Take on Assange

Julian Assange has the kind of infamy where everybody hates him. The liberals hate him, the conservative do, too. Libertarians should like him but are creeped out by him, the only ones that like him are Trumpettes but those are the same guy who park on their lawn and throw bud out cans out of their window. What he claims to stands for sounds heroic but when you realize that he's just a Putin stooge, it's unpatriotic bullshit.
This week Sweden dropped their rape case against him which will likely mean that Ecuador is sick of him stinking up their bathroom and clogging up their dial-up with donkey porn and want him out. But when we finally saw the soon to be free man, he was sporting the kind of mullet that would make Steve Perry proud. Maybe he's secretly Canadian.

Take on the NutJob

It was revealed today that Trump told the Sergey brothers that firing Comey relieved a lot of stress for him because of the Russian thing hanging over him.   That's nice to hear, nobody wants Trump to feel too much pressure 

But what was more striking was the line 

"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,"

Everything that Trump accuses others of, he does himself.  It's like the liar who wants to get caught

Hillary can't be trusted with classified info-> Trump hands over classified info to the Russians

Hillary is corrupt -> see day 12 of his presidency, day 14, day 17, days 20 through 32, days 40,45,46,50 and all of them between 52-76 plus 78,79. Days 81 to 112 and 114 to today. And the other ones, too. 

NY Times is fake news -> Trump spreads birtherism, Cruz's father on the gassy knoll, inauguration crowd sizes etc

If we lose the election is rigged -> Likely coordinated with the Russians to rig the election

Hillary is in bed with Wall Street-> his entire cabinet could plan on the Goldman Sachs old-timers softball team

Comey better watch out because we may tapes of him saying stuff he shouldn't -> Trump was saying stuff he shouldn't 

Obama plays golf while the country burns-> fore

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Take on the stinky bait

It is just a matter of time before Trump gets out in some kind of confrontational situation where reporters will pepper him with questions about Comey, Flynn, Manafort, Cambridge Analytics, Page etc and he'll just explode.
We know he is easily riled up and extremely thin skinned, so it's not hard to image a Jack moment where he screams that damn right he ordered the code red. We know that Trump is guilty, we know that he's not very bright and we know that he will take the bait, so now all it takes is a prosecutor or interviewer who can go toe to toe with him. Trump is no wimp and he'll likely not go down easily but it won't be long, his handlers can't keep him away forever

Take on RedDonald

I've been thinking about this perception that Trump is this amazing business person.  Is it possible that Trump made all of his supposed billions because the Russians were using his companies as ways to launder money.  He was chosen years ago as their mule and he happily obliged as it allowed him to appear successful.  None of it actually a true success, just a number of shell companies which made money as a laundering service. 

The kinds of companies which he himself wanted to pursue were things like the steaks and the wine etc which were disasters because he had no Russian money keeping afloat.  

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Take on the political world we live in

We live in a world where FoxNews claims to be Fair and Balanced and people honestly believe it.  People will tell you it's the most trusted place for news while anybody with open eyes will blatantly see it's partisan mouthpiece  

We have an administration that openly tries to discredit The New York Times and The Washington Post as fake news, two of the most respected papers in our country.   This is a time when the National Review won't even back a republican president.  All the while our own president perpetuated "fake news" with the birtherism, inauguration crowd size, 3 million illegal votes, Obama tapping his wires etc    

The thing is that I have never in my life watched MSNBC and thought I was getting a balanced view, just today the news of the little "Trump giving highly classified information to the Ruskies" story sits below the fold on FoxNews.com.  That is a problem

This is what happens when you confuse journalism with entertainment   

Edward R Murrow is rolling over in his grave 

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Take on the anti-intellectual president

Our President is a moron

 

Here are two report I read today..

First a report from (http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/15/nato-frantically-tries-to-trump-proof-presidents-first-visit-alliance-europe-brussels/amp/) with the headline NATO Frantically Tries to Trump-Proof President's First Visit.   The article describes sources inside NATO and Senior US officials recommending heads of state to limit talks to 2-4 minutes at a time as our president has a notoriously short attentions span.

Second report from Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/donald-trump-fake-news-238379) with the headline.  How Trump gets his fake news.   The president rarely surfs the web on his own, but his staff made a habit of slipping news stories on to his desk- including the occasional internet hoax

 

For years we have heard the modern GOP as being anti-intellectual as they catered to the lowest common denominator when it came to things like science, evolution, climate change, EPA etc but calling Trump an anti-intellectual is an insult to other anti-intellectuals.   Our president isn't just anti-intellectual, he's anti-high school intelligence.  This guy isn't mentally or emotionally equipped to run a bake-sale and 43 million people thought he was the guy to run the biggest economy, have control over the biggest armed forces, the biggest democracy with the smallest hands and the smallest mind this side of a smurf and the intellectual curiosity of a house plant.

Take on the gutless GOP senatorial leadership

If the GOP leadership in the senate has finally gotten some guts it sure has an odd way of showing it.  There are reports which surface that senate leadership is starting to break from Trump although so far they have voted with him more than 95% of the time.  I'm going to keep this in the I'll believe it when I see it category.  Yes, you'll hear the occasional grumbling from McCain on Lindsey Graham but you never actually see the do anything.  Yes, some have said the Comey firing was troubling but none of them have called for hearings, asked explicitly for a special prosecutor or called our president out for being a slimy orange Russian stooge. 

The day this senate ever goes full circle and openly and forcefully opposes Trump on his ideals, morals and convictions is the day they will be allowed to put on big boy pants, until then they are a bunch of sissies 

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Take on Sam Clovis

I don't know anything about Trump's new pick for top USDA scientist a position which deals deeply with agriculture and nutrition but when you look at the guy's resume (no experience in agriculture, science or nutrition), company he keeps (he is the one who introduced Trump to Carter Page) and triple chins, I'm not impressed. This is the guy who will be advising Trump on nutrition and looking at his own waistline, he'd likely suggest that Trump should be getting a third scoop of ice cream. Most people are expecting Trump to get impeached but at the rate he is putting on weight, he's not going to make it till The Fourth of July. He's getting fatter every single time you see him and those ill fitted suits only look him more blimp-like.
This is what happens when one obese president puts a similarly fat guy in charge of health, you have our country go into one simultaneous gigantic bout of cardiac areas

But if we're all gonna die anyway, I'll have a large fries with my double bacon cheeseburger deluxe and give a gigantic coke, too.

Take on our president's war on the press

The freedom of the press is under siege, our president who hasn't had very many press conferences is threatening to eliminate the near daily press briefings given by his press secretary. This is a classic example of Trump using one example, his team's inability to stay on message and conflates that with his desire to not give the press access. This is the danger of a man who overreacts, has no self control has never met a crazy thought in his mind that he hasn't said.
But we are in a place in time where this is acceptable. Trump shuns his obligations of transparency, he acts like a juvenile, he lies, he cheats and he cries about being treated unfairly. He's a ten year old shoved in a 300 pound old man's sloppy body

Take on the Russian Oval Office meeting

Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
Our president fires the FBI director investigating his office, tells you it was done upon the recommendation of his AG and then two days later says it was actually based on his own decision. This is a president, in the mists of RussiaGate invites Sergey Lavrov into the Oval Office and we later find out that another Sergey, Sergey Kislyak also shows up. The same Sergey whose meetings with Flynn were his ultimate takedown. The Russians also sent out some photos of the event, an event where the American press was not present. This was a meeting which was apparently insisted upon by one Vladimir Putin

The chances of them having dropped a bug in the Oval Office has to be somewhere between 99.9999 and 100%, right? The only chance they didn't bug us is if they were picking up the bug that Flynn left there

Take on RussiaGate

The FoxNews headline screamed "James Comey Resigns" as if he had any say in his future.   Donald Trump, our Dear Leader, has taken it upon himself to purge the government of anybody who he sees as adversarial and seems to want to replace them with loyalists and we're being asked to accept it.  

What I'm sure of, is that there is an attempt to coverup something, what that something is, in not sure but assuming Trump isn't able to bring a psychopath like Rudy Giuliani to head the FBI, I assume we will find out who, what and where. We just will be left with a why

I can see Flynn getting corrupted but how does that single event spread across the entire TeamTrump.  I can see the outsiders individually being interested, Carter Page cut his teeth on deals between oil companies and mother Russia, so there is a connection there.  Rex Tillerson was the oil company.  Manafort has enough Eastern European skeletons to fill a Romanian morgue but how does it all tie together and who arranges it 

How does a career Washington guy like Jeff Sessions fall in line, how does his AG Rosenstein come along.   How do they recruit Chaffez and Nunes for cover.   What is it it for Giuliani to offer up an October surprise.  

But who was the architect from this side of the pond, how was everybody brought together and kept to stay quiet?  There must be something in it for all these guys and it can't just be a bottle of Vodka.  People who have been loyal servants to this country don't go rogue for nothing. People who have made a lot of money keeping the right wheels greased don't blow it up.  People who still have ambitions for further careers in Washington would not seem to be easy converts.   Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and Steve Miller are just crazy enough to want to blow it up but how do they stay quiet, nobody does anything unless there is something in it for them.  The Lufthansa heist had the fat guy with beard buying his girl a mink coat, Watergate had deep throat.  Somebody always trips up or cracks and the book that will be written on this time will seem unbelievable 

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Take on Sally Yates

Sally Yates put the kind of beat down to Ted Cruz that everybody in the free world must have enjoyed. Forget your political persuasion but hearing Cruz get on his big constitutional horse and get dressed down was great
But what was more obvious, was not all the distractions that the GOP tried to throw at Yates but rather the fact that they warned Trump of the dangers of Flynn and instead of dismissing him, they went back to ask why it should matter. These are not professionals, these are not people who are trying to do right, these are people who are playing an elaborate game of cover up
Yates showed that she won't be intimated by Don's morning tweets and showed to be more competent than the entire team he hired

Let the hearings continue

Take on Macron

There was no scarier proposition than the Trump virus making its way across the Atlantic, so we were happy to see the Dutch nazi Wilders and now Peppy Le Pen defeated in back to back western contests. What gave us less confidence was the victory speech that Macron gave last night, this dude looked more overwhelmed than a 14 year old first walking into high school. He looked like a cross between a man who showed up at work without pants and A Small Wonder and he is now the leader of one of the great democracies in the Europe.
Viva la France

Take on the Russian debacle

The AP had a story yesterday where somehow they really buried the lede.  

It's another story about how the Trump campaign was warned repeatedly about the fact that Michael Flynn was in regular contact with, and possibly compromised by, the Russian.  This isn't news anymore for people paying attention, there will be multiple dominoes that will fall until it finally knocks down the big orange one but what was shocking was that the most damming quote in the entire article was buried

"The outgoing White House also became concerned about the Trump team's handling of classified information. After learning that highly sensitive documents from a secure room at the transition's Washington headquarters were being copied and removed from the facility, Obama's national security team decided to only allow the transition officials to view some information at the White House, including documents on the government's contingency plans for crises."

This president and his transition team were removing classified and sensitive information and copying them like a teacher's aid with an unlimited photocopy card.  This is a campaign, lead by one Michael Flynn, which wanted Hillary locked up for her email server, yet they were treating our most sensitive information like my crazy aunt does emails titled "funny things that Walmart shoppers do" 

The crazies are really running the asylum. Time for a couple of subpoenas, indictments and canaries to spill the dirt

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Take on the golfer in chief

Trump tweeted "The reason I am staying in Bedminster, N. J., a beautiful community, is that staying in NYC is much more expensive and disruptive. Meetings!" which was great to hear but then some guy in his Instagram account posted a picture of Fat Donnie hitting the links. I've said a thousand times that I don't care how much golf he plays, didn't care when Obama did it, didn't care when Bush Jr. did it and didn't care when Bubba did it either. The only criticism is that Trump can't even own it, you have the hardest job on the planet, you can do anything you need to give yourself a mental break, but don't call it something it isn't. There is no "cost savings" with you staying at your golf course for the taxpayers. If you were interested in that, play at Andrews Airforce Base and sleep at the White House

Take on the TrumpCare

I'd have to think that if you've been dependent on Obamacare today kind of sucks.   There is nothing worse than a bunch  of old rich white guys spiking the football on the back of  your health insurance's demise..   Not only was this new TrumpCare not vetted through congress, many members said that they didn't have a chance to read it yet, it was also not vetted by the Congressional Budget Office who would give you an estimated cost.   Whenever you try to pull an Art Modell and pass one of these things in the middle-of-the-night, something feels off..

If you are a healthy person between 20-30, things look pretty good for you, that is, of course, assuming you don't have cancer or aids or acne.  Having had a previous pregnancy can also be considered a preexisting condition which is very exactly telling your own mother to go screw herself.   But the good news is that Trump promised a great health care for everybody and even commented how great the (single payer) Australian one was when he met their Prime Minister yesterday.  

One condition that doesn't seem to be considered pre-existing is ED.. I wonder why

Take on the TrumpChurch

Nothing shocks me more than the fact that the more religious somebody is, the more likely they voted for Trump

I'm no biblical scholar but it seems to me there should be no natural connection to Trump's gaudy buildings, singular top down leadership, defense of the brand to knock down stories in the press not favorable, legions of followers of the word of a single man, major corruption coverups, ambiguous speeches and massive donations cloaked under the banner of trying to make change

Let alone an older man in leadership accused of groping younger followers

Take on the repeal and replace option.

It sounds like the house will pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare with some Trojan horse sometime tomorrow. But like most things in Washington, this will be a bill that the people of the country haven't learned much about and there even are many congressman who apparently also haven't seen the latest version. Nothing is as comforting as hearing that we'll have to pass a healthcare bill to learn what's inside of it. One thing is for sure, it will ecover preexisting conditions or....it won't. Not a huge deal if you are a healthy 41 year old but a bit bigger of a deal if you have cancer. It sounds like the biggest caveat will be left to the states which will make 3/4 of our country places that nobody will want to live. So what happens then, all the sick people come to a few of the states that don't have ice in their veins? Hope they bring their bags of money, tons of inheritance, well to do families, innovative streaks, education and self worth, too.

Take on the civil war

What's so civil about war anyway?

Our president is not exactly a student of history preferring to make his own (and later trying rewrite it) than studying it. Steve Bannon whispered in his ear that he's the new Andres Jackson and Trump immediately had his portrait hung up in the Oval Office. He went to visit his gravesite and may have seen something on his presidency on the history channel (although he probably bad to tinkle when the chapter on the trail of tears thing came up)
But this is the world we live in, Trump tell us that Andrew Jackson would have prevented the civil war negotiation, not sure exactly how that worked but it seems odd being that the statement is a direct indictment of the president his party claims to get it lineage from. But apparently according to the historian in chief, Lincoln wasn't smart enough or a savvy enough to negotiate his way out of the firebomb heading right towards the core of our country. Yes, Mr Davis, you give up slavery and we will give you a few acres in Oklahoma and a few smallpox blankets to boot

Take on our incompetent North Korean policy

Our Dear Leader said he'd be honored to meet Kim Jong Un at the White House.  Maybe Trump has forgotten that we are actually still at war with North Korea, maybe he has forgotten that Kim has sent a dozen test missiles out since his presidency has started.  Maybe he doesn't realize the human tragedy which has happened under the watch of three separate Kim regimes and maybe he has forgotten that Kim has silenced his opposition by silencing them.  Maybe Trump has forgotten about the armada he was sending there. Maybe he has forgotten about the pressure he was going to put on President Xi to bring Kim to his knees

Or maybe he is just a moron 

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Take on the campaign style rally

Five months after the American people voted, Trump once again returned to his roots and had a campaign style rally in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. It was notable in two ways, it's not even close to the unofficial start of election time with trump just hitting his 100th day but maybe more notable was it was held to run directly opposed to the White House Correspondence Dinner. I've read it was one of the most divisive speeches ever given by a sitting president with Trump going hard after the main stream media and Democrats.
A buddy asked "did he got back to the build a wall thing? And say that Mexico was going to pay for it?"

Dude, does Journey play Don't Start Believin' when you go see them with their Asian lead singer today?

Take on the imperial presidency

For eight years we were told about the nefarious imperial presidency of Obama who signed a bunch of Executive Orders only to have Trump basically lap him in just his first 100 days. We were told that the use of Executive Orders proved that Obama doesn't respect the constitution which seemed odd for a constitutional scholar but we don't take these things that seriously. Then yesterday our Dear Leader told FoxNews that our method of governing is maddening and archaic which is a great theory for somebody who'd like to see an imperial presidency and also one who does respect the constitution. Then again this is the same president who doesn't see a lot of value in the idea of an open media, doesn't seem to appreciate the checks and balances and certainly would like to see the judicial branch come down to its knees.

Great guy we hired here

Take on the Reuters interview

Trump had an interview with Reuters yesterday and everybody got caught up with his line about the job being much harder than he thought. This is a man who doesn't like to prep, is lazy with facts and seems to only focus on things he likes to focus on, so the fact this is harder than he expected is not that shocking

What was even less shocking was that in the middle of the interview our president presented the interviewers with maps of the country with the districts that voted for him colored in with red, like he was handing out a kids menu and pack of crayons at TGIFridays. This guy is so consumed with that stupid win, a win which we'll be suffering from for years. I think the chances of him being the president affected the position the most is likely, sadly it's race between him and Nixon.

Take on Jesse Wafters

Much like 95% of the people who got axed by ESPN , I'd never heard of Jesse Watters before yesterday and suspect most of the country hadn't either.   But Watters made a household name for himself when he said that he liked the way Ivanka Trump held a microphone implying she held it the way she would hold his little pinkman. It wasn't just the comment, it was the little wicked smile and the hand motion going up and down as he said it..   This coming on the heels of the Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes dismissals certainty wasn't particularly good optics for Foxnews which has been struggling with sexual harassment suits for months.  

We at TOR do appreciate the photo that the NY Times chose to run, nothing like a news organization trolling a (faux) news organization in broad daylight

enjoy your vacation Jesse, with any luck they'll catch you for murder in the first and you'll be able to show Biff how well you'd hold his microphone..

Take on the Big Red Button

Our president had a big red button installed in the Oval Office to call for a cold coke. This is like those Amazon buttons they keep trying to convince me to buy so that I can easily replace my laundry detergent except instead of some UPS guy dropping off a ridiculously big 12 by 12 box for a small container of Tide. But our president, who looks like he has put on 50 pounds since he started the gig is just getting fatter by the day. There is no way this slob doesn't have diabetes or heart disease or whatever

He's disgusting

Take on the first 100 days

I'm quite frankly getting sick of all the winning..  I've been winning so much that it's starting to feel like we are losing.

During the campaign, our Dear Leader drummed home the idea of getting more done in his first 100 days than anybody else.   He had a list of things ranging from building a wall to repealing Obamacare to giving all middle school kids pizza for lunch every single day.    Sadly for nobody, none of those promises have actually come true and thus, by Trump's own metrics, his presidency has not been very successful.   Today on the eve of day 100, they put out a list of all sorts of great accomplishments, putting them in context with other presidents through their first 100 days.

The one that stood out more than anything was that he trumps Obama in Executive Orders signed through 100 days.   Trump has had 30 already while the low-energy Obama was only at 11 through 100 days.  

Of course the GOP will embrace this as more winning, even if they have been telling us that Executive Actions are the equivalent of a pact with the devil for the last eight years.   So, I guess we're winning based on the new metrics, losing on the ones we were supposed to care about a few months ago but since our president takes every position, so even when we all lose, he wins.   For a guy who has made (and lost) his money in Casinos, he certainly knows how to be the house.. 

But it does bring up an interesting point, his supporters don't seem to be very idealistic either, look at this stat…  38% of Democrats though bombing Syria under Obama's leadership was a wise decision, that number dropped to 37% under Trump.    Republicans on the other had went from 22% thinking it was sound policy under Obama and 86% thinking it's so now..  

Take on the trials and tribulations of traveling

People keep getting abused on airplanes. Forget the usual complaints of lost luggage, delays, missed connections and crappy food, 2017 has been an incredibly bad year for airline travellers. First you had a couple teenagers thrown off for wearing tights, then some Asian dude got his head beat-in on a United flight, then on an American flight some poor woman holding a baby was smacked by a stroller but those were all nothing compared to what passengers on a Delta flight had to put up with. In the middle of their flight, it was as if their 737 turned into the D train with some psycho walking around playing a wooded instrument for loose change. The entire cabin was held captive by a sideshow Bob looking maniac wielding a clarinet looking saxophone and his easy listening jazz.

Delta's CEO, Richard Anderson, better come out with an apology soon or he'll suffer the same fate the United guy just got.

Take on TrumpMath

Facts, when put through the Trump filter have a tendency to come out sounding a bit  differently. 

Look at this 

A former Trump campaign aid was indicted for human trafficking of a minor (http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/04/21/former-district-judge-indicted-human-trafficking/100756290/) 

Using TrumpMath this means some guy in a pizzeria has been running a prostitution ring of 14 year olds 

North Carolina's voter fraud report came out today.  Two dead people voted - actually relatives of two dead people voted for them. For Trump, obviously.  

Using TrumpMath this means that 3 million illegals voted for Hillary 

It's been reported that the Science Day Marches Outdraw Donald Trump's Inauguration

Using TrumpMath this extrapolates to Trump having the largest inauguration of all time 

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Take on Another brick in the Wall

So the White House now wants to trade funds for a wall nobody wants for healthcare they said is destroying our economy and ask us to all pay for it, it's like we hit the lottery. What is maddening is that we can't afford new schools, roads or highways but we decide that a wall is the most important investment, you can make and you tie it to healthcare nobody can afford to go without

I get the art of the deal, but when that deal turns from Mexicans paying for the wall to us paying for it, it seems the art is being taught by a kindergartner. We've been told Obamacare is the worst thing in the entire world, but now TeamTrump will try to sell us that it's worthwhile in order for them to shove Jeff Sessions's stupid wall shoved in our five-holes

Thanks Trump

Take on Uber

This Wednesday I decide to throw caution into the wind and go with the Uber prescheduled option instead of the normal local cab. I go with the scheduled option because living out in the burbs means that there is no chance there will be a random Uber driver in my area at 6am.
I reserved on Monday, get confirmation on Tuesday and got a notification on Wednesday that Ceasar, my driver, was on the way. I kept my front door open and at 6:05 a Honda CRV drives up my street, I guess he'll pull around and I'd be on my way to JFK within seconds. The problem is that Ceasar decided to call an audible and instead of picking me up and heading to JFK, he cancelled and headed to Franklin Lakes. There I am, bags packed, shoes on and kids kissed and no cab. I dial up Uber again and find only a single driver, Caesar, in my area. I request him again but he immediately turns off his phone and I'm stuck. A half hour later a new driver finally shows up and does drive me to the airport

Take on the weird foursome

I don't care if my President pals around with celebrities, never have. It's a ridiculously difficult job and if you need to hang with Beyoncé or Marilyn Monroe to make it all feel normal, go nuts. But today it wasn't the celebrities, just the types. You have Kid Rock who is about as bright as a shoe but again that is ok. You have Sarah Palin who I guess is a politician, albeit it not a very good one and then you have Ted Nugent who only a few months ago called for Obama to be hanged. Glad to see these three were invited into the Oval Office, they certainly seem worthy

Take on the conflict of interest

It was announced today that Exxon would seek a waiver from the US government to work with Russia in exploration and extraction of oil and gas despite US sanctions put in place after Crimea. This, of course, comes as no surprise to this political observer even if the optics right now would make you think twice about asking for this so publicly

But our president doesn't quiet care about optics or the appearance of conflict, the entire Syrian 'outrage' last week was a badly choreographed high school musical to try to throw the dogs off the scent but the dogs aren't going anywhere.
The next bombshell will be the promise of easing sanctions in an audio tape delivered by Carter Page over the summer.

The reason we believe there was an audio tape is because Trump does not use email and would not have put this to paper. This gives him some kind of lame " plausible" out, as there won't ever be a direct paper trail back to him. He dictates all his correspondence and would always claim that his secretary misheard him.
But all of this wouldn't sit well with Putin who wanted some kind of assurance, something more substantive than Flynn winking and smiling at him. So it was likely Putin's demand, to hear it in Trump's own words which put Carter Page on that plane. Putin's no dummy and he knew very well that the intelligence community was listening in to every phone call coming into and out of the Kremlin.

But as we have stated before, even if released we expect the audio tape to be typical Trump, a lot of nothing hidden underneath a lot of bravado and buried in a sea of adjectives. Even if it is very obviously quid pro quo.

But we digress. This is now coming to a head with the the world's biggest oil company asking for those sanctions lifted. This will give them access to the vast oil reserves under Mother Russia and give Russia a driller and buyer.

Now if only Exxon had a guy inside who could help grease the wheels a bit, then we'd really have a story

Take on Trump's Boy Band

I wouldn't blame you if when you hear the name Carter Page, you think he is probably the fifth guy in some 90's boyband. You'd assume he's the quiet one who doesn't get a lot of notoriety but maybe helped write a couple of the songs or choreographed a couple of dance moves. Maybe you assume he's the one who keeps being mistaken for his younger brother who has his own boy band
But it turns out that Carter Page may have been the go-between for Donnie and his buddy Vlad. Rumors are swirling that Page used the backstreets to deliver an audio tape with Trump's voice on it, assuring that if Russia helped hack the election, a new Trump administration would be lax on some of the sanctions and would turn a blind eye to Crimea and the next Crimea. This wasn't a small feat and wasn't something that Donnie was going to farm out to just any backup singer, the message had to be clear and perfectly in sync with all the moving piece. This was a major deal and they weren't going to give it to the new kid on the block.

The way I see it, Manafort is Joey Fatone the fat ugly one, that makes Mike Flynn = Lance Bass as the funny looking gay one, Roger Stone becomes that weird one with the goatie, Nunes can be that other one you forgot was in the band and that would make Carter Page....Justin F'n Timberlake

And of course Kushner is Sweet Lou Perlman, the sketchiest of them all who by design can claim some kind of limited culpability and keeps the entire thing conveniently away from
BMG(Trump) when the hotel room gets trashed, a couple of teenagers get impregnated and the Russians come calling for their IOU

Take on the grade curve

Our president called Recep Erdogan today to wish him good luck in his next fifty years of dictatorship. I'd usually let this one slide as it might just be a courtesy call, like when Hillary called Trump to tell him that she was conceding. But when the person making the call has a history of authoritarian moves and totalitarian motives, you wonder where it's all heading. Truth be told, Trump isn't that bright and probably thought nothing of it and meant nothing by it, so since we assume he is just a moron, we give him a pass by grading him on a curve. The guy is a self serving, narcissistic, ego driven, press hating lunatic but we have to be nice to him otherwise he will get mad

Take on the Whole Foods bag

WholeFoods does a lot of things right, they have great prepared foods, an unbelievable organic section, the sandwich aisle is fantastic and the entire shopping experience is the closest to absolute euphoria I'll ever experience in a grocery aisle. What they are not is cheap, they aren't even moderately expensive, they are flat out expensive and that's fine. But that is a bit disingenuous are the "Great Price" brown bags they were giving out recently. That's like getting six papaya dogs and calling it gourmet or a six of bud lift and calling it a domestic craft beer

Take on The Swamp

Trump is an imbecilic, self centered, narcissistic man child who has miraculously because become the leader of the free world without so much as an ounce of qualification. He has accomplished virtually nothing in his first 85 days although we do think his handicap may be better than it ever has

The one thing we do appreciate is the fact he has committed to draining the swamp, systematically ridding Washington DC of the lobbyist, career politicians, DC lifers and big oil and Goldman Sachs bankers. Our capital's waterways have never been cleaner, the stench of the sewage that once occupied our great city replaced by a pristine pool where Rex Tillerson, Rick Perry, Steve Mnuchin, Mike Pence, Reince Priebus, Wilbur Ross, Tom Price can wade and clean themselves of their original sins.

Take on the Korean situation

We are on the cusp on a Bay of Pigs with the Fat Korean situation and our president is spending the weekend down in Mar-a-Lago. It's not just the constant vacationing to Trump brander hotels and golf courses but it's the fact that this time, he didn't even bring his staff which actually might be a good thing. Trump and Kim are a match made in nuclear heaven and I don't think anybody thinks that these two knuckleheads are composed enough to keep their cool. Kim's been dying to have a chance to flex his muscles and he has his missile arsenal on big display today at some Korean march. Big Don just dropped the Mother of All Bombs, so he too is ready. All we need now is Michael Buffer and we are ready to go. They are both overcompensating for being ridiculously out of shape loveless losers with terrible haircuts, so really we should be ready for anything

But Donny, please come back to Washington if it does happen, not sure we need you going over war plans on the fine linens in the dining room, and if you don't come back maybe get a suite or go back out on the patio.

Take on the broken promises

Trump tweeted out yesterday that " one by one we are keeping our promises -on the border, on jobs, on regulations.  Big changes are happening!"

I went through a quick list of promises

Build a big glorious 20 foot wall and have Mexico pay for it
So far, no wall and definitely no pesos 

Build a bigger wall if Mexico refuses to pay for it
So far, still no wall and definitely no pesos 

Create massive amounts of jobs
So far, job rate a little bit lower than under Obama and March numbers underwhelming 

Repeal the horrible Obamacare
Obamacare still here

Replace with great wonderful new healthcare
Couldn't get great new healthcare through congress 

Don't go to war with Syria
Sent 59 missiles and destroyed a cafeteria

On Day 1 officially call China a currency manipulator
On day 82 without much fanfare said China was not a currency manipulator

Janet Yellen is doing a terrible job 
Janet Yellen might return

NATO is obsolete and consider pulling out 
Declares NATO is no longer obsolete

Export-Import bank needs to be eliminated
export-import bank should stay

Unlike Obama he will not have enough time to play golf

Played more golf in three months than Obama did in a year  

Surround himself with great people

Betsy Devos, Michael Flynn, Ben Carson, Rex Tillerson, Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and of course Rick Perry 

And of course

Will Drain the Swamp

Filled the swamp with more toxic waste

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Take on the manspreader in chief

Trump was asked yesterday if his views of Putin had changed and he ignored the question while sitting arms folded pretending he hadn't heard the question. People were up in arms about this, thinking it was insulting, cowardly or even worse but I was mostly pissed about the way he was sitting
There goes Don, totally man-spreading under the table like he's some frat boy on the D train. He's encroaching so far into Elaine Chao's personal space that Mitch may come over and tell him that he's a meanie. But this is Trump, always try to use whatever tactic to make it know that he's right there.
Sadly for Melania, there are rumors that he stuffs a sock in his pants right after the scotch tapes his tie to his shirt

Take on Spicy Spicer

Mellisa McCarthy to the white courtesy phone please.

When the headline on every news site says that you are apologizing "for your Hitler remarks", you know that you are having a bad day. Poor Sean, so dumb, so poorly cast in this role, such a closet antisemite.

Spicer hasn't had an easy run, it actually has gone downhill since the photo of him dressed like the Easter Bunny made the rounds a few months ago. He's a true moron but you'd have to think he has one of the hardest and least enviable jobs in the world, although I'm assuming at least he gets paid well. The problem is that his days are numbered, it just can't keep going like this with poor Sean shoving his big pale white foot in his mouth time and time again. The funny thing is that all the talk was about his original comments which stated that Hitler hadn't used chemical weapons, which whatever justification he had was poorly thought through and just plain dumb. What we thought was more troubling was that when a reporter gave him an out a few minutes later to let him explain himself, he went with the "Hitler didn't use chemical weapons against his own people". Nice to see that Sean doesn't equate Jews, gypsies, blacks and gays to "his own people" and then he topped it off with Holocaust Centers which sounds like a museum I went to in high school.

The entire time you are watching you just think Sean, just.shut.up.

The only person who was happy today was the CEO of United Airlines who likely sent Sean flowers

Take on the overbooked United situation

I hate flying United, it's just a crappy all around experience and is the number one reason I still fly Delta even though Newark would be much easier for me. The airplanes are old, the peanuts stale, their flight attendants could star in The Golden Girls and now their overbooked policy sucks.

Apparently a flight crew had to get to Louisville yesterday and after nobody voluntarily gave up their seat, United played some Russian Roulette and some poor nerdy Asian guy got the short straw.
This poor dude who just wanted to go home to see his kids or let his dog out showed up at the airport and figured the hard part was done. But instead of flying the friendly skies, he took an armrest to his face and was dragged off like a WWE heel, as three goons beat the guy to a bloody pulp . I'm always a guy who tries to see the other perspective but this is the kind of situation where the force used by one party seems to be hard to justify based on the fact that the Asian guy didn't want to give up his paid for seat and be stuck in their shitty city for another night.

I understand the logistical issues United must have had with getting a flight crew to Louisville for another flight but I'm not quite sure treating this Asian dude like a piñata is such a hot idea, either.

So F you United for your crappy customer service, your idiotic leggings rules and the fact that Newark Airport blows donkey.

Take on the $80 million dollar disco party

This Trump attack seemed to have been both incredibly effective and incredibly not effective. He got a lot of "no puppet of Putin" relief af the same time that airfield went back to having the kind of regular flight schedule that LaGuardia could only dream about

Three days after we sent $80 million worth of Tomahawk missiles, that airfield from where the chemical attacks were launched was back as basically operational. We're not talking about rebuilding an entire new Death Star, we're talking about a new coat of paint, a couple of pounds of cement and a new cafeteria and all of a sudden direct flight to Damascus where back on the schedule. Planes were landing, bags were loaded, planes were off, peanuts were being served and people complained about blankets and pillows. Delta cancelled 3000 flights this week because of a rain storm in Atlanta but after $80 million worth of missiles they were back on track..

So Donald, maybe the targeted attacks that the weakling Obama was sending out there, were maybe not all that different from your prime time disco party and maybe, they were actually much more effective

But least Trump got to changed the narrative

Take on the badly acted high school play

The more you think about the attack on the Syrian airbase, the more get the feeling it was just Trump getting cover for his too-close- for- comfort ties with Putin. The storyline is sort of predictable, the dialogue lame and the presentation looks like it is poorly acted by a bunch of high school kids. This was like West Side Story as performed by Vlad and Don

Trump speaks like he has the vocabulary of a tenth grader and delivers it like he's an autistic ten year old. Putin's "incensed" reaction the next morning comes across as robotic, although in fairness he is Russian and if Rocky IV taught us anything, they have no emotions.

But as bad a Putin is, the Trump press conference was worse. It was honestly one of the most uncomfortable ones I have ever seen, not because of the words he used but the fact that he looks like a ten year old reading them. He is so odd when he's forced to stick to a script, especially when he is asked to show emotion that you cringe hoping he doesn't get to a four syllable word. I think his vehement hatred for the TelePrompter stems from the fact that he can't read.
But it did accomplish the goal of taking the secret powwows of Kushner and Russia off the front page. Devin Nunes has gone back to obscurity and it's only a matter of time that Trump brings back Manafort.

Take on Assad's motivation

I've been scratching my head all day to why Assad would do what he did this Tuesday.  I'm not naive enough to try to understand the moves of a tyrannical madman but I'd try to figure out why, at this point, he would decide to stir the pot

It comes down to the following four scenarios 

- Assad, after hearing Tillerson and Halley state that we would leave him to handle Syria, became emboldened and assuming Trump was a paper tiger, used chemical weapons

- Assad, with heavy urging of Putin, attacked his people to destabilize the region allowing Putin the opportunity for an even more heavy handed approach. 

-Assad, with the urging of Putin and the blessing of team Trump, attacked his people hoping to get a wag-the-dog scenario to give Trump cover on RussiaGate.  Putin went out and called it a near act of war and now both leaders can go back hime to show they stood up to their great adversary. 

- the world is an f'd up place and crazy people will do crazy things 

I'd guess you'd sort of root for scenario one because it's the least tinfoilhat-ish.  It does show Trump's own instability and lack of conviction in his own beliefs but also probably means that he has no follow up plan, let alone an exit strategy.  

What we did read was an article about how the true Alt-Right saw this as a betrayal.   InfoWars and its followers and bloggers were up in arms as it went against a core campaign promise.  But I have to see this as incredibly naïve as there was no way anybody could see Trump as a true isolationist ideologue, he was just willing to play one on TV.  

But what is even more shortsighted is to suggest that this would lead to a great exodus of Trump's core supporters, a theory which is just as naïve.  Trump supporters, in general, don't love him for his stances, even they realize it's all pie-in- the-sky nonsense without specifics.  They support Trump for the cult of personality, for their hope for him to clean house, break the system, drain the swamp.  

A congress which wouldn't give Obama the legal ability to do the same thing are now openly praising the bombing, as are Trump's supporters who would have killed Obama for the same.  Trump himself said we should stay out but now jumped in with two feet 

But his core supporters don't care about isolationism or nation building or whatever.  People root for the laundry.  The Steelers played a smash-mouth football style for years, now they play a high octane one, they didn't lose any fans and didn't win over any Ravens fans, either 

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Take on the attack on Syria

I've not agreed with much Trump has done and think he handled the lead up to tonight really badly but I do think that this message today was the right one.

Hillary called for this exact thing earlier today and when I read that, I agreed with her and I agree with this move tonight, too. This is likely just a broken clock being right two times per day as I have no faith that Trump thought this through and weighed the repercussions but if taken as an isolated incident, it was necessary. This could even have been coordinated with Russia and is most certainly has some wag-the-dog stuff behind it. The one thing that Trump did tonight is show the world that on this scale he is a loose cannon, this doesn't bode well most of the time but I have to think that up until two hours ago, Assad thought Trump was a paper tiger. I guarantee that tonight he is thinking twice about dropping another chemical weapon and if this prevents another situation like yesterday, than so be it. The attack was on a military target and there are no (reported) civilian casualties

The fat Korean better watch out because his kimchee is going to taste like uranium at this rate.

Take on the Old Band

Six months ago, all seemed good in Trumpland, they had just had an unlikely victory in the biggest election of our lifetime, they could claim a (dubious) electoral mandate and they had a clear opportunity for a conservative agenda with a GOP House and Senate not to mention most state houses, too.
True, Manafort had been given the Pete Best treatment but the rest of the gang was all there. Flynn, Bannon, Miller, Kushner and Conway.
But then one by one the cracks started to show, the house of gold was actually just a cheap Chinese knockoff, everybody assumed Manafort was a one-off but he was an example of the systemic issue riddling the administration. Nobody could be trusted, nobody could turn around without feeling a knife come right into their spine. The leaking has been unprecedented, the controversies unrelenting and the press unmerciful, yet still, through it all, their John Lennon, has stayed the course, even if that course seems to be that of a drunk driver having an epileptic seizure while battling a nest of hornets while blindfolded.
But there he went, with no real agenda, no plan, no ideology, no moral compass and no sense of decency, wildly driving into the night in a stationwagon with the entire country in the backseat with no seat belts, car seats and all the windows locked.
Well Bannon is on the way out, in an apparent power struggle with Kushner, Tillerson is minimized in an apparent power play by Kushner and Putin is emboldened by an apparent lack of keeping his pants on by Kushner's father in law.
Miller is likely next, although I suspect that will come down when the FBI raids his laptop and they won't be looking for the kinds of things Jared Kushner will have been looking at, but rather the kind of things that Jared from Subway may have been looking at

Take on the latest Korean provocation

The fat Korean lobbed a missile towards the direction of Japan and all of a sudden it sounds like they've crossed the red line.  I'm not quite sure what we're going to do about it but Sexy Rexy and LittleFingers made it clear that any further provocation would lead to something.  Well this is the time when you probably don't want a reactionary, self centered megalomaniac in office (truthfully I'm not sure when you would) but it can't possibly be smart to handle this situation in any way that could set the chubby Korean off.   I do think it's time to off him, maybe an exploding cigar or I guess in his case an exploding bucket of KFC.  Or maybe we can get Dennis Rodman to jump naked out of a cake with a three prostitutes with bear traps in their wawas.  Or maybe just run his personal barber and make him look like his old man who kind of looks like a his mom.  

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Take on Brooklyn

I love Brooklyn, loved living there, loved the vibe, loved the community. I love fifth avenue, love prospect parks, love f*cked in park slope.
There were things I didn't love (hipsters), things I despised (parking) and things I just didn't understand (white families trying to submerge their white kids in Japanese) but throughout it all, it was always great even with its flaws. But somehow, with everything it had, everything it offered, everything it wanted to be, it lacked something. Maybe it's the fact that all those yuppies moved in, maybe it was the fact the rent went stupid, maybe it is because Brooklyn lost its edge or maybe it was because the entire borough didn't have a single avocado bar. But those days are now over, Brooklyn is now perfect. You can go from a cat petting place, to a rodeo, to a avocado bar all within about thirty minutes

It is heaven

Take on the secret Secretary of State

I'm not quite sure why Trump even hired a Secretary of State, especially because he has shown that he has no interest in standard diplomacy and has already cut major funding for the department. Add to that that Sexy Rex Tillerson seems to be a bit low on energy (couldn't have dinner with his Korean counterparts, didn't visit the embassies) and generally looks like an out of shape slob. Trump probably does appreciate his weird idiosyncrasies like not ever looking anybody in the eye and Trump certainly appreciates Tillerson's disdain of the media.
But really, Sexy Rexy is just the eye candy because Trump has already farmed out all the important jobs to Kushner. First Kushner got the job to bring peace in the Middle East and now it comes out that he's been the go-between through a secret channel between presidents Trump and Xi. I know that Trump believes in loyalty and family above all else, but Kushner is 36 and barely out of diapers and has less experience on the prod stage than even Trump

Not sure this will end well.

Take on Sleepy Eyes

Low Energy Jeb!
Lyin' Ted
One and thirty Kasich
Crooked Hillary
and now add Sleepy Eyed Chuck Todd to the mix. It's Saturday which means two things in the capital, 1- Kushner is observing Shabbat which means that 2- Old mean Trump is allowed to do as he pleases with his little phone.
Of course he referenced a FoxNews report using anonymous congressional aid sources to double down on his stupid wiretapping claims but he didn't stop there, he went after the failing New York Times and then attacked a guy who seems about as partisan as a a peanut butter sandwich. I don't love Chuck Todd and he certainly is no Russert but the reason he isn't covering the Obama Surveillance Scandal because it would be like him covering Santa's arrival from the North Pole