Catching Up…Mueller’s Week!

Whew…the world feels like it’s moving so very fast lately. It’s like “stop the merry-go-round, I wanna get off!” It’s post-mid-term elections, holiday season, and the tension of waiting for Mueller’s report is palpable. 

This year, 2018, is definitely one of huge proportion. The year of collusion, corruption, and murder. Never in my 56 (almost 57) years have I witnessed such incredible debauchery in my own country. We have been reduced to the laughing stock of the world; a country no longer trusted or revered, with an authoritarian leader who is hell-bent on destroying every good institution in our federal system. Sad. 

Families have become divided over things that Trump is doing or had done. Gatherings are often strained or even combative. The GOP (Republican’s Grand Ole Party) has become silent in their collusion with Trump and his destruction of our political systems and our judicial system.

Extreme weather has devastated the gulf coast of Florida and the surrounding region. Wildfires ravaged Paradise California and Malibu Beach leaving thousands homeless after they lost everything in those fires. It’s been a very tough year on America as a country. I can only hope that 2019 will bring some righteousness and healing because we all need it pretty badly. 

Personally, 2018 has been a pretty good year for me. It brought my woman into my life and lots of great times spent with her. My recovery is going great, and my health has never been better!   I have a wonderful home, a wonderful girlfriend, 2 very healthy little dogs, and a supportive, loving family behind me. So, I have all of that to be grateful for and happy about. 

I put my Christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. A little holiday cheer in the house is a good thing. I even got Lulu and Nola new Christmas jammies that are so damned cute on them.

Wow!  It’s Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018…and I do believe that Cohen just confirmed Russian collusion between Trump and his family and members of the Trump campaign team.  Holy Fuck. It’s finally going to get put out in the open for all to see and know that all of Trumps “I don’t have anything to do with Russia” bullshit is just a huge pack of outright lies to cover the fact that he made a deal with the Kremlin and Putin in exchange for their help in getting him elected to the American Presidency.  And I think this is just more of Mueller being super smart and circling the slow-motion train wreck called Team Trump.

Holy crap!  Now it’s Friday…the fucking week has been a blur of Mueller letting little pieces of the puzzle of Trump being compromised by Russia (and I believe he will also point to him being compromised by Saudi Arabia and Ukraine as well when it’s all said and done).  It’s been a crazy ass week for US political news junkies like me. This has become a sort of daily soap opera where you can NEVER imagine what is going to drop next. It’s impossible to predict this shit! You couldn’t write this script if you tried! It’s been a full week of finding out for certain, through the disclosure of factual evidence, that Trump is an un-indicted co-conspirator in obstructing justice, lying to Mueller/FBI/Congress, collusion with Russia, pay off plans to gift Putin with a $50M penthouse, and oh so much more is coming down the Mueller pipeline! 

I bet Trump never saw his November coming to this kind of end. He’s got a big Christmas present coming! The American people are getting to the truth, and it’s not pretty for the Trump family at all. Personally, I will be happy to see him put out of office – one way or another. He’s done nothing short of destruction over these last 2 years and it’s time to put an end to this bullshit.

America needs a LEADER. One who will stand tall, be respected and respectful in world dealings, be looked up to by young people, who treats everyone equally and with dignity. We want to get on with normalizing the political climate here and get on with business like improving our infrastructure, fixing immigration, getting healthcare under control and making sure everyone has good access to affordable care. We’re tired of being embarrassed on the world stage by a man who only think of himself and what he can gain from any situation or interaction. We want to be more at peace here at home, while promoting more peace abroad. We want to get our troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and stop helping the Saudis slaughter the Yemen people and give more help to Ukraine to retake Crimea and force the Russians out of their lands. We want Putin to return the 24 Ukranian sailors he has taken hostage and imprisoned with 13 yr sentences for violating “his” border ideas. We want fair trade policies, not tariffs and over taxation of our trade partners. We just want an end to Trumpism and hatred it has caused.

I’m happy it’s the weekend. I am going to go to a Christmas parade tomorrow morning and to a craft fair at the local high school.  It’s supposed to be a nice day, so I should also be able to finish up my leaf raking and yard clean up before it snows again on Sunday – as predicted. I’m happy; I feel loved and life is good. 

Peace.  Be Kind.  ~ MB

Code Red: Republican Tax Attack

It’s become very hard to live in America under the current President and his administration – albeit an ever-shrinking administration, it’s still got it’s key assholes in there making things worse by the day.  Tillerson has been dismantling the state department; eliminating women, people of color and anyone left from the Obama administration.  And he’s not re-filling the positions, he’s just leaving them empty.  The “plan” it seems, is to shrink the government.

Smaller government is not a bad thing, but when you do it like it’s currently being done it becomes a real problem.  We are left without key positions filled.  Ambassadors to foreign countries for one example.  We have very few ambassadors left.  Trump tells us that we don’t need anyone but him, he’s enough and he’s it.  He is trying to “micro-manage” every aspect of our complex democracy and we are suffering from his narcissistic need to do it.

He’s cutting back or eliminating some very key departments, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), any agency working on LGBT issues, women’s issues, minority issues.  Some of them are: Planned Parenthood, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), Minority Business Development Agency, Economic Development Administration,  International Trade Administration, Office fo Community Operated Policing Services (COPS), Office of Violence Against Women, Legal Services Corporation, Environment and National Resources Division of the Justice Department, UN Governmental Panel on Climate Change, Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Fossil Energy.  All viable agencies that serve and protect America and us as citizens.  (reference article in Time.com)  He is also now seeking to cut millions from counter-terrorism funding…right after the attack on NYC.  Yes, deep cuts to funding to our Department of Homeland Security…just doesn’t make any sense!!!

Trump is a creepy, authoritarian moron.  He’s hell-bent on erasing ANY trace of Obama’s presidency.  He is the #1 consumer of FOX News (which is now banned in the UK and Canada for false/fake information distribution), and Brietbart.  The man is so entangled with the Russians that he can’t even piss without Putin’s permission.  He’s under MAJOR investigation for collaborating with the Russians to win the election of 2016.  As are most of his close allies and staff.  The man is a clear and present DANGER to the United States.  He obstructs justice, he violates the emoluments clause daily, he verbally promotes violence, he says racist and bigoted things, often tweeting them to the world.  He insults foreign leaders and ridicules our long-time allies. He has moved America into last place in the arena of world respect.  And his #1 trait:  HE LIES CONSTANTLY.  He seems to lie so much that even HE believes his own lies!

Right now Trump is trying to jam a new “tax reform bill” through our Congress and Senate and into law.  The bill is horrendous to say it mildly.  It’ is completely geared towards making the wealthy even MORE wealthy, by eliminating tax deductions for the rest of us, and giving HUGE tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals and corporations.  The bill eliminates deductions for teachers buying stuff for the classroom, eliminates the deduction of state and local taxes (resulting in double taxation), eliminates deduction for interest on student loans – and makes them claim the loans as income!!!  And that’s just SOME of it…I can’t even go into everything here….I am furious.

In the bill they have hidden a repeal of Roe vs. Wade, naming a fetus as a viable human being – thus redefining the start of life.  They have hidden a break that now will allow churches and religious groups to donate to political campaigns and candidates, and making their donations deductible!!!  A serious breach of the division of church and state!  He’s snuck in steep taxation on renewable energy sources, such as solar and hydro power – he claims coal is “clean”, proving how very ignorant he truly IS.  There are also tons more of these little “sneak ins” in the new tax scam bill.  It’s not just a big fat tax break for the rich, but it’s a giant attack on the middle class and poor here in America.

AND this “tax reform” will increase our federal deficit by $1.4 to $1.7 TRILLION dollars over 10 years.

Less than 20% of this country even “likes” this tax bill.  And even they aren’t understanding just how horrible this will make things here in the USA.  It could cripple our country, plunge us into a huge recession and cause much unnecessary suffering by millions of people.

People making $40K a year will see a tax hike.  While people making $1M a year will see a huge tax cut.  HOW does that make any sense?  How is that fair and equitable???  Even our Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says this bill is NOT GOOD.

All Democrats will vote against this new “tax reform bill”.  It will be passed into law – IF it is actually passed as is – by ONLY the Republican party.  THEY WILL OWN THIS PROBLEM.   It’s the Republican Tax Attack.  And they are DETERMINED to RAM this through, making it law before the end of the year.  Trump claims it’s going to be a “Big, beautiful, very beautiful, Christmas present.”   HE LIES!!!  And LIES some MORE!!!

They are rushing this bill through so that it cannot be properly vetted and debated as it should be.  They don’t want people to figure out just how sneaky and conniving they are being with this bill.  They don’t want us to know how bad things are.  It’s trickle-down economics.  We have tried it before with Reagan, and it resulted in a recession during the 80’s, remember?  This bill should NOT be passed into law.

If you have read me this far and are as angry as I am take some time today to CALL YOUR SENATOR!!!  Google your Senator and speak up against this Republican Tax Attack!!!

I’m done.

Peace.  ~MB

 

You Missed the Damned Runway!

When you seek to incapacitate an airport the first things you target are the fucking runways and infrastructure.  Obviously, Trump didn’t get the strategic memo.  Yes, Trump had our military bomb a Syrian airport with 59 missiles, at a cost of $88.5M, and he MISSED the runways completely.  What he actually “took out” hasn’t really amounted to much since the Syrians immediately started flying missions from that airport after it was bombed.

I’m torn over how to feel about this recent development with Trumpy.  The Syrian leader was ordering gassings of his own people.  Due to lack of coverage of the area we don’t know exactly how many people he has killed in this manner, but the recent numbers are around 100 for this latest incident.  I agree that Assad needs to be stopped.  I agree that his bombing his own people with nerve/chlorine gas was excessively cruel and inhumane and probably could be classed as a war crime.  How the United States chose to take this unilateral action in bombing the airport where the gas supposedly originated, is what I am not in agreement with.  Trumpy didn’t even consult with his own Congress before ordering this act of war.  He just did it.  Oh, wait, he did inform Putin that he was going to do this in advance of doing it  (according to NBC news report).  THAT angers me.  the United States owes Russia NOTHING, not even courtesy in my opinion.  Putin is just as bad as Assad as far as I understand.  Putin is supporting Assad, thus he is a little pissed off at Trumpy right now for throwing those bombs at Assad’s planes.

The world is just so screwed up right now.  We have this situation that the US is now directly involved in in Syria.  Then we have North Korea doing a lot of sabre rattling of their own.  China seems mighty quiet about it all.  Which makes me suspicious.  I am not a fan of war.  I don’t know if it was right for us to take this unilateral action, why didn’t we have support of our allies in doing this?  Why did we not put together a multi-national coalition to strike against Assad?  I suspect that it is because Trumpy needed to create another “distraction” for his base and the American people to keep the heat down on the Russia-Trump investigation….YES, that is STILL going on.

It will be interesting to see where Trumpy takes us with this action against Syria.  The US has no real “interest” in Syria.  They don’t give us anything that Trumpy wants or needs.  As a matter of fact, he has them on the no-immigration list…he doesn’t want to take any refugees from Syria her in the US.  Funny, he’ll scold their leader, but won’t give them the help that they really need.  He has not yet explained to the American people what his plan is for Syria now.  He has not explained it to Congress.  He has been very tight lipped…and when he did speak about it just after it happened he was reading (very badly I should say) from a script that was obviously written for him.  You can always tell when Trumpy is not speaking his own mind, he doesn’t have any passion in his speech, he goes all mono-toney and it LOOKS like it’s painful for him to be reading from a script.

I pray for the people of Syria.  They are in a very, very bad space right now.  They have a brutal, corrupt dictator, ISIS and anti-government rebels.  Civilians are caught in the middle of it all.

We here in America are so fucking lucky.  We have not known war on our own soil in any of our lifetimes.  We have not known the suffering, the fear or the plight of living in a war-torn country.  We complain about our incompetent president, we complain about the weather, or about other menial things….but we do not know real suffering.  I can only try to imagine what that kind of life must be like for them.  I hope Assad is deposed in some way very soon and that the country is rescued from the grips of ISIS as well.  I hope that the United States takes the RIGHT actions, provides humanitarian relief and does what it can to help the Syrian people.

In the meantime, Trumpy got some positive attention for his bombing order.  That’s not a good thing, because now he’s had a taste and wants more.  Buckle up, this could be a very bumpy ride.

Peace.  ~MB