Bernie Is An Existential Threat To The Personal Class Interests Of The 1%-- They Will Never Support Him And He Doesn't Want Their Support

A new Economist/YouGov poll, out yesterday, shows Bernie with his first national double digit lead in their extensive surveys of American voters.

• Bernie- 30%
• Status Quo Joe- 20%
• Elizabeth- 16%
• Bloomberg- 11%
• Mayo Pete- 9%
• Klobuchar- 4%
• Tulsi- 4%
• Steyer- 1%

The poll also shows there are two candidates who large pluralities of Democrats do not want to see as the nominee-- Bloomberg (44%) and Tulsi (43%). When asked who could probably beat Trump, Democrats thought Bernie's the most likely.

Just as Pelosi was telling reporters that she is comfortable with Bernie as a potential nominee and that she doesn't think he would jeopardize the House majority, the NY Times published corporate shill Thomas Friedman's latest anti-Bernie screed favoring the status quo, the plaintive whine of the economic royalists. "If this election turns out to be just between a self-proclaimed socialist and an undiagnosed sociopath, we will be in a terrible, terrible place as a country. How do we prevent that? That’s all I am thinking about right now. My short answer is that the Democrats have to do something extraordinary-- forge a national unity ticket the likes of which they have never forged before. And that’s true even if Democrats nominate someone other than Bernie Sanders."

The South Carolina debate was too horrible to write about. All you had to know was that the Democratic Party sold all the tickets for between $1,750 dollars to $3,200 to understand why it was such an anti-Bernie/anti-Elizabeth audience, booing and screaming like animals-- the Bloomberg Bros in action. And speaking of Bloomberg, one of the debate "highlights" came from an oligarch slip of the tongue... "All of the new Democrats that came in and put Nancy Pelosi in charge and gave the Congress the ability to control this president, I bough... I, I got them."

Well, Bloomberg didn't buy them all of course, but he did buy the ones who vote like Republicans. The one he's 100% responsible for-- literally she would NOT have won without Bloomberg money's last minute sneak attack-- was Oklahoma Blue Dog Kendra Horn. Horn beat GOP incumbent Steve Russell 121,149 (50.7%) to 117,811 (49.3%). Russell won massively in Pottawatomie and Seminole counties but in Oklahoma City, Horn scraped by and that's where most of the voters live. Horn out-spent Russell $1,184,294 to $885,831. But what won the election for her was a last minute $430,481 independent expenditure (TV advertising) by Bloomberg's Independence USA PAC. This was the Bloomberg ad that inundated Oklahoma City TV the week before the election, which had nothing to do with Congress, that killed Russell's reelection chances:





Horn, of course, m immediately started voting with Republicans against anything and everything that smacked of progressivism. Within a month of being sworn in, she already had an "F" rated voted record! Today there are only 2 Democrats-- fellow Blue Dogs Anthony Brindisi and Joe Cunningham-- who have worse records! Since getting into Congress, she's voted more conservatively than conservative Republican Thomas Massie and her record is more similar to Republican Brian Fitzpatrick's than it is to even almost any Blue Dog other than Brindisi and Cunningham. The Democratic Party would absolutely be better off without her. To Horn, union organizing and raising the minimum wage are communism.

In 2016 Bernie won the Oklahoma primary 174,054 (51.9%) to 139,338 (41.5%). But Bernie didn't just win in Oklahoma, he got more votes than Ted Cruz, who won the GOP primary and more votes than Trump (130,141), who came in second. As you know Trump went on to eviscerate Hillary in the general-- 65.3% to 28.9%. Needless to say, while Oklahomans were voting for Bernie and for change, Horn was fighting with all her Blue Dog strength to back Hillary and the status quo. A week or so after the election in 2018, when I covered Horn's shocking win, I noted that "there was no blue wave in Oklahoma. Democrats did badly in virtually every race but the stunning OK-05 Oklahoma victory. They lost a net of 3 seats in the state House, where there are now 76 Republicans and only 25 Democrats. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Drew Edmondson carried only 4 of 77 counties, but one was Oklahoma County which makes up 90% of CD-05. Although he lost the state by a 12 margin, he carried Oklahoma County by the same margin. His coattails did wonders for Horn, who carried Oklahoma County by a 2% margin. She sounds exactly like someone who will go straight to the backbenches, make no impact and be defeated in the next red wave, if not before."




Bloomberg's Independence USA PAC spent $38,123,497 bolstering Democrats in 2018 and not a nickel was spent on a progressive. Bloomberg was lying when he said he elected 40 members. 21 of the candidates he spent money on won. Only 2 of the 21 don't have "F" scores. These were the House races where they spent:

• Katie Hill (New Dem-CA)- $5,096,135 -- F
• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- $4,459,937 -- F
• Kim Schrier (New Dem-WA)- $2,910,081 -- F
• Steve Horsford (New Dem-NV)- $2,834,051 -- F
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MN)- $2,433,181 -- F
• Haley Stevens- (New Dem-MI)- $2,220,429 -- F
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)- $2,219,630 -- F
• Lauren Underwood (D-IL)- $2,159,925 -- F
• Jennifer Wexton (New Dem-VA)- $1,711,024 -- F
• Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)- $130,000 (+ $1,256,262 from Bloomberg's anti-gun PAC) -- F
• Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)- $1,453,541 -- F
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)- $1,335,517 -- F
• Lizzie Fletcher (New Dem-TX)- $1,320,323 -- F
• Mike Levin (D-CA)- $1,061,877 -- C
• Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)- $999,171 -- F
• Kendra Horn- (Blue Dog-OK)- $430,481 -- F
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- $244,583 -- F
• Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)- $130,879 -- F
• Chrissy Houlahan (Blue Dog-PA)- $212,766 -- F
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- $646,755 -- F
• Donna Shalala (New Dem-FL)- $162,289 -- C

• Nancy Soderberg (FL)- $1,624,107-- Lost
• Carolyn Long (WA)- $1,260,858-- Lost
• Carolyn Bourdeaux- $1,050,921-- Lost

Bloomberg and his sleazy PAC didn't help any of the good freshmen of course-- none of the ones with "A"- or even"B"-rated voting records like AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Andy Levin, Ilhan Omar, Chuy Garcia, Mary Gay Scanlon, Veronica Escobar, Sylvia Garcia, Deb Haaland, Madeleine Dean, Jahana Hayes... So when he said "all," he was lying, as he tends to do in a very Trumpian mode, the way entitled billionaires always lie. And when he said he bought 40, he was also lying. He only bought half that number. The shitty candidates in red are the ones who have already endorsed Bloomberg by the way.

"...As We Sleepwalk Our Way Towards The Most Predictable Financial Crisis In The History Of Man"

There wasn't a policy of his I ever agreed with when Sanford was a congressman the first time, nor while he was governor, nor when he rejoined Congress. And I still don't. When he hits on a truth-- example: Trump is a shit head who is wrecking our country-- his analysis is never correct. Same goes for shit-for-brains professional centrist and NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman. His latest column-- with the click-bait title ‘Trump’s Going to Get Re-elected, Isn’t He?'-- is little more than a gussied up neo-liberal plea for "serious" Democrats and #NeverTrumpers to nominate anyone but Bernie.

Friedman and his wealthy circle were horrified in June when Democratic presidential candidates talked about fundamentally changing the system that has been so very good to those, like Friedman, in the top 1%. Status Quo Joe was tailor-made for Friedman. If he didn't already exist, they would have to create him-- or draft Gina Raimondo, the neoliberal Wall Street shill from Rhode Island. He's their man. And if he wasn't before-- all those decades of racism can be embarrassing to pretend liberals-- those comments about how "nothing would fundamentally change" clinched it.

I was shocked that so many candidates in the party whose nominee I was planning to support want to get rid of the private health insurance covering some 250 million Americans and have “Medicare for all” instead. I think we should strengthen Obamacare and eventually add a public option.

I was shocked that so many were ready to decriminalize illegal entry into our country. I think people should have to ring the doorbell before they enter my house or my country.

I was shocked at all those hands raised in support of providing comprehensive health coverage to undocumented immigrants. I think promises we’ve made to our fellow Americans should take priority, like to veterans in need of better health care.

And I was shocked by how feeble was front-runner Joe Biden’s response to the attack from Kamala Harris-- and to the more extreme ideas promoted by those to his left.

So, I wasn’t surprised to hear so many people expressing fear that the racist, divisive, climate-change-denying, woman-abusing jerk who is our president was going to get re-elected, and was even seeing his poll numbers rise.

Dear Democrats: This is not complicated! Just nominate a decent, sane person, one committed to reunifying the country and creating more good jobs, a person who can gain the support of the independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women who abandoned Donald Trump in the midterms and thus swung the House of Representatives to the Democrats and could do the same for the presidency. And that candidate can win!

But please, spare me the revolution! It can wait. Win the presidency, hold the House and narrow the spread in the Senate, and a lot of good things still can be accomplished. “No,” you say, “the left wants a revolution now!” O.K., I’ll give the left a revolution now: four more years of Donald Trump.




That will be a revolution.

Four years of Trump feeling validated in all the crazy stuff he’s done and said. Four years of Trump unburdened by the need to run for re-election and able to amplify his racism, make Ivanka secretary of state, appoint even more crackpots to his cabinet and likely get to name two right-wing Supreme Court justices under the age of 40.

Yes sir, that will be a revolution!

It will be an overthrow of all the norms, values, rules and institutions that we cherish, that made us who we are and that have united us in this common project called the United States of America.

If the fear of that doesn’t motivate the Democratic Party’s base, then shame on those people. Not all elections are equal. Some elections are a vote for great changes-- like the Great Society. Others are a vote to save the country. This election is the latter.

That doesn’t mean a Democratic candidate should stand for nothing, just keep it simple: Focus on building national unity and good jobs.

I say national unity because many Americans are terrified and troubled by how bitterly divided, and therefore paralyzed, the country has become. There is an opening for a unifier.

And I say good jobs because when the wealth of the top 1 percent equals that of the bottom 90 percent, we do have to redivide the pie. I favor raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to subsidize universal pre-K education and to reduce the burden of student loans. Let’s give kids a head start and college grads a fresh start.

But I’m disturbed that so few of the Democratic candidates don’t also talk about growing the pie, let alone celebrating American entrepreneurs and risk-takers. Where do they think jobs come from?

The winning message is to double down on redividing the pie in ways that give everyone an opportunity for a slice while also growing the pie sustainably.

Trump is growing the pie by cannibalizing the future. He is creating a growth spurt by building up enormous financial and carbon debts that our kids will pay for.

Democrats should focus on how we create sustainable wealth and good jobs, which is the American public-private partnership model: Government enriches the soil and entrepreneurs grow the companies.

It has always been what’s made us rich, and we’ve drifted away from it: investing in quality education and basic scientific research; promulgating the right laws and regulations to incentivize risk-taking and prevent recklessness and monopolies that can cripple free markets; encouraging legal immigration of both high-energy and high-I.Q. foreigners; and building the world’s best enabling infrastructure-- ports, roads, bandwidth and basic social safety nets.

Ask Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island’s governor, and my kind of Democrat.

And Biden's kind of running mate... if they're going to force him to pick a girl? Literally a Blue state Republican who calls herself a Democrat because of abortion and for no other reason whatsoever. She may be Thomas Friedman's-- and other neo-liberals'-- wet dream, but I can't think of many Democrats less fit for the presidency than Joe Biden... but Gina Raimondo, who nearly ran until she did the polling, is certainly one of them. Andrew Cuomo too.

Meanwhile the big-money Democratic funders have made their decision about who to back. As anyone would have guessed, they've always wanted Status Quo Joe and have banked on McKinsey Pete in case-- as is likely-- Biden self-destructs. And then there's Kamala, another one who has always been on good terns with the very wealthy. These bundlers raised tens of millions of dollars for Clinton and for Obama and now are just thinking about one thing: stopping the one candidate who is for fundamental; change. Career-long Wall Street shills Booker, Gllibrand and Klobuchar have also done very well. They usually give to multiple candidates...but not Bernie.

Politico looked at 1,923 big donors and bundlers who gave to Obama and Hillary. Give to anyone you want at the DWT thermometer on the right. Here's how the money flowed in terms of the number of big donors and fundraisers:

• Status Quo Joe- 253
• Kamala Harris- 246
• McKiney Pete- 224
• Cory Booker- 152
• Amy Klobuchar- 113
• Gillibrand- 106
• Beto- 60
• Michael Bennet- 48
• Jay Inslee- 46
• Bullock- 42
• Frackenlooper- 39
• Elizabeth Warren- 39
• Castro- 19
• Delaney- 15
• Moulton- 12
• Tim Ryan- 11
• de Blasio- 7
• Eric Swalwell- 7
• Marianne Williamson- 5
• Andrew Yang- 4
• Bernie- 4
• Tulsi- 2

One of them, obviously delusional, said, with a straight face, "Electability is the most important thing. We just want a candidate that can beat Trump. You invest in candidates that are delivering as a candidate, or that polling tells you has a good shot to beat Trump."

Is Trump A Russian Agent? Sounds Crazy!

White House President Stephen Miller has no problem with a long, long government shutdown. Neither does Trump's base. Jennifer Epstein at Bloomberg News reported that "Negotiations are at a standstill and no more talks are scheduled for the weekend or early next week. The White House scuttled efforts to reach a deal on Capitol Hill on Thursday, and Trump’s budget team is drawing up contingency plans for a shutdown that extends through the end of February, according to an administration official... An attempt Thursday by moderate Republican senators to broker a deal that would have traded immigration protections for undocumented “Dreamers” brought to the U.S. as children in return for wall money collapsed after Vice President Mike Pence rejected it." And extremists are demanding Trump declare a probably unconstitutional state of emergency and just build the wall with funds earmarked by Congress for amelioration of disasters in Puerto Rico and northern California.

On Friday, Thomas Friedman was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. He made the point that although Trump has "formal authority," he has "no moral authority... When you have a president with no moral authority, when it comes to a crisis... no one trusts this man; no one believes a word out of his mouth anymore... He started with the B-team. A lot of the B-team left. Now's he's got the C-team. And if we face a crisis with a president who no one believes, who surrounded by a C-team in a dysfunctional White House, then God save us... We have a core problem: we have a president without shame who is backed by a party without spine that is supported by a network called Fox News without integrity. And a president without shame, backed by a party without spine and a network that amplifies it without integrity-- and we face a crisis?-- fasten your seatbelt."



Friedman concluded, "We have a disturbed man as president; that's very clear. And we have a party that is not ready to stand up to it... When he lies, day after day, and you as a party say nothing, what do you think is the corrosive impact of that over time?"

Maybe worse than just "disturbed." He absolutely flipped out this morning over the FBI probe of him as a Russian agent. The NY Times story seems to have driven him bonkers. "In the days after President Trump fired James Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests... The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence...The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice."

Historian Jon Meacham told Brian Williams on MSNBC: "We’ve really never had-- and if we have, it’s classified and lost to history at least so far-- a president of the United States who is considered to be possibly an asset of a foreign government. This is what the founders were worried about in the 1790s." Meacham identified Robert Mueller and Chief Justice John Roberts as the two most important individuals in the country.

YES, IT'S TREASON

Lenin-Trump Doctrine by Chip Proser

According to the law, the federal crime of treason is committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who... adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” Misprision (abetting) of treason is committed if a person “having knowledge of the commission of treason conceals and does not disclose” the crime."

Trump has certainly captured more than a quick news cycle. His treason on TV-- who ever heard of that-- isn't going away soon. Even before the Helsinki thing happened, Ryan Lizza, in an essay, Vanishing Point for Esquire focussed in on one of the key questions: "As the GOP increasingly comes to resemble a personality cult, is there any red line-- video tapes? DNA evidence? a war with Germany-- President Trump could cross and lose party support? 'Very doubtful,' say a dozen GOP members of Congress stuck hard behind the MAGA eight ball."

Mark Sanford (R-SC) went out of his way to say-- and seemingly out of the blue-- that he's not comparing Trump to Hitler, which is exactly what he was doing. "Like any good conservative," wrote Lizza, "Sanford has studied and reveres Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, the philosopher-economist’s 1944 account of how dictators take over democracies. Sanford is "worried about America’s political dysfunction, Trump’s 'strongman' affinities, and where that combination could lead. He also brings up the fall of Athenian democracy. 'In part this is not a new movie,' he concluded. 'This is a replaying of a script that’s played throughout the ages, but with incredibly ominous possibilities if we don’t recognize the dangers of the themes that are now at play within American society.'"

Right after the press conference former CIA director John Brennan said flatly that the event was "nothing short of treasonous." When have you seen a tweet like this before?

Brennan, as you know, never worked for Trump. Dan Coats does. Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, was appointed by Trump to be Director of National Intelligence, in other words, the guy who oversees all the U.S. intelligence services. After Trump said he believes in the Russian intelligence services as much as the U.S. intelligence services. This is what the idiot blurted out: "My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others. They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia." Coats' reply:

The role of the Intelligence Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the President and policymakers. We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.

He didn't offer an opinion on whether or not Trump is a Russian operative and if he's guilty of treason. But what do you call this that Trump babbled yesterday? "I don’t see any reason why it would be Russia who hacked the opposition party. I have great confidence in my intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."

I wonder what Leonard Lance (NJ) will say. He was one of the only Republican congressmen Ryan Lizza found who was-- on the record-- willing to say there is a red line for him over which Trump could not cross and still expect his support: "Personal collusion by Trump with the Russians during the campaign."

Conservative Trump critics fear becoming the next Sanford and stay quiet—what Flake and others call the “don’t poke the bear” mind-set. Meanwhile, many of the moderate anti-Trump Republicans are leaving office. Congressman Ryan Costello, a Republican from Pennsylvania who decided to quit (redistricting gave him a bluer constituency), said, “If I were running for reelection, every single time that I saw on the TV screen that the president was going to hold another rally, I’d be like, ‘Oh, fuck!’ Because he’s going to say fifty things that aren’t accurate.”

Sanford has started to think seriously about what he should do now to contain the forces he says Trump has unleashed. “I came back to Congress worried primarily about debt, deficit, and government spending,” he told me. “This thing, though, given my own personal experiences, has begun to crowd into that space, to say this is a bigger and more clear and present danger to the republic than even the debt and the deficit that I thought was the end of the world.”

I asked Sanford: If he really believed what he said about Trump, shouldn’t he too support a Democratic takeover of the House or Senate? He paused for a long time, perhaps wondering how Friedrich Hayek might answer.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I mean, everybody’s going to come up with their own remedy as to what you do next. I wouldn’t say that’s mine.”

But he wouldn’t rule it out.

“I’m not there at this point,” he said. “Let me just take one day at a time.”

Thomas Friedman is pulling his hair out of his head: Trump and Putin vs. America. Is that not an accusation of treason? "My fellow Americans," he wrote, "we are in trouble and we have some big decisions to make today. This was a historic moment in the entire history of the United States."

There is overwhelming evidence that our president, for the first time in our history, is deliberately or through gross negligence or because of his own twisted personality engaged in treasonous behavior-- behavior that violates his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump vacated that oath today, and Republicans can no longer run and hide from that fact. Every single Republican lawmaker will be-- and should be-- asked on the election trail: Are you with Trump and Putin or are you with the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A.?

...Putin unleashed a cyberattack on America’s electoral process, aimed at both electing Trump-- with or without Trump’s collusion-- and sowing division among American citizens.

Our intelligence agencies have no doubt about this: Last week, America’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, described Putin’s cybercampaign as one designed “to exploit America’s openness in order to undermine our long-term competitive advantage.” Coats added that America’s digital infrastructure “is literally under attack,” adding that there was “no question” that Russia was the “most aggressive foreign actor.”

I am not given to conspiracy theories, but I cannot help wondering if the first thing Trump said to Putin in their private one-on-one meeting in Helsinki, before their aides were allowed to enter, was actually: “Vladimir, we’re still good, right? You and me, we’re still good?”

And that Putin answered: “Donald, you have nothing to worry about. Just keep being yourself. We’re still good.”

I guess when he eventually needs to, Trump can fly off to Moscow and ask for asylum-- though not soon enough for me or anyone I know. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan wants to be really clear-- wellllll.... he wants to be clear enough to not cause a landslide against Republicans in November, but not clear enough to anger Señor Trumpanzee:

Rage And The Malignant Narcissist-- When And How Is Trump Going To Blow?

by Helen Klein

Unfortunately, it is time to refocus on this subject: it is urgent.

The wagons are circling around Trump, and Mueller is closing in. This week’s reveals have been especially astounding, although this has seemed to be the case almost every week for the past year. And now, experts in the media (i.e., the “real” news) are suggesting that Mueller might be taking a pass on obstruction charges and aiming straight for conspiracy to defraud the USA. Wow.

While the psychological aspects of Trump have been described in depth and ad nauseum, unfortunately, it is now time to revisit this subject to remind everyone of who we’re dealing with and what’s at stake. His longstanding mental disturbance and his lifetime modus operandi of threats, bullying and disregard for the law have been alarming at best and horrifying at worst. Those traits will be front and center as he reacts to being cornered and increasingly isolated.

In the February 2012 issue of Psychology Today, Mark Goulston wrote, Rage, Coming Soon From a Narcissist Near You. Although the article focuses on narcissists in personal relationships, there are some noteworthy points.

Hell hath no fury or contempt as a narcissist you dare to disagree with, tell they’re wrong, or embarrass. (O)ne thing most people are in agreement about is that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of them. Why is that? It’s because there is a belief (correct or not) that if you do, they are capable of a rage (even if it doesn’t cross over into violence) that is chilling.

Goulston reviews some characteristic traits of narcissists:

• Control freaks
• Irritability
• Short fuses
• Low frustration tolerance
• Argumentative
• Need to have the last word
• Unable to lose
• Won’t take “No” for an answer
• Quick to anger if you don’t accommodate them
• Quick to being aggressively defensive if you call them on any deficiency, fault or responsibility
• Can’t apologize or if do, can’t do it sincerely
• Rarely say, “Thank you” or “Congratulations”
• Don’t feel or demonstrate remorse
• Feel entitled to enthusiastic and appreciative approval, adoration, agreement and obedience
• Gloat in victory, sullen in defeat
• Quick to rage if you humiliate them

Does Trump exhibit many if not all of these traits?

What is the connection between narcissism and rage?

There is a saying that when you’re a hammer the world looks like a nail.  When you’re a narcissist, the world looks like it should approve, adore, agree and obey you. Anything less than that feels like an assault and because of that a narcissist feels justified in raging back at it.

What is really at the core of narcissists is an instability in their ability to feel and sustain feeling bigger, larger, smarter and more successful than everyone else which they need to feel stable… “(T)he narcissist doth brag, scorn, talk down, primp and belittle too much” in order to continually prove to the world and themselves that they are larger than life.  This is not to increase their self-esteem as much as it is to continually spackle the holes in their core that lead to a feeling of instability—and that, if not spackled, will lead to brittleness followed by fragmentation.

Narcissistic rage occurs when that core instability is threatened and furthermore threatened to destabilize them even further.  Not unlike a wounded animal being the most vicious (because they think the next wound would kill them), narcissistic rage occurs when narcissists believe the next insult/assault to their grandiose based stability would shatter them.

Trump’s core is being threatened. Mueller’s assault has the potential of shattering him.



Trump is increasingly isolated

Trump no longer has a sycophantic staff surrounding him to stroke his fragile ego. Hope Hicks, one of his primary loyalists and hand holders, has just jumped ship. If she has any sense and follows legal advice, she will avoid further communication with the White House and be unavailable to Trump: she may well be wrapped up in obstruction charges and facing considerable legal ramifications. Only Jarvanka remain and they are preoccupied with their own legal and financial troubles: they have little time to hold their patriarch’s hand. They will be further exposed to the media by the coming departure of Josh Raffel, who has been serving primarily as a spokesperson for Jarvanka’s initiatives in the White House. Jared is vulnerable to major criminal charges. His family is buried in debt and it is becoming increasingly clear that he has been using the White House as his own personal office to conduct family business on a grand scale. He (and Trump) appear to be using government policy for their own ends. What are the chances that over a HALF BILLION in loans to his family’s business are unrelated to any quid pro quo? Virtually nil. Jared is also under the microscope and in Mueller’s sights for his contacts with Russians. Furthermore, Ivanka is now under suspicion for her own business dealings in China. Who is left close to Trump on a daily basis willing to soothe and sweet talk him, tell “white lies” for him and distract him from reality? John Kelly does not have a nurturing side.

The mass exodus from the White House continues. Since it is well known that a number of those departed have potential criminal charges hanging over the heads and have taken on the extremely high costs of legal representation, who would agree to replace any of them? Is there anyone out there willing to provide the absolute loyalty Trump craves but does not return? At this stage of the game, you would have to be a complete fool without an ounce of self-preservation to take on any role in the White House.

Trump is increasingly cornered

Mueller has been brilliant in making the case for Russian interference in the 2016 election. There is no longer any doubt about their efforts to use our own media to sway the public in Trump’s favor. Now Mueller appears to be going after the Russians for hacking our systems and distributing the information obtained to humiliate the Democrats and Hillary. Next on his agenda would be zeroing in on Americans who may have been involved. What did Trump’s campaign staff, associates, family members, and finally, Trump himself, know about these efforts and what support and/or bona fide assistance did they provide to the Russians?

Evidence is emerging in these areas and it does not bode well for Trump and his crew. Mueller now has Gates singing like a bird and he surely knows a great deal of the inner workings of the campaign and transition. Manafort is looking at decades of prison time, although he continues to hold steady with his denials and seems to be holding out for a Presidential pardon. Hicks was present for all of it and she may have to spill some beans to protect herself. When recently sharing that she may work on her memoirs, she alluded to having a diary for reference-- if so, Mueller will subpoena the diary. Mark Corallo, the lawyer who quit the White House due to concerns about possible obstruction, is talking to Mueller. It has been reported that during a conference call Corallo had with Hicks and Trump, Hicks stated “the emails will never get out” about the Donald Jr. meeting with the Russians, although Donald Jr. soon made them public. This conversation brings Trump right into the heart of the matter-- it implies he was aware of the meeting and the aim to obtain Russian assistance with the election.

Just yesterday out of the blue Trump announced his decision to tax steel and aluminum. Apparently, he did this on his own: he took media organizations and interest groups by surprise and shocked many in the White House. As a result, the stock market dropped steeply by hundreds of points. Trump has no clue nor does he care one whit about the consequences of his actions. IT IS ALWAYS ALL ABOUT HIM. He listens to no one. His motivation for this announcement was likely to express his rage about recent events as well as to provide a distraction from the Mueller investigation. Will he keep his word? Probably not if his behavior with DACA and guns is any guide. He just throws out statements to stir things up and create havoc. He likes “to see what happens.” Trump has shown a lack of concern about following through with anything (other than personal vindictiveness, for which he has a long memory.) He does not really consider the future: he is always “in the moment.”

The Mueller saga is gathering speed and closing in. The headlights of conspiracy are getting brighter and are now appear to be focusing on Trump himself. He must realize that he is in great danger. His support system has been shredded. He has alienated and frightened off many of those around him.

As a Narcissist, receiving admiration and being in control are central to Trump’s make-up. Yet he is now is facing utmost humiliation and ruin. How would Trump, a classic Narcissist and a malignant one, react emotionally? What would he do?

Rage

Rage is the end all be all for a Narcissist. Explosive, uncontrollable rage in its primitive element. Vindictive lashing out may well be next on the Trump agenda and the severity will be “yuge.” There is virtually no one near him to ameliorate his reactions and he does not listen to advice anyway. Who will get the brunt of his rage? Trump has shown that he does not mince words or actions: he has always come on with brutal force with little regard for the consequences. Given the tremendous power he holds in his hands and has continued to use without reservation, along with his bold defiance of norms, ethics and laws, I fear the victims will be our entire country and the world.

The old cold war already seems to be heating up again, with Putin’s recent speech describing their arsenal of new nuclear weapons and a visual depiction of them heading toward Florida. Was this a direct threat to Trump? One would assume this was at least one aspect of his intent. How much debt and dirt do the Russians really hold over Trump’s head? It must be “yuge.” Certainly Putin is pressuring Trump, and tightening the screws. This is another extreme stress point for him that should not be underestimated.

As his rage builds, Trump may well go after Sessions, Rosenstein and Mueller. All restraints will be off. What would he have to lose? Consequences be damned! However, for all of his “You’re fired!” on television, Trump has revealed himself to be a coward in firing anyone directly. Who knows if he will be able to pressure one of his team to do so for him (this has been unsuccessful before with McGahn). Will Trump actually harness the chutzpah to fire Sessions himself?

The most frightening possibility is that Trump will start a war and/or drop a nuke somewhere in the world, such as North Korea, to attempt to rally support and distract from Mueller. From a psychological perspective, this is a possible scenario. He had no qualms about being quick to start a trade war. Real war would be the obvious next step.

What will Trump do when his core is on the cusp of being shattered? If he is to go down, why not burn the whole building down?

Congress should IMMEDIATELY pass a bill to place limits on the authority to use nuclear weapons. There have already been such bills presented, such as one by Congressman Ted Lieu, but nothing has been done due to Republican resistance: they continue to support and protect Trump. Trump is now a clear and present danger but the Republicans continue to refuse to lift a finger.

In a February 18 editorial in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman described Donald Trump’s presidency as at the “code red” level: “The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.”



Impeachment hearings should proceed immediately. There is certainly enough evidence at this point. Just imagine if a Democrat had done a hundredth of what Trump has done. Every day that Trump remains in office is a danger to our country. Potential damage looms on many fronts. The Democrats should be screaming in the media. Why aren’t they making their voices louder and heard by the entire country? Are they worried about being viewed as “partisan?” If so, they should get over it and stand up for our democracy and our safety.

The Republicans must be held responsible and accountable. The Founding Fathers delineated separation of powers for strong reasons but they did not foresee that the Legislative Branch would sit on its hands while the Executive Branch went wild and colluded with a foreign power to destroy our democracy. This was unimaginable to them. And yet, here we are. The Republican controlled House and Senate have done NOTHING to stop him. If anything, they have colluded to obstruct the investigation that may well be Trump’s downfall. And hopefully theirs. That is, if we survive Trump’s rage long enough to get to November 2018 and the Russians do not interfere with the election and manipulate the results.

Thomas Friedman-- The Bride Stripped Bare

Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, recently described NY Times proud neo-liberal columnist Thomas Friedman as "the U.S.-affiliated atrocity apologist columnist of last resort. In case of emergency, break glass. Can't get anyone else to be an apologist for this U.S.-affiliated atrocity? Call Thomas Friedman. That Time Tom Friedman said the Iraq War was All About Telling Muslims "To Suck. On. This.. Thomas Friedman, Iraq war booster... Thomas Friedman Can't Stop Comparing Afghanistan to a "Special Needs Baby".

The guy has always been a fucking idiot-- but, like Paul Ryan until the last couple of years-- the Beltway punditocracy has created a myth that he has a clue what he's talking about. His new column, romanticizing Saudi Arabia's newest despot, is beyond contemptible. Kidding ass in Riyadh, he wrote that he never thought he’d "live long enough to write this sentence: The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that right. Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style." I knew I should have turned the page at that point but... you know how hard is to take your eyes off a smoldering car wreck. Everything he wrote about one of the most corrupt places on earth is just flat out wrong-- to the point that almost makes me wonder if the Saudis gave him something (cash? a drug? a night in a harem?)

Unlike the other Arab Springs-- all of which emerged bottom up and failed miserably, except in Tunisia-- this one is led from the top down by the country’s 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and, if it succeeds, it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success-- but only a fool would not root for it.

To better understand it I flew to Riyadh to interview the crown prince, known as “M.B.S.,” who had not spoken about the extraordinary events here of early November, when his government arrested scores of Saudi princes and businessmen on charges of corruption and threw them into a makeshift gilded jail-- the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton-- until they agreed to surrender their ill-gotten gains. You don’t see that every day.

We met at night at his family’s ornate adobe-walled palace in Ouja, north of Riyadh. M.B.S. spoke in English, while his brother, Prince Khalid, the new Saudi ambassador to the U.S., and several senior ministers shared different lamb dishes and spiced the conversation. After nearly four hours together, I surrendered at 1:15 a.m. to M.B.S.’s youth, pointing out that I was exactly twice his age. It’s been a long, long time, though, since any Arab leader wore me out with a fire hose of new ideas about transforming his country.

We started with the obvious question: What’s happening at the Ritz? And was this his power play to eliminate his family and private sector rivals before his ailing father, King Salman, turns the keys of the kingdom over to him?



It’s “ludicrous,” he said, to suggest that this anticorruption campaign was a power grab. He pointed out that many prominent members of the Ritz crowd had already publicly pledged allegiance to him and his reforms, and that “a majority of the royal family” is already behind him. This is what happened, he said: “Our country has suffered a lot from corruption from the 1980s until today. The calculation of our experts is that roughly 10 percent of all government spending was siphoned off by corruption each year, from the top levels to the bottom. Over the years the government launched more than one ‘war on corruption’ and they all failed. Why? Because they all started from the bottom up.”

So when his father, who has never been tainted by corruption charges during his nearly five decades as governor of Riyadh, ascended to the throne in 2015 (at a time of falling oil prices), he vowed to put a stop to it all, M.B.S. said:

“My father saw that there is no way we can stay in the G-20 and grow with this level of corruption. In early 2015, one of his first orders to his team was to collect all the information about corruption-- at the top. This team worked for two years until they collected the most accurate information, and then they came up with about 200 names.”

When all the data was ready, the public prosecutor, Saud al-Mojib, took action, M.B.S. said, explaining that each suspected billionaire or prince was arrested and given two choices: “We show them all the files that we have and as soon as they see those about 95 percent agree to a settlement,” which means signing over cash or shares of their business to the Saudi state treasury.

“About 1 percent,” he added, “are able to prove they are clean and their case is dropped right there. About 4 percent say they are not corrupt and with their lawyers want to go to court. Under Saudi law, the public prosecutor is independent. We cannot interfere with his job-- the king can dismiss him, but he is driving the process... We have experts making sure no businesses are bankrupted in the process”-- to avoid causing unemployment.

“How much money are they recovering?” I asked.

The public prosecutor says it could eventually “be around $100 billion in settlements,” said M.B.S.

There is no way, he added, to root out all corruption from top to the bottom, “So you have to send a signal, and the signal going forward now is, ‘You will not escape.’ And we are already seeing the impact,” like people writing on social media, “I called my middle man and he doesn’t answer.” Saudi business people who paid bribes to get services done by bureaucrats are not being prosecuted, explained M.B.S. “It’s those who shook the money out of the government”-- by overcharging and getting kickbacks.

The stakes are high for M.B.S. in this anticorruption drive. If the public feels that he is truly purging corruption that was sapping the system and doing so in a way that is transparent and makes clear to future Saudi and foreign investors that the rule of law will prevail, it will really instill a lot of new confidence in the system. But if the process ends up feeling arbitrary, bullying and opaque, aimed more at aggregating power for power’s sake and unchecked by any rule of law, it will end up instilling fear that will unnerve Saudi and foreign investors in ways the country can’t afford.

But one thing I know for sure: Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for this anticorruption drive. The Saudi silent majority is clearly fed up with the injustice of so many princes and billionaires ripping off their country. While foreigners, like me, were inquiring about the legal framework for this operation, the mood among Saudis I spoke with was: “Just turn them all upside down, shake the money out of their pockets and don’t stop shaking them until it’s all out!”

But guess what? This anticorruption drive is only the second-most unusual and important initiative launched by M.B.S. The first is to bring Saudi Islam back to its more open and modern orientation-- whence it diverted in 1979. That is, back to what M.B.S. described to a recent global investment conference here as a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.”

I know that year well. I started my career as a reporter in the Middle East in Beirut in 1979, and so much of the region that I have covered since was shaped by the three big events of that year: the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Saudi puritanical extremists-- who denounced the Saudi ruling family as corrupt, impious sellouts to Western values; the Iranian Islamic revolution; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

These three events together freaked out the Saudi ruling family at the time, and prompted it to try to shore up its legitimacy by allowing its Wahhabi clerics to impose a much more austere Islam on the society and by launching a worldwide competition with Iran’s ayatollahs over who could export more fundamentalist Islam. It didn’t help that the U.S. tried to leverage this trend by using Islamist fighters against Russia in Afghanistan. In all, it pushed Islam globally way to the right and helped nurture 9/11.

M.B.S. is on a mission to bring Saudi Islam back to the center. He has not only curbed the authority of the once feared Saudi religious police to berate a woman for not covering every inch of her skin, he has also let women drive. And unlike any Saudi leader before him, he has taken the hard-liners on ideologically. As one U.S.-educated 28-year-old Saudi woman told me: M.B.S. “uses a different language. He says, ‘We are going to destroy extremism.’ He’s not sugar-coating. That is reassuring to me that the change is real.”

Indeed, M.B.S. instructed me: “Do not write that we are ‘reinterpreting’ Islam-- we are ‘restoring’ Islam to its origins-- and our biggest tools are the Prophet’s practices and [daily life in] Saudi Arabia before 1979.” At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, he argued, there were musical theaters, there was mixing between men and women, there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia. “The first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!” So if the Prophet embraced all of this, M.B.S. asked, “Do you mean the Prophet was not a Muslim?”

Then one of his ministers got out his cellphone and shared with me pictures and YouTube videos of Saudi Arabia in the 1950s-- women without heads covered, wearing skirts and walking with men in public, as well as concerts and cinemas. It was still a traditional and modest place, but not one where fun had been outlawed, which is what happened after 1979.

If this virus of an antipluralistic, misogynistic Islam that came out of Saudi Arabia in 1979 can be reversed by Saudi Arabia, it would drive moderation across the Muslim world and surely be welcomed here where 65 percent of the population is under 30.

One middle-age Saudi banker said to me: “My generation was held hostage by 1979. I know now that my kids will not be hostages.” Added a 28-year-old Saudi woman social entrepreneur: “Ten years ago when we talked about music in Riyadh it meant buying a CD-- now it is about the concert next month and what ticket are you buying and which of your friends will go with you.”

Saudi Arabia would have a very long way to go before it approached anything like Western standards for free speech and women’s rights. But as someone who has been coming here for almost 30 years, it blew my mind to learn that you can hear Western classical music concerts in Riyadh now, that country singer Toby Keith held a men-only concert here in September, where he even sang with a Saudi, and that Lebanese soprano Hiba Tawaji will be among the first woman singers to perform a women-only concert here on Dec. 6. And M.B.S told me, it was just decided that women will be able to go to stadiums and attend soccer games. The Saudi clerics have completely acquiesced.

The Saudi education minister chimed in that among a broad set of education reforms, he’s redoing and digitizing all textbooks, sending 1,700 Saudi teachers each year to world-class schools in places like Finland to upgrade their skills, announcing that for the first time Saudi girls will have physical education classes in public schools and this year adding an hour to the Saudi school day for kids to explore their passions in science and social issues, under a teacher’s supervision, with their own projects.

So many of these reforms were so long overdue it’s ridiculous. Better late than never, though.

On foreign policy, M.B.S. would not discuss the strange goings on with Prime Minister Saad Hariri of Lebanon coming to Saudi Arabia and announcing his resignation, seemingly under Saudi pressure, and now returning to Beirut and rescinding that resignation. He simply insisted that the bottom line of the whole affair is that Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, is not going to continue providing political cover for a Lebanese government that is essentially controlled by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militia, which is essentially controlled by Tehran.

He insisted that the Saudi-backed war in Yemen, which has been a humanitarian nightmare, was tilting in the direction of the pro-Saudi legitimate government there, which, he said is now in control of 85 percent of the country, but given the fact that pro-Iranian Houthi rebels, who hold the rest, launched a missile at Riyadh airport, anything less than 100 percent is still problematic.

His general view seemed to be that with the backing of the Trump administration-- he praised President Trump as “the right person at the right time”-- the Saudis and their Arab allies were slowly building a coalition to stand up to Iran. I am skeptical. The dysfunction and rivalries within the Sunni Arab world generally have prevented forming a unified front up to now, which is why Iran indirectly controls four Arab capitals today-- Damascus, Sana, Baghdad and Beirut. That Iranian over-reach is one reason M.B.S. was scathing about Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s “supreme leader is the new Hitler of the Middle East,” said M.B.S. “But we learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work. We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.” What matters most, though, is what Saudi Arabia does at home to build its strength and economy.

But can M.B.S. and his team see this through? Again, I make no predictions. He has his flaws that he will have to control, insiders here tell me. They include relying on a very tight circle of advisers who don’t always challenge him sufficiently, and a tendency to start too many things that don’t get finished. There’s a whole list. But guess what? Perfect is not on the menu here. Someone had to do this job-- wrench Saudi Arabia into the 21st century-- and M.B.S. stepped up. I, for one, am rooting for him to succeed in his reform efforts.

And so are a lot of young Saudis. There was something a 30-year-old Saudi woman social entrepreneur said to me that stuck in my ear. “We are privileged to be the generation that has seen the before and the after.” The previous generation of Saudi women, she explained, could never imagine a day when a woman could drive and the coming generation will never be able to imagine a day when a woman couldn’t.

“But I will always remember not being able to drive,” she told me. And the fact that starting in June that will never again be so “gives me so much hope. It proves to me that anything is possible-- that this is a time of opportunity. We have seen things change and we are young enough to make the transition.”

This reform push is giving the youth here a new pride in their country, almost a new identity, which many of them clearly relish. Being a Saudi student in post-9/11 America, young Saudis confess, is to always feel you are being looked at as a potential terrorist or someone who comes from a country locked in the Stone Age.

Now they have a young leader who is driving religious and economic reform, who talks the language of high tech, and whose biggest sin may be that he wants to go too fast. Most ministers are now in their 40s-- and not 60s. And with the suffocating hand of a puritanical Islam being lifted, it’s giving them a chance to think afresh about their country and their identity as Saudis.

“We need to restore our culture to what it was before the [Islamic] radical culture took over,” a Saudi woman friend who works with an N.G.O. said to me. ”`We have 13 regions in this country, and they each have a different cuisine. But nobody knows that. Did you know that? But I never saw one Saudi dish go global. It is time for us to embrace who we are and who we were.”

Alas, who Saudi Arabia is also includes a large cohort of older, more rural, more traditional Saudis, and pulling them into the 21st century will be a challenge. But that’s in part why every senior bureaucrat is working crazy hours now. They know M.B.S. can call them on the phone at any of those hours to find out if something he wanted done is getting done. I told him his work habits reminded me of a line in the play Hamilton, when the chorus asks: Why does he always work like “he’s running out of time.”

“Because,” said M.B.S., "I fear that the day I die I am going to die without accomplishing what I have in my mind. Life is too short and a lot of things can happen, and I am really keen to see it with my own eyes-- and that is why I am in a hurry.”

Even if the torture allegations turn out to be false, this whole operation appears to be part of a Trump, Kushner-in-law, Erik Prince operation. What does that tell you? What should it have told that numbskull Friedman? The "royal" family's corruption is written into the "constitution" and that family just arrested the two richest men in the kingdom, Alwaleed bin Talal and Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, and are squeezing them-- shaking them down-- to sign over their wealth to the "government" (i.e., M.B.S.' branch of the family). I'm surprised Friedman didn't cite Steve Mnuchin telling CNBC "I think that the Crown Prince (Mohammed bin Salman) is doing a great job at transforming the country."

Adam Johnson was laughing at the western media's naïveté (or collusion?) yesterday as well.

Two weeks ago, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman carried out a brutal crackdown on his political opponents, arresting dozens of high-ranking relatives, kidnapping the prime minister of Lebanon, and seeing eight of his political rivals die in a convenient helicopter crash. The “consolidation of power” by the de facto Saudi ruler comes as his government ramps up its siege of Yemen and gets even closer to its US sponsor, thanks to a Trump’s dopey love affair with-- and direct assistance of-- the regime.

The cynical plan has been met, in some media quarters, with condemnation, but for many in the Western press, Mohammed’s self-serving power grab is the action of a bold “reformer,” a roguish bad boy doing the messy but essential work of “reforming” the kingdom—the “anti-corruption” pretext of the purge largely repeated without qualification. The most prominent sources for this spin were two major newspapers, the New York Times and Guardian.

...With Guardian editors again painting Mohammed as a populist hero by insisting he “upended” “previously untouchable ultra-elite,” one is left to wonder why they don’t consider the absolute-monarch-in-waiting-- who just bought a $590 million yacht-- part of the “ultra elite.” It’s a curious framing that reeks more of PR than journalism.

This was a trope one could see emerging over the past few months. Similar “bold reformer” frames were used in New York Times editorials (“The Young and Brash Saudi Crown Prince,”) and straight reporting (“Saudi Arabia’s Grand Plan to Move Beyond Oil: Big Goals, Bigger Hurdles”). Everything’s new and exciting. The brutal, routine functions of the Saudi state are seen as laws of nature-- and those in charge of it are the reformers of the very oppression they initially authored.