"Deplorables" Is Too Kind A Word

There was all this hubub over comedian Michelle Wolf tearing into Sara Huckabee Sanders at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner and yet only one GOP senator—Jeff Flake, the junior senator from Arizona—has condemned White House aide Kelly Sadler's joke that Sen. John McCain's opinion on whether the current nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, should be confirmed is irrelevant since "he's dying anyway".

Obviously those cowards are pretty sure they'd lose votes coming to McCain's defense. But the more important question here is, what kind of people do they represent that defending a colleague, a war hero dying of cancer, is a bad move?

Pro or Con: What Was Michael Cohen Selling?

The president who promised to “drain the swamp” aka rid Washington of influence peddling, is nothing less than a gleeful participant in the town’s culture of corruption; the examples are numerous and readily available.

So while many of us are inclined to think the $4.4m that flowed through Michael Cohen’s coffers was the asking price for positive influence, it’s perfectly within reason to believe that Cohen, in furtherance of his bullshit, tough guy “fixer” persona, may have been pushing a shakedown scheme of the crude kind: pay me or I just might whisper in Trump’s ear to favor your competition. Or in the case of AT&T, reinforce Trump’s resistance to their merger with Time Warner.

And, of course, there’s the very real possibility that the Grifter-in-Chief made off with some of that $4.4m loot.

Let’s hope we find out how it all went down.

Collusion and the Porn Star

For a while now, many have looked at the Stormy Daniels scandal as either a distraction from the Russian collusion case or just a blatant cash grab on the part of the porn star and her combative and effective lawyer Michael Avenatti.

Well, regardless, they've just dovetailed. And Avenatti called it.

Turns out he made public last night, via a dossier he compiled, that Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, had received substantial amounts of money from a company closely linked to a certain Russian oligarch, which were deposited into the accounts of the same shell company from which Cohen made the $130K payment to Daniels.

The plot thickens, boys and girls.


[The Daily Beast: Michael Cohen Took Cash From Oligarch-Connected Firm After Election]

Foreign Policy for Idiots

So, despite our international allies advising him not to, Trump is bailing from the Iran nuclear deal—more like violating the agreement—because it allegedly doesn’t go far enough in pressuring Iran to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. Actually, it’s because it was an international achievement by the Obama administration and we all know Trump would try to dismantle the cure for cancer if the Marxist Muslim from Kenya was behind it.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in North Korea setting up Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un, a meeting whose purpose is to convince North Korea to restrain from advancing their nuclear program under threat of sanctions. Hmm. That sounds familiar. Anyone think North Korea will trust the US after seeing Trump renege on the Iran deal?

Stay tuned.

Trump's White House is 'House of Cards'...with Idiots

I am not objective about Rudy Giuliani; I greatly despise the man. As a native New Yorker who lived through the despicable-turned-mythological reign of "America's Mayor" (his sycophants should listen to the families of fallen NYFD and their surviving comrades speak on how he sold them out on September 11th, 2001 and thus has blood on his hands) I loathe him profoundly. To see him betray the law enforcement colleagues he served with and embarrass himself on TV in service to the PoS that is Donald Trump is not just classic schadenfreude but, more importantly, shows the true measure of this man. He is vile and worthless. Ridicule and disdain is too good for him.

I must admit, recent developments worry me: for if despite the corruption and ineptitude on which this idiotic cartel thrives, nothing ends up happening to them, we are doomed.

[CNN: 21 Head-Scratching Lines from A(nother) Disastrous Rudy Giuliani Interview]

Huckabee the Hypocrite

For a professional liar to call someone a hypocrite is just...

Stormy Daniels Does Not Give a Fuck What You Think (and will let you know, too)

As I've mentioned elsewhere, it’s not a stretch to assume that a woman who makes a living having sex on screen is a tough broad with thick skin. Well, it seems that description fits Stormy Daniels perfectly.

Because of a particularly stupid tweet, in which a detractor and obvious Chumpbot berates Stormy for not being as desirable to Trump as his daughter Ivanka (!!!), I made the trek over to her Twitter account where the Chumpbots, as expected, have been out in full force insulting her in a myriad of ways. But Stormy is no joke: she swats these fools like so many errant flies; she’s a master of troll knocking. And enjoys it, too. It's like the Chumpbots who engage her are divers into a pool of shit thinking it was chocolate syrup.

[Fast Company: What We Can Learn From Stormy Daniels’s Annihilation Of Twitter Trolls ]

Paul Ryan Warns If Republicans Lose House, Cover-ups Will End

"Ryan has played an invaluable role covering up and enabling Trump administration scandals. When he says his party needs to keep control of the House to prevent subpoenas, he is both promising the cover-ups will continue if his party keeps its control of government, and expressing his clear belief that he opposes any level of independent oversight of the Executive branch."

[New York magazine]

Grow A Pair, Mainstream Media

Trump LIED about not knowing Cohen had drafted an NDA and paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence. He lied.

Again, he lied.

But the fucking cowards in the mainstream press, afraid of the Chumpbots and other conservatives calling them biased don't have the nerve to call this what it is: A LIE.

Instead, we have the NY Times calling it a "contradiction"; WaPo says it's a statement made "despite Trump’s assertion last month that he was unaware of the payment"; the LA Times believes it was something "the president had previously denied"; while CNN stated Giuliani's assertions on the matter "contradicted Trump."

Oh, for fuck's sake, HE LIED, damn it. What are you doing? You'll never convince Chumpbots and most conservatives that you guys are fair and you irritate the shit out of those of us who can't stand your spinelessness.

Ugh.

Giuliani Sets Trump's Hair On Fire

The alliance of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani is New York City's worst political dumpster fire of the last 30 years. And now they have taken the disgrace to a new low as the latter, legally representing the former, further incriminated the Orange Nightmare on both the Russian collusion front AND the Stormy Daniels scandal. And in their Fox News safe space, no less: on Sean Hannity's propaganda segment.

"[Trump] fired [FBI director James] Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation."

Hmm. That's funny, since Trump has repeatedly and vehemently denied the Russian collusion investigation was the reason for firing Comey.

As far as the Stormy Daniels scandal goes, Giuliani also told Sean Calamity, on the air, that Trump “didn’t know about the specifics" of the agreement and/or the $130,000 payment maid by his attorney/"fixer" Michael Cohen to Daniels but was aware of "the general arrangements” and that Trump repaid the $130K via multiple $35,000 installments.

But wait...didn't Trump vociferously deny having any advance knowledge whatsoever of the NDA or the payment, and claimed that his Cohen had acted alone?

Smells like two week old fish left out on the windowsill.

Sprint, T-Mobile Merger A Potential Bust for Customers

“This merger raises several red flags for consumers,” Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union, the advocacy division of Consumer Reports, said in an interview with the magazine. “Right now, Sprint and T-Mobile provide much-needed alternatives to Verizon and AT&T, with some innovative plans and pricing options that keep some semblance of competition alive. If you combine these two companies, those incentives and options could dry up.”  

MarketWatch adds that if the companies combine, there could be two other downsides for customers. One is that Sprint’s lower-cost plans could be eliminated after joining with T-Mobile. Another is that unlimited data plans at all four major carriers could disappear. If one carrier chooses to end its unlimited data offering, the two other companies could follow suit — with less competition, all three networks would need to worry less about customer acquisition and retention, and therefore have less incentive to provide better deals for their customers. 

[Money: The T-Mobile and Sprint Merger Could Raise Your Cell Phone Bill, Consumer Experts Warn]