Russia’s Foreign Policy Strategy Is Bigger Than Trump

As the whole “Russian connection” drama plays out in Washington, D.C., we might want to take a step back and look at the larger picture. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, Russia has adopted a new foreign policy strategy that is far less reliant on military aggression and far more about covert, subversive activities. The new tools of Russian expansionism are computer hackers, powerful, wealthy oligarchs aligned with Putin and alliances with western alt-right media outlets and politicians.

Of course, you can hardly keep track of the Trump administration players whose Russian connections have been exposed, but the Russian strategy is bearing fruit in Europe, as well. Just today, we learned that French far-right leader Marine Le Pen met with Russian diplomats in Moscow just months before the French presidential election. Russian agents and oligarchs are clearly stoking the flames of nationalism and assisting far-right politicians in their quest for power.

And Russia’s tactics aren’t always highly sophisticated. Good old fashioned blackmail still works, and there are hints and leaks that western politicians, including Donald Trump, have been caught in very compromising situations while guests of the Motherland. Little sets Putin’s government apart from an organized crime ring, as evidenced by political critics and Trump enemies experiencing tragic “accidents” before they are able to spill the beans.

Like every organized crime web, the threads all lead to money. Rachel Maddow has done an exemplary job of putting together the pieces of the Trump/Russia money connections that have stretched back years, and Moscow is today funneling money to nationalist candidates and organizations throughout Europe and the U.S. Media organizations like Breitbart and Alex Jones’ Info Wars are being investigated by the FBI for their possible relationships with Russian agents.

What is Russia’s end game in all of this? It doesn’t take a PhD in international affairs to see that helping countries elect leaders sympathetic to Putin is in the best interest of Russia. Having Western politicians in your pocket is like having money in the bank. There are, however, also great risks to this strategy. Trump is a dangerously unhinged character and a destabilizing force in America. Russia managed to get it’s man into the White House, but he is such a loose cannon that the possibility of this presidency crashing and burning have become very real, and this would not be in Putin’s best interests.

I Have Traveled Back In Time And I Have Proof

Who says time travel is impossible? I have been teleported to the early 17^th century and I can prove it. Yes, the clothes and the technology around me are mysteriously similar to what I remember of the 21^st century, but daily life in my settlement is clearly pre-enlightenment and therefore I can only conclude I must have been sent back in time. My proof? By Dickens, here is my proof. This country’s leaders:

Reject science.

Don’t care if the poor, the elderly and children are neglected.

Believe wealthy people are inherently superior people.

Support constant war and an obscenely bloated military.

Believe Christianity is superior to all other religions and want to create a theocracy.

Want women to remain second-class citizens and believe the government should control their bodies.

Believe in white supremacy, and want to keep minorities underclass citizens.

Want to build a wall to keep brown-skinned people out of the country.

Treat anyone who disagrees with them as the enemy.

Act as if citizens are fools by brazenly lying day after day.

Insist only positive news about their activities is factual news.

I am trying to get back to the 21^st century but I can’t seem to find my time machine. Send help if you can.

Trump Is Literally Making Us Sick

During a recent clinic visit, my doctor said she was seeing a lot of people coming in suffering from depression and anxiety directly related to Trump’s election. I believe her. The fact that a racist, misogynist, fascist man won the White House is bad, but what is truly shaking people’s mental health is that we can’t seem to do anything about it. Day in and day out we are bombarded with news reports recounting Trump’s lies, incompetence, treasonous activities, financial corruption, policy blunders, callousness and total indifference to the people who elected him, and yet no justice is in sight.

Congressional Republicans have put ideology and “winning” above everything else, and will never do what is right and impeach Trump. He’s helping them destroy democracy and replace it with either a theocracy or a dictatorship, so he remains a useful idiot. Emotionally, we know that we have to continue fighting the Trump regime, keep the pressure on, but intellectually, we can clearly see that stopping Sauran…sorry, Trump, will be a titanic struggle, and might require the equivalent of throwing a magic ring into the heart of a volcano.

Many Americans feel a sense of helplessness right now. They are watching lunatics dismantle America from behind a glass wall, willing, but unable to stop the madness. I understand this, but we must continue to resist in big and small ways, from calls and emails to representatives to town hall meetings to protest marches, we need to make our voices heard. We also need to put a great amount of effort into the 2018-midterm elections. Getting Democrats elected in 2018 needs to be primary focus if we are to have any hope of stopping or slowing the Trump/GOP train wreck. These are dark times, but we can’t afford not to press forward.

How Long Will Trump Supporters Buy Into His Lies?

There were a lot of bad reasons to vote for Donald Trump in this past election:

“I hate Hillary.”

“I hate immigrants”

“I hate minorities.”

“Trump is a successful businessman.”

“Trump understands me.”

“Trump tells it like it is.”

“Trump is a leader.”

As dizzyingly divorced from reality as these beliefs are, you can look at Trump, listen to Trump, and understand how these noxious notions were reinforced. But what about the campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again?” That isn’t on the list. Ah, but it is, if you know how to interpret it.

Trump’s campaign slogan has a very different meaning to Trump supporters and non-Trump supporters. If you were a fan of The Donald, you understood the real message behind “Make America Great Again”: Get rid of immigrants, crush minorities, continue treating women as second-class citizens and trash the constitution and government red tape. That, to many voters, is how you make America great again.

It didn’t matter to Trump’s fans that he offered no concrete plans to stimulate the economy, create jobs, improve conditions in rural America, strengthen public education, make higher education more accessible…or do anything to improve the lives of the people who voted for him. Why that didn’t happen shows just how emotionally bound certain segments of the population are to the idea that they are victims of some grand liberal conspiracy. And Trump, the (supposed) billionaire, managed to exploit Ma and Pa Red State’s feelings of victimization and convince them he was going to put them back at the top of the ladder again.

It’s impossible to know how many Trump supporters have come to their senses since the election, but the number will undoubtedly grow as their healthcare options dwindle, the unemployment rate increases, water and air pollution worsen, and the trajectory of economic health in Midwestern and southern states continues to plummet. Obama can’t be the scapegoat forever. 

The one question is, how long can Trump and company sustain the lie that he’s working to better the lives of the people that voted for him? How long will they swallow it?

Beware the False Flag Event

Here’s the storyline: An immigrant enters the United States from a Muslim country.  He is able to acquire weapons, and also makes an explosive vest. He goes to an event or a Christian church. Once there, he opens fire and sets off his vest, killing and maiming dozens of innocent men, women and children. That night, Trump gives an emotional televised address to a shocked nation. In his speech, he tells the American people that this event would never have happened if his ban on Muslims entering the U.S. had been allowed to stand. His supporters are energized while detractors are left trying to counter an emotionally charged argument with dry facts and numbers.

How convenient, right? The event just happens to bolster Trump’s view that every Muslim is a potential terrorist and would like nothing more than to kill Americans. He tried to keep us safe, but was thwarted by activist judges and naïve liberals. Now some of us might say the timing of this event is too good to be true, and we might be right. It could be a false flag event.

What is a false flag event? It is an act of violence or sabotage that appears to be perpetrated by an enemy, but which was actually planned and carried out by the aggrieved party to further a desired agenda. A good example of a false flag event was Operation Northwoods. In the early 1960s, communist Cuba represented a huge thorn in the side of the United States. Agencies within our government drafted a proposal to stage hijackings and bombings of American civilian airliners in air space between the two countries in order to gain public support for an attack on Cuba. The plan was never carried out, but it is a well-documented case of how to stage a false flag event.

False flag operations have been around at least since the height of the Roman Empire, but there are many recent examples, as well. In the late 1800s, Spanish controlled Cuba was becoming too rebellious for the likes of America’s sugar, tobacco and iron industries and something needed to be done to quell the uprising. At the time, President McKinnley was not interested in a war with Spain, but on February 15, 1898 the USS Maine exploded and 266 U.S. sailors lost their lives. No one actually knows what caused the explosion, but the incident was used by the press and large corporations as a way to force McKinnley to go to war with Spain.

In1933, Hitler’s Nazi party was on the verge of gaining enough seats to install Hitler as a defacto dictator, but the outcome of the upcoming elections was not certain. A week before the elections, the Reichstag, which housed the German parliament, caught on fire and was destroyed. Hitler used the event to blame communist terrorists for the fire and was swept into power. Most historians agree that the Nazis either started the fire or encouraged a deranged man to do the deed so they could blame the communists.

There are other examples, including the bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 that President Johnson used to dramatically increase America’s presence in Vietnam. Some false flag events are speculative, like Pearl Harbor and the events of 9/11, while others are well documented. The point is, false flag operations have proven to be useful tools in garnering public support for unpopular government actions.

All of that considered, would anyone put it past the morally bankrupt Trump administration to stage an event to further its dark agenda?

Feeling Shell-Shocked After Trump’s Week-Long Blitzkrieg Of Insanity

Trump has only been president for a week and I am already starting to lose focus amid his blitzkrieg of insane policy decisions and ludicrous lies. You tell me, what’s worse:

Close Trump advisor Steve Bannon, an avowed racist, Nazi sympathizer and anarchist, has been added to the National Security Council, while the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were essentially demoted.

Trump’s Muslim immigration ban includes seven Middle East and African countries, but does not include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Azerbaijan where, coincidentally, Trump has business interests. And in case you’ve forgotten, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has pushed the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” two minutes closer to midnight (11:57) and to the possibility of a civilization-ending catastrophe.

Pope Francis has condemned Trump’s immigration ban on Muslims.

The Trump administration is moving forward with building a wall across America’s southwest border even though a) Mexico will not help pay for it like Trump promised, b) experts agree that a wall is impractical and will be ineffective and c) there are major issues of property rights involved with the project.

The president and his minions continue to lie about, threaten and belittle the news media, with a recent Trump tweet accusing the New York Times and Washington Post of delivering fake news and being dishonest. Once again, no proof of these allegations has been produced.

Leaders of France, Germany, Canada, Italy, The Netherlands, Mexico, Iran, Scotland and many other counties (as well as the U.N. and the Pope) have denounced and condemned Trump’s immigration ban on Muslims.

Trump continues to insist there were 3 to 5 million illegal voters in the last election, but has yet to provide a shred of evidence to back up his claim and appears to be basing this assertion on a single tweet.

The president adamantly maintains that waterboarding, and other universally condemned forms of torture “absolutely work,” without providing any proof and despite volumes of studies that arrive at just the opposite conclusion.

On a number of occasions, Trump has stated that violent crime in America has been increasing, but statistics from the FBI show that violent crime in the U.S. is near historic lows and that citizens today are safer than at any time in the past 45 years.

And that’s just one week, folks. God help us all.

America’s New Path Leads Directly To Mordor

Those of us who worry about upcoming events more than we should know intellectually that our overwrought reactions to stressful situations are unnecessary, and that ninety-nine percent of the time everything works out just fine. But there is that nagging one percent…and Donald Trump.

Trump is the rare case of an experience that turns out to be worse than you could ever imagine. A nightmare come true. Every morning brings headlines of new  horrors from opening up national parks to oil drilling to “alternative facts” to a president more concerned about crowd sizes at his inauguration than governing the country. Americans are living in a worse case scenario, a dystopian reality that was once the stuff of Tom Clancy novels and George Orwell’s imagination.

We were warned many times in the past. Sinclair Lewis, Aldus Huxley, Orwell, Gore Vidal, Margaret Atwood and many others raised flags throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first century about the real possibility of a totalitarian take over in America. You won’t find it mentioned in many American history books, but this country narrowly escaped a fascist coup in the 1930s when a cabal of elites (including George Bush’s grandfather) hatched a plan to use the military to overthrow FDR and establish a government modeled on Nazi Germany.

It can happen here and now it has. Today we live in an oligarchy that could slip at any moment into a totalitarian regime. Our status as a democracy is in question around the world, and foreign leaders are clearly alarmed and anxious as they monitor the actions of an American president unhinged from reality. Everything that makes us a supposedly democratic society is under threat, from a free press to freedom of assembly to the ability to hold elected officials accountable, and is being eroded by an insecure, mentally unstable president and his enabling administration.

Donald Trump is as bad as it can get. He represents everything that is antithetical to what was once the world’s most admired democracy. If he is allowed to remain in office for the next four years, our country will end up having far more in common with Mordor than Oz.

Melancholy Musings on Inauguration Eve

‘Twas the night before Trump, and all through the land,

people sobbed and they wailed, heads in their hands,

the votes had been counted, yet the winner had lost,

The Donald will rule, at a terrible cost.

Tomorrow is inauguration day in America, and Donald Trump will be sworn is our 45^th President. It is a travesty that we have come to this point, that a man who lost the popular election by nearly three million votes, a man who doesn’t care that a foreign government interfered with our election process, a man who shows open contempt for the U.S. Constitution, a man who admires ruthless dictators, will sit in the Oval Office (or an office in Trump Tower) for the next four years.

One question that stands out for me at this juncture in our history: What will it take to break free millions of Americans from the ideological and cultural walls they’ve built around their hearts and minds? We know they are mostly middle class and poor angry white males who feel threatened by just about everything. It’s vexing because they cannot be reached by traditional methods like facts, reason or scientific data. The only answer I can come up with is that it will have to get so bad for them personally that they will be forced to confront the real culprit — Donald Trump (let’s set aside conservative ideology for now, that’s too big a leap).

Things will have to get terribly, awfully bad, because Trump and his minions are very, very good at diverting their supporters’ already short attention spans with straw men, easy targets (the poor, minorities, immigrants, etc.) and good old smoke and mirrors. I guess this is sort of a required skill to be a successful dictator.  Trump will never accept any responsibility for the chaos he creates.

The sad reality is that even if Donald Trump is impeached or found guilty of a felony, he will be able to convince his supporters that it was somebody else’s fault. And if Donald goes, we get Pence.

Tomorrow will be a dark day for America when everything that was right about this country comes under attack from a cabal of renegade ideologues and right-wing reactionaries. Winning back Midwestern and Southern whites will be a decade’s long project for the Democratic Party, if they even have the will to try. At this point in time, all of our energies need to be focused on resistance and fighting the Trump agenda. Dealing with the problems posed by Red State America will have to wait.

Public Education Enemy #1: Betsy DeVoss

One of America’s defining features, one of the strongest pillars supporting the legitimacy of democracy over other forms of governing, was public education. The idea of government providing a quality education to all citizens, regardless of their wealth, ethnicity, sex, religion, etc., is, in a historical perspective, brand new, a truly brave experiment amidst the vast majority of the world’s countries where education is restricted in one way or another by class, sex, religion or wealth.

The American experiment in education was never perfect. Poorer school districts always lagged behind in results to wealthier ones, racial segregation persisted despite government efforts and educational priorities and funding shifted with changing political ideologies in Washington over the years. Still, we put humans on the moon, won Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, made incredible advances in medical and health care, and ushered in the computer age.

Yet at no time in recent history has public education been so in danger of elimination than it is today with Trump’s appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.

The groundwork for the DeVos era has been laid by three decades of conservative attacks on public education as a liberal enterprise intent on destroying family values and autonomy. Teachers have been vilified, the arts kicked to the curb as superfluous and even science called into question when it conflicts with prevailing religious beliefs. The result is a national educational system that is underfunded, demoralized and, surprise, surprise, falling behind other countries in many important educational categories. It is the self-fulfilling wish of the American Right.

And now DeVoss steps into the fray, a credentialed conservative who has battled long and hard against public education. DeVoss has been a huge supporter of charter schools, as well as having tax money go to private and religious schools. She seems to approve of any type of educational institution as long as it is not open to the public and supported by public funds. Funny thing is, DeVoss has never attended a public school, never taught or administered in a public school, and did not send any of her children to public school. Who better qualified to serve as Secretary of Education?

Betsy DeVoss will be to public education what John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was to clowns. Her work, like others in the Trump administration, will be to destroy the very institution she will be sworn in to protect and strengthen, and based on her track record, she’ll do it with a smile on her face.

“Destroying America Is Hard Work,” Claims Trump

WASHINGTON, DC — President-elect Trump fired back at critics today who claim he is spending too much time Tweeting and meeting with rappers and too little time on his transition to the duties of the President.

“It’s just another mainstream press attack on me. They hate me. Listen, I am busting my butt here yelling at people, firing people and making very, very tough decisions,” said Trump, who seemed to be suffering from a cold as he was constantly rubbing his nose. “Do you think it’s easy to find the worst possible candidates to be a part of my administration? It is hard work, let me tell you.”

Trump pointed to an easel behind him with a lengthy appointee checklist. Categories included “unhinged,” “easy scapegoat,” “sycophant,” “poorly educated,” and “stinking rich.”

“You see that?” asked Trump. “Every candidate must meet all these criteria to serve in my administration. Obviously, there are only an elite few who can cut the mustard. It took like, three hundred years or something for this government to get where it is today, and it’s going to take some time to tear it all down.”

When asked why Trump wanted to tear down the very system that allowed he and his father to become wealthy, the President-elect laughed.

“You’re looking at it. Giving every redneck, low IQ individual the right to decide who will lead them simply because they’re of a certain age is a recipe for disaster. The morons made me President of the United States. Me! What more proof do you want that the system is broken beyond repair? I’m just going to speed things up a little bit.”

Before asking another question, Trump’s phone rang and he answered it.

“Vlad, good to hear from…. You’re angry? Why? No, that isn’t exactly true. I did precisely what you said, down to the letter. The transfer will be made today. Please, calm down. Listen, come to Washington after the inauguration and I’ll show you the time of your life. Don’t you want to see Romney squeal like a pig? I thought so. Da, da. So long.”

Trump smiled and put away his phone. “See? I’m working my ass off here."

America’s Conundrum: Trump Is Horrible And Should Go, But Does Anyone Want A President Pence?

Today’s Boston Globe includes an article titled, “Who will stand up to Donald Trump?” The author of the piece chronicles the many times Trump has bullied his critics on Twitter and in speeches in recent weeks, and notes the lack of backbone shown by the mainstream press, congressional Republicans and, of course, his inner circle of sycophants. Will anyone stand up to Trump, wonders the author?

This is actually a complex and subversive question. It chills me to the bone to read an article in one of America’s premier mainstream newspapers calling for someone, anyone, to give our bully President-elect a beat down. And yet here we are as a country, seemingly helpless against the dangerous loud-mouthed fraud who scammed the system to become President.

The question of who will stand up to Trump becomes subversive when you consider its scope. If all legal means of keeping Trump out of the White House are exhausted, who can stand up to Trump? Even if a large number of American people rise up en masse against his administration, Trump will always claim he was legitimately elected President, which is technically true (at this point), and he will never voluntarily step down.

The only scenarios I see for rescuing America from President Trump are that he’s convicted of a federal crime or impeached with the help of the less crazy Republicans in Congress. But neither of these storylines has a happy ending, because getting rid of Trump means helping religious lunatic Mike Pence become our Commander in Chief. So we’d be trading a narcissistic bully for a fanatical Christian. It’s a lose/lose situation.

I was always taught that nobody likes a bully, but that was obviously a fairy tale because a whole lot of Americans just voted for one. Thanks to our poorly educated, racist, reactionary friends and neighbors, we have boxed ourselves into a corner that will be almost impossible to get out of. Hard as it is to believe, standing up to Trump and forcing him from office might be worse than keeping him in.

Donald Trump: Insane or Possessed?

A madman will soon be sitting in the Oval Office, a man who I am seriously beginning to think could be actively trying to destroy America. There are only two very unpleasant realities: One, Donald Trump is perhaps the most ignorant, clueless, self-absorbed individual to ever inhale oxygen, or two, he is evil and is intentionally dragging America to the bathtub to drown it.

Yesterday Trump announced his choice of former neurosurgeon Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. As Robert Reich points out in a post today, Ben Carson:

- Has no experience in government whatsoever;

- Has no experience outside of government with housing or urban development;

- Does not believe in Fair Housing Laws;

- Disagrees with the Supreme Court decision banning housing discrimination;

- Was called a child molester with a pathological temperament by Donald Trump.

The choice of Carson for this position is clear evidence that Trump is suffering from either the onset of dementia or demonic possession. I mean, I could throw a water balloon into a crowd at a Nickelback concert and hit someone who would be a better candidate for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development than Ben Carson.

Why does a man who lived the American Dream want to destroy the very country that helped make him and his father filthy rich? Does that make sense to you? How can anyone in America who is super wealthy criticize the very system that made them successful?

Every pick Donald makes for his administration is another nail in the coffin of democracy. Whether he is merely stupid or under the thumb of Satan may not even matter if the results are the same and we all go down in flames.

The Threat is Real

Many good folks are doing their best to deal with the horrendous results of Tuesday’s election, and there is a lot of rationalization going on. “We survived two Bush Presidencies, we’ll survive this one,” “What Trump said during the campaign isn’t necessarily what he’ll do in office.” “Trump won and we need to get over it and move on. It won’t be as bad as you think.” We all need to deal with this tragedy in a way that works for us, but in my heart of hearts I do believe this election is different. It’s for that reason I’ve pulled back from commenting on social media and responding to the rationalizers. Based on his campaign speeches, his past, and the people he associates with, I believe Trump is a true threat to this country’s future.

As a senior less than two years from retirement, Trump’s attacks on Social Security and Medicare have me very worried. Millions of America’s elderly will be adversely affected by toying with two programs that have truly been success stories, but Trumpites see them as socialist experiments which means it doesn’t matter if they work or not, they have to either go or be privatized. And these are only two of numerous government programs that could be on the chopping block during the next administration.

Yes, we will survive Trump, but that line of thought isn’t very comforting. Europe “survived” World War II. Japan “survived” two nuclear bombs. A Trump administration will not be “business as usual,” and to pretend that is so is to bury one’s head in the sand. Trump has no respect for the Constitution of the United States or democracy, for that matter. As his campaign clearly demonstrated, he is an authoritarian at heart who will not allow tradition or the rule of law stand in his way.

The rationalizers will call me Chicken Little, running around blubbering about the sky falling. That isn’t so. My purpose here is to make two simple observations: The Trump Administration will be a real and present threat to American democracy, and because of that, we the people must be prepared to step out of our comfort zones, to make sacrifices, to push back against those who will attempt to deny our guaranteed constitutional rights and turn this once great nation into a third-world Banana Republic.

What We Have To Look Forward To Over The Next Four Years

To those Democrats who are trying to get through the week by believing Trump will tone back the craziness once he is actually in office, you need to pay closer attention to who the Donald is picking for various cabinet posts. Besides loyal lapdogs like Giuliani, Christie and Gingrich, initial indications are he’s going to pack his administration with right-wing, anti-science, Christian ideologues. Based on his campaign rhetoric and his cabinet appointees, here is what we can look forward to during the next four years under Trump. His administration, along with a Republican controlled House and Senate, will:

• fight any climate change initiatives,
• attack women’s reproductive rights,
• try to close down Planned Parenthood,
• undo environmental protection laws,
• roll back existing financial regulations,
• end the Affordable Care Act,
• attack Social Security and Medicare and attempt to privatize them,
• inject Christianity into governmental affairs,
• give corporate America more say than ever over government policy,
• use military actions instead of diplomacy,
• allow police to continue militarizing their departments,
• reduce public school funding,
• promote racially divisive policies,
• antagonize and alienate our allies around the world,
• suppress and defund federally supported research that contradicts conservative beliefs,
• and cut existing safety nets for the poor. 

And folks, that’s just the beginning. We do need to organize and fight Tump's agenda tooth and nail.