Did Senior Military Officers Just Thwart Trump's Attempted Coup? Mad Dog Bites Trumpanzee

Trump never gave Roger Stone a cabinet position but Stone was more influential than most of Trump's cabinet. And now he's signaling he's about to pardon him for his criminal activities. This should come as no surprise to anyone since Stone held fats to the code of omertà Trump so admires. Stone's supposed to show up to begin his 3 year prison sentence this month. Trump's gaslighting tweet yesterday makes it pretty clear Stone won't be serving any time:

Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein noted how excruciatingly bad Donald "always hires the best people" Trump has consistently been in his hiring choices. As he's demonstrated since the earliest days of his campaign, he always hires the worst people. And not just in the eyes of rational people-- also in the eyes of Trump himself! "[T]he list of Donald Trump’s terrible personnel choices according to Donald Trump gets one name longer, as the president reacted predictably by bashing Mattis. That list now includes a defense secretary, a secretary of state, an attorney general, at least one national security adviser and at least two White House chiefs of staff. Again, there are very few people who are otherwise undecided about Trump who would be swayed by what an awful job-- according to Trump himself-- he has done appointing people for the most important positions in government. But it’s a remarkable record nonetheless."

Voters should make it clear that any senator who votes to confirm any Trump nominee for anything from now until he's driven from office will also be voted out of office, especially rubberstampers up for reelection in November, like Martha McSally (R-AZ), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Steve Daines (R-MT), Susan Collins (R-ME), David Perdue (R-GA), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and, of course, the architects of Trump's hiring practices, John Cornyn (R-TX) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

And now Trump wants to fire another Defense Secretary, reflexive lackey Mark Esper, who-- embarrassed by the fascism displayed this week-- strayed from Trump's plans to send in the troops. Jennifer Jacobs reported Trump confronted him over his anti-authoritarian comments and then started the process of finding a replacement.

In a separate Bloomberg piece she did with Josh Wingrove, Jacobs wrote that between Esper and Mattis, Trump is in a position no other presidents have even faced before. As Bernstein made clear, "It's hard to get across what a big deal it is that former Defense Secretary James Mattis has not only publicly criticized President Donald Trump, but done so in extremely strong terms. In a statement issued Wednesday, Mattis talked about 'those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution,' and said that 'We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.' He added that Trump was engaged in a 'deliberate attempt' to 'divide us,' something he says no other president in his lifetime has done. (For the record, Mattis is 69, so he’s talking about everyone since Harry Truman.)" Jacobs and Wingrove called it "a direct challenge to his leadership... The double-barreled rebuke from his current and former defense chiefs elevates the pressure on Trump as he falters in handling a pair of crises: a raging pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 Americans, and protests over a painful legacy of racial inequality, injustice and police brutality... Mattis’s criticism echoed attacks leveled on Trump by Biden, but the former defense chief’s key role in the president’s original national security cabinet gives him a standing few outsiders could ever claim... Trump lashed out in a pair of tweets mocking Mattis’s military service and his nicknames, calling him “the world’s most overrated General."

Mattis stepped down 18 months ago after Trump abruptly announced on Twitter that he wanted to pull troops from Syria, but he was a hugely influential member of the president’s first national security cabinet.

Trump was so eager to unveil his nomination of Mattis after the 2016 election that he announced the plans at a campaign-style rally. He introduced the former head of U.S. Central Command by a moniker-- “Mad Dog”-- and called him “one of the most effective generals that we’ve had in many, many decades.”

It remains to be seen if Mattis’s rebuke will have lasting political repercussions, but it strikes at the heart of what the president has pitched as one of his strengths: his fulsome praise of the military as part of his “America First” approach to the world, even while he frequently criticizes the national security establishment for allegedly trying to undermine his administration.

Despite Trump’s praise of Mattis when he took office, by the end of the defense chief’s tenure their relationship was shattered. Upon his departure, Mattis issued a blunt resignation letter that amounted to a rebuke of Trump’s “America First” mantra.

“We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances,” Mattis wrote at the time. “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”

Days later, Trump lashed out at Mattis, saying “What’s he done for me?” Singling out the U.S. quagmire in Afghanistan, Trump added, “How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good.”

Wednesday’s events unfolded in rapid fashion. Mattis’s scathing statement landed as Trump renewed his threat to send in the military to quash protests during an interview with Spicer, now a host for NewsMax TV, a conservative outlet. Trump called ongoing protests in New York a “disaster.”

“And we could help them a lot, they have to ask,” Trump told Spicer. “If they don’t get it straightened out soon, I’ll take care of it.”

For another generation of Americans K-Pop is a much bigger deal than James Mattis. And according to a report from the L.A. Times, Trump has lost the K-Pop community. "K-pop fans are famous for their persistent and creative ways to make online life miserable for people who demean their favorite artists and groups. But on Wednesday, the genre’s sometimes-toxic community harnessed its digital savvy and mercilessness for more noble causes: shutting down white supremacist social media and overwhelming police tip lines meant to identify Black Lives Matter protesters.

A planned day of social media action from white supremacists, which was being promoted with the hashtag #whitelivesmatter, quickly went sideways. K-pop fans, who on any given day control a meaningful percentage of the trending topics across social media, decided to flood the tag with “fancam” footage of beloved acts like BTS and Blackpink. They also threw in memes ripping anyone earnestly using the tag to search for white-nationalist news.

They took aim at several pro-Trump and police hashtags too, renderingmuch of #MAGA and #BlueLivesMatter Twitter useless for the day.

  K-pop fans also found ways to steer their ire toward police efforts to identify Black Lives Matter protesters. Several police departments, including those in Dallas and Grand Rapids, Mich., had established public digital tip lines where residents could send footage of protesters, which cops could then investigate.

“If you have video of illegal activity from the protests and are trying to share it with @DallasPD, you can download it to our iWatch Dallas app. You can remain anonymous,” the Dallas department wrote on Saturday.

Over the weekend, jokes about K-pop fandom’s capacity to flood the app with fancam footage quickly became a genuine direct action, as fans filed reams of “tips” that were really footage of Korean groups performing. The Dallas PD quickly pulled back its efforts: “Due to technical difficulties iWatch Dallas app will be down temporarily,” the department announced.

  A number of K-pop artists have been more plainly supportive of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by George Floyd’s killing, including Got7, Jay Park, Amber Liu, CL and others. They’ve acknowledged the debt that their music owes to black artists and advocated for protests that have swept much of the globe.

NBC News may be ignoring the K-pop generation, but they made sure Americans are aware Trump has been losing support from the officer corp, which seems to have nixed his attempted coup.

But here are three reasons why Mattis’ takedown of Trump matters.

One, Mattis was an eyewitness to Trump’s presidency. “In addition to the authority he’s earned over a long and distinguished career, he speaks as one of a handful of high-ranking officials who have been firsthand witnesses to the way Donald Trump has operated as president,” The Dispatch writes of Mattis.

Two, he was seen as one of the early guardrails/validators early in Trump’s administration.

And three, Mattis isn’t alone in respected military voices speaking out against Trump and his actions, joining former Joints Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen and Martin Dempsey, as well as retired Marine General John Allen.

“The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020. Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment,” Allen writes.

It’s hard to say we’re at an inflection point, because public opinion of Trump rarely changes-- except at the margins.

But these are significant breaks with a president who routinely finds himself fighting unpopular battles.

A Handful Of Congressional Republicans Are Wondering If The Nazification Of U.S. Immigration Policy Will Hurt Them At The Polls Again

Monday evening there were a slew of reports that Capitol Hill Republicans were freaking out over the Trump-ordered mayhem at the Department of Homeland Security. And, believe me, virtually no one in Congress other than Steve King (R-IA) was excited to hear that the White House's pet neo-Nazi, Steve Miller, had been unleashed with full authority to reimplement his reviled "zero tolerance" agenda. What comes after babies in cages? Babies in gas chambers? Republican senators are grumbling that Miller was never nominated, investigated or confirmed for anything and that he's running the whole show. Trump breaking the law himself by explicitly instructing border agents to just ignore the law and defy the courts, isn't helping either. "If judges give you trouble, say, 'Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room.'"

The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim reported that Grassley was raging against Trump, especially when he heard that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna was on Miller's purge list. By Tuesday morning the NY Times was blaring that "Trump’s purge of the nation’s top homeland security officials is a sign that he is preparing to unleash an even fiercer assault on immigration, including a possible return of his controversial decision last summer to separate migrant children from their parents... But the longer term effect of the eruption of Oval Office frustration is likely to be a burst of hard-line policies that stand out even in an administration that has pursued an unprecedented series of executive actions and rules changes aimed at reducing legal and illegal immigration into the United States."

Jonathan Swan at Axios had the details for Republicans already on slow burn, reporting that "Trump has directed top officials to execute the most aggressive changes in immigration policy since his inauguration… Some officials consider the moves legally and politically dubious." Executive orders are aimed at making it "more difficult for people to invoke their fear of returning to their home country in order to seek asylum in the U.S.," largely by pretending the Orwellian fascist dictatorships in the U.S. protectorates in Central America are lovely places for people to live. Trump and Miller want to "change rules to allow the government to detain migrant children for longer than the 20-day limit allowed under the so-called Flores agreement... Sources close to Nielsen tell us that Trump and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller have called for changes that are legally dubious and would therefore be operationally ineffective."

• Nielsen has found Trump's demands unreasonable, and he has privately described her as "weak on the border," even though she oversaw actions that many viewed as the most brutal in recent memory-- such as the "zero tolerance" policy that separated migrant parents from their children.
• These sources say that Trump’s desire to make it dramatically harder for people to seek asylum in the U.S. wouldn’t produce lasting changes because they would immediately lead to court challenges. 

Is this going to have any impact at the polls? In other words, will the evangelical base still loyal to Trump continue to be fine with what his regime is doing refugee and immigrant families? Team Politico reports that even some of Trump's congressional allies are starting to worry. Senators are "urging him not to fire more top officials and warning him how hard it will be to solve twin crises at the border and the federal agencies overseeing immigration policy." And they're worried that Miller has taken over. John Bresnahan wrote that after November elections in which suburban voters rejected Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, the president is once again making it the centerpiece of the GOP’s platform.

Texas Senator Cornyn, McTurtle's top deputy told Politico he has "no idea what Miller’s agenda is in determining immigration policy because he isn’t Senate-confirmed and doesn’t correspond with the Hill."

Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the most senior GOP senator, is trying to head off even more dismissals as Trump tries to reshape DHS into a “tougher” mold.

In an interview, Grassley expressed concern that Trump may soon boot U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna and Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, who heads the office of policy and strategy at USCIS.

“I heard that they are on the list to be fired,” Grassley said. “They are doing in an intellectual-like way what the president wants to accomplish. So no, they should not go.”

Republicans empathize with Trump’s frustrations over the border and Congress’ languid pace at changing immigration laws. They mostly backed him on his 35-day government shutdown over the border wall, buckling only as the standoff dragged into its second month.

Most of them hated his emergency declaration on the southern border, but only 25 GOP lawmakers between the two chambers ended up bucking him. And when Trump and Miller sought to tank an immigration compromise last year, Senate Republicans overwhelmingly sided with the president and left Democrats holding the bag on the legislative collapse.

But on immigration, the party is not in lockstep with Trump. So even as the president pursues more aggressive strategies on the border, the GOP might not stick with him ahead of an election cycle that has the Senate up for grabs and with Republicans eager to take back the House.

“He thinks it’s a winning issue,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican whip. “It works for him. It may not work for everybody else.”

...Centrist GOP Rep. Will Hurd, who narrowly won reelection in 2018, said the turnover in the upper ranks of DHS isn’t helpful during a critical time at the southern border, though the Texan expressed confidence in Nielsen’s successor.

“When you’re dealing with something that’s the worst we’ve seen in 12, 13 years, having to deal with that problem and having new people come in and deal with it is always tricky,” said Hurd, whose district stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Moderate GOP Rep. Tom Reed of New York said he would prefer to focus on issues like infrastructure, drug pricing and health care in the 2020 election cycle, saying the issue of immigration is being kept alive “for political purposes.”

Reed also took a veiled shot at Miller: “One hard-liner is not going to dictate the outcome of this.”

But Miller’s rise in the Trump administration is merely one more indication of how the president gravitates toward the restrictionist wing of his party.

“The president is really unhappy with the results and he’s trying to find a different formula that produces a different result,” said Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 4 Senate GOP leader. “Unless you either change the court directives or the asylum law, it’s very hard to quickly come up with a solution. And the president’s frustrated by that.”

The problem for Trump is that that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Congress’ dithering on immigration in the six years since the Senate passed its “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration bill, which died in the House, is no surprise.

Republicans have been signaling to Trump that with the election coming up so soon, they're not going to be able to confirm any more hard core neo-Nazis he sends over the the Hill. Xenophobic extremist Kris Kobach has been widely rumored to be the top choice of fellow-fascist Stephen Miller to replace Nielsen or one of her fired-- or soon-to-be fired-- lieutenants. Yesterday, the Kansas City Star reported that Kansas' retiring senior senator, Pat Roberts, warned, dramatically, "Don’t go there. We can’t confirm him."

Trump Fires White House Counsel McGahn-- The Most Dysfunctional Government Ever

Yesterday, at RollCall, Walter Shapiro asked why the GOP still puts up with Trump's graceless vulgarity. Presumably that question will be speculated upon for years to come. "Why do his supporters put up with it? ... What is it about Trump that has the power to cloud the minds of Republicans who should know better? ... Common ground. That’s the part of American democracy that Trump will never understand. That sometimes you join hands with your former adversaries in the quest to make this a country-- to steal a McCain book title-- "worth the fighting for."

"Former adversaries?" Trump can't even join hands with former allies who he's driven off with the most unsuitable temperament and unsuitable set of ethical and moral standards that anyone has ever brought to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Today he swinishly tweeted that White House counsel Don McGahn would be leaving the White House either after Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court or after the midterms. That's how McGahn found out he was fired.

The Washington Post reported that one person close to McGahn said "'He was surprised.' While it had been an open secret inside the White House that McGahn planned to leave after Kavanaugh’s confirmation process concludes, he had not discussed his plans directly with Trump... That potentially puts a successor in charge of fielding a blizzard of requests or subpoenas for documents and testimony if Democrats win control of the House in the midterms. And if the White House winds up fighting special counsel Robert Mueller, an epic constitutional fight could lie ahead."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) told Trump to keep McGahn. RollCall reported that "Judiciary Committee Republicans have joined their Democratic colleagues in urging the president to avoid any moves that would be seen as him moving to directly interfere with or end the special counsel probe. Many Republican lawmakers view McGahn and others around the president as barriers preventing Trump from firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Mueller, his entire team, and any other Justice Department official the president views as out to get him via the Russia probe."

Has Scott Pruitt Already Caught Up With Betsy DeVos As The Worst In Trumpanzee's Cabinet?

Forget about Pruitt using his influence-- and an EPA employee-- to buy a used mattress from a Trump hotel (notorious for bed-bugs) and as a realtor. And forget about Pruitt using an aide to find "a business opportunity" for his wife with Chick-fil-A. And, yes, it was a different EPA staffer from the one looking at the used mattresses. The Washington Post did report that "Pruitt’s efforts on his wife’s behalf-- revealed in emails recently released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club-- did not end with Chick-fil-A. Pruitt also approached the chief executive of Concordia, a New York nonprofit organization. The executive, Matthew Swift, said he ultimately paid Marlyn Pruitt $2,000 plus travel expenses to help organize the group’s annual conference last September."

I'm guessing that all this what called Iowa Senator Joni Ernst (R) to call Pruitt "about as swampy as you get here in Washington, D.C., and if the president wants to drain the swamp, he needs to take a look at his own cabinet."

Pruitt’s tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency is under intensifying scrutiny, with at least 10 federal investigations probing his $50-per-night rental of a bedroom in a Capitol Hill condominium from a lobbyist, his frequent taxpayer-funded travel and his spending decisions.

...Ernst said she was frustrated with Pruitt’s handling of the U.S. biofuel mandate, arguing that he is undermining President Donald Trump’s campaign commitment to support ethanol.

“Mr. Pruitt is breaking our president’s promises to farmers,” Ernst said at the Platts Energy Podium in Washington. Maybe at some point Trump “will say it’s time for you to go, but that is up to the president.”

With someone “going against the campaign promises that are made,” Ernst added, “I don’t know how long that relationship can last.”

The comments from Ernst coincided with sharp words from her fellow Iowa Republican, Senator Chuck Grassley, who told reporters in a conference call on Tuesday that Pruitt “has betrayed the president.”

Neither went as far as calling for Pruitt’s resignation. Grassley said he would reserve judgment until after he’s reviewed a forthcoming White House outline of planned biofuel policy changes.

Trump administration officials are slated to detail those policy changes following weeks of negotiations by the Agriculture Department and the EPA, including a plan to lift summertime restrictions on the sale of a higher ethanol gasoline blend known as E15. But that outline has been delayed for weeks amid sharp disagreements over the possible changes.

Farm-state lawmakers have blasted the EPA’s moves to more liberally waive small refiners from annual biofuel blending quotas, following a federal court decision last year. Ernst said she was also frustrated Pruitt was pursuing a change that could allow exported biofuel to count toward compliance with the domestic blending mandates, after rejecting the idea in a letter to her last year.

Farmers nationwide rallied behind Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, forming part of the rural-voter bedrock that put him in the White House. But fissures in that rural support have developed over biofuels and trade initiatives that threaten agricultural exports.

“Right now, support is wavering in Iowa; people are really worried,” Ernst said. The White House’s planned biofuel policy changes “could further destroy our corn and biofuels demand, and at a time when our farmers are hurting.”

And, of course, it isn't just Republicans criticizing Pruitt. This morning Omaha Democratic candidate Kara Eastman told us that "Our children are our most valuable resources. As someone who has been fighting to ensure all children have access to safe and healthy homes that are free from toxics such as lead, mold and radon, I have seen the impacts that solid EPA programs can have in communities like Omaha. Mr. Pruitt is not only unethical in his business practices, but a poor choice as a leader when it comes to protecting our kids. We simply deserve better."

Tom Guild, the progressive candidate for the Oklahoma City seat (OK-05) was aware of the Pruitt dangers before most of us. And Pruitt's employment in the Trump cabinet hasn't made him feel any better about him. Guild: "Scott Pruitt is an embarrassment to the state of Oklahoma and America. He feeds on the sewer water beneath the streets of the nation’s capital. He is involved in so many scandals and ethics probes, it is nearly impossible to follow the bouncing ball. Draining the swamp is a bad joke as long as Pruitt holds high office at the EPA. It’s bad enough that he is charting a course to do permanent and irreversible damage to America and Planet Earth, but he is also lacking in integrity, common sense, good judgment, and scruples. Thinking of Pruitt automatically initiates my gag reflex. If there is anyone who epitomizes the worst excesses and screaming hubris of our national government, Pruitt takes the prize. He needs to lift up the rock he was hiding under, go back into hiding, and stay there. He doesn’t have the sense God gave a peanut (with apologies to members of the peanut family.) I’ve run out of adjectives and nouns to describe his behavior and persona. Now we know why some wild animals devour their young!"

The Coup d’état Against And/Or The Assassination Of... Señor Trumpanzee

Some wonder how Señor Trumpanzee could have possibly passed over Jerome Corsi when he put together his Cabinet. Is it possibly that not even the 5th level baboons he put in place would agree to serve with Corsi, the far right's foremost conspiracy theorist? His latest is that the CIA is planning to kill Señor T. Remember that Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, Indira Gandhi body guards shot her in her garden. And if that isn't proof enough, Corsi asserts in his new book, Killing The Deep State that Trump is the target of a coup d’état being undertaken by the Deep State, including the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies that maintain a commitment to a globalist New World Order." For some reason-- no doubt the CIA-- Corsi can't find a real publisher and the book is being put out by Trump’s crony Christopher Ruddy on his neo-fascist propaganda outfit, Newsmax.

So who's this Corsi, the man who is even a less believable conspiracy theorist that Trump himself?

No one, however, has gone as far as Jerome R. Corsi, the self-proclaimed “investigative reporter” whose book during John Kerry’s presidential campaign, the “Swiftboating” of his Vietnam War record, badly damaged Kerry’s campaign, although the charges were false.

He is the same man who in 2012 wrote a column claiming Obama is a homosexual. This is the same Corsi who argued he had proof of Obama’s Kenyan birth, and that a pattern on a ring Obama wore proved that he was a secret Muslim. Corsi has a Ph.D. from Harvard and uses that credential to assert that his words have credibility.

Corsi is Washington correspondent for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars. Recently, he appeared on C-Span’s book show Afterwords, where he talked about his new book, Killing the Deep State. In a nutshell, here is how Corsi describes his thesis: “The central premise of this book is that President Trump is the target of a coup d’état being undertaken by the Deep State, including the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies that maintain a commitment to a globalist New World Order.”

From the moment Trump won, Corsi believes the “deep state” promised to interfere with his presidency, beginning with the NSA and Brennan at CIA placing Trump under electronic surveillance. Brennan, along with John Podesta, Corsi claims, began the story about “Russian collusion” to delegitimize the campaign. Robert Mueller was made special counsel because he is “a partisan deep state operative with close ties to FBI Director James Comey.” The deep state, Corsi believes, is seeking to force Trump to resign. If that doesn’t work, it plans to move to “impeachment or a charge under the 25th Amendment that he is mentally incompetent.”

Up to this point, Corsi’s book reads as a rehash of all the claims regularly made daily about the conspiracy by Trumpists. But he takes this one original, and scurrilous, step further. Should that not work, he claims, the deep state operatives have one measure left to take, and that is “‘executive action’-- a CIA plan to assassinate Trump… the deep state’s last resort.”

...Corsi’s narrative is a compendium of all the conspiracy theories put together and is bound to be a basic source for Trump’s defenders, who are taking out the crude edges and using his analysis as the standard for showing why Trump’s presidency must be defended at all costs against the nefarious deep state. In today’s polarized climate, the more that narrative is spread and adopted, the more it poses a serious threat to our democracy.

And it looks like Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has joined the assassination team! Oh yes... plotting a coup and murder, Grassley told CNN that "If I were President of the United States and I had a lawyer that told me I could pardon myself, I think I would hire a new lawyer."

Ryan, McConnell, Grassley-- Enablers For Sure... But Criminally So?

Charles Pierce shook Esquire readers over the weekend by growling about Paul Ryan, who many of them have probably never heard of. His post, You're Not NeverTrump Unless You're NeverRyan and NeverMcConnell, makes the point that the GOP’s “brain disease has seized full control” and refuse to do anything about a “president” who is “a half-senile old fool whose own people don’t think is up to the job of selling apples from a steam-grate, let alone running the Executive branch of an established democracy.” The GOP, he wrote, in a dereliction of duty, “would rather destroy the lives of the poor and unfortunate than undertake their constitutional duty of reining in a White House gone completely mad.” Sounds about right. It’s certainly how Yale psychiatrist Brandy Lee sees it. “It is Trump in the office of the presidency that poses a danger,” she wrote. “Why? Past violence is the best predictor of future violence, and he has shown: verbal aggressiveness, boasting about sexual assaults, inciting violence in others, an attraction to violence and powerful weapons and the continual taunting of a hostile nation with nuclear power. Specific traits that are highly associated with violence include: impulsivity, recklessness, paranoia, a loose grip on reality with a poor understanding of consequences, rage reactions, a lack of empathy, belligerence towards others and a constant need to demonstrate power. There is another pattern by which he is dangerous. His cognitive function, or his ability to process knowledge and thoughts, has begun to be widely questioned. Many have noted a distinct decline in his outward ability to form complete sentences, to stay with a thought, to use complex words and not to make loose associations. This is dangerous because of the critical importance of decision-making capacity in the office that he holds. Cognitive decline can result from any number of causes – psychiatric, neurological, medical, or medication-induced – and therefore needs to be investigated. Likewise, we do not know whether psychiatric symptoms are due to a mental disorder, medication, or a physical condition, which only a thorough examination can reveal.”

Shouldn’t Ryan and McConnell see this? They surely do… and they’re playing with fire, ignoring the danger Trump poses to the United States. Pierce:

Now, it appears, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are so dedicated to protecting a dangerously incompetent president that they’re willing to do almost anything. Grassley is just an old crank having fun in his legislative dotage, but the conversion of Lindsey Graham into a Southern-fried Lewandowski has been a dark wonder to behold. I’m not an adherent to conspiracies about kompromat but, Jesus H. Christ on a covert wiretap, this transformation cannot be explained by conventional political science.

Mr. Grassley’s decision to recommend criminal charges appeared likely to be based on reports of Mr. Steele’s meetings with the F.B.I., which were provided to the committee by the Justice Department in recent weeks.

Or on something some staffer’s grandmother emailed after having a hot dream about Sean Hannity dipped in butter. Who the hell knows at this point?

It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already. The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified.

They aren’t going to pull back. They aren’t going to stop. They aren’t going to do their jobs. Their patriotism extends only as far as a donor’s wallet and their devotion to the Constitution can be measured with an eyedropper. Nobody truly can be said to be NeverTrump anymore who is not also NeverMcConnell, NeverRyan, and, frankly, NeverGOP, at least in its current manifestation. The prion disease has triumphed completely. The patient is brain-dead, but still deadly in its contagion.

This should work out splendidly. From Politico:

With rumors swirling that Jeff Sessions could depart the administration and two members of the House Freedom Caucus calling on the former Alabama senator to resign, Pruitt is quietly positioning himself as a possible candidate for the job. “Pruitt is very interested,” a person close to him said. “He has expressed that on a number of occasions.” It’s unclear whether Pruitt would be on the shortlist for the position, but people close to the president said Trump has grown to like him. Pruitt has emerged as the face of Trump’s deregulatory agenda, taking steps to overturn former President Barack Obama’s climate change regulations. He was also a leading advocate for pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change.

You can do worse in this administration than position yourself as the ‘president*’s favorite vandal. Or so says Politico, anyway, and Pruitt has more than qualified on that score. Most recently, the administration* announced that it’s all hands on deck for offshore drilling, including in and around the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the Arctic waters around Alaska. (Even Governor Bat Boy in Florida thinks this is a terrible idea, and environmental protection groups are predictably agog.) Pruitt’s work at the EPA is probably done and I have no doubt that this administration* will find someone worse than him if and when he ascends to the top spot in the Department of Justice. There’s never been a better time in history to fail upwards in high office.

Back to Dr. Brandy Lee:

Trump became more paranoid, espousing once again conspiracy theories that he had let go of for a while. He seemed further to lose his grip on reality by denying his own voice on the Access Hollywood tapes. Also, the sheer frequency of his tweets seemed to reflect an agitated state of mind, and his retweeting some violent anti-Muslim videos showed his tendency to resort to violence when under pressure.

Trump views violence as a solution when he is stressed and desires to re-establish his power. Paranoia and overwhelming feelings of weakness and inadequacy make violence very attractive, and powerful weapons very tempting to use – all the more so for their power. His contest with the North Korean leader about the size of their nuclear buttons is an example of that and points to the possibility of great danger by virtue of the power of his position.

It does not take a mental health professional to see that a person of Trump’s impairments, in the office of the presidency, is a danger to us all. What mental health experts can offer is affirmation that these signs are real, that they may be worse than the untrained person suspects, and that there are more productive ways of handling them than deflection or denial.

Screening for risk of harm is a routine part of mental health practice, and there are steps that we follow when someone poses a risk of danger: containment, removal from access to weapons and an urgent evaluation. When danger is involved, it is an emergency, where an established patient-provider relationship is not necessary, nor is consent; our ethical code mandates that we treat the person as our patient.

2017, A Hell Bound Train Of A Year (Part 8): Republican Words As Windows To Their Souls. Round 2

-by Noah

As I said in the intro of Round 1 on this topic a few days ago, the old saying goes that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Ah, but that presumes that republicans aren’t soulless creatures. Their words and actions indicate otherwise. I mean; can you imagine that any soul or that any soul would want to live in such a spiritually toxic body as that of Paul Ryan or Donald Trump?

For this round, I thought it would be good to deal with the topic of health care, since it was such a driving force behind the psychotic and sociopathic actions of republicans in 2017.

The following quotes are actual words from the mouths of these horrors.

1. Kellyanne Conway, White House Spokescretin:

Those on Medicaid who will lose health insurance can always get jobs.

And what jobs are those Kellyanne? What jobs with benefits? What jobs for people who are so disabled that that is why they are on Medicaid in the first place? This is classic Republican “Let them eat cake” stuff. Or, to put it another way, they’re saying “Let them eat shit.”

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans are on Medicaid. Do the math. Are there really enough jobs to cover that 1 in 5 of 325,000,000 citizens? How many of those jobs Kellyanne and her despicable ilk yap about will provide enough salary to deal with an onslaught of six-figure cancer treatment bills? Oh, and since Medicaid covers two-thirds of our people in nursing homes, please tell me, Kellyanne, what jobs will they be getting? Medicaid also covers 1 out of 3 American children. What jobs do you have planned for them, Kellyanne, even after your psychotic party has done away with child labor laws?

Conway’s statement isn’t just classic republican “fuck all of you” talk. The kind of person who would make such a statement is either so far out of touch that they belong in a home for the insane, or, they are just so filled with contempt for humanity that it was their consciously planned and thought out message to mankind. It also reminds me of Trump’s blissfully moronic Economic Council Director, Gary Cohn stating that a family getting a $1000 tax break could use it to renovate their kitchen or buy a new car. Really, one can remodel a kitchen for only a $1000? And, does that $1000 car come with wheels that turn?

Come to think of it, Kellyanne is already in a home for the insane. It’s called the White House.

2. $enator Chuck Grassley of Iowa:

Here’s Chucky saying he’s going to vote against health care for his fellow Americans even though he sees reasons why that “might” be the wrong thing to do.

I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered. But republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign.

No, Mr. Grasshole. your responsibility is to do what is right for the people who voted for you even if they were stupid enough for you. And, since when has a politician held his or her campaign promises sacred? You are being so extremely disingenuous here that you should get some sort of award. I can think of several forms that award could take.

Obviously Grasshole doesn’t get any of this, and if he did he wouldn’t give a shit anyway. He’s got his health care and we pay for it. For him, as for most of his colleagues, it’s all about doing what is best for his corporate masters who keep him afloat with bribes in the form of “campaign contributions”. Keep in mind that when confronted with the stories about Roy Moore and underage girls, he laughed his head off, right on TV. They don’t come much lower than Chucky.



3. Señor Trumpanzee himself:

Let Obamacare implode.

Back in July, Trump had words, what he would call “the best words” after the $enate, controlled by his Republican Party, dramatically failed to repeal Obamacare, at least temporarily. It was a bitter disappointment for a party that aspires to be a party of mass murderers by taking way the insurance of tens of millions of Americans.

Republicans in Washington have voted over 60 times but they have failed. They’ve managed to hurt Obamacare, aka The Affordable Care Act, many times, often by denying it funding at the state level or removing funding for advertising the availability of the program. Only with their Christmas Tax Scam vote have they dealt it a serious blow. But the July failure was because there were 3 republican senators who were capable of mustering some level of temporary sanity and moral bearing. While the rest of the repug senators in the building fancied themselves as carrying on and building upon the works of people like Charlie Manson or the Zodiac Killer, Senators Collins, McCain, and Murkowski said no to the republican dream of “No Chemo For You.” That the final vote was a stunner is a measure of what republicans are.

Trump didn’t stop. Next he tantrum tweeted is demand:

Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!

And, tweeted some overt threats (his caps, not mine):

If a new Healthcare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!

Señor Trumpanzee’s threat against the insurance companies would sabotage not only Obamacare, but the entire healthcare industry. This is the action of a madman intent on creating as much mayhem and death as he possibly can.

It seems that no amount of American carnage will be enough to satisfy the dreams of the raging Trumpanzee. To top it off, a few days later, in New York, Trump spoke to a confab of New York police and made his implode statement to the cheers of the police. That was especially heinous when one considers that the police Trump was speaking to, like the republican senators who repeatedly vote against Obamacare, enjoy the benefits of government health care, not only for themselves but for their families, for life. So much for the concept of “protect and serve.”

4. Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho:

“No one dies because they don’t have access to healthcare.”

When Labrador said that, it got me to thinking about other things that Republicans believe:

• Contraception does not work. No one gets pregnant from not using contraception. Only an aspirin held firmly between the knees is necessary.
• No one dies from a gun fired by a mentally ill person
• Trump is not a neo-Nazi.
• Putin, now that’s a leader and the Russian are our friends!
• There’s no need for having a woman on the panel dealing with healthcare.
• Some rape is legitimate.
• Jesus is coming tomorrow, no, wait, next week, no wait, next month, no wait…
• Voter Fraud exists on a wide scale but Election Fraud does not exist at all.
• All Syrians are terrorists by their very nature.
• There’s such a thing as corn oil so how can a flood of oil in a cornfield be bad? Pipes never leak anyway.
• Trump is not mentally ill.
• Gay conversion therapy is swell.
• Domestic violence should be strictly between one man and one woman.
• Republicans need protection from the spells of witches.
• There’s no need for a presidential candidate to release their taxes to the public.
• Tax cuts beget the tickle down.
• Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan.
• The fact that reports of Gen. Flynn’s activities have been reported in the news is more important than those activities.

5. Mike Pence, Vice President and Chief Verbal Fellator To Señor Trumpanzee

Every day Obamacare survives is another day America suffers.

Yeah, right. Asshole. No further comment necessary.

Elimination Of The Estate Tax Is All About Greedy Predators Like The Trumps, Nothing About Iowa Family Farms

The earliest inheritance tax I could find was a 5% levy on inheritances of estates that went to people other than the deceased's grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, and siblings towards the end of Augustus' reign. Receipts went to a fund to pay military retirement benefits. In the U.S. the first inheritance tax was passed in 1898-- but only 75 cents on each hundred dollars of an estate worth over $10,000. On very big estates, there were higher taxes and very wealthy people went crazy and a law suit went all the way to the Supreme Court, which found it constitutional. That hasn't stopped very wealthy people from keeping up the pressure to abolish it. Several states have done so-- including New Hampshire (2005), Utah (2005), Louisiana (2008), Indiana (2012), and several others. In Kentucky, New Jersey and Iowa they go back to the Roman idea and inheritances to spouses, parents, children, grandchildren and siblings are exempt. And... speaking of Iowa, over the weekend Des Moines Register reporter Jason Noble took a look at how the estate tax abolition being pushed so hard by Trump and the Republicans has virtually no impact on farms in Iowa. As he wrote, "If the tax reform packages that have now passed the U.S. House and Senate become law, at least one thing appears likely: The federal estate tax will be slashed and perhaps eliminated altogether. That will represent a victory for Republicans in Iowa’s congressional delegation, who have consistently opposed the tax and argued it unfairly lumps in the state’s farmers with some of the country’s richest families. But a review of federal tax data and nonpartisan research on the subject shows that family farmers and small business owners represent a tiny share of estate tax payers, and that the taxes they owe rarely force them to sell land or quit farming. The number of Iowans paying the estate tax actually numbers in the dozens each year, out of roughly 1.4 million who file federal tax returns each year. IRS data from the last five years shows the number of Iowa taxpayers owing estate taxes ranged from 32 in 2012 to 61 in 2015, and that the vast majority of those probably were not farmers or small business owners."

Austin Frerick is the progressive Democrat running for the Iowa seat that includes Des Moines-- and a lot of farm country all the way to Council Bluffs, the Omaha suburbs and the Nebraska border. "Rep. Young repealed the estate tax for his robber baron donors," he told us flatly today. "Plain and simple. He'll tell you its to save family farms but that just aint true. After searching for 35 years for 1 example of a family farm that was lost due to the estate tax, Iowa State Professor Neil Harl stated simply, “It’s a myth."  Only 44 Iowans paid the estate tax in 2016. I'm running to end this 2nd Gilded Age and reinstate the estate tax."

Despite that evidence, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a member of the tax-writing Finance Committee in the Senate, has long presented the estate tax as a potentially ruinous burden on farmers and small business owners.

“The federal estate tax may force family members to liquidate to pay the death tax,” Grassley said in a statement released earlier this year. “It’s harder than ever for families to pass down the family-run farm or business from one generation to the next. The death tax creates financial hardship for family businesses to survive and thrive.”

The estate tax is a 40 percent tax on wealth assessed when a person dies, and currently is applied to assets above $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples. The House and Senate bills double those exemptions to $11 million and $22 million, and the House version abolishes the tax completely in 2024.

  In a statement after the House bill passed, U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa’s ag-heavy 4th District, cheered the changes, arguing the estate tax “often falls hardest on family-owned farms and small businesses.”

Likewise, U.S. Rep. David Young, a Republican whose district includes the Des Moines metro, has highlighted changes to what Republicans often call the “death tax.”

In a newsletter sent on Friday, Young called it a "myth" that "repealing the estate tax is a massive giveaway to the wealthiest Americans."

Rather, he wrote, "The estate tax (sometimes called the death tax) negatively impacts farms and businesses all over the 3rd District... Death should not be a taxable event and families should not have to fear the Internal Revenue Service and more taxes making it more difficult and costly to pass on the farm or family business to the next generation."

That view, in fact, has been a GOP talking point for a generation or more. President George W. Bush made the exact argument in 2001 when pushing tax cuts that raised the estate tax exemption and lowered rates.

“To keep farms in the family, we are going to get rid of the death tax,” Bush declared back then.

The arguments from Grassley, Young, King and others, however, don’t match the reality found in federal tax data-- particularly for Iowa.

The estate tax applies to around 5,000 taxpayers across the entire country each year, and very few of them come from Iowa. Of the Iowans subject to the tax, only a fraction are actually farmers, and a vanishingly small number of them face a tax bill requiring them to sell off farmland or other assets.

No data is available breaking down the occupations or asset types held by the Iowans subject to the estate tax. But national data shows farmers and owners of farm assets make up a tiny share of estate tax payers.

According to IRS data from 2016, just 682 tax filers in the entire country who owed estate taxes owned any farm assets. That represents about 13 percent of the 5,219 estate tax returns in which taxes were owed.

And even that figure likely overstates the number of primarily farm operations subject to the tax. A 2015 report from the Congressional Research Service projects that just 65 farm estates annually across the U.S. face an estate tax liability. Less than a quarter of these, the congressional report finds, have insufficient cash to pay their tax bills.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis published earlier this year found a somewhat higher number of farm estates owed the tax in 2016: 0.4 percent, or about 160 nationwide.

Kristine Tidgren, the assistant director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University, said she’s not aware of any Iowa estates forced to sell land since the estate tax exemption was raised to its current level in 2012.

“I haven’t come across any examples of an Iowa family that had to sell the farm to pay the estate tax,” Tidgren said. “I don’t think the current estate tax system threatens family farmers.”

The USDA report puts hard numbers to the tax liability faced by the few farms subject to the estate tax.

Operations the USDA classifies as small family farms (those with annual income under $350,000) face an average tax bill of about $620,000, or 11 percent of their total value of the estate. For mid-size farms (with annual income between $350,000 and $1 million), the average bill is $3.7 million, or about 24 percent of the estate’s value.

Tidgren said the farmers facing such a bill are typically diversified-- perhaps with an off-farm job or business and liquid assets like stocks and bonds in addition to real estate and equipment.

“With the price of land, there are some farms in Iowa that definitely have to worry about the estate tax, and they might end up having to pay some,” she said. “But generally those are larger operations and oftentimes they have other assets outside of the farm property.”

The number of small businesses impacted by the estate tax is similarly small. That same Congressional Research Service report finds about 94 estates annually that hold half or more of their assets in a small business that heirs will continue to operate after the owners die. And fewer than half of these don’t have the cash on hand to pay the tax.

All this means, in essence, is that lawmakers’ argument for abolishing a tax that generates tens of billions of dollars annually is based on the challenges faced by perhaps a few dozen farm estates and a few dozen more small businesses across the entire country.

When asked for data supporting Grassley’s view, his Senate office offered a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation, which showed that rising land values in recent years have increased the number of farms potentially subject to the estate tax.

That report found Iowa farms with as few as 625 acres-- encompassing as much as 30 percent of farms in the state-- could be subject to the tax in 2016.

This analysis overlooks key factors, however. For one, it applies an exemption level of $5 million, which is roughly the exemption for an individual. For married couples, the first $11 million in assets are exempt from the tax. Using the Farm Bureau’s analysis but applying an $11 million exemption suggests only farms with more than about 1,400 acres might face the estate tax. Ten percent or less of Iowa farms are that size.

The Farm Bureau analysis also does not account for various deductions available that can drive an estate’s taxable value below the $5 million threshold. Of the 120 Iowa taxpayers who filed an estate tax return in 2016, 118 claimed deductions and 44 actually owed taxes.

Young, King and 1st District U.S. Rep. Rod Blum voted for the House version of tax reform containing the estate tax repeal. Grassley and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst likewise voted for the Senate version, and Grassley this year co-sponsored standalone legislation to permanently abolish the estate tax.

And like he said, Austin Frerick has included reinstating the estate tax as part of his platform. If you'd like to support his campaign, you can contribute here. It isn't a statement the DCCC encourages it's corporate shill candidates to make-- and I doubt any would. In the Washington Post article Frerick cited above, Wonewoc, Wisconsin organic dairy farmer Jim Goodman wrote that the Republican myth being perpetrated by Grassley, Young and the rest of them "is a sales pitch, nothing more, again capitalizing on that mystique of the family farm that people hold so dear. Getting rid of the estate tax is a gift to the very rich, not to farmers. As the old saying goes, ask a farmer what they would do if they won a million dollars: Keep farming till it ran out. While estate taxes are not a threat to the family farm, we face plenty of other challenges. But you’ll never see politicians tackle the greatest threat to the family farmer: unfairly low prices for our products... The U.S. agricultural economy has and always will be designed to ensure corporate agribusiness profits at the expense of farmers and consumers. We, the farmers, will of course, be expected to remain silent, work harder and avoid dissent in a nation ruled by an administration that will not tolerate dissent. The nostalgia and fascination with the family farm is gratifying for those of us who still run a family farm, but sadly that doesn’t help pay the bills. In time, the family farm will exist only in nostalgic illustrations on milk cartons at the supermarket, and in the false promises of politicians."

Trump & Paris Hilton-- this is who the estate tax is for