The crime boss just keeps doing crime boss things.

Good morning field hands.

So this happened while you all were enjoying your holidays.

"Bloomberg) -- A retweet by President Donald Trump, naming the alleged whistle-blower whose complaint triggered the congressional inquiry that resulted in his impeachment this month, was restored late Saturday after being hidden for much of the day.

The post, originally from the handle @surfermom77, was retweeted by Trump around midnight Friday and by Saturday morning was no longer visible in the president’s Twitter feed. CNN first reported late Saturday that the temporary removal followed a Twitter glitch that affected certain accounts, not deliberate action to delete the tweet by Trump or someone with access to his Twitter account.

“Due to an outage with one of our systems, tweets on account profiles were visible to some, but not others,” the social media site posted on its @TwitterSupport account.

As of Sunday morning the message was again visible to Trump’s 68 million Twitter followers.
The tweet identifies a person it says is the whistle-blower: the person who first alerted members of Congress to the president’s conduct in his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The poster, @Surfermom77 or “Sophia,” describes herself as living in California and a “100% Trump supporter.”

On Saturday afternoon the account, which posts a variety of pro-Trump and anti-Democratic material, was shown on Twitter as having been “temporarily restricted.” It’s now been restored, and carries Trump’s photo as its profile picture.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on Saturday." [Source]

This is not normal, but sadly, like all things with this president, this too shall pass.

Finally, Don Imus died recently, and there has been a lot of major media figures chiming in to praise his life work and accomplishments.

You will not get any of that here. Don Imus was a racist, sexist, shock jock, whose antics contributed to the climate of hate and intolerance in this country.

I hope he doesn't mind heat, because it will be very warm where he is going.

I'm still out of pocket.

But I will holla at you soon, field- hands.

There is so much to chop it up about.

The stock market is roaring along, and yet more Americans than ever are calling for the impeachment (and removal) of the Orange crime boss.

Thoughts?

Caption Sunday.

Give ma a caption for this pic.




And this one.

Impeached!

The 45th president of the United States has been impeached. Only the third in history.

Was it deserved?

Rebranding the GOP.

Donald trump gave a new name to the Republican party today. In an attempt to rebrand the Grand Old Party in his own image, he has declared that it is to now to be known as the United Republican Party.  It makes sense if you think about it,  because the party has pretty much sold its soul to Mr. trump. 

Now, with impeachment looming, battle lines have been drawn, and republicans, more than ever, are digging in.

No one is happier of course than Donald trump. Because were it not for the blind loyalty and inexplicable devotion to a man who we all know is a con and a grifter, he would be thrown from office and criminally prosecuted. 

Speaking of being criminally prosecuted, trump's buddy, Rudy Giuliani, is the latest of trump's surrogates who is more than likely heading to the big house. He has been all over the globe on behalf of the president, and he has been cutting deals with sleazy characters and governments.

The latest is that he was in the Ukraine to bring back the smoking gun that would vindicate his buddy. And just like the trip to Hawaii to get Barack Obama's birth certificate, this too was a hoax.

American foreign officials are totally frustrated with this administration, because trump has allowed his friends  and surrogates to trample all over the diplomatic community. They said as much in the impeachment hearings, and those of use who were watching it objectively, felt bad for them and what they have had to go through with this administration. 

Of course, the trump minions see it differently:

"Elections have consequences and foreign policy is going to change from the Obama administration to the Trump administration,” Mulvaney said. “And what you’re seeing now, I believe, is a group of mostly career bureaucrats who are saying, ‘You know what? I don’t like President Trump’s politics, so I’m going to participate in this witch hunt that they’re undertaking on the Hill’.”

"Policies" is one thing. Breaking the law, on the other hand, is quite another.






 

Caption Saturday.

Give me a caption for this picture.  

"Dangerous in the extreme".

The following article was written by Jay Bookman for The Virginia Mercury.

It was written right before the Thanksgiving holiday, but given what is taking place in Washington as I write this post, it is more relevant now than ever.

"Donald J. Trump used the power of his office to blackmail a foreign ally into undermining a political foe here at home. Nothing in U.S history approaches that abuse of presidential power, yet the gravity of the charges apparently does not matter.

The overwhelming evidence proving those charges – the sworn testimony, the emails and direct messages, the de facto public confessions by President Trump, his personal attorney and his acting chief of staff, explaining that yes, they did pressure Ukraine to produce political dirt – that too does not matter.

It does not matter because over the course of the past month, GOP officials have made clear their grim determination to protect Trump from all consequences for his actions, and that doesn’t seem likely to change. So the question arises:

Then what?

If the Republican wall holds, if this process concludes without Trump being held accountable for his actions, what constraint – legal, moral, ethical, political­­ – would Trump have grounds to respect in the future? If he has members of his party so uniformly cowed in fear, what new corruption would he and others in his administration not dare to undertake?

Very little, I’m afraid.

A Donald Trump who knows he is unaccountable to anyone is dangerous in the extreme. By nature he will fill any vacuum, leverage any weakness, seize any power left unprotected. When you’re famous, as he once said, you can walk up and grab women by the genitals, and that’s pretty much his modus operandi in every facet of life, including his presidency.

On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for insufficient loyalty. The next day, he held a celebratory meeting in the Oval Office, with Russian officials as his invited guests, whom he thanked by giving them classified information.

On July 24, 2019, special counsel Robert Mueller concluded his testimony to Congress, conceding he could not prove – or disprove – collusion. The next day, July 25, Trump placed his infamous phone call to Ukraine’s president, during which he brazenly pressured for investigations into his American political opposition. When Ukraine’s president asked for Javelin anti-tank missiles, the next words out of Trump’s mouth were “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

He did that because he felt freed, unbound, and he was. He doesn’t see it as cheating, because he doesn’t recognize its existence as a concept. There are the things he can get away with, and those he can’t, at least not yet.

And now that his fellow Republicans have so abased themselves in his service, now that they’ve become a collection of so many Lindsey Grahams, what inner reservoirs of self-respect, courage and patriotism can they draw upon to confront him the next time? None. The only reason we know what we know about the Ukraine scandal is because the American people put Democrats in charge of the House in 2018 – without it, we would all be in total darkness about what happened. And as we’re learning, that check on his behavior has proved insufficient.

Of course, these dangers compound significantly should Trump somehow, by hook or by crook, manage to get himself re-elected. With that validation, with all the mechanisms of check and balance rendered impotent, why would he not gratify his instincts to repress all opposition, to ignore any law he finds constraining?

So that’s where we stand: Through the cowardice and petty self-interest of his own party, a corrupt and maybe crazy president is being granted permission to indulge his worst instincts without fear of repercussion. There’s no way that ends well, not for any of us.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone." [Source]

*Image from lobelog.com

Clouding the facts.

A wise old lawyer gave me some good advice when I started trying cases as a young lawyer. It went  something like this: "Good lawyers try easy cases and settle hard ones. Bad lawyers settle easy cases and try hard ones". 

I thought about that saying today while I was watching portions of the impeachment hearings  running non-stop on cable news. The republican lawyers seemed to be stuck with a hard case, and rather than trying to settle and acknowledge the difficulty of their case, they spent all day today trying their best to try the case in the court of public opinion and to the republican members of congress.

Obviously, from a legal stand point, it didn't go too well.

Clearly the facts weren't on their side, and no matter how much they tried to yell, distract, and throw out straw man arguments, it didn't change what Mr. trump did: Attempt to hold up military aid to the Ukrainian government until he got help taking down a political rival. 

As Keith Ellison eloquently stated: "They've got a really bad case". It's hard to defend the indefensible . I know, I have been there myself a time or two. Unlike republicans, though,  I did not try to slam the process and shoot the messengers. I went with the hand that I was dealt.

But this isn't a court of law, it's a political court of public opinion, and the republicans have been doing their best to play to their base, and the crime boss in the White House. They have tried their best to turn the entire process into a three ring circus.

Sadly, it might be working, because the case against Mr. trump isn't going to be decided by a jury or a Judge. It is a political process.  This case will be decided by the the lazy American press and divided (and distracted) American people. Both of these groups are calling the hearings confusing and boring. (As if the impeachment hearings should be like some daytime game show. )

So while trump may be impeached, he will not be removed from office. The republicans have enough senators who are part of the cult of trump to prevent such a thing from ever happening. As one fellow twitter user recently stated:"The republicans have mastered the art of dangling the keys in front of idiots to distract them."  There are a lot of idiots in America these days.

Caption Saturday.

Please give me a caption for this picture.


*Image from The Palmer Report.

Right on cue, here comes the faux outrage.

 Now comes the first lady (who from all indication, might have entered the country illegally) to declare that she is outraged because an expert witness in the impeachment proceedings made mention of her son, Baron.

Of course, as is to be expected, the conservative faux outrage machine has jumped on the bandwagon as well. "How dare they talk about the president's minor child like this? Children should be off limits. These people have no heart or soul."   

I need a break!

Keep in mind that this is the same Melania trump who supported her husband's racist birther claim against a man who had to had two minor children at the time that this crap was going on. There wasn't a lot of sympathy for the Obama children when Mr. trump was on his racist birther lie tour of the country.

And speaking of children, is Melania aware of all the children who have died while in the custody of ICE because of policies that her husband implemented? Is she aware of the fact that her husband's administration caged children? Rhetorical question. Of course she is. And we are supposed to care about a passing mention of her son during a hearing in Washington? I don't think so.

Melania needs to get her s**t  together and start checking her own husband before she can lecture the rest of us on civility.  And she needs to think about her own past and some of the choices that she made before she points her finger at others. '

What do you think will upset Baron more? Seeing these pictures one day while he is out hanging with his buds? Or watching old reruns of a hearing in Washington and hearing a small reference made to him by one of the witnesses who was making a legal point about the Constitution?

If you choose example one, move to the head of the class. If you choose example two, the right- wing faux outrage machine just might have gotten to you.

Liar in Chief.

"I don't know Prince Andrew" 

Says Donald trump.

Well.....

This is typical of what happens these days here in America. The president tells a lie and the press ignores it. 

In a way, the press has contributed to the culture of lies and gaslighting that has surrounded this administration since day one. 

Check out this list of some of  Mr. trump's greatest hits. 

Thoughts?