Trump Loves Military Parades

Of course he does. Of course our new fascist president wants to have American troops parading through US cities. All his favorite dictators, like Kim Jong-Un and Vlad Putin, do it.

Who could mistake the message when Trump sends a parade of tanks and rocket launchers rumbling past the Capitol Dome the day before an important vote?

Consider the spectacle of fighter squadron practicing strafing runs over Manhattan. They have to practice, don't you know, because when the shit gets real they don't want to accidentally hit Trump Tower.

Imagine the effect of columns of American troops, bayonets glimmering in the sun, parading through Hispanic neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Parades like the one below is how Germany convinced Czechoslovakia to accept Nazi rule in 1939 Prague.

The Trump Twilight Zone

After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history.

Scotland's Sunday Herald had just the right view of the Trump Inaugural Zoo. The only sane way to look at the coming reality is to see it as a long, particularly disturbing episode of The Twilight Zone.

It's a Good Life

A six year-old emotionally stunted child with godlike powers controls an entire country. He constantly demands people tell him how good he is and everyone must surrender to his slightest whim lest he point his stubby finger at them and banish them, or worse.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

A man traveling peacefully looks out the window and sees a grotesque monster tearing everything apart. He tries to alert others to the danger but nobody believes him until it is too late.

To Serve Man

A strange creature with a bad combover arrives and announces he is the savior of mankind and will make America great again. His promise is too grandiose to believe but, in time, people accept his seeming benevolence. His plan to serve man is fake, his real goal is to consume us all.

He's Alive

A creepy little loser is approached by a shadowy figure who teaches him to enthrall crowds and encourages him to be bloodthirsty and ruthless. In the final scene the figure is revealed to be Steve Bannon Adolph Hitler and he exclaims, "We ARE immortal."

Biloxi and the New Jim Crow

Biloxi, MS showed this week what the new Jim Crow will look like in the deep south. Biloxi renamed Martin Luther King Day to "Great Americans Day" in an effort to bury Dr. King under a pile white segregationists. Biloxi's mayor, named FoFo because Southern whites are weird, rescinded the announcement.

Biloxi is the home of the Jefferson Davis Museum. The museum will celebrate MLK Day with a Civil War reenactment where Johnny Reb will rout the Northern scum in a fictional battle that never occurred in Biloxi. On Lincoln's Birthday they will host a pilgrimage to the tomb of the unknown Confederate soldier where they will honor the men who gave their lives for "the American way of life" (i.e. slavery).

Sixty years ago, Biloxi was noted for whites rioting to prevent blacks from setting foot on their all white beaches. In the worst of the riots Biloxi police recruited rioters to attack African-Americans throughout the city and the only people arrested were the black victims. (How dare you bleed on the good white people of our town.)

Worst Athletes In History

With Donald poised to gain the title of Worst President In Human History, I thought I'd look at the worst players in sports history.

Quarterback - Ryan Leaf

In three seasons, Ryan started 21 games and lost all but four of them. In his 1998 rookie season he averaged just 2.7 yards per pass attempt while throwing 15 interceptions and only two touchdowns. The Chargers would have been better off running on every down.

To top it off, Ryan was arrested in 2009 on drug smuggling charges while traveling from Canada to face burglary charges in Texas. He has been found guilty of felonies in both Texas and Montana.

Running Back - Michael Haddix

First round draft pick in 1983, he was picked ahead of Dan Marino and Roger Craig. Michael started half the games that year and averaged just 2.4 yards per carry. That set the tone for his eight year career as he had just 3.0 yards per carry in 52 starts.

MLB Pitcher - Les German

We have to go all the way back to 1896 for this guy. Worse than Jose Lima who had some good years to mix with his 2005 ERA of 6.99 or James Shields' 6-19 win-loss record last season.

Les went 2-20 for the Washington Senators in 1896 with an ERA of 6.32. That was in a season when Cy Young went 28-15 with a 3.24 ERA. German's other five major league seasons were only marginally better.

MLB Batter - Ed Brinkman

The quintessential good field, no hit baseball player. He played 15 seasons in the majors despite averaging four homers, 30 RBIs, and a .230 batting average per season. In 1972 he finished ninth in MVP votes while batting only .203.

Honorable mentions: Catcher Bill Bergen with a career .170 batting average from 1901 to 1911 with a low of .132 in 250 plate appearances his final season.

Pitcher Ron Herbel had just six hits in his nine year career for a batting average of .029.

NHL Goalie - Michel Belhumeur

Played 42 games for the Washington Capitals between 1974 and 1976 and won exactly none of them. His goals against average for the Caps was 5.32.

The Trump Dossier

If I were Vlad Putin I wouldn't want to just rely on Trump being an easily duped toady. I'd want some positive blackmail leverage in case Trump tries to grow a pair in the event Russia sends tanks into Latvia. That is the sum of the Trump dossier released yesterday.

Golden Shower Report
The titillating headline of the dossier.

If Mr. "Grab 'em by the Pussy" ordered up some Moscow prostitutes to pee on each other for his pleasure you can be damn sure Russian agents have hi-def video of the whole thing. It is an old KGB technique to honey trap Westerners and use the resulting evidence to pressure them.

Later in the dossier was a report of Trump attending sex parties in St. Petersburg, Russia. Again, it is standard Russia spy practice to record such compromising activities by prominent people.

Trump Lawyer In Prague
I've known several lawyers in my life and they fall all across the intelligence spectrum. Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, strikes me as being on the dumb side of that spectrum. The dossier claims that Cohen met secretly with Russian officials in the capitol of the Czech Republic last August. It sounds like something straight out of a John Le Carre novel.

Bizarrely, Cohen has denied the meeting by posting a picture of the cover of his passport. This just proves that Cohen has access to a photo of an unidentified passport cover. That's less Le Carre and more Get Smart!

Cohen is mentioned frequently as a key intermediary between Russian agents and the Trump campaign.

Shutting Down
The last section of the dossier reports that in September, 2016 the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian agents to shut down the hacking operation and scatter the operatives to the wind.

Conclusion
There is nothing that can be called proof in the dossier. The only verification possible is the reliability of the unknown, to us, sources.  Believe it or not, it's your choice.

A strange tidbit is that Trump and the Russians are using the exact same talking points to deny the dossier. Both use the phrase "witch hunt."

The Russian claim they have no compromising information on Trump is laughable. They wouldn't be doing their job if they hadn't researched Trump and we all know that Trump is a walking compendium of compromising acts.

Who Killed the Black Dahlia?

Seventy years ago today was the last time anyone other than her murderer saw the raven-haired beauty Elizabeth Short alive.

She had been dropped off at the ritzy Biltmore Hotel by a friend who had given her a ride up from San Diego. She had lied about meeting her sister there. Beth, as she was called, wasn't going to stay at the Biltmore, she could barely afford a flophouse. It was Beth's way to affect money she never had.

What happened at the Biltmore is one of the many mysteries surrounding her death. Was she meeting someone there who would give her a place to sleep or did she just linger there a while before walking out into the night.

The next time Beth was seen was January 15, 1947. A housewife walking her three year-old along South Norton Avenue a couple miles south of Hollywood spotted a broken mannequin in a vacant lot.

She had been sexually mutilated and grotesquely posed. Most disturbingly, her body had been neatly bisected at the waist, cleansed, and drained of blood. The autopsy revealed she had been beaten to death with the mutilation being postmortem, although she had clearly been tortured before death.

The Prime Suspects
We can deduce a few things. The murder was not done in a hotel or boarding house. The amount of time and privacy needed required a private home. The neatness of the cuts suggests medical training. And this was almost certainly not his first kill. You've got to work up to this.

1. George Hodel - Hodel's son makes a strong case. He was a doctor, a sexual deviant who had used his 14 year-old daughter as a sex toy at parties, and his time in the Philippines coincided with a series of sexual sadist murders there. In a follow-up book, the son undermines his case by also accusing his 60 year-old dad of being the much younger Zodiac killer.
2. Walter Bayley - The favorite suspect of LA Times reporter Larry Harnisch. Bayley was a skilled surgeon, knew Beth's sister, and his estranged wife lived a block away from the dump site. Bayley was 67 years-old and suffering from Alzheimer's.
3. Patrick O'Reilly - Another doctor, a friend of nightclub owner Mark Hansen with whom Beth had stayed for several months. Accused of sex crimes including beating women for sexual pleasure. Protected from prosecution by the well connected Hansen.
4. Maurice Clemment (AKA Ed Burns) - His name was in Beth's phone book that the murderer had given to the press. Only here because Black Dahlia Solutions spends considerable effort describing bizarre codes and symbolism connecting them.

The Silly Suspects
A number of other people have been accused who definitely didn't kill Beth.

1. 'Queer Woman Surgeon' - The LA District Attorney had a list of 25 suspects. The weirdest theory was that an unknown lesbian doctor had killed Beth and cut her up for ease of transport. Hey, it was the 1940's and they were desperate.
2. Red Manley - The man who had driven Beth north from San Diego and the last person to see her alive. The LAPD pressured him to confess even after they had proof he couldn't have done it.
3. Orson Welles - Here's the theory, Welles had a magic act where he sawed a woman in half. Beth was cut in half. Get it? Really, the claim is out there.

The Russians Are Here

Grabbing pussy?

If there was any doubt before it is all erased. The Russian bear has embraced America with its propaganda to save us from the tyranny of democracy.

What is surprising is how willing Trump and all Republicans are to be seen as Putin's puppies. They are not even trying to appear independent.

Trump and Republicans continue to dismiss Russian interference as either meaningless or a service to Americans.

Trump and Republicans have also stated rather clearly that they think US intelligence agencies are incompetent and unbelievable while Russian intelligence agencies are infallible. It is apparent that the only intelligence briefings they believe will come from Vlad Putin.

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On a personal note, the Russians intense study of my little blog seems over. For five weeks after the election almost half of all the pageviews I had came from Russia. I was able to track them reading, literally, everything I've written here for the past eleven years. (Aside: Has it really been that fucking long?)  They read the insightful stuff as well as the stupid shit I'm kind of ashamed of.

That's all dried up. I guess they have completed their dossier on me. It was freaky but I kinda miss being spied upon.

Flat Earthers

This holiday season I've been fascinated by all the effort that goes into proving that the Earth is flat.

According to a Gallup poll, more than one in six (18%) of Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth and a substantial number of those believe the Earth is a giant snow globe with a flat base.

These guys are dedicated. Someone went through the effort of filming a six hour YouTube video on his flat earth theories. The theories vary depending on the level of ignorance of the theorist but they all have some things in common.

• Antarctica is not a continent but a wall of ice surrounding the Earth disk.
• An impenetrable dome called The Firmament covers everything.
• NASA scientists, astronauts, astronomers, polar explorers, pilots, and every government are engaged in a grand conspiracy to conceal the flatness because they are all Freemasons.
• Passengers who fly non-stop from Sydney, Australia to Santiago, Chile are all lying when they say it only takes twelve hours.
• The moon landings were fake, satellites are fake, pictures of planets and stars and distant galaxies are all CGI fakery.
• They refer to Google Earth a lot even though Google Earth uses satellite images they say are impossible.
• There is no such thing as gravity. 
• And, of course, the Bible says it so stop confusing me with facts.

They jump through some incredible hoops to reach these conclusions. They reject all astronomic observations after Ptolemy (100 ACE) as wrong and cling to maps that are only accurate when measuring distances through the North Pole.

Here is a video where a guy spends twenty minutes proving conclusively that, if short lines are the same length as long lines, then a flat earth makes sense.

No amount of scientific logic will enlighten their dim bulbs. Indeed, they consider enlightenment to be evil. Still, the simplest proofs are the best.

On a flat earth, Polaris would be visible from Australia. On a globe it would not. It is not.

What to Expect in the Coming Year

It is said that whatever happens in the first days of a new year defines your destiny for the rest of the year. If so, this is what we can expect.

Rampant Corruption

As their very first act of the new year, Republicans in Congress blatantly stripped the Office of Congressional Ethics of power. While they walked that back today we can be certain this is only temporary and they will accomplish the same goal, just more subtly, in future weeks.

Targeted Taxes
Trump threatened to impose a huge tax on General Motors cars entering the US from Mexico. While this is specifically outlawed by the Constitution (Article I, Section 10) and treaty (NAFTA), we've known for a couple decades now that Republicans view the restrictions within the Constitution with contempt. I'm not crying for GM though, they will just have to bribe some congressmen.

Rebirth of Jim Crow

North Carolina Republicans have appealed to the Supreme Court to allow a gerrymander directly designed to diminish African-American votes.

War

Trump tweeted what seems to be a threat of war (probably nuclear) with North Korea. He has previously suggested war (probably nuclear) with Iran. Trump seems to think that nuclear war is a kind of game (available for $31.99 from Amazon).

Black Barts

A little fun before the nightmare of 2017 begins.

Black Bart is a great villain name that became famous twice in history.

Bartholomew Roberts

Black Bart Roberts started his pirating career in 1719 when, as serving as a mate on a slave ship, he was captured by pirate Howell Davis. Bart has a valuable talent, he was a skilled navigator, so the pirates gave him an option - join us or die. He joined.

Within six weeks of being forced into a pirate's life, Bart was elected captain, replacing Davis who had been killed by authorities on the West African island of Principe. Although Bart didn't want to be a pirate he decided if he was going to be a captain he'd be the most ruthless pirate who ever sailed. His first act was ordering his ship to Principe where he murdered ever man on the island in retaliation for the death of Davis.

For the next three years he wreaked havoc on shipping in both West Africa and the Caribbean, killing and plundering, selling captured cargo (often African slaves) for profit. He developed a reputation as an indestructible demon incapable of either death or mercy.

The British Royal Navy sent warships to hunt Black Bart and caught up with his fleet off the coast of modern day Gabon. Bart died in a grapeshot broadside in 1722.

Black Bart - California Outlaw

In the 1870's, Charles Bolton (or Bolles) was a middle-aged failed gold miner, failed farmer, and failed husband. Disgusted with his life, Charles decided to rob a Wells Fargo stagecoach in Calaveras County, California. He loved it, left his wife, and began his career as an outlaw.

He was an unusual outlaw. He did all his robberies with an unloaded shotgun. He asked for his booty politely, saying "please." And he often left poetry behind.

I've labored long and hard for bread
For honor and for riches
But on my corns to long you've tread
You fine-haired sons of bitches. ~ Black Bart, 1877

He was caught in classic CSI fashion. He had dropped a handkerchief and police were able to trace the laundry mark. Black Bart was 53 years old when he went to San Quentin Prison in 1883. Released four years later, he disappeared from history.

A Trumpian Christmas

So much Christmas cheer from the Trump camp.

Private Prison CEO Wants to Build Concentration Camps

Auschwitz slave labor.

In an interview with CNBC, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) CEO Damon Hininger anticipated enthusiastically that his company was ready to imprison "a unique population." He didn't specify if he meant Hispanic-Americans or Muslim-Americans but I suspected he is willing to lock up both.

Hininger also anticipated using his captives as slave labor for Trump's infrastructure plans (the Wall). I'm sure he would respond that they are paid (23 cents an hour) and are volunteers (refusing to work results in punishment).

Hininger didn't mention gas chambers but, you know, baby steps.

Trump Tariffs

Trump is advocating a 10% tariff on imported goods like phones, computers, cars, and the components of many of the things built in the United States.

The Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930, designed to boost US industries, imposed a 13.5% tariff on imports. They slowed international trade to a crawl. Retaliatory tariffs by other countries caused US exports to fall by 83%. Unemployment jumped from 8% to 25%. And the Crash of 1929 grew into the Great Depression.

Nuke Happy

From the 1983 movie "The Day After" that convinced President Ronald Reagan to promote nuclear disarmament.

Trump wants nukes. More nukes, better nukes. And he wants to use those nukes to threaten the world into coming "to its senses." Add in Trump's refusal to listen to intelligence briefings and his tendency to tweet minor events into International Incidents and we have the makings of a truly explosive shit storm.

I used to think I would die in my bed, except for those times in my trekking youth when I thought I'd die by falling off a mountain. Now I hope I die quickly in a flash of flesh melting heat and not slowly of radiation poisoning.

Have a Merry Christmas. It may be our last.

A Couple of Nazi References from Trump

Trump Insists Israel Meet With Nazis
Trump's team boycotted a meeting with Israeli government officials because the Israelis refused to included a Swedish neo-Nazi. Why, you ask, would Americans care so much about including some Swede? Because fascist brotherhood comes before everything else. So much for the lie that Trump is going to back Israel or Jews.

Trump's Private Bodyguards

Trump will have a private security army. The notorious SS (Schutzstaffel) began as Hitler's private bodyguards before expanding into related jobs like running death camps and slaughtering innocents.

This Is How Democracy Dies

Today, as a collection of low level political hacks gather in their various state capitols to make official the election of a man who lost the popular vote by nearly three million voters, I am trying to not feel depressed.

And failing. I am reminded of a not very well known poem with a really, really famous closing couplet.

We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar ~ The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot

Trump Is the Useful Fool

"Useful fool" is a Russian idiom attributed to another Vladimir, Lenin. It describing someone easily conned into supporting Russian initiatives that the fool does not understand and are designed to destroy the fool. In English it is often translated as

The result was best described by Lenin when he allegedly said, "The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope."

It seems all it took to turn future president Trump into Putin's bitch was a little gratuitous praise. Once he had bitchified Trump, Putin set about inserting his propaganda into the US election thus influencing the gullible, or "useful innocents."

"Useful innocents" is another phrase from the 20th century Cold War. They are naive people easily confused by propaganda who are convinced to vote against their own democracies.

One final quote, this time an observation by Mark Twain that explains the mess we find ourselves in.

Ain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a majority in any town?

Understand Trump's Foreign Policy Goals

Judging from his appointments, Donald Trump views foreign affairs as an amalgam of the attention to detail expressed by English poet Thomas Gray...

Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

 and the dedicated servitude to someone named Vlad seen in the character of R. M. Renfield.

It suits him to just kind of grovel. ~ Penny Dreadful actor Samuel Barnett

Ignorance as Intelligence

Trump refuses to listen to daily intelligence briefings, claiming he is already smart and doesn't need to know anything more. He refused to believe CIA reports as a matter of principle.

Trump's choice for National Security Advisor is former general Michael Flynn who instructed his staff at the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 that he would know if their intelligence was accurate by whether or not it agreed with his preconceived assumptions.

'I'm loyal to you Master'

Trump' Secretary of State pick Rex Tillerson's sole foreign policy experience has been cozying up to Vlad Putin. Vlad, in return, provided Tillerson with the only thing he values - money. 

Trump, pictured above in Putin's lap, views Vlad with awe reserved for god-like creatures. He admires Vlad's vision of rebuilding the Russian Empire - that would include retaking the Baltic States, Finland, and a big chunk of Poland.

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So, we have an incoming foreign policy team that actively does not want to know any facts that would risk making they think and, if they must know something new, are confident that Russia's dictator will tell them everything they need to know.

Famous Russian Spies(updated to 2020)

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Convicted and executed in the 1950's for transmitting nuclear secrets to the Russian government. Julius also sent designs for the first American jet plane to the Russians.

Donald J. Trump

Elected president of the United States with the help of Russian spies and Russian agents embedded in the FBI. His withdrawal of the US from NATO directly led to the Russian invasion and conquest of the Baltic States. When the United Nations criticized Russia's actions Trump withdrew from the UN and kicked in out of its New York headquarters. Soon to be a Trump hotel.

Robert Hanssen

Sentenced to life in prison in 2002 (pardoned by Trump in 2017). Hanssen was an FBI agent who sold secrets to the Russian government from 1985 to his arrest in 2001. His spying compromised the FBI's counter intelligence efforts.

Rex Tillerson

Tillerson and Putin, laughing it up.

Secretary of State under Trump. Deep, long standing ties with Russian oligarchs and Vlad Putin. Also strong financial ties to Russia. Created the casus belli for the US to leave NATO allowing Russia to invade three NATO member states.

Anna Chapman

Arrested in 2010 as one of a team of Manhattan based agents smuggling "sleeper" Russian spies into the United States (Illegals Program). The rumor that Chapman was Trump's lover and spy handler are possibly false but, what the fuck, it's the kind of thing Trump would do.

The Russians Are Coming

Blogger allows you to view some basic stats on your blogs readership. That's how I know that my readership has exploded since the election. The weird thing is that most days I'm getting more page views coming from Russia than the United States.

There are a couple of possible reasons for this. Perhaps the Russian people are so fascinated by recent events in the US they are reading everything they can find including tiny ego blogs.

Or,

The Russian secret police are scouring the internet and social media compiling dossiers on anti-Trump seditionists to be turned over to the FBI for harassment.  Evidence for this alternative may be the story of a journalist who tweeted a joke about a fake news story and is being investigated by the Feds.

For all my new Russia fans a little joke.

– Did you hear that Russia holds the 1st place in the world for psychiatric illnesses?
– Why do you find it so surprising? 70% of citizens idolize the mad fuhrer, schizophrenic Putin.

Mad Dogs and Generals

The nickname "Mad Dog" is generally reserved for serial killers and psychopaths. Gen. James Mattis earned his nickname during the 2004 Fallujah campaign when he dropped white phosphorus munitions on civilians in violation of international law. He is said to hate the moniker.

Some other examples of men called Mad Dog.

Adm. Zinovy Rozhestvensky

Zinovy is the only other flag officer that I could find with the nickname Mad Dog. He had the reputation of being a brilliant naval officer with a tendency to fly off the handle in blind rage for little reason. In 1904, he was tasked with taking the battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy's Baltic fleet to the Pacific Ocean in anticipation of war with Japan.

The Japanese knew he was coming and were prepared. On reaching the Tsushima Strait between Korea and the Japanese island of Honshu the Russian fleet saw its path blocked by the Japanese fleet in a crossing the T formation.

The wise and prudent thing to do would be for the Russians to withdraw and avoid battle, which were Adm. Rozhestvensky's orders. But the admiral was insulted that the Japanese Navy was blocking him and in his anger blindly charged the battle line.

The Japanese bombarded the Russian fleet with broadside after broadside while the Russians could only respond with far smaller bow guns. Two-thirds of the Russian fleet was sunk and the rest surrendered.

Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll

During Prohibition Coll was the go-to hitman for the Dutch Schultz gang. He earned his nickname in 1931 when, while trying to kidnap a rival bootlegger, he shot into a group of young children, wounding four and killing a five year-old child. As was common in those times, Coll got away with the murder.

Coll died in 1932. Schultz had put a hit out on him and he was submachine gunned down while using a telephone in a Bronx drug store.

Marion Pruett

Many serial killers have been called Mad Dog. I found six in a cursory internet search. For example, Joe Taborsky brutally killed six people during robberies in six weeks in 1957 and was called Mad Dog in the press.

Marion Pruett gave the name to himself.  In 1979, Pruett was put in witness protection after testifying against another man for a murder Pruett had committed. In 1981 while under federal protection, he killed his common-law wife by beating her to death with a ballpeen hammer. In the following week he shot and killed four other people across two states.

He claimed to have killed others and offered to revel the location of a Florida victim if he got a paid interview with Geraldo Rivera.

More About Mattis
I have not found a single example of a sane, rational person who has been given the nickname "Mad Dog." Just saying, probably not someone you want in charge of a two million person military.

Trump and War Roulette

It's not a question of if Trump bungles the US into a war. That is inevitable. The only unknowns are how, when, and with whom.

The very first page of the international relations briefing book Trump hasn't bothered to read says, "Be discreet when talking with Taiwan."

AKA "International Relations for Dummies"

Even more pathetic than Trump angering China by publicly chatting up Taiwan was Trump's reaction to the cock up. His whine was straight out of a tween's diary after she got caught sexting her BFF's boyfriend. "I didn't call him, he called me."

Bitch, how'd he get your fucking phone number!

Then there is Trump's choice to head the Pentagon. Even his friends compare soon-to-be Secretary of Defense James Mattis to a deranged feral animal. "Mad Dog" Mattis longs for war with Iran. He gets an erection just thinking about war with Iran. He creams his pants whenever he sees a picture of a mushroom cloud.

You're welcome for the orgasm, Jimmy

Now would be a good time to build that fallout shelter in your basement. You're gonna need it.

The Disinterested President

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ~ George Santayana

Sixteen years ago President George W. Bush ignored multiple memos warning him that al-qaeda was planning something big. The resulting ignorance enabled the 9-11 terror attacks.

Bush was a diligent student compared to Trump. Trump is routinely blowing off intel briefings. I'm sure he finds them long, complicated, and boring. They are. But they are also extremely important. Rejecting them will lead with absolute certainty to shocking strategic and tactical surprises.

Maybe it will be Russian tanks invading the Baltic states or Chinese expansion in the South China Sea or North Korean troop movement presaging an invasion of the South or some perfectly predictable (if you read the intel) Middle Eastern shit. Whatever the surprise it will force the United States into knee-jerk, unprepared responses that will probably kill a lot of innocent people.

Trump wanted to be elected president but he doesn't want to be president. Being president is hard, stressful work that turns even young men grey in just a few years.

Trump will revel in the pomp and ceremony of the inauguration but likely turn his back on the rest. He even considers the White House to plebeian for his tastes and wants to live out his presidency in his Manhattan penthouse.

He will leave governing to the amalgam of inexperienced oligarchs, racists, and con artists he is appointing. They will be too busy plundering the treasury and inflicting harm on minorities to care about the best interests of the nation.