Hi everyone! I’ve been a little busy these days trying to learn a new process. It’s a steep learning curve. Think right angle. Fortunately, my friend Biff says he can fill in for awhile.
Biff’s bio:
Biff is an ex- mail carrier, football player, and sometimes hacker living in the greater metropolitan area.
His likes are puppies, fountain pens, and a superior espresso.
His dislikes include hypocrisy, beets, and mean people.
(Hmmmm, I didn’t know you liked puppies. This changes everything. And you dislike beets?? Since when?)
The 21st century has harshed his mellow. So, he tends to bastardize Trump tweets for clarity.
Speaking of bastardizations:
“Illegitamus non carborundum.”
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Donald Trump has broken out his twitter account again, communicating directly to the American people.
He tweeted early this morning on the unfairness of the continued witchhunt against
his administration for its close relationships to Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Was the brother of John Podesta paid BIG money to get the sanctions on Russia lifted? I don't think so. Jared and Mike got paid MUCH more. THEY knew how to negotiate with Russians. We never get any credit for that.
“Jared” is presumably Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, current senior advisor to the president, and
“Mike” is presumably former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Given the amount of time that Congress, the intelligence agencies, and the media have devoted to the subject
it seems wrong for Trump to complain that they are not getting coverage, but if this posting does anything to
hilight the issue for him, Donald, you’re welcome.
This was followed by something a little more cryptic:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Hillary Hillary Podesta Hillary Wiener Huma HILLARY
Other than identifying Trump’s preferred 2020 campaign rival, it is unclear what this tweet
refers to. His 2020 campaign is officially in full swing, however.
In early January,
Politico reported
that the Trump campaign headquarters are open for business, and ten staffers are busy building
databases and raising funds. Frugally housed in one of the lower floors of Trump Towers, on
5th Avenue in Manhattan, staffers said that as long as New York City taxpayers were footing the security
bill, it would be irresponsible to locate anywhere else.
Estimates
for protecting the Trump family and businesses
in this location have ranged from $150,000 to more than half a million dollars per day.
Estimated income to the Trump Organization for the lease on the suite was unavailable at press time.
On January 20th, the campaign filed documents with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
The FEC Form 2 document is to ensure compliance with the
Federal Election Campaign Act Legislation of 1971 (FECAL).
Staffers, who spoke off the record, as they had not been authorized to speak to the mainstream press, said that
the early campaign opening was necessary to keep Trump’s campaign promise of reducing financial influence on campaigns.
As explained in a post at Disobedient Media,
the Form 2 submission will prevent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations,
such as those run by Trump political opponent George Soros, from engaging in any “political speech” that might affect
the 2020 presidential outcome, for risk of losing their non-profit status.
Unofficially, the staffers conceded that their activities mean we are now “mid-campaign”,
and that the Senate should suspend all hearings for Supreme Court nominees until after the election
is decided. “But we hope no one notices that,” was whispered.
In a third tweet, Trump said:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Such amazing reporting unmasking the crooked schemes by @foxandfriends.
Based on the timing of the tweet, just 12 minutes following a CNN report on the subject,
it presumably refers to the ongoing celebrations at Fox News around a culture of sexual harassment
lead by former chairman Roger Ailes, and being spearheaded now by Bill O’Reilly.
—Biff
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
A primer for political neophytes:
It takes 60 votes to override a filibuster. Right now, D’s have 41 votes against Gorsuch, preventing his confirmation. There are only 59 for, it doesn’t meet the 60 vote threshold to kill the filibuster.
For about a decade now, the senate has floated the “nuclear option. (Damn it why doesn’t WordPress make HTML tags available in the comment editor?? So hard to do it by hand on an iPhone).
The nuclear option allows the senate majority to change the rules regarding the filibuster, effectively ending a tradition the senate has lived by for over 100 years.
Once it’s gone, that’s all she wrote folks. There’s almost nothing that will stop Republicans from enacting their agenda.
And if Democrats ever become the majority again? Well, what goes around, comes around.
Democrats loved the filibuster until Obama took office. Then they hated it for eight years.
Niles needs a nickname. How about “Old Both Sides”?
Why don’t you look up how many times the Republicans used the filibuster under President Clinton, how many times the Democrats used it under Bush, and how many times Republicans used it under Obama. Then report back with the nunbers. I will give you some help by noting that the Republicans filibustered 79 of Obama’s judicial nominees, to the pont that the courts did not have enough judges to deal with their backlog of cases. All in a day’s work for Republicans, who do not care if the entire government shuts down, as long as they can cash their profits checks. If we didn’t have to live in that world, it would be entertaining to watch what would happen to this country if Republicans got to run it for a couple of decades. It would look something like Panama, only with more poverty, more illness, and more shootings. Why any sane person would hope for this, is beyond my reasonable comprehension .
WaPo and other news agencies reporting now that Carter Page met with a Russian agent in 2013 & passed documents. Betsy’s Blackwater bro travelled to Seychelles just before inauguration to set up secret backchannel for Trump to communicate directly with Putin.
How can it be that this Administration is still functioning? Imagine this happening even a year ago, with any other administration! I’m gobsmacked, even though I know, I know…
GOP defending 8 seats in Senate in 2018, 22 in 2020 and 22 in 2022.
Three big bombs got dropped on the GOP today.
If you haven’t already done so, I do recommend that you look at the work of Louise Mensch, who is painting a full picture of the absolute horrors that have gone on with the Trump/Russian collaboration to steal the election. My hope is that all of this actually leads to prosecutions, because i know that there are many Republicans who are perfectly willing to stonewall it, ignore it, or distort it, to keep power. Based on what I read, it seems that there are about 500 people who should be thrown in jail for all of this, but will they be?
Clint Watts is the guy to watch. Look for him on youtube. Here is the Senate hearing where he made big news with his bluntness and truth. Essentially he said what everybody is ignoring which is that Putin has a friend in Trump who is helping and using Putin’s active measures. That is, if the candidate and now president was not so willing and compromised, Putin would not be successful. Nobody is making that point. We don’t need a smoking gun for collusion, his tweets, his rallies, and what he says and does in plain sight are enough to see he is advancing Putin’s agenda.