Kamala Harris, For the People

 

As she began her speech to accept the nomination of the Democratic party, Kamla Harris thanked the audience--a lot. One social media commenter, perhaps a bit confused by the concepts of both gratitude and subtlety, wondered why she was saying "Thank you" quite so much, but most people understood why--

She was grateful for the applause of course, but she wanted to get down to business. The "thank yous" were a signal to the audience to stop clapping because she had a speech to do. And I loved that. Oh, I have seen people bask in well-deserved applause--it's fine. But being ready t get started and move forward was so on point for Kamala Harris.

This truly was the speech of a public servant who cares about what she does and who she does it for. Her biography let us know her dedication to getting things done, to doing them well--and not "half-assed". We learned what motivates her, what she has done, and what she will do for the people--the only client she has ever served. And she drew a contrast between herself and a certain someone who only serves himself. 

What it's About--

 

Walz: Hope, Gus, and Gwen you are my entire world. And I love you. pic.twitter.com/tf2ByA9RIs

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 22, 2024

That. That right there. That's what it's about.

UPDATE: I considered linking to some of what went around among MAGA social media addressing this moment but thought the better of it. Typical people were typical. 

Taking the Measure of a Man

 

On the second night of the DNC, something happened that to me, was entirely hilarious. Of course, Chicago was rocking because the rollcall affirmed our candidate, and who isn't turned up for the Obamas? But at the exact same time, VP Harris and Governor Walz filled the house in Milwaukee at the same venue the RNC occupied. Who the hell can cast that much shade at night?

Stars do.

I noted in the comments of an earlier post that Trump was going to speak on crime at Howell, MI, a town associated with the Klan, and it happened, and it was dull, and Trump was Trump. He lied a lot, but listlessly. He wonders why suburban women don't want him, a sex pest associated with other sex pests, a serial philanderer, a shitty role model for boys, a misogynist, and a person who does not respect women's rights over our own bodies or lives. It really makes you wonder what funhouse mirror view of himself he's always had. 

And then at the DNC, he got called out in a standup funeral. Sure, Democrats and a few Republicans were there to talk about why Kamala Harris and why now, and what needs to be preserved for our future of this great democratic experiment. 

It was uplifting and magnificent and of course I was teary-eyed and in the front pew of the church of what's happening now. It's a beautiful thing to see people come together to build a better future. I love it, and I love it for us. 

But you know what?  I stay petty. 

What Makes us Great

 

Crowd chanting USA at the DNC pic.twitter.com/zNh8WBPNRM

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 19, 2024

The above clip is from a full house at the DNC showing pride in the USA. They aren't calling for mass deportations. They don't want a day-one dictator to make America great by looking towards some mythologized past. They don't want some parade of demagogues to tell them horror stories about an imagined dystopia in the hopes they will trade today's freedoms for a false promise of security in a less-free tomorrow.

They want to move forward. Time's arrow goes in one direction, and they want that trajectory to bend towards justice. 

This diverse crowd has come together to do the work, to put in the sweat equity of democracy. The first night of the DNC was a crowded stage and at times, I felt something in my heart swelling about that. Unity through inclusion. Strength in protecting and defending one another's freedoms and hearing one another's stories. Standing up for what is right and even great about this country. 

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Debate

 

In a statement that was positively BOLD in its chicken-shittedness (it's a word now--I have the best words!) the Trump campaign tried to back out of debated presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris because former President Barack Obama had not endorsed her yet. And, they wanted to imply, was not going to. Because obviously, Donald Trump is the foremost Democratic Party understander. 

So you will never guess what happened next. Go on. (OK, you probably already know.):

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she’ll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in… pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

Any surprises, there?

It's Up to Us

 

I spent the last few days putting off writing about the "Pass the Torch" movement. Oh, I was getting ready. I was going to sit down and take names and call out the fuckery. People didn't start one minute from the first question during the debate before I think the "drop Biden" movement started, in a way that felt coordinated and desperately shitty to me. 

Who the fuck treats a decent man who just gave us an astonishingly successful 3.5 years like this? Why are Democrats even airing our laundry in public? I'm a fan of transparency on one hand, but on the other it felt disrespectful to the man and his honorable public service. 

Every dumb horserace "Here's what a contested convention would look like" article, every "who might we see in a blitz primary?" thumbsucker, seemed to be a repudiation of the primaries we just had. 

The last straw wasn't the has-been campaign mahoffs of yesteryear who have displayed the political savvy of brain-damaged lemmings in the rush to shaft the incumbent Democratic president, though, that was going to make me bleed my frustration all over the internet--it was the distilled self-parody of Sorkinism: suggesting Democrats nominate Mitt Romney. 

Big "not The Onion" energy, but why did my eyes water? 

Because much as my feelings about Mitt Romney have moderated from 2012--he still isn't a Democrat, and it felt defeatist. One major party is captured by racist, violent authoritarianism, and the other is consigned to irrelevance and mere "Never Trumpism"?  Fuck that. 

Guiliani and the TrumpWorld Rabbit Hole

 

You know, the Mother Jones piece on Giuliani being the subject of a whistleblower investigation regarding whether he either knowingly or unwittingly became a laundromat for Russian disinformation against Joe Biden really takes me back to exactly when any rational person would have thought this was happening in 2019, when the first impeachment was going on. If you think about TrumpWorld a lot, and I do, you really only find yourself going "Dmitry Firtash or Pavel Fuchs?" 

See, the difference between a Trump fan rabbit hole and a Trump scholar rabbit hole is knowing where the rabbits actually are, having seen the rabbits. The Trump fan rabbit hole is where one just keeps digging. To be a little less circumspect in the discourse, Lev Parnas remembers, and he would know: Giuliani would listen to anyone who would say something bad about Biden, even if it was false. We've known for years now that Giuliani was trying to dig up/create a false impression for Trump's 2020 re-election. He didn't care who it came from.

You know, just like the 2016 Trump campaign didn't care where Wikileaks got their DNC hack stuff from. All fun and games until it becomes a national security issue:

TWGB: Just the Mob, Russia, Echoes of 2016 and 1776

 

Depicted above is Donald Trump, former president, with Skinny Joey Merlino, formerly, to the best of my knowledge, of the Philadelphia mafia, if that's a thing, about which I have little to say. Anyhow, Trump very recently crowed that he had information about every person who came down to Mar-A-Lago and should know who Merlino is and so I would be astonished if this was accidental. Please--he doesn't care. He didn't care about Nick Fuentes, and he doesn't care about Joey Merlino--he needs all the friends he can get. He has long depended upon the kindness of strange people. 

Why is this my lead-in into today's TrumpWorld Grab-Bag? Because this is a long and strange journey spurred by an echo of the 2016 campaign: a former head of FBI counter-intelligence in the NY office was arrested for taking money from a Russian oligarch with ties to the Trump Russia probe.  This is the outcome of an interesting story that gives us a little more about McGonigal back when this was in the grand jury stage. 

The federal scrutiny of McGonigal is especially striking given his work at the FBI. Before his retirement in 2018, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, busted Bill Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger for removing classified material from a National Archives reading room, and led the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. In 2016, when reports surfaced that Russia had hacked the email system of the Democratic National Committee, McGonigal was serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington. In that capacity, he was one of the first officials to learn that a Trump campaign official had bragged that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, sparking the investigation known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Later that year, FBI Director James Comey promoted McGonigal to oversee counterintelligence operations in New York. 

Pretty flipping fascinating, no? Anyway, the NY office was described back in 2016 as TrumpLand and definitely leaked info regarding Anthony Weiner's laptop to various people, prompting James Comey's announcement of the reopening of the Clinton email case, which a lot of folks are pretty sure sank the election for her. And I don't know this for a fact and don't want to impugn the NYT's reporters on this, but even though the CI investigation of Trump in 2016 was based in DC, I would not be surprised if the front page news that the FBI found no connection to Russia in 2016 was leaked from that office. Funny how the folks not looking for it weren't finding it. 

Look! A Shark!

 

For some reason, James Woods is threatening to sue the DNC for trying to take down his deeply meaningful Twitter post about Hunter Biden's penis because it retroactively got "Shark" cancelled and made him terribly unpopular, even if he was brilliant at playing such diverse roles as Byron De La Beckwith, Rudy Giuliani, and the sleazy boyfriend of the wife in Casino. 

Except I guess he was kind of like just being himself in roles as gross people?  Maybe just being extended universe versions of the smarmy AP teacher in Welcome Back Kotter isn't sustainable. Maybe too many anecdotes about being abusive existed. 

Anyway, I don't think the DNC is to blame for him not getting the same kind of roles as he used to at his age. I don't even understand how the take-down of a post violating Twitter's TOS undermines his whole entire career. 

I guess they rigged his votes.  That must be it. 

Greenwald Seems Weird About Tanden, Right?

Unless you are super on-line, I think maybe the average person is almost aware of Greenwald because of Ed Snowden, about whom my opinions have been registered. I don't even know who knows who Neera Tanden is in the not-very-online world.

But because I do a little politics blogging now and again, I want to take a look at what he's saying, because WTF?

The President of the largest Dem Party think tank continues the personal & sustained attack on the party's front-runner with critiques that could cripple him against Trump.

Not sure if she's motivated by pro-Trump sentiments, pro-Putin ones, are (sic) both, but it's highly disturbing:

Says the Greenwald tweet (capped because it might go away). The Tanden Tweet he quote-Tweets is this:

Just FYI: Other Dem candidates who are his age have released their medical records going back decades. What’s the problem with Sanders doing the same? I don’t understand the mystery here. https://t.co/V5GxWqGcSY

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) February 9, 2020

Trump's campaign has access to the same shit Neera Tanden does, because they are called newspapers. They will bring up the same issues she does because: political campaign. Because certain underlying facts exist, they will get brought up in the general campaign. Ignoring them now would be, therefore, lacking in even the least bit of foresight.

She's not pro-Trump, she's against the Democratic party throwing in 100% with a candidate she has reservations about. The Trump Campaign in 2016 pretended Hillary Clinton was dying because she fainted when she had a touch of pneumonia.  (She got better!) Does anyone seriously think Sanders is not going to get attacked for being older than Trump and having had a serious cardiac incident (even though we still don't know a whole hell of a lot about Trump's little excursion to Walter Reed).

Just because something shouldn't be fair game, doesn't mean it won't be treated as such.

TWGB: The More Things Change, The More Trump Is the Same

Wow, Donald Trump just got booed out of the building, into his limo, onto Air Force One, and back into the White House residence.

Even the majority bro crowd at #UFC244 hates this guy’s guts.pic.twitter.com/ohI7Cs7opS

— TrumpsTaxes (@TrumpsTaxes) November 3, 2019

Was Trump supposed to not get booed at when he went to MSG for a night of UFC action? Like, did he expect something different from what he experienced at game 5 of the World Series because he was nestled in the bosom of his hometown (of which he no longer considers himself a resident) instead of that ballpark frequented by employees of the Deep State?

Maybe the president doesn't need to take it so personally. Everyone gets booed sometimes. Maybe people just go to sporting events to not think about politics, and feel like Trump is a polarizing presence. Me, I boo Trump for real from the privacy of my home, because unlike normal people I'm writing a TrumpWorld Grab-bag as once again, the news continues to make it pretty damn clear his whole presidency is snake shoes and fish tits.

Like, let's just take the Attorney General and the Secretary of State I mentioned in my last post as a kind of messed-up example of what's up with TrumpWorld. You've got the guy running the US State Department, Mike Pompeo, a department ostensibly about foreign policy, international relations, that kind of thing, with a weird kvetch about a Ukrainian conspiracy theory and a propensity for spending time in Kansas. I mean, when he isn't confusing folks in Italy (as has Bill Barr) or wherever else with his trying to personally track down the mysteries of what happened in 2016. It's very weird that he thinks his job is alienating allies and proving Trump right about debunked things, whilst some part of him clearly wants to click his heels and murmur "There's no place like home." And we also have Barr, who ostensibly runs a Department of Justice, who seems to want to overturn the results of numerous investigations into the Russian hack of the DNC to get a result more favorable to one person--President Trump. As if he was not an officer of the law, but a defense lawyer for Trump.

"Time is out of joint, o cursed spite," but I was ne'er born to set this right, myself--only to serve as your humble reporter. Today's impeachment inquiry has a lot to do with Ukraine, in fact, it has a lot to do with what Trump tried to do and how White House lawyers tried to cover for Trump. It is important to know, however, that Trump has a very odd idea about Ukraine--and appears to loathe the country:

“They are horrible, corrupt people,” Trump told them.

So far, a dozen witnesses have testified before House lawmakers since the closed-door impeachment inquiry began a month ago. One theme that runs through almost all of their accounts is Trump’s unyielding loathing of Ukraine, which dates to his earliest days in the White House.

“We could never quite understand it,” a former senior White House official said of Trump’s view of the former Soviet republic, also saying that much of it stemmed from the president’s embrace of conspiracy theories. “There were accusations that they had somehow worked with the Clinton campaign. There were accusations they’d hurt him. He just hated Ukraine.”

But if you want to get at the genesis of this loathing--you have to go back to 2016. (We never, ever, leave 2016. It is like a Stephen King short story from a collection he demanded be taken off the store shelves that circulates amongst fans of a very particular kind of horror.) Information obtained recently from the Mueller memos by Buzzfeed and CNN enlighten us a little on that score: Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his former NSA Michael Flynn both pushed Ukraine even back when in 2016 as being the source of the hack and the reason for the rumors that would inevitably occur that the campaign was helped by Russia. And even if the involvement of the GRU has since been greatly clarified, Trump is sticking with what his very good and not at all corrupt friends that he would like to pardon one day told him. That he is not at all a loser who got help from a foreign country. (But, if I consider Trump out of the loop on Russia's actual involvement and believing of a sweet-sop cover-story regarding Ukraine corruption, how does one account for Trump's willingness to spout the Russian line on things? Ah, faith--the belief in things unseen! He doesn't look the gift horse in the mouth, but he trepidatiously rides it all the same.)

So Trump believes in a bleak weird thing where 30 thousand emails that were on Hillary Clinton's server (which never were hacked) are on a single server (the entire fuck? a ginormous outfit like DNC has a cloud set-up with like, over a hundred servers) that are somehow in Ukraine because he's fixated on Hillary Clinton's emails (no, really, he was and his mega-fans still are) and even though his campaign and apparently the RNC coordinated with WikiLeaks in dribbling out the DNC emails, he loved them, but didn't actually get that they were two different things. To put it gently, "Pops is confused."

Which is why his "perfect phone call" to Ukraine was so damn confusing, because what in the hell of any of the CrowdStrike shit would have made sense to Zelenskyy? For that matter, for all the folks who want to say random things about whether Ukraine's president felt pressured or not based on what he said sharing a stage with Trump: Really? Go along with you! And would a battered woman standing next to her husband not say she got her black eye from walking into a door? And does that door have four fingers and a class ring? Yes, it was a very complicated door, indeed. Which is why, even if Zelenskyy can't deliver the right investigation outcomes, there are signs some kind of accommodation is in the offing.

I don't know what is worse in all of this, the dishonesty, the cover-up, the sheer incompetence required to get all of this going. and yet, we are only experiencing some information from the closed-door impeachment hearings, about which the transcripts in full will come to light, and open hearings will occur (even though for now, the White House is trying to prevent many key players from talking--and what does that even mean, one might legitimately ask!) There will be more Mueller memos distributed via Buzzfeed and CNN, which seriously means that the Mueller report is not dead, but has powerful new significance because of what it could have, but didn't include (so much obstruction of justice, apparently, though). But why so much obstruction? For what? Why? What is Trump hiding with all the vehemence he reserves for his net worth and the real story of his vital statistics?

The polls and the boos and the news show that something is changing in how Trump is viewed. But for now, he stays the same: in denial, and thinking he is a beloved leader who can survive his multiple scandals by changing address or brazening them out. I don't expect a lot from Trump. I expect a lot from us all, in voting, finally saying the best, most brutal kiss-off "Goodbye" to him. The final, most raucous, boos.

He will never get better from this point on. The worst is yet to come, and will be astonishing. Flynn's ongoing trials and Roger Stone's trials still continue, and more will be revealed.

TWGB: Accountability in the Age of Shenanigans

This long list represents the first round of letters requesting documents in an attempt to nail down information that has been previously requested, that pertains to already-existing lines of inquiry, and that shouldn't really surprise a damn soul who has been paying attention. This, despite the grumblings of certain members of the GOP, does not represent a "fishing expedition" because the requested information indicates that Nadler and others in the House know very well what they would like to know more about, and this is because all signs point to specific kinds of fuckery having been afoot. Take requesting docs from Sheri Dillon--who stood in front of stacks of file folders and told us that Trump ad a plan to turn his business interests over to his sons (and I don't know about you, but I think he's still deeply interested) and who claimed Trump was under IRS audit, a notion recently contradicted by Michael Cohen's testimony--it makes sense that these lines of inquiry exist.

It's called "accountability", and USA Today has a very nice and comprehensive opinion piece from Jill Lawrence that details why and how we're finally seeing some accountability from Congress in tracking major discrepancies between what Trump himself and the people who surround him have said, and facts pertaining to actual wrongdoing. The broadness of the requests should not be taken to mean that a "spray and pray" approach is being taken, but rather, there is a wide-ranging pattern of obfuscation, withholding, denial, delay, and, well, shenanigans, that require Congressional oversight so that we can get accountability.

One of the things I've noted about the rise of Trump is that those who support him and whom he has relied upon are actually the world's worst people, and attract even more really bad people. Jerome Corsi, birther conspiracist (as was Trump) is on the list. He recently made an apology of sorts for spreading the unfounded theory that Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was murdered, may have been responsible for the DNC leak, not Russian hackers. This claim has now been pulled from InfoWars.

But you know who hit that Seth Rich claim pretty heavily--Sean Hannity (who either was a client of Michael Cohen or wasn't, depending upon how Hannity feels about attorney/client privilege on any given day). Julian Assange/WikiLeaks promoted that theory, too--and Assange is obviously on the list. Hannity, of course, is a big star at Fox News, whose relationship with Trump is well documented in Jane Mayer's latest at The New Yorker. Assange, of course, has been contradicted regarding the Seth Rich lie by the indictments procured by the Mueller investigation against a dozen Russian intel officials for that crime.

Roger Stone is also on the list, of course. He's in a bit of trouble because he seems to have violated his little old gag order by posting nonsense on Instagram and by having a book excerpt out where people can see which is not at all the sort of things he was supposed to do.  

And we could go on and on. Trump is subject to, as far as we know, 17 investigations, in many of which evidence of wrongdoing by others is already determined, and implications for Trump and his family are already strongly implied. There are people on this list who have already spoken before either the House or Senate intelligence committees and quite probably lied. Documents are being requested here for good reasons, and this is, truly, just the first round.

Trump is Having an Angry Weekend

CNN's latest reporting about Trump's weekend: He's "watching TV" and "getting riled up by his sons who are encouraging him to go harder on FBI" pic.twitter.com/BlRlHzC2AB

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 18, 2018

I think it's a little bit astonishing that after being relatively satisfied with the Mueller indictments and Deputy AG Rosenstein's press conference, and then a nice photo op with Broward County first responders (since he and Melania were already in the neighborhood) followed with a Studio 54 disco party but, sadly, no golfing!! Trump allowed himself to get all riled up by his two large adult sons and go a-Tweeting in the most disgraceful manner.

This collection is where Trump, annoyed at his press, starts blaming others for shit. He blames Democrats for not passing DACA (they are the minority party in Congress, and he himself actually ended DACA) and not passing gun control (see also--the minority party but they tried). He blamed the FBI for not catching "all the signals sent out" by Nikolas Cruz and blames this on the focus on the Russian meddling the ine 2016 election (specifically, the "collusion") but seems unaware that with 35K employees, the FBI can do numerous things at once, and that there really is no legal way of holding someone on suspicion of being really screwed up and dangerous forever--it isn't a crime to just be screwed up and owning guns. There was little they could actually do there because maybe the laws are kind of lax regarding dangerous people getting guns?  Seriously--using the 17 dead bodies in Florida to fig-leaf the investigation into his campaign ad Russia is damn low.

He also wants General McMaster to go beyond what the indictments or what Rosenstein said and publically waive him from allegations that the election results were impacted or...various conspiracy theory bits of glurge that I term the "Trump trots". If you are familiar with the "gish gallop", the Trump trot is the same thing, only a stickier mess of nonsense delivered by Tweet by a US President.  The Democratic party or the DNC never would have colluded with Russia to...smear Hillary Clinton and install Trump--that's just a fucking stupid thing to allege. There's no sign they did anything at all to boost Hillary Clinton during the election. Also, Uranium One is just really dumb and already debunked an awful lot. The Steele Dossier is not debunked, but holds up. The rest of the tweets that burbles about "Speeches, Emails, and the Podesta Company!" is just sad. Really sad. Throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Donald Trump doesn't seem to get that he is in office right now because these bullshit things got pushed even though they should not have mattered. Trump got paid large money for Wall Street speeches, just like Hillary Clinton. His transition team and his White House staff are using private email trust me. Also his son in law Jared (let me amend this here form) Kushner is not only not supposed to have a security clearance, but is requesting lots of classified info. 

What Trump is saying is bullshit, but he isn't thwarted, because he is apparently quite peevish:

Here we go--he references the dumb "pallets of cash" thing he swears he saw on Fox News which never happened to pretend there is a scandal about the thing where the US refunded Iran money they paid us for weapons they never got. He's just a bit mistaken as to what happened there.

He insults House Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff for a thing he hasn't said. And then he disgracefully lies about his long-held position regarding Russian meddling, which has been that Trump treated it as entirely a hoax. He hasn't admitted their wrongdoing even still, is blaming everyone else in sight, and never has either brought the additional sanctions requested by Congress or suggested any other punishment. In fact, I kind of think being back on his bullshit about why the FBI is supposedly wasting their time with the Trump connection to Russian meddling is, in a very real way--more obstruction, very much along the lines of firing Comey quite obviously for his attention to Trump's Russian connections.

Although I have not ever really figured out when Trump was at his smartest, I can safely say that the experience of angry Trump is fairly dumb. The position of President is stressful enough as it is--but most likely more so for a person woefully uninformed with a staff he either distrusts or which is also incompetent and probably not suitable to be there either.

This sort of thing is very sad and transparently an admission of knowledge of guilt and rank incompetence on his part.

In TrumpWorld, Grab-Bag Investigates You!

Imagine that nothing else happened today, but that a president who was accused during his campaign of being a "puppet" of a foreign dictator, who spoke effusively at times of that foreign dictator, when faced with a mandate from congress that overwhelmingly voted to put sanctions on that dictator for interfering in that election, just said "No, because it's such a deterrent to them doing stuff with us." Umph! Like, a deterrent to influencing more of our elections or making other decisions as a sovereign nation? 

It would seem from an actual real-time event like that, just as we have had other real-time events that kind of suggested that Donald Trump was doing the bidding of Russia, this should bother the Congress that passed that act bringing those sanctions, but what actually happened was they decided to release a memo that was made by Devin Nunes, who I will be referring to as Trump's Renfield, and did not release a memo drafted by House Democrats. 

This seems odd. It's like Congressional Republicans both understand that Russian interference was a real thing, but also will only pay the merest lip service to doing anything about it. Huh! And yet, the same House is investigating DOJ decisions for a while, now.  As if the real sin in today's politics is finding fault with Trump.

In other news, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is leaving because there's really only so much a person can put the hell up with before one's legit retirement and maybe one's Director is giving strong hints where the exit door is. He joins a storied company that includes Sally Yates, Preet Bharara and Jim Comey. 

I wouldn't wonder what lessons the DOJ in general and the FBI specifically are taking from this politicized display regarding their office and the approach it shows regarding the rule of law. It might not be what the authors of this deplorable exercise had in mind, though.

In other news, we are sad to hear that Julian Assange is in bad shape because he lacks Vitamin D and the courage to just suck it up and deal with the thing where he took off his condom and tried it.  It's rumored he also doesn't smell great and sent DMs to Sean Hannity parody accounts.  Which does not only suggest Assange's mind has gone a little soft, but also that he and Hannity have possibly had a previous correspondence or so. 

Anyway, what I am saying is, the history of dirt against Trump seems to have been spot on, and the dirt against Clinton and the DNC seems to have been spotty. Trump and his admirers striking out against the investigation seems to me not like they see wrongdoing there, but like they are afraid it will be found with their team.

I'm just saying, as I always do: It looks bad because it is bad.

With TrumpWorld Grab-Bags Like These...

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.--Kremlin) had a little side-trip to the Ecuadoran Embassy in London last month which was partially arranged (!?) by RW blogger-provocateur Chuck C. Johnson (which sounds nicer than "creepy little muck-dwelling alt-right alleged floor-shitter, Chuck C. Johnson") to meet with Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange. It sort of feels inexcusable that this escaped my attention--the guy who fellow GOP congressman Kevin McCarthy described as possibly on Putin's payroll, meets with the WikiLeaks guy, through this guy.  Sure, it all sounds flaky as hell, but I'm trying to be a Trump/Russia compleatist over here. 

Anyways, Rohrabacher wants to talk with Trump about getting Assange exonerated for disseminating various bits of classified US info, if Assange provides information that exonerates Russia from the DNC hack. A sort of mutual back-washing scheme. 

That's. But. How does he? Can you even? The sad thing is, Trump does denial over the Russian hack thing so convincingly, I wonder if he wouldn't go for it. It would be really dumb. But I wonder.

I'm not sure that whatever Assange means to provide is going to quite prove anything of the "exonerating Russia" quality, and I suspect the decision to "exonerate" Assange really isn't up to Trump, anyway. But it's the thought that counts, since Rohrabacher hasn't been able to do anything about Magnitsky. And Trump probably won't, either. (Sorry, Vlad, I know a lot of money is probably at stake here.)

Meanwhile, back at the Mueller investigation, he obtained a warrant for and received information from Facebook relating to the troll farm of fake accounts that pumped all kinds of ads and fake news and whatnot to the eyeballs of US voting people. It would be a darn shame if this could be verified as having been coordinated with Jared Kushner's data operation. For Jared Kushner. And the campaign. 

In other weird news, it looks like Mike Flynn had been working on a nuclear power project involving  putting plants all over the Middle East (which would count on Russian companies for maintaining site security)--and while it should have been tidily wrapped up in December 2016, um, it wasn't. And maybe he and Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met with King Abdullah II of Jordan before the inauguration to discuss...the nuclear "Marshall Plan", as it might be called. 

There's so many moving pieces of wrong in this scenario it's kind of hard to know where to start. But in any event, the DNC hack and Wikileaks' participation in throwing the information out to the public, and the way that information release seemed to be timed to the needs of the Trump Campaign in a way that seemed, maybe, a little coordinated, is definitely just one, and not even necessarily the top, messed-up thing with the TrumpWorld milieu. It's really a target-rich environment, and Robert Mueller just keeps adding sharp-shooters to his team. 

I Think We Knew, Right?

Sure, if you were to ask me whether I took claims about the DNC hack seriously when it was first discussed, I'd have said...

Oh wait. I did say something about it--I just didn't think it would work. I also kind of thought more people would find the connections between several of Trump's advisors with Russia to be troubling. Somehow that story never really developed that way I hoped it would. I mean, wouldn't it just seem apparent that Putin and friends would put a thumb on the scale for a President whose intention seemed to be dismantling what the US has achieved in the last eight years both at home and abroad? Wouldn't he want a political newcomer who didn't understand the system he was trying to wrest control of and thought that the problems the US faced boiled down to...bad "branding"?

So the WP story that there's consensus in the intelligence community that this is what actually happened doesn't really throw me. Nor am I shocked (!) at Senator Harry Reid's letter to FBI Director Comey that straight-up says that Comey had information that he didn't disclose. I mean, Mercy! You can't expect an FBI Director to drop possibly campaign-damaging info like that before an election! It's not like this was about something important, like, I don't know, Hillary Clinton's emails...

My eyebrows do raise a little when Donald Trump flat-out denies that it happened. Surely, a data breach by a foreign intelligence should be at least a concern to an incoming president? Because maybe (this time) next time it could be the RNC getting hacked? And who knows how that information might be used? Embarrassment? Leverage?

Of course it ought to be looked into.

Making History and Having More Balloons

I'm on something of a DNC Convention high, which is basically the result of two weeks of so many political stories happening with a conclusion that is definitely past the bedtime of a Eastern Time Zone girl with a day job. But I blog because I love, and I have so entirely loved the DNC Convention so much it's like I can't even...

Because Hillary Clinton made history. Because even if she isn't the first woman who ever ran for president or who was on a national ticket--she's the nominee for president because that's how we Democrats voted, and she has way more experience, and a way better temperament, than her opponent. It is comparing Hyperion to a satyr, you guys. Trump was out there Thursday evening talking about he was still really gung-ho about waterboarding (nothing new, here) , while at the same time, the DNC had on the family of an American service-member who happened to be Muslim.  One party is lead by a man advocating war crimes, who has said before that the Geneva conventions, like NATO, is outdated--and another which is embracing diversity and honoring the reality of the human sacrifices of real people in our War on Terror.

Now, you can criticize her speech if you like.  After all, her outfit, whether she had a flag pin, her tone of voice, and whether she smiled enough were criticized, so why not talk about the substance of her speech? She reminded us of who she was--not a natural politician or "talker", but a certified "doer". We heard her bio from Bill Clinton and from a Shonda Rhimes directed/Morgan Freeman-narrated short.  We heard her speak about her passion for using policy to change human lives for the better in her own words.

I Swear Barack Obama Gave one of His Best Speeches

All I know is that in this second term, a lot of what President Obama has been saying plays on the themes of Stonewall, Selma and Seneca Falls. He returns to the essential idea that freedom and justice alike are woven into the multicolored tapestry of our history as a nation, forged in the steely ink of our founding documents, tested again and again whenever Americans have faced trials and struggles. He weaves once again this great notion of a strong nation, made more perfect by the work of many hands, in offering support to someone who can take up the banner and go forward with it.

It was an encouragement that the successes (which are very real) of his administration have a chance to continue under great, Democratic leadership. It's an exhortation to participate in our democracy to keep it strong. It was a paean to our diversity and the many ways it gives us strength, and should not be feared. It was uplifting, and a rebuke to people who don't grasp what the essential greatness of our country is--its potential, and the portability and timeless nature of our values and dreams, that are transmissible and easily the greatest export, the finest product we can ever peddle and which are free to any man, woman, being that wants to become a part.

It was about patriotism, and more--it transcended ideas about "left" and "right" labeling, explicitly revealing how individual freedom and progress was up to everyone as a part of our civic heritage.

I know I am going to miss the hell out of President Obama--although I am looking forward to seeing what a still-young man might do in his post-presidency. But he also made me look forward to what Hillary Clinton might accomplish in office. It was the highlight of the evening. A jewel.

(I know I skipped over mentioning VP Joe Biden and VP-to-be Tim Kaine's speeches--and it's a shame, because I think these are actually two of the most compassionate, sincerely nice and decent people in politics today and they both did excellent--it's just, seriously? Barack Obama's speech took my damn breath away.)

Meet a Girl

Yesterday, the roll call at the DNC gave us a wonderful image of the historic nature of Hillary Clinton's becoming the first woman nominated to the presidency from a major party through the eyes of history, as seen by Arizona's 102-year-old honorary chairperson, Geraldine "Jerry" Emmett, who was born before women even had the right to vote. Women of course have run before, and appeared on major party tickets, but this time feels different.

You can step back from the idea that it's sheer identity politics that makes this particular moment important. Take in the idea that a woman president can now seem inevitable in US politics, as if it was astonishing and dumb that it never happened here before. How has there been Benazir Bhutto and Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, without this thing happening right here, in the US? How has there been Megawati Sukarnoputri and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and this never happened in the US already? Corazon Aquino.  Ireland had Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, and we've yet to have one? (Wow--actually this whole not having a woman president before gets more dumb the more you look at it.)

But to take in why Hillary Clinton, and why she's our best choice now, it might help to take a listen to her husband's story of how they met, and all the wonderful things that she has actually done. Some people looked a little askance at the idea of former President Clinton starting out his reminiscence of knowing her with "I met a girl". I don't. Women start out that way--being girls. And you know what?Girls run the world. What is the future? Ask Malala Yousafzai. Ask Melinda Gates where the future is. 

But consider also who she is through the idea of her accomplishments being subjugated to his. When she has done so very, very much, including shaping the governor and the president that he was. Some people didn't want to hear about her progress from a little Republican baby visiting MLK with her Methodist pastor in 1963 to her transition to a Democratic warrior by 1968 sneaking off to the Chicago DNC before she even met the future president . They don't want to know about how she traveled to so many states and fought oppression and accomplished so much that by the age of 30 she made a lot of men look like pikers. Just by doing the quiet drudgery, the non-bombastic work, the long-haul work, the getting-things-done work. The work women don't always get the credit for. 

You know I get mad as hell when no accounts like Carly Fiorina and Jill Stein try to drag Hillary Clinton, She did and does bring the receipts, she just never felt like she had to brag. But others need to do it for her, especially to counter the dragging she has received over the last 25 freaking years.Because our future really does depend on her, and she is honestly as ready for the job as any person could ever be--

So when I see this?  A video that sums up history as "dude, dude, dude, dude....dude, dude, finally a girl?"  A woman? I am stoked that little girls know this is possible for them, and they can believe in and achieve any damn thing they set their minds to, because she is going to.

It means a hell of a lot. Because I was a little girl once. And I had all the thoughts about things.

So I'm Petty, Sue Me

Of course, Michelle Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren gave absolutely grand speeches this evening; Obama bringing in an inspiring historical perspective about the direction of this country, Warren laying down the truly stark choices we are facing in this election.

But I've got to give it up for Bernie Sanders--he laid out the case for why his supporters should vote for Hillary Clinton. It wasn't an easy speech for him, and he'd even said himself that the job of party unification was up to the presumptive nominee. But in an obvious contrast from Senator Ted Cruz telling the RNC audience to "Vote their Conscience", Senator Sanders basically said, "If you have a conscience, vote for Clinton."

That's huge. Today was marked with Sanders supporters (I use the term loosely, I think they are more against things than for them based on their behavior) engaging in the kind of hostility that would have been more at home in the other guys' camp. There were chants from some of these classless class warriors that tried to stomp all over the speeches of people they could have heard out as allies instead of treating like enemies. (I misheard "We trusted you" directed at Senator Warren, as "prostitute", and wanted to drive down and start punching hippies. It's like that, now.)

But Senator Sanders himself showed his qualities by trying to be the peacemaker and the unifier. He hushed up Donald Trump's gross insinuations that Team Gilded Toilet could win over people who genuinely understand that income inequality in the country isn't going to be any closer to fixed by letting a conman into the White House.

This isn't to say those people who were feeling the bern and now are Trump-curious don't exist. Cable news programs are looking hard for those people and found a few. But let's just come out and say it--those folks are not a revolution. They are a tantrum.

But I'm petty. This Tweet basically sums up how Trump looks at people--if Sanders isn't anti-Hillary, well, he needs to be insulted. The Sanders Twitter reply is as dismissive as it ought to be.