Under TFG, the DOJ appointed attorney John Durham as special counsel to dig dirt and trump up (pun intended) charges against everyone he could find to fabricate a case that the FBI and Obama were “spying” on the TFG campaign in 2016.  Ignoring the fact that TFG operatives are actively trying to collude with the Russians to swing the vote away from Hillary, Durham threw everything against the wall, hoping something would stick.  The victim of that smear campaign was cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussman, who was feeding data to the FBI about his suspicions about Russian interference.  When one of those cases he reported proved wrong, Durham jumped on it like a duck on a June bug, and charged Sussman with lying to the FBI.

That case failed yesterday, when a federal jury acquitted him.  Speaking to the press, jury forewoman said,

Roger Stone, Trump’s self described chief dirty trickster, has just had his sentence commuted by The President of the United States Don Donaldo Trumps, freeing him from paying the price for colluding with Russians, slandering political opponents and violating virtually every modicum of common decency and then lying to the DOJ about it. Let’s be clear here: Roger Stone colluded with Wiki Leaks founder Julian Assange to disclose thousands of emails stolen from DNC and staff emails to damage Hillary Clinton in 2016.  He also participated in operations to slander Clinton and others.  THEN, he lied to the DOJ about his activities.  In an act of abject corruption (once again) Trump commuted Stone’s sentence to protect him from justice.

This corruption must not stand.  Come January 20, 2021, the jails must be opened for those who have violated the public trust and made millions on the backs of honest Americans.

You remember the movie, Network from 1976, yes?  If you don’t, go find it and watch it.  It’s about a major network anchor, Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch), who suddenly experiences enlightenment (or just goes stark raving mad) about the negligence of network television feeding bullshit to its audiences in a continuous stream.  Here’s one of the best rants from Howard:

https://youtu.be/3HQTNZRmJdg

Well, it’s happened again, for real this time, on MSNBC this morning.  Joe Scarborough went all Howard Beale on Mark Zuckerberg, pointing out his gross negligence in allowing bullshit to proliferate on Facebook that is now endangering lives and democracies all over the world.  This is mass media platinum, folks, not to be missed, though you do have to turn it down a bit when Joe loses control about halfway through the rant.  It would have been better if he collapsed on stage in a Bealeian finale.  Got to watch this:

While we were all watching coverage of the Coronavirus and preparing for the onslaught, Trump’s justice department was moving to drop charges against Russian backed companies indicted by Mueller for financing Russian interference in the 2016 election.  Yes, that is really happening.

Since we all know that Russia prefers Trump to any other US president (since Putin said so on global television) it’s not a surprise that Russian military hackers got into the systems of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden was on the board of directors for a few years.  Ignoring the stupidity of Hunter’s taking of that job, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by him or his father, but that didn’t stop the Russians from doing the job that Trump extorted Zelensky to perform, the move that drew an impeachment action against him.

The effort started in November just as the impeachment inquiry started in the House and Trump began frantically trying to discredit it.  Using phishing and spearphishing tactics (just like in 2016) the Russian GRU has been bombarding Burisma email accounts and have successfully stolen email credentials to get inside of the company.

The super frustrating thing about all of this illegal activity is not only Trump’s acceptance of it, but his encouragement for it to continue.  When is enough enough for Republicans?

Pompeo is in Italy with discredited Sebastion Gorka doing God-knows-what.  Bill Barr has been jetting around the world and talking to international leaders.  Rudy Giuliani has been engaged with the Ukrainians for months.  Now we know Pompeo lied on national television on Sunday feigning ignorance of the Zelensky call when, in fact, he was ON THE GODDAM call with Trump.

WTF is going on with all this globe trotting and mysterious meetings with world leaders?  Here’s what I think – Trump’s number one order from Putin was to get the international sanctions lifted from Russia that were imposed after it invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014.  Trump floated lifting sanctions early on, after he infested the WH in 2017, but was slapped down pretty definitively.  Since then, his pandering to Putin is well documented, including trying to tweet Russia back into the G7 to make it the G8 again.  So far, that hasn’t worked either.

Trump’s goal, since dumping Jeff Sessions and gaining Bill Barr as his attorney general personal defender, has been to discredit the investigations that concluded Russia helped get him elected with their hacking and social media meddling.  He’s so obsessed with this mission that he’s ignored the vast majority of his duties as president, focusing only on watching Fox Noise, tweeting insults at enemies in a continuous stream, and trying to help Russia.  His primary effort has been to get Ukraine to dig dirt on Biden AND promoting the ridiculous theory that it wasn’t Russian meddling, but actually Ukraine doing the hacking of the DNC. It’s stupid, but Trump and Giuliani are pushing it hard, since they’ve got nothing else.

Trump sees the end coming, especially as his numbers for reelection have sunk even lower and the impeachment inquiry started heating up.  Lord only knows what kompromat Putin has on Trump, but you know the list is long, including money laundering and financial fraud.  Trump is clearly a Russian asset, and he’s desperately trying to get Russian sanctions lifted before he’s ousted, one way or the other.  The only way he can do that (in his fevered mind) is to discredit the Mueller report and the conclusions of every major intelligence agency in the developed world.  It’s simply not going to happen, but Trump in his addled state is trying to make that happen, and he doesn’t give a good Goddam who or what he burns down trying to accomplish this goal.

Call me crazy, call me conspiratorial, but nothing else, at least to me, explains this nuclear powered three ring circus Trump is orchestrating.