Rick Kinnaird

Well, well, well Twenty days in to this new administration and it looks like a key advisor to the president has not only broken the ethics rules but the law. Even the head investigative Congressman Representative Chavitz had to admit such. Whether he’ll go after KellyAnne Conway like a mad dog like he did with Hillary and Benghazi remains to be seen. He did have a town hall meeting last night. Thousands of people showed up and chanted, “Do your job!”

Also, it looks like the president may be subpoenaed to give testimony about his Muslim ban. In the unanimous decision revoking the ban the justices went out of their way to explain some pretty basic stuff to the White House. For instance, just because the White House counsel says part of the Executive Order doesn’t apply to a group of people doesn’t make it so. And, btw, the court goes by what is written in the Executive Order, not by what some lawyer in the WH thinks it says.

There has been speculation recently as to whether the president can read. Some suggest poor reading skills, disinterest, or inability to see given his fear of stairs. This leads me to my best boffo idea ever! It’s YUGE!

Okay, first ya gotta know that Rosie O’Donnell has changed her profile picture so that she is looking like Steve Bannon. It’s as good as Melissa McCarthey as Sean Spicer. In fact, I think they should switch back and forth just to shake things up.

So picture this – Saturday Night Live – Alex Baldwin as Trump, Rosie as Bannon, she puts an executive order in front of Alex to sign, but before he can – out comes the real Trump and in a switchero like that of Tina Fey and Sarah Palin The Donald kicks Alex out of the chair, sits down and signs the document. It turns out that the document is a real EO: right paper, correct margins, the whole deal. So what does it say? That he fires Pence as VP, replacing him with a triumvirate of Hillary, Bernie, and Elizabeth and that he resigns immediately after firing all his appointees saying he never wanted the job anyway.

Cool huh? You think it couldn’t happen? Did you think Trump was gonna win? Ha. I tell you anything is possible in this climate, including the destruction of our political institutions, which the Republicans seem hell bent on doing all while wrapping themselves in the flag, their “deep felt” religious beliefs, and “what the American people want”.

Well, I can tell you this. According to the latests PPP poll the American people reject every part of the Trump platform they were asked about. Build the Wall? No. Repeal Obamacare? No. Refuse immigrants? No.

There’s one exception: Impeach the president? Even. At 36% to 36%, 9% undecided. Why? The poll shows “the American people” are more afraid of Pence becoming pres than having The Donald stay on. What a vote of confidence!

The scariest thing is that Trump voters think the president should ignore court orders he doesn’t agree with! Yeah, right on.

Oh that guy I thought was made Solicitor General? I was wrong. It was the guy Beauregard wanted, however the fellow withdrew from consideration. I don’t think it was because he thought two racists were too much. More likely, the hundreds and thousands of bitchin’ he got.

But when it comes to corruption in politics in Alabama, well, it’s the state that keeps on giving, and giving. If you wrote this as an idea for a movie script they’d throw you out of the office. Heck, you’d be lucky to get a “We’re sorry but a movie about … is not what we’re looking for” letter.

So here’s the background: The Governor of Alabama, a wrinkled prune of a man, had his wife of 45 years leave him, and in a hurry. She bolted out of the Guv mansion. Soon, a tape surfaced where the Guv was saying in the most explicit terms what he wanted to do sexually to a woman who was an advisor to the Governor. It involved among other things coming up behind her and grabbing her breasts. (The T-shirt mill has already started!)

Okay, that was last year, then there was a judicial inquiry or some such from the legislature. The state’s Attorney General asked the committee to hold off until he finished his investigation. He suspended the investigation days before the election. Then Jeff Sessions became U.S. AG leaving his spot open. The governor, still in the mansion, gets to appoint someone to fill the senate vacancy and who does he pick? You got it, and that guy’s name is Strange. Senator Strange at 6 for 9 inches is the tallest member of the Senate.

Apparently, people in Alabama were okay with AG Strange doing his investigation because he let those below him do the job, but now the governor gets to appoint the new state AG! Wow. The local newspaper reporter said, “this is corruption on the face of it.” and “People are aghast.”

Strange says he’s “a good Conservative.” That means he’s opposed to everything most people in this country want and he has a record to prove it!

Meanwhile, the phone calls, letters, emails, and visits to local representatives’ offices continue. Staff members say they don’t have time to listen to voice mail because the phones haven’t stopping ringing since election day.

1440 days to go

This just in from aisle 3 at Food Lion:

• Pregnant Gwen calls off Wedding!
• Hillary Fleeing Country to Escape Jail!

This is incredible news as Hillary was reported near death just last week and Gwen looked pretty happy in the ad for The Voice on TV, which I now have mixed feeling as the producer of the show is the same as The Apprentice and didn’t release any of the tapes from that show, which reportedly showed Donald Trump saying much worse things than “Grab her by the pussy.”

A buddy of mine who sends me “funny” emails and the occasional rub-your-face-in-it anti-Hillary anti-Obama stuff sent me the headline, “Federal Scientist cooked climate change books ahead of Obama Presentation.”

I googled the headline and the first three references were: Fox News, RT (Russian Television), and NewsMax. None of these outlets like Obama, the Clintons, or the Democratic Party. After three pages of looking I found only unknown websites and no credible news agencies reporting this story. Typically, you can find a kernel of fact behind these assertions. During the election a person told me that they heard George Soros, a Dem supporter and frequent target of malicious stories from sources similar to what I’ve mentioned above, had something to do with throwing election results in some states. Sure enough there were articles saying Soros was involved in tampering with 9 or 11 states elections.

A quick google turned up that Soros sat on a company board in London and there was a guy who sat on the same board who had a company that helped countries and other political entities host free and fair elections. The company had not operated in the U.S. and there was no evidence or suggestion that Soros even knew what this guy and his company did. As far as the stuff about Soros and the tampering in various state elections; it was completely made up. So why would such a story surface?

This was about the time that Operation Crosscheck was coming to light. Operation Crosscheck was a Republican led effort to eliminate people from voting rolls. It compared first and last names of people on voting rolls in various states, if the first and last name matched they were assumed to be the same person. The person was sent a postcard with tiny print on it telling them to return it or they’d be taken off the voting rolls. Whites and property owners are more likely to return official forms. Minorities, renters, and people who move a lot are less likely to do so, or to even get the notice. The program identified over 7.2 million people in 11 key states, thousands were taken off of voting rolls weeks before the election in violation of Federal Law. The Crosscheck Program used a private firm, also illegal. Can you imagine if a Democratic firm came up to the board of supervisors in a Republican held state and said, “take these people off the rolls?” But these were Republican held states, with a Republican funded company doing it. No problem.

I have to wonder was the Soros stuff to counter the bad press that hundreds of thousands of students, blacks, Hispanics, and poor people were being taken off the voting rolls in key states? Was this an “Oh yeah, see they do it too” attempt?

We know the Russians were interfering with our election. Putin is no fan of Hillary Clinton because she, as Secretary of State, called him out on his last election. An election that looked like he was going to lose some key areas. Not to worry, his supporters took handfuls of ballots and put them in the ballot boxes. She called him out on it. Do you think the new Secretary of State will do that? Would he be wearing his Medal of Friendship, the highest award given to a non Russian citizen, when he does? Not to worry. I doubt we’ll hear a peep out of him on this. How soon will Exxon/Mobil be given the green light to drill in Russia and hand billions of desperately needed cash to the Russian dictator? Time will tell.

In other related news the House passed a bill to defund and abolish the Federal committee that oversees U.S. election voting machines and ballot boxes to make sure they aren’t tampered with. Why? “We don’t need that kind of fluff.” So, now if the Russians succeed in getting into some ballot boxes, (or Republicans???) we won’t even know it. Kind of like getting rid of the agency that figured out Wells Fargo was screwing over its customers. But that’s okay, they’ve got bills that say it’s okay to screw over your customers, Let the buyer beware. I mean when six of your top level appointees are from Goldman Sachs, a company caught screwing over their clients (not illegal, just unethical) what can you expect?

All this raises an interesting question “Can a 70 year old man who has been petty, vindictive, and bullying in business suddenly change and not do so as President? South Carolina is about to find out. Donald owns a warehouse in South Carolina. He bought it from the previous owner. Apparently, the previous owner’s business failed and it created lots of toxic waste. If you own the place you gotta clean up the mess, unless you had nothing to do with it. Donald claims his company had nothing to do with it and therefore the state of South Carolina should clean it up. Let’s run Operation Crosscheck on the current owner and the previous owner shall we? Current owner: Donald J. Trump; previous owner: Donald J. Trump, Jr. We have a match! In fact according to cross check these are the same people. Well, it turns out they are father and son. For some reason South Carolina did not believe that one did not know what the other was doing and told The President of the United States that his company will have to clean it up. Naturally, because Trump Sr. is at arms length he knows nothing about this ruling. Again nothing to worry about South Carolina.

Don’t worry. Nothing to see here. Nineteen days in and Trump has gone back on most of his populist pledges, so much for doing what he said he was going to do:

• Drain the Swamp – Hire Goldman Sachs alums
• Release his taxes – public doesn’t care, so I won’t
• Stay out of my businesses – cries on Twitter that Nordstrom is unfair to his daughter for dropping her line

Why is Nordstrom dropping her line of Chinese made clothing, shoes, and accessories? Here’s an idea, they aren’t selling. Very unfair. I think I’ll go to Nordstrom and buy some stuff. Stock is up! Very unfair.

Mitch McConnell – Oh boy. Mitchie did you step in it? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll tell you one thing you just gave the Progressive Movement, women, Dems and the oppressed in this country a great slogan, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” Damn, now I’m going to have to buy new t-shirts, mugs, and posters. Thanks a lot.

Why did he stop Elizabeth Warren from reading Coretta Scott King’s letter about Jeff Sessions? Yet, four white male senators took to the floor after her and read parts of the letter. There are multiple examples and videos where senators insult each other on the chamber floor yet he choose to do this to Warren? She went outside the chamber and with her back against the wall finished her remarks to a youtube audience of five million. Is it that she’s a woman? Is it that she speaks in a way that many like and makes the Republicans scared?

Lindsey Graham who I was starting to like for showing some humor and backbone speculated that she did it because she wants to run in 2020 for President. He doesn’t understand Warren, but how could he? He’s surrounded by craven spineless hussies like Marco Rubio who gave a pathetic “Can’t we all be respectful of each other?” speech. (No, Marco, look at your Republican colleagues.) Then there’s Cronyn and Hatch two well coiffed white haired all white senators who with straight faces can say some really repugnant things. I turned on CNN briefly to hear one of them babble that they didn’t need to be told of Jeff Sessions’ record because they know the man, (If you know the man then you know he’s been behind Trump’s immigration policies. Heck, he wrote the initial one. He’s been involved in blocking African Americans from equal opportunities, voting and lied about it.)

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was confirmed as Attorney General. He got to pick his Solicitor General. His old Alabama pal Chuck Cooper. This will be his top litigator. Remember Chuck authored Reagan’s backing of Bob Jones University ban on inter-racial dating? He lost in the Supreme Court 8-1. He authored the policy that business could fire people with AIDS even though it was known at that time that AIDS was not transmitted casually. Good times ahead!

The Supreme Court nominee met with Democratic senators. He would not answer questions directly. Wow, what a surprise. Chuck Schumer said it reminded him of when he interviewed John Roberts. Roberts was deferential and noncommittal. Once he got on the bench he headed up the Citizens United decision, which has destroyed the way our elections work. Interestingly in that case the justices were asked to rule on a very narrow question. Instead, they took the opportunity to go back to an earlier case that was “settled law” and overturn its findings. That is what caused the huge change in our election process. Not done yet he then gutted the Voting Rights Act, leading within 48 hours of states putting in their legislative hoppers bills to restrict voting hours, locations, and qualifications. All aimed and limiting the votes of the poor, African Americans, and Democrats. The man behind Citizen’s United was also the man behind Clinton Cash, which led FBI Director Comey to look into Hillary’s emails once again, days before the election. That action has been directly attributed to her loss. You’ll be happy to know that that man, David Bossie, besides making a career out of bashing the Clintons for decades, worked on the Trump campaign and I assume is being kept in a cage at the White House where he is being fed scraps by Steve Bannon. Don’t quote me on that, I could be wrong.

Seth Meyers recently said that Trump’s disapproval rating is at 54% or as Betsy DeVos says, “one third.”

Lastly, and I’ve never seen a news person say this before directly to their audience and to the people who are doing it, but I heard it last night from Rachel Maddow:
“Stop Lying.”

1441 days to go

Headlines

1. Trump Moves to Protect Puppy Torturers – Admin removes USDA link to reports on puppy mills. Seventh agency so hit. No reason given. Public not told of action. Note on site says you can file Freedom of Info Act. Nice.
2. Elizabeth Warren Silenced for Reading – Warren was determined to be in violation of rule 19 of the Senate which prohibits imputing another senator. Warren was reading from Congressional Record the letter of Coretta Scott King, originally read into record by Ted Kennedy, and subsequently not put in record by famed segregationist Strom Thurmond, although he was supposed to. Discussion on this point from other senators to chair made it clear that if senator had a clear factually true evidence concerning another senator and that senator was up for a federal position the chair and by vote in senate could impute that senator and silence them for the duration of the discussion. This left senators to wonder how they could fulfill their duties of Advise and Consent.
3. London’s Daily Mail sued by Melanie Trump for calling her an escort. She claimed under oath that it would hurt her ability to make money from being first lady. White House denies she said that. Many wonder if she is still being paid as escort.
4. Betsy DeVos lied on bio. Approved by Senate.
5. Jeff Sessions lied on bio. Awaits confirmation. Republican senators express shock at such tactics by Dems to impute him.
6. Neil Grouch lied on bio. Awaits confirmation.
7. Labor Sec Pick never submitted bio, didn’t lie. Oh wait, forgot (didn’t know) woman working for him was illegal.
8. Betsy DeVos Overpaid to buy senate approval. Senate can be bought for much cheaper that $200-250M. Most senators received less than $50K from her. You can buy whole senate for $5M, $2.5M for just the Republicans – a deal.
9. Rosie O’Donnell suggested to play Sean Spicer on SNL she tweets, “I’m available! If called, I will serve!” Go Rosie, such a patriot.
10. Most people did not know SNL skit with Melissa McCarthey was not the real Sean Spicer. Sad.
11. 138,000 tune in to YouTube live stream of three judge panel hearing about the Muslim ban – not a ban. This is 5th? 6th? 7th? hearing on ban. So far WH 0 – Losers.
12. Michael Flynn, Nat Sec Chief has taken money from Russia, rewrites daily national security brief for president, repeated lie only available from Russian propaganda.
13. Nat Enquirer – Hillary near death. First time reported since election. Reported five times during election
14. FDA pick backs floating country idea. Countries made from old containers.
15. FDA pick backs live forever plan.
16. FDA pick not a doctor – who knew?
17. FDA pick wants to let untested drugs on market. Let public sort it out.
18. Admin backs plan to let financial advisors screw clients – no one surprised.
19. KellyAnne Conway talks and talks and talks: lies and lies and lies. Two Sunday talk shows turn down opportunity to ask her anything.
20. Mike Pence on Sunday talk show – has different view of work from the rest of humanity.

Well, what can I say? It’s been an interesting weekend. The Patriots came back, down 28-3 to win the Super Bowl and Melissa McCarthy gave a dead on impression of Sean Spicer.

Last night I got to hear some video clips of the lawyer for the Justice Department arguing the case for the Muslim ban to the Bush era appointed judge. I have to give them both credit for being respectful of the President. Neither one broke out laughing and both kept straight faces, which I think, if it had been me up there, would have been very hard to do.

To wit: when the judge pointed out that what was claimed did not comport with the facts the lady arguing for the President said that they did not have to ascertain the veracity of the claims at this point in time, that it was within the President’s prerogative to claim whatever he wants. Interesting argument, but it goes to the heart of what a lot of people have been saying: facts don’t matter. Apparently, they do still in a court of law.

In other events, it seems the Republicans really want to push through Trump’s nominations. Other than to see if they can I don’t understand. This isn’t a case of the fox guarding the hen house as much as the person wanting to blow up the hen house and all the hens in it and then say it was for the best. Mario Puzo wrote in The Godfather that a lawyer with a briefcase could steal more in an hour than a man with a gun could in a lifetime. Get ready. Not only will we be robbed blind and left naked at the side of the road they plan to drive over the corpse repeatedly. These are people who do not believe in the basic mission of the agencies they are being asked to be in charge of.

1443 days to go

Yesterday was the Super Bowl. I took the day off from writing about what’s going on because I didn’t have much to say. I spent my time listening and observing. It was interesting to listen to the weekly morning talk shows and listen as Tavis Smiley said – watching Mike Pence tie himself in knots to explain what the Trump administration was and had been doing. The amount of simple denial of reality, gas lighting, or – to be kind, which I don’t really have much truck with, the ability to see things in a very different light.

There was talk of the Super Bowl Budweiser ad, which illustrated how German immigrants were disliked and persecuted. It was said that Hillary supporters were more likely to drink Bud then Trump supporters. A fact I find hard to believe. Then if not Bud, what beer are Trump supporters drinking? Also, interestingly German immigrants were the ones that started brewing beer in America. It was considered low class and it was beer that caused the rise of the temperance movement. Who knew? What were the other Americans drinking, whiskey? Also, the last time a second language was proposed for this nation it was German.

There were illustrations both on TV and social media of Trump supporters taking a twisted kind of joy in exclaiming (trumpeting???) the fact that they won and you lost – ha, ha, ha. Various essays and graphs tried to show how Obama hadn’t done a good job, but Trump was going to turn things around, etc. There was talk of how Trump was “fixing” non-existent problems and that his fixes might actually create the problems he claimed he wanted to fix, then he could really turn up the heat on his fix. This was compared to how fascists worked in the 1930s, and actually how they always work. Speculation, ran as to whether this was the plan, and if so all fingers pointed to Bannon, whom reports late in the day said Trump was furious that he learned he had signed an order appointing Bannon to the National Security Counsel.

There was an article in the latest issue of Rolling Stone that chronicled the meanest of Mike Pence toward the poor and oppressed in Indiana. How his religious fervor and ineptness plus outright lying, and two faced hypocrisy all contributed to this. There was discussion on social media and radio about the protests in Berkley. What seems clear now is that the racist guy who was kicked off Twitter for saying such offensive things that Twitter couldn’t allow him to stay on was scheduled to speak at Berkley. There were protests and a fire. The talk was cancelled and the Republicans on campus bemoaned the fact that freedom of speech had died. It is now clear that 150 masked people, not students, showed up on campus and caused the violent part of the protest and the fire. This is right out of the fascist playbook. (Just sayin’)

I have been taking a Great Course entitled “Peoples and Cultures of the World.” Yesterday’s lecture dealt with language. All languages can be used to communicate, some communicate certain ideas better than others, some “don’t have a word for it.” Some have many words for say snow or lava, depending on whether you are an eskimo or a Hawaiian. Some languages tightly couple meanings to certain words, some are looser. An example of a very tightly coupled language (and that was not the term the professor used, but I think it was the idea) was the language described by George Orwell in his book “1984” where the state proclaimed a new language and that language had particular meaning and if you spoke that language only those meanings could be discussed and others would not; not be discussed, allowed, permitted, or even thought about. Interesting, that I should listen to that lecture at this point in time.

Let’s get to something fun and exciting, shall we? I’ve been curious about Trump Wine, ever since it was rudely shoved in my face by a prominent display in a grocery store that is now going out of business in our area. (Coincidence? I think not. But you never know, right? Am I right? Lemme hear an Ah Men! isn’t that the way it’s said?)

I’ve never been impressed with Virginia wines. I’ve tried. I went to Monticello and saw a beautiful winery on the next hill, complete with NAPA style adobe stucco tasting room and cute girls to ladle out the stuff. Not having time to taste I bought several bottles and was disappointed in all of them. The stuff just wasn’t very good. Not as bad as some Maryland wines I’ve had that seem to feature a heavy concentration of what I can only think is a preservative, suitable for using in you RV to keep lines from freezing but otherwise why buy it? Patricia Cornwell, a Richmond native, has also written unflatteringly about Virginia wines, so I’m not alone. But let’s dig in, first the back story as revealed in two minutes of googling.

The Donald bought the Kluge Winery. Why he didn’t keep the name is beyond me. He claimed the property was once listed for $100M, was 1300 acres, and one of the largest wineries in the state. He got the place for $6.2M. It had a mortgage of over $20M on the place and it’s not clear who got stiffed. The acreage is really 776, whether he bought some other property to make it up to 1300 is not clear, but I could find no evidence that he did. He doesn’t drink, and turned the operation over to his son. They kept the Kluges on to manage the operation, not sure if they are still there or not. As far as being one of the largest wineries in the state; it’s not. They have 200 acres under vine (is that a term? I don’t know. I just decided to use it, sounds cool, like “It’s a good read.”)

I had to noodle around to find a review of someone who actually tasted the wine. The main taster in the article is a woman from New York City who is in the restaurant business. No doubt, she’s a liberal Trump hater because all people in New York City are Trump haters, am I right? Well, it’s the only review I could find. Actually, it was the first one and I said that was good enough. BTW if you google Trump Wine and ask for wineries in the area their winery gets the lowest rating, except for some guy who appears to have a shack in the woods that he calls a winery. (Again, Just sayin’) But for those of you who might think a Clinton would hate this wine please be informed that Kluge wine was served at Chelsea Clinton’s rehearsal dinner.

Okay onto the reviews, I’m only going to pull out adjectives and phrases that describe the wine tasting experience, and let me just say right up front, I was not disappointed. It was everything I expected, and more!

Let’s start with the whites:

• The Blanc de Blancs 2009, $24 – “Isn’t bad, acidified, like it’s been toyed with, kind of Botox-y, disjointed, trying to be a champagne.”
• The Viognier 2014, $24 – “actively dislike, like being sprayed in a department store with cheap perfume”

On to the reds – After her experience with the above whites she commented, “I’m terrified of the reds.”

After tasting, she commented, “They both taste the same.”

Let’s break it down:

• Heritage 2014, $24 –
  “on the nose. I’ve smelled worse.” (Note: I think ‘on the nose’ means she smelled it. Love the term!)

  “This could actually be much more offensive. not great, nor is it terrible.” (Don’t you wonder how it could be ‘more offensive’?)

  In a blind tasting “I would think it a cheap Bordeaux,” “tastes super cheap, really boring, painfully boring,” and “a porch pounder” (which means something you guzzle on the porch, pounding it down.)

• New World Reserve 2013, $30 –
  “Still disjointed, feels played with,” like lemonade made with Splenda “weirdly sweet”, “just feels off.” There was a discussion of “artificial tannins” being added, not oak chips, but “a big bag of white stuff”
  Also “tastes expensive,” but “has no soul”

I think Trump Wine is a perfect reflection of Trump in general: disjointed, cheap, no soul, Botox-y.

Good times!

Here’s the article from vinepair.com.

1444 Days to go