Over the weekend the NY Times published a piece entitled “Tracing Guccifer 2.0’s Many Tentacles in the 2016 Election” it is a sordid tale of how Roger Stone and others communicated directly with Russian intelligence officers posing as Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0, aggressively seeking dirt on Hillary and other Democrats. The others communicating with Guccifer 2.0  included an unnamed Republican candidate for Congress in Florida, and Lee Stranahan, a right wing radio talker and all-round shitbag.  At the time he was talking to the RUSSIANS, Stranahan was working for Steve Bannon at Breitbart and now works full-time for the RUSSIANS at Sputnik International, an online radio station run by Rossiya Segodnya, the RUSSIAN government controlled English language propaganda outlet in the US.  How sweet.

Even though Mueller’s indictment says that idiots like Stone and others might not have known they were talking directly with RUSSIAN intelligence officers, they did know that the documents being released by WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 were stolen.  Them using these resources is actually no better than buying watches off a thief on the street knowing that they had been stolen from the actual owner.

My question is, at which point did obtaining and using stolen goods become legal?  To me, it makes zero difference whether Stone and others knew they were dealing with the Russians; what matters is that the KNEW they were obtaining stolen documents.  Whether it was a Romanian hacker, Julian Assange, or the actual Russians, they were perfectly aware that they were receiving stolen goods.  Isn’t that a crime in itself?  Why are they not in jail rather than spewing their bile from Fox Noise, Breitbart, and other right wing hate outlets?

Each day of this slow motion train wreck I become more and more alarmed how ONE PERSON can destroy international trade, wreck centuries-long diplomatic ties, and virtually disassemble an entire government (ours) without so much as a whimper from those entrusted with protecting us.  The speed of the destruction of the balance of power so carefully designed by the Founders is at once horrifying and breathtaking.  At this point, I only understand one thing – once we rid ourselves of this cancer (either by impeachment, indictment for crimes, forced resignation, or just voting his ass out of office), we need to seriously rethink our system of governance and the tools of democracy that are supposed to protect our democracy.  I know, I know, the invertebrates in Congress will never fix anything, but they certainly need to to be called to task by the American voter.  I’m personally writing to all of my representatives today to DEMAND that they stand up on their hind legs and do their goddam jobs.  If millions of Americans around the country would do that, it would cause a seismic shift in the behavior of the idiots sitting on Capitol Hill.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

Things have been a tad gloomy between Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.

So to spice things up, Breitbart releases a tape of a conference call with Paul Ryan blasting Donald Trump last October.

Because I care deeply about your well-being, I will not send you to Breitbart.  Here’s the pertinent parts of the call.

So the division between Trump and Ryan just got wider than a barn door.  Trump values loyalty.  Ryan values Ryan.

The best I can figure is that Bannon decided that Ryan was getting too much Trump attention.  Jealousy is not pretty.

Okay, I’m as confused as a billy goat on Astroturf.

Are we going to war with Mexico, Iran, Australia, or UC Berkley?

I suppose it’s only fair that Trump told President Peña Nieto that he has “bad hombres” in his country because in Mexico they say we have El Presidente del Inferno.

And I have to tell you that it takes a real special kind of goofy to get into a fight with the Prime Minister of Australia.  Somebody show Trump a map so he can see that China is an obvious trading partner with them. And they need stuff. Shuddup.

I’m guess I’m glad we put Iran on notice. I dunno, though, because I have no idea what “on notice” means. Are we gonna make them cry us a river or something?

And we’re going to cut federal funding to UC Berkley because after hours of peaceful demonstrations some damfool guys showed up and got violent?

We don’t even know who these guys are.  They may be Trump supporters trying to cause trouble.  Look, the speaker they were protesting, Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, has been banned from Twitter for cyber-bullying.  Not even Trump has been banned from Twitter for cyber-bullying.

Look, you don’t punish a whole institution for the actions of a few.  I hope Iran, Mexico, and Australia know that, too.

A Jewish family in Lancaster Pennsylvania has fled their home after Breitbart falsely accused them for the cancellation of a performance of a Christmas Carol at the local school.  School officials stated that the play was cancelled for scheduling reasons as it took 20 hours to rehearse during school hours.  Coincidently, the Jewish family had asked for their child to be excused from participating in the play several months ago.  After the cancellation, the family was blamed and the child was being harassed at school.  When Breitbart, in true form, published a story fabricating the reason was the Jewish family, you can imagine the result, so the family fled their home town.  Welcome to the world of Cheeto Jesus and his “news” arm, Breitbart.