow.

Missionary Man

One of the most amazing and baffling things that happened over the Thanksgiving holiday was the news of a self-proclaimed adventurer, Jesus freak, John Chau and his delusional invasion of what he called "Satan's Last Stronghold" the North Sentinel Island, home to an indigenous tribe of people, which is off limits and illegal to enter, yet this did not stop John Chau.
The pathogens he could have exposed the people who lived on this island to, was of no concern to him. He offered gifts of scissors and safety pins and a soccer ball, along with his germs.
This seriously insane act, really was reminiscent of the Puritans and their pathogens wiping out Native American tribes and invading Native American land.
No one in Europe wanted these religious freaks. So what is the legacy of all this?
Someone like John Chau.
When I first heard about this selfish act, I went on John Chau's Instagram and his insta was pretty much a gold mine.
This dude lead an itinerant lifestyle, he lived in a cabin in Whiskeytown, California, on federal park land, which was probably pretty cheap, if not free. However, that avenue of an abode was cut off from him because of the Carr Fire. I don't know if not having this place to go back to made this guy go for broke, I do wonder if it was a factor?
John Chau was a graduate of Oral Roberts University. He majored in sports science. He was a volunteer and a director of a non-profit called More Than A Game, teaching soccer to refugee children in Tulsa Oklahoma.. (One of his 'gifts" to the Sentinelese was a soccer ball) I don't know where the money came from to teach refugee's soccer? But it was enough to send Chau on trips to Iraq and South Africa teaching Syrian and Iraq children the game.
That's just great, we ruin their countries with our senseless wars and then these christian non-profit's go in and play soccer with the kids who's lives have been destroyed.
So, it's little wonder to me that John Chau may have been trying to co-opt the Sentinelese people into some kind of 'Kingdom of Jesus" outreach program, (doesn't sound too much like Jim Jones, right?) where he could be director of sports or some such, for the Sentinelese soccer team he would develop. Because, Jesus said so.
What I tried to find out was, who was supporting this mission? Was there a branch of the Christian community providing financing and any other support for John Chau to take his bible and safety pins to Sentinel Island?
The only organization I could find was All Nations, a Kansas City based organization, who, "helped train Chau, discussed the risks with him and sent him on the mission, to support him in his "life's calling,"
The woman's name is Mary Ho, she is also responsible for this debacle and should be accountable. "He wanted to have a long-term relationship, and if possible, to be accepted by them and live amongst them," she said."
So, just to get this straight, the religious zealot named John Chau, was aided and abetted by Mary Ho and All Nations.
Yet no one has stepped up to say take responsibility in this senseless tragedy.
Why?
Why do these so-called Christian people who are all about sin and redemption, not take some responsibility for this, when they did everything they could to sustain and encourage this lunacy? These bible thumpers, who have taken over the US, with their restrictions on abortion and birth control, trying to dictate what people can and can't do with their lives. They have nothing to say about a dude who could have wiped out an entire tribe of indigenous people who wanted no part of this.
What I suspect, especially because of the silence from any Christian authority, is that had Chau succeeded with his plan to establish the "kingdom", that they would have co-opted the Sentinelese people into  a non profit, NGO scheme, as employment opportunities for people like Chau and his ilk, or exploit any resources they may have. This is what happens when we invade a country or an island in the name of religion or "democracy"

Notice the crosses on the peoples uniforms. 

But the Sentinelese people weren't having it. They had been exposed almost a century before, to a degenerate white dude named Portman, who treated them like specimens and was doing creepy things like measuring their penis.' They obviously remember this experience and want nothing to do with whitey or his Jesus bible B.S.
Just to be clear, Chau had been planning to take advantage of these people since 2016, it's all there in his Instagram and his trips to the Andaman Islands, which is where the fisherman he bribed to take him to North Sentinel Island, came from. This wasn't anything new. Now all kinds of resources are being used to get back Chau's remains. Probably more than anything to try and stop any pathogens from contaminating the people of Sentinel Island. All Nations should be charged for this and there should also be criminal charges.
The last I heard from the Boston Globe's Twitter feed is the Sentinelese are having a confrontation with authorities trying to recover Chau's body. I just hope this can be resolved peacefully.
Weirdly, over Thanksgiving, people were talking about this incident, but no one was making a connection to our own country and what happened to the Native American people living here. It's like no one even knows how Thanksgiving came to be? All they know is there's going to be turkey.
So it was with some surprise that I opened up The New York Times and read an article that had many similarities to the one I wrote on my blog years ago called Thankstaking
It was called Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving is wrong
Thanks for finally catching up. Maybe I am ahead of my time?
And just for some fun, here's the Eurythmics, Missionary Man;

My Grandpop and The Hundredth Anniversary of World War I

Cpl. James Greenlee
314th Inf., 79th Division

My grandfather, James Greenlee, fought in WWI.
 He served with distinction during the Meuse-Argonne campaign He was gassed during the Meuse action, he was commended as a runner. Running messages for his commanding officer.
Even though I knew my grandfather to be a brave man, who fought for his country,
I can't figure out with any kind of logic, why the US was involved in that war?
I don't think there are many Americans that know a damn thing about how we got into WWI, let  alone all the other wars we have fought.
We can pretty much say that World War I started the U.S Military Industrial Complex that has taken over our economy today.
If a war like WWI started today, I wonder if they could start a draft like the one we had then?
What I remember being taught about the first World War was that Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo.
That's right, some royal dude was murdered and we actually fought over that.
Makes perfect sense.. Not!
It seems that there was this telegram from the German Foreign Secretary to Mexico, offering to help Mexico get back some territory lost in the Mexican American War.
If Mexico would join up with Germany, against the U.S.
Then German U-boats started sinking U.S. ships.
After that we had to make "the world safe for democracy."
We still think we are good at that, I guess.
The wars continue.
Many countries at this time were resource poor and if they could invade and get other countries resources, so much the better.
One of  the direct consequence from WW1 was the carving up of the Middle East.
 People don't talk about it much, but it's true
It's all about oil, resources and it's still happening today.

My Grandpop, second from the left, crouching.

I doubt my Grandpop knew the insidious reasons the war even started, but I am sure he saw so many lives that were lost.
 I am also sure it affected him deeply.
World War I was supposed to be the war that ended all wars.
 It didn't.
The U.S., one hundred years later, still bombing, we are at war with at least seven countries.
Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Niger, Iraq, Syria, Yemen.
How did that even happen?
Did even one candidate running for office in this years midterm election even suggest stopping these wars, the American people have no say in?
I don't know of any candidates running on an anti war platform.
War has been normalized in this country, to the point that most people don't even think about it.
 If it's not on CNN or Fox News, then it doesn't exist.
There's nothing new there.
World War I was the first war that propaganda paid a real role.

Did my Grandpa see this?

Lucky for us, the pointy helmet Germans never made it to our shores.
I don't know what kind of a logistical nightmare it would have been?
 Weirdly enough, there was a plan to do exactly that in 1898. But they never had a Navy large enough to invade New York City or Boston,  no one took it seriously.
It was hypothetical, so that poster, is a bit off putting considering how unlikely it was.
I guess the best they could do was the telegram to try and get Mexico to join them and then sink some of our ships.
What's even stranger, is that Germany was so hell bent they were sinking boats, like the Housatonic (sounds Teutonic, but nevermind)
Anyway. the Housatonic stopped after 2 warning shots from the U-boat, The Captain from the Housatonic boarded the U-Boat and was told they were going to torpedo the boat anyway.
The sailors on board had 2 hours to abandon ship which they then got into lifeboats. They were towed by the German submarine until a British boat came along.
Really? This sounds like something out of a Peter Sellers movie. Bizarre.
 I guess my Grandpa would have known about this incident.
It's weird because they were attacking cruise ships and civilian cargo ships, it's not like they were engaging with war vessels. The Lusitania was carrying war munitions, also the Lusitania was advised to stay out of the way of the German U Boats, but ignored this advice.
It's like a  submarine going after a Carnival Cruise ship, carrying bombs and guns. I don't know what is worse?
I guess the crazy Keiser telling you to torpedo these non military ships wasn't enough to make anyone say, oh hell no!. But hey, looking at who we have for president. anything is possible.
War is so weird. I never understood it.

I am pretty sure my grandfather saw this poster.
He was one of seven children and my great grandfather was a baker.
They weren't wealthy and were probably poor.
So, he decided he'd go over there.
I was young when he passed away, on the night Kennedy was elected, he slipped on some ice and he passed away.
I have one memory of him on a ladder, painting my parents house. (He was a house painter after the war) He came down from that ladder and scooped me up in his arms.
I was only two years old, but I remember how much I adored him.
My Grandpop and his brother Charles, a paramedic in France. Both in a war that was supposed to end all wars.
They did their best and were good and honorable men.
I only wish the war they fought in really was the end of all war.
Peace.