Inconceivable

The rot runs deep. Kavanaugh is a fucking perjurer (and perhaps worse), and he'll get on the court. I almost really can't believe how aggressively Republicans were willing to trade the country for power. If we were cell-mates in prison, they'd have sold us for a pack of Lucky's.

I also fear there'll be no tumbrels, no climbing off the Fascist Slide – see, in part, above. If the election is rigged, and why should we assume it's not, where does it stop??

And now school has started, and it's really hard to look away from it all, but the year is going to be busy AF.

FSM help us.

Hint: Hitler only last 12 years in power, and some of his lieutenants were executed. Other supporters were blacklisted. Whenever the reckoning comes, I'll enjoy watching some of these folks swing. 

Yes. Yes, I will. 

Notes for what is coming down the pipe

I haven't been paying much attention to issues of timing, regarding Trump's outbursts and hysterics. Which is a bad job by me, since I had drummed on that pretty hard in the Presidents class this spring.

Meaning - we know NOTHING of what Mueller is doing, what he has or what his team is able to demonstrate. But as we noticed in the spring, Trump's outbursts were sometimes precursors to big developments in news. Whether that was future indictments, search warrants, expansions of the investigation, etc., there could almost predictably be crazy or fantastic outbursts from Trump.

And things have been developing and unfolding so quickly since the Russian indictments and the Helsinki betrayal that I've been losing track of some of the outbursts.

So a couple things - earlier this week Rosenstein again visited the White House, and this was followed by Trump's moronic Cabinet meeting confessional. Last time he did that, he informed Trump of the Russian indictments.

Friday Trump jumped on the NFL and flag protests again. He's flogging this morning Mueller's team specifically. (Does he even know there are MORE than 13 people on Mueller's team? Like a lot more?)

Anyway, I just wanted to sort some of his outbursts this week in the context of shit going down: the disaster and fallout of the secret Helsinki meeting is really starting to trouble actual intelligence professionals and staffers. (AHEM: "Deep Throat" was an FBI agent.) The stupid-ass "double negative" explanation. Butina's arrest (outside of the Special Counsel's office). One of Manafort's trials starts soon (like 10 days), he's in custody awaiting it, and losing every supportive defense motion. Cohen has also shown signs that he's praying for a pardon OR flipping.

(I have to say, on Cohen, hard dude for me to read. Like he seems totally crooked, the type of dude that used to complain at the door of the bar about why we couldn't legally deny them admission, etc. because somebody told him they read a lawyer saying you couldn't be denied entry. And that makes me think he is utterly reliant on a pardon, which he expects to receive. He is publicly begging for one. OTOH, he makes references to patriotism and nation over party and personal loyalty, which is a great sentiment if it is genuine, which see above.)

Other gob-smacking things from the week, which ordinarily would have caused strokes, coronaries and resignations in ANY other administration:
Rudy Guliani may have voided attorney-client privilege on the Cohen recordings. Doofus.
Oh, on attorney-client privilege, let me here say this:
These ignoramuses think that it works in this way: as long as 1 lawyer is present, any conversation between any group of people is "protected" by privilege. And, uh, anybody with a brain knows that's not at all how that works. 
The payoffs are now becoming a larger issue because of Rudy's stupidity. I really want to believe the abortion rumor with the other bleach-blond porn star, but that one looks like legit it may be Broidy. [frowny face]

Everything is Fine!! Yayyyy Daddy!!  We're going to need bigger tumbrels.

Speculation is in order:

Cohen either has or is doing this week his "Queen for a Day" parley unless Trump pardons him. And then he flips. But a pardon wouldn't get him out of legal jeopardy in IL, NY and whatever other states he's been busy in. This seems like Keystone #1 - or -

Keystone #2: Manafort. He's lost most of his motions to exclude evidence. He's been moved to a jail closer (and perhaps less glamorous) to the trial. Maybe he begins to feel the immediacy more, and from everything that I understand, the USG has him dead to rights. Trump will probably still pardon him, but if Manafort goes to trial, that seems like an enormous risk to die in jail. Maybe he'll take it. Maybe Putin will poison him (which would really suck, because they've already attacked us electronically and digitally, and Trump would still do nothing). And I don't want Paul to go out that way. Too quick.

Trump moves to pardon Butina because Putin asks him to, and because the Maga Hari has the fucking goods on everyone. (That fucking story amuses me endlessly. I would almost pray that she be the one who flips and brings this whole damn thing down. I hope the IC is doing a god-damned number on her. If the torture-fetishists are going to demand it be done to non-white people in our name - and it's bullshit and I believe doesn't work - then Maga Hari can have it, too. But mostly because I just want to hear the story! I want the televised public Congressional hearings of her letting Wayne LaPierre do his little fetishes on her. Ohpleaseohplease.)

Any/all/worse than the above will elicit no more than tsk-tsk from Republicans. I think that's becoming the most (literally) incredible thing: the actions of an entire political party to subvert democracy, and their complete indifference to it as long as their (retrograde and unpopular) policies are enacted.
Unfuckingbelievable.

I recall being described as un-American by this fatuous little troll. Tick tock, motherfucker.

That is the look of a shaken, defeated and PWND dude. Trump is Putin's bitch.

Well that's not a terrifying thought ... Or, it's not a NOT terrifying thought?

This snaps a lot of things into potential clear focus:

Bernie was in on it too. 

  

And here we have THE WINNER

"I'm getting the shit whaled out of me"

So said Tip O'Neil, May 1981, as Reagan and the Republican Revolutionaries crammed the first preposterous supply-side tax cuts through Congress.

In any event, some news of late that represent a nice change of pace from the ass-kicking the Good Guys have been taking lately. Interesting reading.

The more that unfolds, the deeper the conspiracy goes, the more clear becomes the treason, and the higher the likelihood of ongoing collaboration IN PLAIN SIGHT.

But in any event, this is not optimal. I would point out that in the Weimar Republic, it took one heavily propagandized attack on a government building to catapult the fascists to complete and unquestioned power.
Just sayin.

NOT Cassandric!

It has been hot as blazes here lately – a week of 90s and heat index 100+. So both cats are now sleeping in the bedroom with the AC, which means I have not been sleeping well at all, since Franklin is usually on my half. Thus I took a nap earlier today, and now am pretty awake. Since it has been a really bad week for the Good Guys, I thought I'd put a post here.

Plus, summer Sox/Yankees are on the tv, so seems apt. 
How a bad week you ask?

[Wow, seriously, I can't indent?!? Poor paragraph editing options. Otherwise this would structurally be better. But I know, it's free, blah blah]

• The SCOTUS travel ban and Kennedy retiring (we now know his political lean)
• The bullshit Janus decision
• Marching in the streets is underappreciated

 Granted my week was pretty swell. We're doing a job search, and HR is still coordinating visits. I was really productive in terms of writing lectures (hello, Ambioris) and even reading. See above. But the Union thing is really suck.

Sorry I didn't clip the credit, but tbc: not mine!

I did a bad job labeling the "receipt," but I would agree that this only ends with marching in the streets. And not the torch-lit night-time marching either.

Mostly though, something has been bugging me, and a public threshing out would be good.

But a larger thing has been percolating in my head, and here I can at least list the theory: Trump has the RNC emails. Given to him, obviously.
Granted, those could only have come from "someone" who had authorized and state-supported extensive hacking into Western political organizations.

(You seriously think only the DNC emails were hacked? You also probably think that back-channels into this White House don't exist. If you also think that Dear Leader Trump is great and MAGA!! – please leave this blog.)

I've seen marginally thoughtful people struggling to understand why and how the Republican Party has capitulated so thoroughly to Trump. And I would point at them and laugh. (Thoughtful people know why – they read Kruse or Schickler or Sugrue; there are others on my list, but I have only read through these so far.)

Because THIS is what the Republican Party has been working toward since the 1910s.

Yes I know the problems of this picture, thus her mother here is clearly shown being searched.

Why the leadership of the GOP has gone so quickly, so willingly and so FAR down the rabbit hole of authoritarianism and fascism without so much as a "Meep" to the effects this could, perhaps have on their political party is interesting though, just the same.

So: Putin gave Trump the RNC emails to ensure the party's docility. 

And if Trump did have the RNC emails, and the coordinated propaganda and character sliming, and the Gorsuch conspiracies, and the financial crimes (looking at you, NRA and Cambridge Anal), that would explain the deafening silence. You know, if you needed an additional reason beyond the racism and ethnic cleansing.

This champion's name is roslyn la liberte it seems. She can have capital letters when she reca..... well, or not. 

Just going to live blog this one

I am glad I left campus/office hours a tad bit early.

And that I cheated on dinner tonight - delicious Brockton-based Cape Cod Pizza which is pretty stellar.

It could be an eventful night. Things today have developed in the ongoing snuff-show Live-Action Treason – Michael Cohen got raided and Trump is losing it. He's so unbelievably incoherent. I can't believe that people actually accept that such a powerful person sounds like a complete fking dipshit. (Seriously - see transcript below.)

Ironically, while I was making cookies this weekend, I was watching All the Presidents' Men again. I don't know I will be able to sleep, and I sure won't be able to work tomorrow in my break. I'm on Twitter overdrive.

So: last seen, Trump was having a "War Cabinet" meeting (chickenshit: see Fussell, Paul) and had a WATB-Meltdown. (God, this guy is such a putz it hurts.)

• Going to prognosticate: a few big things will happen this week, maybe involving DOJ firings; it will escalate significantly. Republicans will do nothing. Trump will also do some major damage to Syria, which will also escalate profoundly shit with Russia, which (hypothesis) is actively blackmailing Trump through this crazy Back Channel that was actually set up. So Trump is pinned in. 
• And this – Dobbs is setting the agenda and counsel. This is exactly what happens, 72 hours. +/- 

Also, that idiot said these things, surrounded by an august group of men and women in uniform. Conservatives/gun-h**pers and Trump supporters your support of "the troops" is an insulting joke. Anyway, that idiot said amidst his war council:

More for the record for the Prosecution...

Random things to write down on St. Patrick's Day, 2018.
My wife's nephews are arriving today for a few days, and that should be ... interesting.

Anyway.
Likelihood the "Back Channel" communications are operable:
40% - Like those idiots just stopped trying to set one up because they were told it's "Illegal." Like they care about illegal activity. 

Likelihood the Cheeto Mussolini is being actively blackmailed as we speak:
15%. It's hard because so many of his decisions are moronic and stupid, but that may just be who he is. But - if he is NOT being blackmailed, what specifically would be different? 

Likelihood the McCabe firing becomes an enormous deal:
Has nobody ever heard of Mark Felt?!?! The process of trial discovery is going to be tremendous. This is like 90%. 

 Likelihood some of these are for Cheeto Mussolini and his minions:
Too superstitious to speculate! 
  
There is also this: 

Also: Fuck you Zuckerberg and Facebook.
As a UM Man would say:  keep cashin' dem checks!!!
History – provided we survive – is going to be merciless with these people. 

 Now go get 'em....

I suspect they didn't see that coming...

A couple of things, again just for the record.

Maybe I should upload them here - the various Indictments - so that I can use them in future Presidents' classes.

So that is an idea.

Hicks is resigning - that was announced today. I told my Presidents students today that I think the end of the beginning stage is coming. I've taken Garrett Graff's idea from Wired that there are five major elements of the investigation underway by American Hero Bobby Three Sticks, the Blog's new, official and permanent Object of Veneration.

 

The five things: 

• the Pre-existing business deals and money laundering; 
• the Russian bots and trolls; 
• the Hacking and the Bears; 
• Russian-campaign contacts; 
• obstruction of justice. 

The last I think even *I* could demonstrate. Anyway. I meant to actually write/post an actual thing here, but that was like an hour ago, and I got distracted.

Oh yeah, one thing: HAHAHAHAHA. God That Man is so motherfucking stupid, but it's so enjoyable to watch him pwn his own supporters, who were too stupid to see this coming. Forty-Five COMING FOR YOUR GUNZZZ!!! PEW PEW PEW!! Hahahahahaha.

Wreaking Havoc, Generating Change

Bummer: in Spring semester I have to teach the Hist. Presidents class again. I like the class, but fear this spring will be consumed by Impeachment. I'm trying to decide how much of that I intend to feature. It takes me back to my MA stuff at Northeastern; I graded for a Professor who taught a course on Clinton's impeachment. Going to have to find those notes.
Anyway, it's still hard to "historically" do Dobelieu, let alone Obama or the Short-Fingered Vulgarian. (H/T if you don't know)
Unless he's impeached and makes abundant history! Let's Hope!

Anyway just wanted to document an observation, if there were ever to be a silver lining to the Vulgarian Regime: The Michigan Daily today published a story that the University's Greek Council had voted to suspend all social activities. It referenced a similar decision of a Florida university in response to common incidents - moronic undergrad Greek partying, including drugs, hazing, sexual assault (and death in the FL case).

Now, I just want to propose that if the terrifyingly normalized behavior of the Vulgarian - his crudeness, mendacity, staggering incompetence, sexual predation, et seq. ad nauseum - has touched off a wave of serious and appropriate surveillance of awful, criminal activity (ROY MOORE LOOKIN AT YOU!), wouldn't that be a positive thing, at least in that respect?

Put another way, if the Vulgarian's presidency* generates a serious backlash against entitled, spoiled, noxious and violent behavior with serious criminal and financial consequences, I at least will consider that one positive thing to emerge.
(But only after the Vulgarian is impeached.)

Fredo Trump: Giving a Bad Name to Juniors Everywhere

I'm a Junior, proud of it. I admire my father in most ways. If we had kids (my wife and I, obvs), I strongly considered naming any boy after my father.

But FFS, Jr. Donny, you are giving all of us Juniors a bad name.

On why he and two other high-ranking officials in Il Douche's campaign met with a Russian distinctly associated with the government (which one would assume Paul Manafort - at the meeting - would know):

'It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting'

What was the "helpful information"?...

'the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms Clinton.'

This reminds me of two things. Fredo, obviously. (This scene for some reason I find very powerful. I really feel for Fredo. So good job,  - and RIP - John Cazale.)

Why can't I wear the Big Boy Pants? I know where Egypt is! I'm smart!!

Continuing on that theme, we know now why Douche Jr. is only used for the "Mickey Mouse" assignments and Kushner gets to wear the "Big Boy" pants now.


But also Elihu Root on Teddy Roosevelt's conversations on the construction (and seizure) of the Panama Canal: we thought you were guilty of seduction, and you've confessed rape.

Because he's Teddy, you just know that's a fly-ass Linen-Seersucker suit

• Also, THIS: my new Hero.

  What did we learn about @realDonaldTrump at this #G20? @CUhlmann explains. #Insiders pic.twitter.com/TGOXdiFWhB

  — Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) July 8, 2017

Please please please Chuck Todd tell me you saw this, and wept yourself to sleep last night. No American journalist - well, I shouldn't say that - most American "political editors" on the news networks couldn't carry carry Chris Uhlmann's jock.

I can't watch that enough - not just for the beautiful and delicious schadenfreude - but it is also very tightly done, cogent and devastating. Well done Aussies.

• In any event, the tally so far seems to be: pretty bulletproof instance of legitimate obstruction of justice (Comey), and definitely - as of today - proof of complicity if not genuine collusion - with hackers and foreign powers. 

BUT HER EMAILLLLLLLZZZZZZ!!

"Well, I'll be dipped in shit...."

PostT: Line from a tremendously awesome and bad 80s movie (My Science Project) starring – unbelievably – Dennis Hopper. Or maybe believably. 

Anyway, I am terrifically excited that I have figured out how to resurrect this blog. I don't remember exactly when I started it, but I know politics was screwy when I did. So it's nice to just have all my crazy Cassandra prophecies recorded, when they actually came more horrifyingly true that one ever could have thought!

Times do not always change. 

I am pleased to craft a small little hole in the Internet where I can just posit my thoughts on the world burning down around me my wife and me. This will be useful just for recording notions on a place outside of Zuckerberg's empire (holy shit did I start this before FB?!) – and much less annoying for my family and friends.

Although now I do have a summer II class maybe, so I'll have genuinely good stuff to be distracted with. 

Anyway: Resurrection to Life Again! 
The times, sadly, still Dreadful, Dismal, Doleful, Dolorous and Dollar-Less. 
 

Prognostications

We are well and truly fucked. With a bit of help from my degrees, a batch of predictions for the US economy and political system over the next few months. Since nobody ever reads this any other time, if you're here, I'm right on at least one! Neat!! We are well and truly fucked!

Likely
Uh, we default!
A last minute (like seriously last minute) compromise is reached, and bad things happen to poor John Boehner's political career. Which - fuck you. Good riddance.

A number of Tea Party Republicans have an epiphany, realize they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, and start to do what their Uncle John tells them to. (That would be entertaining.) Including stopping calling the president a fanatical socialist. These people are so damn retarded, it hurts me to even contemplate it. 

Not really likely, but you could totally see it coming
We default

• Paralleling the catastrophic collapse of the 1930s, an American default, drives the economy into a halt in 3-4 weeks, and takes down the rest of the world's with it. The parallels in terms of concentration, stagnation and the drop of consumer demand is kind of spooky
• Or - in the immediate aftermath, a compromise is reached that is ultimately cosmetic change, and despite themselves, the damage to the economy long-term is only modest. Markets stay jumpy, recovery languishes, and Krugman was right all along. "Lost Decade." 

14th Amendment

• Obama invokes the 14th Amendment, does something (???), debt crisis in immediate term avoided, public chastising of Republicans, Wall St. notices "Holy shit these people are fuckingcrazy" and a degree of sanity returns.
• Likelier: Obama is impeached by House, acquitted by Senate by a wide margin. Or worse. And this thought really freaks me out.

Definitely going to happen
 Republicans, who always bewail the "United States becoming a second-rate country!" are actually GOING TO ACHIEVE just that. And it's going to be all on them. The spending cuts in any "deal" which they now care about will be draconian, aimed at the places and people that can afford it least.

In the long term, cuts in important investments - oh, like education, people's health, infrastructure, research (for things other than killing people) - are going to exact much more than a financial toll. Less smarter kids (lots of them are already 'dum') does not a growing society make.

And the Republicans will blame it on women working, abortion, gays marrying [Good for you, New York! As a resident of MA, with two heterosexually-married sisters with families who are thriving, the world will not end!], and to a (hopefully plateauing) minority, they'll be believed.

We're fucked.