Lies, Lies, and More Lies

 “O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”  That quote was by Sir Walter Scott, said to be the inventor of the historic novel.  Since the quote was coined in the early 1800’s, it’s impossible that he was writing about Trump.  Also, he had no way of knowing that his quote would describe the rise and (fall) of an American President in historical novels for centuries to come. 

EACH WEEK as the Jaws’ shark gets closer, the lies Trump and his surrogates tell are getting more and more tangled.   Take the meeting in Trump towers in 2016, you know, the meeting about adoptions (wink, wink).  Trump denied knowing about it until it was made public. Yet the night it was set up, he promised the world a tell-all of the Clinton's in a few days.  It never happened.  Trump denied drafting the events of the meeting for Don Jr. on Air Force One.  Multiple witnesses said he did.  Don Jr. told Congressional Committee Trump knew nothing about the meeting before-hand.  Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer, said Trump was informed of the meeting.  Also, Don Jr. called a blocked number just before and just after the Trump tower meeting.  Guess who had a blocked number?  Sunday, Rudy Giuliani was on all the talk shows telling lies to cover up lies.  He contends if this was done, or that was done, Trump’s campaign did nothing wrong in meeting with the Russians.  Are you dizzy yet?  If so, that’s Trump and Giuliani’s plan.

IF TRUMP, Don Jr., and others did nothing wrong with meeting with these Russians, why have they tied themselves up in a tangled web of lies? 

THE STORMY Daniels web of lies is beyond tangled.  First, he said he didn’t know her.  Then he said he had no knowledge of a pay-off and to ask his attorney. Cohen denied at first that a payment was made, then admitted a payment was made to Stormy Daniels. Trump admitted by tweet that the payment was made to protect his family.  The payment was made a few weeks before election day.  Protect his family or his election hopes? 

TALKING ABOUT practicing to deceive, there’s the affair between Trump and Playboy model Karen McDougal.  This involves an 8-month affair while Trump was married and just after the birth of his son Barron.  The web of lies told about this will make your head spin worse than any carnival ride.  First Trump denied knowing her, then denied knowing anything about pay-offs.  Trump’s best friend and owner of the National Enquirer got involved to buy her story and then never print it (catch and kill).  Last week a taped telephone conversation between Trump and Cohen discussed paying McDougal off and how the payment would be made.  I must note here that Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis insists that Cohen never released the tape.  The only other ones with possession of the tape was Trump and his legal team, a la Rudy Giuliani.  On Sunday talk shows, Giuliani spent an inordinate amount of time discrediting their once darling and “good man” Cohen.  He proffered the theory that the tape was altered.  I suspect the story behind who actually released the tape will be a major story soon.   This pay-off also occurred just prior to the November 2016 election.  Now more women are claiming they were paid off.  Cohen must have felt like Santa Claus.

AS THE lady that Republicans love to hate, Maxine Waters, said, “It’ll all come out in the wash!” 

LAST WEEK’S primary run-off election brought us one step closer to finding out the future of Georgia.  Make no mistake about it, Monroe County’s support for Casey Cagle did not go un-noticed by winner and Republican nominee for Governor, Brian Kemp.  After all, he ran the table except for Monroe and one other county.  I’ve witnessed political fall-out many times.  If Cagle is elected, Monroe County elected officials will be personae non gratae at the Capitol for at least four years.  We need to join the chorus to demand Kemp resign as Secretary of State NOW so he can’t make the boundary decision before November.  He needs Bibb votes now more than ever!

TO THE elected officials of Monroe, I suspect you have been wringing your hands trying to figure out a way to get to Kemp.  If you do manage to get an audience with him, he will make you eat dirt.  That’s politics! You’re better than that.  Worry no longer!  I will put in a good word for you with Governor Abrams.

IF THE people of Monroe County had one wish for making our county a better place to live, work, and raise a family, that wish would be for good internet service.  Stacey Abrams vows that providing broadband to all of rural Georgia is her priority.  You want it, you need it, and you will get it if Stacey is elected.  Even if Kemp made a similar promise, he would by-pass Monroe County.  That’s politics!

Trump and Fascism

This is the week you’ve all been waiting for—the week I write something good about Trump.  Ready?  Trump will look dashing in an orange jumpsuit that matches his hair. 

I SPENT twelve years of my life working in the intelligence community, specifically the National Security Agency.  Last week as I watched Trump in Helsinki standing beside Putin, the real enemy of the world, and endorse Putin’s idea of turning over certain government employees for interrogation by his GRU (Russian Intelligence), I fought back the tears.  First, tears of sadness and then tears of anger.  Trump denied the reporting by all our intelligence agencies in our country that Russia interfered with our elections by stating that “I see no reason why it would be Russia.”  Two days later, he stated he misspoke and meant, “I see no reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.”  On that I call BS!  Low and behold, Republican leaders were all understanding and forgiving.  I call BS on that, too.  If Obama had said those exact words, he would be hanging from a tree in the Rose Garden.  You know it’s true!

THE WORSE is yet to come.  Trump spent two hours alone with Putin, and Trump said, “we discussed many things.”  That’s all we know.  Trump has announced that he has invited Putin to the White House to discuss implementing the things they discussed.  Whatever it is, I guaran-damn-tee you it’s not in the best interest of our country.   If only Mueller had indicted Putin when he indicted his 12 intelligence officers for election interference, we would not be concerned with Putin ever setting foot on our soil again.  When Mueller’s investigation is over and done, the one thing I want to know is why Putin was not indicted. 

I HAVE never been a conspiracy theorist.  I have been trained to only be swayed by facts.  The facts are pointing more and more to a conspiracy between Trump and Putin to change the world order.  Actually, that’s Putin’s desire and Trump is being duped to enable him.  Fact.  Trump is working hard to alienate all of our allies while endearing himself to all the autocrats of the world.  Fact.  If Trump alienates all the countries of NATO, who will protect us from Russia’s nuclear arsenal when Putin decides he no longer needs Trump?  Nobody.  Fact.  Our Constitution was carefully crafted to prevent an autocrat such as Trump from serving as President.  Fact.  The governing bodies tasked with complying with our Constitution have abdicated their responsibility in favor of their own political position.

TRUMP HUGS the flag to be cute.  Fact.  Trump disparages black NFL players who take a knee to protest injustice to their race and calls them unpatriotic.  Fact.  Trump hates the free press and calls them fake news.  Fact.  Trump pals around with a dictator that kills journalists.  Fact.  Trump threatens to strip security clearances from former Intelligence officials who criticize him. Fact. Trump is disrespectful to women.  Fact.  Trump has committed adultery and paid the women off to keep them quiet.  Fact.

BUT, YOU say, “I support him because the economy is doing so great.” This attitude is short-sighted.  Historically, after a boom there is a bust.  Trump has already started criticizing the Federal Reserve.  He is well on his way to having complete control over the Federal Reserve when his nominees for Governors of the Fed are confirmed by the Senate. Trump bankrupted a casino!  Do you trust him with control of all the money in our country?

THE DEFINITION of Fascism:  A political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed.  I’m pretty sure that during those two hours alone with Putin, Trump was undergoing advanced fascism training. 

You have two choices now to save our country.  In November, either vote out all those complicit with Trump or invest in the Rosetta Stone software to learn Russian. Fact.

Trump Protects the Witches

If you’re reading my column today hoping to read something good about Trump, just keep turning the page.  It ain’t gonna happen, especially this week. Last week Trump treated our allied nations like enemies and the whole world knows beyond a doubt, the President of the United States is a clear and present danger to world order.  

TRUMP HAS been a broken record in accusing Bob Mueller’s investigation of being a “witch hunt.”  He’s said it so much, many of you believe it.  Well, Mueller found 12 witches (my apologies to all the good witches out there) and they were indicted on Friday, the 13^th, proving that bad things don’t always happen on that dreaded day.  The indictment document of these 12 Russians explains in detail how they successfully hacked into computers and systems and how they used the information.  I read the document twice and still don’t understand a smidgen of the sophisticated methods they used.  What I surmise is that it was fairly easy to hack the systems, but it was the elaborate means they used to cover their tracks.  Without Bob Mueller’s “witch hunt,” and the expertly trained people of the NSA, the Army Cyber Command, and the FBI, we would never have proof positive that Russia was responsible.  The attack was made by Putin’s military service and he was closely following their progress. 

WHILE READING the indictments written in computer language I don’t understand, it occurred to me that ignorance is the reason Americans don’t understand the significance of such attacks.  Americans understand bombs, death, and destruction.  They don’t understand what the Russians did was War on our country and our democracy.  It will be too late to understand when Russia attacks our entire electrical grids using these same methods.  They are capable!  Where is the outrage?  In fairness to the American people, we depend on our President and elected officials to tell us the seriousness of a situation and let us know we should be outraged. Instead, our elected officials are mute on the subject.  They are too busy trying to destroy the very agencies and people that protect us from cyber warfare. 

TRUMP SAID in an interview on Sunday that he had not thought of asking Putin to extradite the 16 Russians to US. Followed by his stand-by excuse for everything.  “But remember, that happened under the Obama administration.”  That speaks volumes of his unfitness to be President.  Last week Dan Coates, the Director of the National Intelligence, a Republican appointed by Trump, issued a strong warning that Russia is still actively pursuing their cyber warfare and that hacking of the 2018 mid-terms are already in progress.  He said, “These Russian actions are purposeful and premeditated and they represent an all-out assault, by Vladimir Putin, on the rule of law, Western ideals and democratic norms,” he said.  Although it doesn’t matter who was President when it happened, Donald Trump is the President now. 

AND WHAT is the man who took the oath to protect us from foreign enemies doing about the attack?  Not scrap-damn-doodle!  In fact, his denial that Russia was involved should give every American pause.  Boggles my mind!  We learned that Trump was told of these indictments a week before he left for the NATO Summit and for his Summit with Putin. Armed with this knowledge, his attitude never changed towards Putin. Trump said in Brussels that, “Yeh, I’ll ask him about it but it’s not going to be a Perry Mason moment.”  He called Putin a “competitor, not an enemy.” He spoke of how easy it was going to be with Putin.  Trump will be meeting with Putin after this writing.  If you see Putin and Trump pressing their flesh, smiling and grinning saying how wonderful each are, you will know that my head will be hanging over the toilet.

TRUMP ENTERED the scene in Brussels at the NATO summit carrying a huge chip on his shoulder.   His mission?  Insult our most trusted ally, Great Britain’s Theresa May.  Then, the entirety of the NATO countries.  According to Trump, "Many countries (in NATO) owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them."  Trump went on to say that the US pays 90% of the cost. This statement told all the NATO countries that Trump has zero understanding of how NATO operates.  The countries of NATO have a cost-sharing agreement.  The US pays 22%.  According to the most recent US Ambassador to NATO, countries do not pay the US and the US is not owed a dime from NATO countries.  Further, no one is delinquent on any payments.  For Trump to show his ignorance of NATO to those very countries is embarrassing to the American people.

OH, BUT it gets worse.  Trump said he demands that countries pay 4% of their gross national product (GDP) for security of their own country.  Upon leaving the summit, Trump made a victory speech.  He spoke of his great success.  He said the countries had agreed to pay 2% of their GDP and had until 2024 to reach that goal.  The truth is that’s the exact same deal Obama made with NATO in 2014.  Same percentage, same year.  But Trump basks in his huge success.  And his loyal kool-aid drinkers applauded his toughness.  He lied about his accomplishment.  The world knows it.

WHERE ARE the babies?  A federal judge gave the Trump administration a deadline of July 10^th to reunite the babies with their parents.  They have only found 5.  This is an American disgrace.  See, I told you to turn the page!