Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, March 23, 2017

"There's a Smell of Treason in the Air"

I'm away for the day, but here are some amazing analyses of what's happening in the Trump-Russian Scandals:




Michael Winship at Moyers & Company writes—

‘There’s a Smell of Treason in the Air’: 


 Monday’s hearing of the House Intelligence Committee was proof positive of the absolute need for both a special prosecutor and an independent, bipartisan commission with subpoena power to conduct a full investigation of the Trump campaign’s connections with Russian intelligence — as well as Russia’s multipronged attack on our elections and Trump’s business connections with that country’s oligarchs. And it’s proof more than ever that even if we get that prosecutor and inquiry, a free and independent press may be the only real way to ever get to the bottom of what ranking committee member Adam Schiff said may represent “one of the most shocking betrayals of our democracy in history.” [...] 

 And yet, as presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told The Washington Post, “There’s a smell of treason in the air. Imagine if J. Edgar Hoover or any other FBI director would have testified against a sitting president? It would have been a mind-boggling event.” But here we are, adrift in a Cloud Cuckoo Land of prevarication and incompetence in which little seems capable of boggling or driving our minds agog these days and where the truth shall not set you free but subject you to ridicule from the rabid trolls of the right. 

(Winship must have read the right wing troll, "Not Shakespeare." -- S.K.)





Charles M. Blow at The New York Times writes—


Birth of the biggest lie: 

 Individuals who were associated with the president of the United States’ winning campaign are under criminal investigation. That is an extraordinary sentence and one that no American can allow to be swallowed up by other news or dismissed by ideologues. 

 Depending on the outcome of this investigation, we could be facing a constitutional crisis. Oddly, it is likely that the reason Trump is even in the Oval Office is Comey’s original, extraordinarily inappropriate and unprecedented action. The Trump machinery then used that action to scare Americans about Clinton, in one of the most astonishing acts of deflection and hypocrisy in American history. [...] 

 The lie these people promoted about Clinton and shielded about Trump are two of the biggest lies ever told in this country in service of electoral advantage. No act of this presidency — good or bad, beneficial or detrimental — can ever be considered without first contextualizing that this presidency itself was conceived in deception and is being incubated under an extraordinary lie. The Trump presidency is a corruption that flows from corruption. It is damned by its own damned lies.



11 comments:

Shaw Kenawe said...

"Donald Trump owes Barack Obama and the American people an apology for his vituperative lie that Obama committed a felony by wiretapping Trump Tower. It was specious, libelous and reckless, regardless of the weak revelations of “incidental collection” that the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and Trump transition team member Devin Nunes outrageously made public, briefing the president without first briefing his fellow committee members. Nunes’ announcement was a bombshell with no bomb, just enough mud in the water to obscure the blood in the water for those too willfully blind to discern the difference." ---The New York Times

Shaw Kenawe said...


Just checking my comments, I found all of them submitted for moderation by right wingers, and probably most of them from the usual rabid right wing blogs.

I can always tell when they're pooping green bricks about their ridiculous president because they come here en masse to tell me how "unhinged" I am for reporting the truth about their Liar-in-Chief.

That means I'm doing my job. Pissing off the far right, Trumpblind Goopers who won't see what's in front of their noses.

Deanter said...

Hypothetically, if it turned out that Trump himself was indeed involved in collaboration with Russia to subvert the election, would that meet the definition of treason as stated in the constitution? Just curious if any real legal authority has addressed that question.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Trump in the White House may just be a monkey clutching history's biggest hand grenade. Yes, he's always one step ahead of us, and more dangerous than any smart person, and we can never for a minute take our eyes off him. -- Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

Shaw Kenawe said...


Deanter, that's a good question. I don't know the legal answer to it.

However, just think how the Goopers would handle the news if this were reversed. If Trump lost the election but won the popular vote, and an ongoing investigation by the FBI was looking into the possibility that the Russians helped Hillary Clinton win the presidency.

Everyone knows the Goopers in Washington and on the far right blogs would be bleeding from their eyeballs in a rage, demanding everyone in Congress appoint a committee to start impeachment proceedings against Clinton.

However, because it is their very large ox being gored, all I've seen is indifference to the revelations about Russia and Trump and their trolls coming here and stamping their little hooves because I'm reporting on it.

Anonymous Reader of TeaPublican Blogs said...

Pure gold comedy. Colbert couldn't mock a wingnut better than this:

"It makes me sad to hear even YOU say “Donald, just cut out all this crap…” You are SUCH a fan and I’m so disheartened…

Something is JUST PLAIN WRONG in that White House and someone needs to GET A GRIP.

I believe great things can be done and that TRUMP WANTS TO DO THEM! But something’s not jiving. Obviously, a lot of it’s the leftwing media, but I think Trump’s spending more time in miniscule crap like twitter wars and over reacting to every little dumb thing that gets to his ego…He needs to show great dignity, ignore that stuff, GET ON WITH THE COUNTRY’S WORK.

And, “Great dignity” does NOT mean being a wuss and not telling the truth with background information on that truth when he wants/needs to! It just means BE A MAN….don’t take everything so personally, don’t let ANYBODY in your WH say anything that can’t be proven, and GET ON WITH IT. . How HARD IS THAT?

If Trump didn’t give a crap about everything miniscule, he’d be FABULOUS!"


"A lot of it's the left wing media!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"He needs to show great dignity." HAHAHAHAHAHA

That's like expecting a pig to fly.

Shaw Kenawe said...



The Greatest Negotiator and Deal Maker (according to himself), Donald J. Trump, who had both houses of Congress in Republican hands, could not garner enough votes to bring the bill to repeal Obamacare to the floor tonight.

What happens tomorrow? Who knows.

Shaw Kenawe said...

ARoTPB,

That is funny and sad at the same time. As I've said, those people are terminal. There's no hope for them. They are lost souls.

We knew that the minute they decided a thrice-married adulterer, self-admitted sexual assaulter, and father who doesn't mind other men calling his daughter "a piece of ass," and known pathological liar, mocker of disabled people, POWs, Gold STar families, and every other horrendous flaw a human being can have decided he'd make a great president, all the while knowing, in addition, that he's a fake Christian.

That was just fine with them. What more can anyone say about people who have abandoned any bit of honor or humanity? There will always be these sort of morally corrupt hypocrites in any population. At least we know who ours are.

Anonymous said...

Miss Shaw's days are drawing to a dramatic close.

She just exacerbates the nation's woes.


She offers not a thing constructive here

While making sure no one will hold her dear.

Her sad remains won't be put in casket

Or even cut up layered in a basket.


She never will be buried in a hole
.
She'll rot above-ground as befits a troll.

Poor Miss Shaw she just cain't hep it, she's just a typical Assachewshitsian Commie..

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anonymous@11:07 AM

Don't give up your day job. That doggerel is about as bad a piece of trash as has ever been placed in Comment Moderation.

I'm proud that I have incensed the Gooper trolls as much as I have. Every day brings a fresh crop of unhappy, weak-minded, dwarfs attacking me for publishing the truth about their ridiculous President Thirty-Six Percent.

Assachewshitsian Commie?

Is that all you've got in your little quiver of barbs? The "Commie" thing is rather droll, since it is President 30% and his gang that can't shoot straight who's been in bed with the Commies -- Putin to be exact. You all need some remedial help on finding another epithet to sling at someone (moi), who obviously is burning your considerable butts, otherwise you'd ignore me and what I have to say.

BTW, as for trying to insult Massachusetts, Sparky, Massachusetts was just named the best state in the country to live in, so take your insults and plant them in a warm, dark place, mKay?

Eat your nasty, turnip-of-a-heart out, you jealous little dwarf.

Flying Junior said...

On a related note, did y'all hear about the latest defenestration in Moscow? Turns out start witness for the U.S. in the Russian money-laundering case involving banks in Cyprus, Nikolai Gokhorov, accidentally fell out of his fourth-floor apartment in Moscow trying to help workers move a jacuzzi inside. Fired U.S. Attorney, Preet Bharara was presiding over the case.