In one of the latest entries into the Encyclopedia of Gleeful Cruelty and Dickishness, Trump announced last week that he is stopping immigration at the southern border because “the country is full; sorry”.  He can’t do that, of course, and the courts will stop him (again), but this is his campaign strategy for 2020, keeping the entire country whipped up into a lather while Heinrich Himmler Stephen Miller cooks up more nasty things to do to innocent people trying to save themselves and their families from the violence caused (or made worse) by US foreign policy in Latin America.

New York Times

Not only is this yet again new policy completely unnecessary and gaslighting of the worst kind,  Trump’s declaration is 100% false.  The country is not full; as a matter of fact, the work force is shrinking in many parts of the country.  As the country ages, the economy will suffer from lack of workers.  The NY Times published a story about this just this am.  This just another lie piled onto the Mount Everest of lies that Trump has built the the GOP has allowed to happen.

C’mon 2020.

We STILL haven’t seen the Mueller report, but it appears that it shows all the evidence for and against Trump and his cronies colluding with the Russians, apparently punting an indictment decision to the Justice department.  Barr predictably cleared Trump of collusion with the Russians with NO explanation why; on obstruction, he did what he already said he would do, which was to oppose those charges against Trump.

Obviously, Mueller chose to not throw the country into a Constitutional crisis by giving Trump a pass on the legion of lies and the dozens of contacts with the Russians and with Wiki-Leaks.  His definition of “obstruction” was so narrow that it was impossible to come to criminal charges because there wasn’t a smoking gun (or pee-pee tape). I mean, for God’s sake, Manafort is in prison, Michael Cohen is going to prison, and George Papadopoulos has already served time, all for lying to investigators about their contacts WITH THE RUSSIANS.  Barr’s whitewash doesn’t pass the straight-faced test, and we don’t know yet what we don’t know.

What we do know is that even Barr, who SAID we couldn’t indict a sitting president with obstruction, stated that Trump was not exonerated of this crime.  Since Trump actually confessed to obstruction by firing Comey, it’s pretty clear that he did obstruct justice, but Barr is declining to follow through on the charges because Trump is in office.

We all know what’s going on here, right?  Trump is guilty as hell, that is clear.  To protect the guy who nominated him, Barr is providing legal cover for a period of time so the media can falsely claim that Mueller cleared Trump, which he most certainly did not.  When the truth comes out in a year or so, it will be too late as the lies of his innocence will then be ingrained into popular culture, and we’ll then be in danger of electing this walking violation of the Constitution to another 4 years.

God help us.

As we roll into the new year, a few observations:

As of this moment, we have no Attorney General, no White House Chief of Staff, no Interior Secretary, no Director of the EPA, the Secretary of Education is a religious nut trying to destroy education, the VP is a religious nut who believes women should be subjugated, the Secretary of State is a political hack helping cover up the murder of a Saudi journalist, the Director of National Security wants to bomb Iran, 18 countries have no US ambassador (including Australia), half of the positions in the State Department remain unfilled, the stock market is down almost 3,000 points, China now owns Pacific rim trade, the US is the only major power to NOT be in the Paris accords, the entire world is either terrified or laughing at us, and the president has shut down the government for the last 10 days over his 5th century solution to a 21st century problem. Notice I didn’t mention anything about everyone convicted, in jail, or on the way to jail, or Trump’s current average of telling over 500 lies per month.

This is great? Are we tired of winning yet?

I’m just tired.

Happy New Year

#myattorneygotarrested #pleasetellmethisisanightmare #ITMFA #gotemoluments? #trumpresign

From the very early days of the campaign, His Orangeness has railed against all things not White American Male – all dark skinned people, especially women, ALL women, for that matter, and immigration, both legal and undocumented.  His rhetoric is continuously over the top, hateful, and racist.  He loves to dehumanize migrants with inflammatory terms like “illegals”, “animals”, and “aliens”.  His favorite pejorative, though, is “chain migration”.  The actual term is “family reunification” which has been allowed by the US government for decades where a documented migrant to the US could sponsor their spouse and children to join them in the states.  In some cases, a migrant’s parents are admitted into the country to join the family.  It’s humane, decent, and, I might add, very difficult.  It takes years to unify families through our broken system.

But in Trumpland, “chain migration” has been weaponized and is now used by Trumpists to be bigots in polite society.  Trump has repeated the falsehood (even during the State of the Union) that “chain migration” allows immigrants to bring “unlimited” people to the United States.  The statement, in short, is simply a lie.  It’s not true, and has never been true, but the term is in high repeat in conservative circles.

Trump’s problem, though, is that the very system he rails against just allowed Melania Trump (You remember her, right?  She’s the nude model from Slovenia who is now our First Lady.) to bring in her parents through “chain migration”.  AND, said parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became US citizens yesterday.  That’s right, folks, the very system that Trump demands that Congress end just allowed his in-laws to become American citizens. Now, the Knavs are probably perfectly nice people who are fortunate to have friends in high places who could grease the skids for them attain US citizenship, which millions of others have been waiting decades for.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is the now-familiar hypocrisy.

This kind of hypocrisy shouldn’t be surprising.  Trump’s entire personal foundation is built on lies, cheating, and hypocrisy.  Rules apply to everyone else, but not Trump.  He’s immune from common decency or common sense.  Worse, the White House refuses to address any of his hypocrisy, including the “chain migration” lie, and the invertebrates in Congress, terrified of losing their power, do nothing to stop it.  That’s why it’s up to us to shine the light on Trump’s lies and fight fire with fire.

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

Trump’s done it again, blatantly lying and walking back his idiocy after severe backlash over his shameful performance in Helsinki yesterday.  In a nationally televised statement before a meeting with Congressional leaders, he reversed his entire position from yesterday saying that he now believes Russia DID interfere in our elections and lamely said he had misspoken when he said that “Why would they?” when denying Russia’s involvement.  He now says he meant to say, “Why wouldn’t they?”.

It’s the same old, same old, and doesn’t pass the straight faced test.  God, I’m tired.

Yesterday, Kirstjen Nielson, White House aide who was elevated to Secretary of Homeland Security last year after John Kelly was moved to chief of staff, gave up whatever was left of her reputation yesterday by standing at the briefing room podium lying to the American people in a continuous stream.  Most infuriating is her repeating ad nauseam that the brand new, cruel policy of separating children from parents who are fleeing violence and corruption in their home countries is not a policy, but a non-existent law passed by Democrats.  This outrageous lie, whipped up by in-house white supremacist Stephen Miller and repeated continuously by Jeff Sessions and Trump himself, is shameful.  To utter it from a White House podium is inexcusable.

Let’s be clear here – Nielson is lying when she says that she is “enforcing the laws passed by Congress”.  Technically, she is correct, but her agency CREATED this problem, and then enforcing a law that doesn’t need to be used.  Here’s how she is doing that: Refugees are coming to ports of entry to ask for asylum.  They are being turned away at those ports of entry because ICE has slowed entry to a trickle.  After days of waiting on bridges and in lines, they are crossing illegally in desperation, then turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents.  THAT’S when the “zero tolerance” policy is at its most cruel; these refugees are then arrested, thus “enforcing the laws passed by Congress”, their children are taken by force because children can’t be jailed with their parents.  This problem is wholly created by Trump and sycophants, then lied about from the podium of the White House briefing room.  It’s immoral and criminal.

The UN Human Rights Office has condemned this new practice as unconscionable and declared it “state sponsored child abuse”.  Republicans have finally awoken from their gerrymandered-in coma and are now speaking out against this new policy.  However, at the eye of this storm is Kirstjen Nielson, who is blatantly lying for Donald Trump trying to get back in his good graces after privately opposing this new policy.  This is what I don’t get about people like Nielson who sell their souls to a cretin like Trump.  What do they gain from that?  Why are they clinging to likely the most immoral president in US history?  How do people like Nielson sleep at night?  How can they do this day after day?  What are they planning on doing AFTER destroying their own reputations and then being cast aside?

Whatever rationalization Nielson adopted to justify this, it’s our duty, as Americans, to hound her out of office.  Maybe we can’t get rid of Trump (yet), but we can certainly deprive him of the tools he uses to prosecute his idiotic policies and repeat his lies and enable his immoral conduct.