cold case

neutrality is not really possible here...i thought some degree of certainty was...this too has fled...i am prepared to believe that ms. ford's accusations are true...kavanaugh strikes me as being as cretinous as anything else that has crawled out of the slime of this administration and the toadying ratfucks in congress...thirty-six years ago i wasn't in the room when these events are alleged to have occurred...i was somewhere else up to my ass in my own problems...i cannot say empirically that someone is lying...the new york times said, "the two very different versions of the truth unfolding in the heated atmosphere of gender divides, metoo, and the trump presidency could not be reconciled."...the "truth" is subjective and there will always be opposing narratives of events...be empaneled on a jury some time if you want a clear-cut experience of the slippery nature of what actually happened and whose version ( and they are versions...equally believed ) of events you will choose to believe...i had thought that whatever happened in 1982 the senate would hold its nose and confirm because there are very powerful interests that want this guy on the court...this was somewhat upended by der furhair's acquiescence to an fbi investigation...did not expect that...after thinking a bit i still wonder...if i am not mistaken his time frame for a inquiry is "less than a week"...to investigate a thirty-six year old cold case that will doubtlessly produce conflicting versions and "less than a week" is not a lot of time to ferret out what may be fact...so...could be the end of brett kavavaough's supreme court bid...could be a whitewash and business as usual...i read somewhere that flake had "pulled the senate back from the brink"...bullshit...they are still the same contemptible grasping venal corrupt small town whores they always were..they are politicians...it is endemic...what he did was point out that they were in an uncomfortably public place on this and it is an election year...that may put paid to brett...the successor appointee will be no less conservative and will face a possibly marginally different senate...there are always surprises with nominees...you can't trust a jurist...they'll turn on you like cornered badgers...the system is structured to resist change with increasing force as the challenges to it become more fundamental...it does not like change from below and this is a populist issue...whomever becomes the next justice they won't be earl warren...the new deal is dead and corporate interests are ascendant..they are consquentialist...they are about now...not 1982...past behaviors stand second to ideology...to presume that confirmation is an impossibility would be foolish...the system is not especially geared towards being responsive to "the will of the people"...its creators had a very limited republic in mind...you can protest...congress is free to ignore it...we will see next week.

an apologist

i finally got around to actually reading the "anonymous" n y times editorial that is alleged ( the issue with anonymity is that responsibility and identity or both tossed out the window..it is why criminals, klansmen, and terrorists wear masks..credibility also flies the coop with it ) to have been written by a "senior white house official"...it is critical of the president which i have no particular argument with..it is, however, not critical of the administrations policies..."we want the administration to succeed and think many of its policies have made america safer and more prosperous."...prosperous for whom is a question that leaps to mind...certainly not working people who are being squeezed by the upward redistribution of wealth at least in part enshrined in "historic tax reform"...the writer bemoans the presidents lack of "first principles " and his seeming disrespect for the republican way..."although he was elected as a republican, the president shows little affinity for the ideals long espoused by conservatives ( of which the writer is clearly one ) free minds, free markets, and free people."...as long as you are of the correct linage, hold the proper ideological view, and, for a country with one of the largest prison populations in the world and the balance of the population headed int debt penury that "free people" is a howler...republican "ideals" have a bedrock base of social darwinism that says the wealth are so because they are the "fittest" and poor people are poor because they are "unfit" and so deserve their status...a cheap reinforcement of a hegemonic culture steeped in greed and exceptionalism...the writer claims the interior resistance is "not the work of the deep state. it is the work of the steady state." no..it is the work of members of the elite, rightly frightened that the blowback from the president's seeming psychosis and self-entitlement may actually engender a reform movement that would infringe on their prerogatives to make themselves wealthy at the expense of the general population...whoever this is they are not a "resister"...they are an apologist for the system that is steadily undermining the economic health of the mass of the people for the benefit of the few...i am not having any of this, thanks..the writer and the elitist n y times can pound sand.

oddly enough, blue is my favorite color

the dam holding back the convictions is as cracked as the stonewall...justice is finding its voice...der furhair is in retreat...hunkering down among the yahoos...the forces of liberal enlightenment are on the upsurge...the "blue wave" is coming...hopes are high and so it is time for some reflection...in the wake of richard nixon's resignation forty-four years ago convictions began to roll in as well...former attorney general of the united states john mitchell went to jail..so did the president's one-time counsel john dean ( sounding familiar? )...presidential aides h.r.haldeman and john erlichman went as well...chuck colson, jeb stuart magruder, james mccord, howard hunt, and g. gordon liddy from creep all went too, along with a number of others...an orgy of political justice that produced what? a couple of years of jerry ford and nelson rockerfeller..the first unelected president and vice president...a pardon for the "unindicted co-conspirator" ( even with feelings as high as they were they could not bring themselves to charge nixon with a crime...bear that in mind ), inept assassination attempts, and jerry falling down a lot and providing a career start for the insufferable chevy chase...it did not stop there...1976 saw the election of jimmy carter...a solid dixiecrat from georgia who was a profoundly republican president...it was his administration that deregulated trucking and the airlines, thus weakening unions and presaging the "reagan revolution"...all that balck irish fuck did was pick up the ball and run with it until he couldn't remember where he was going...so nixon was hounded from office...the forces of goodness and light won...people went to jail...briefly...did any one of them serve a full sentence? and books were written by the reformed ( jeb stuart magruder has written two...john dean as well ) liddy went on to disrupt talk radio...mitchell retired to enjoy his wealth..and vengeful republicans impeached bill clinton...things changed...but not much...a pence presidency would not be a step up...it would be change though...a different face...business as usual...you people are not nearly cynical enough about the system to defend yourselves...addendum 24 august 2018...as yet no one associated with der furhair has been convicted of direct collusion with russians in influencing the 2016 election...conclusive proof tying trump to any such effort woud lbe the only scenario i can conceive of that would lead to impeachment.

nixon and the commies

"by that weekend kissinger and dobrynin were negotiating over an exchange of gifts between the two leaders. dobrynin thought the president might like a hydrofoil to use in biscayne bay. and brezhnev? 'a cadillac' said the ambassador." _________"nixon spoke of roosevelt, churchill, and stalin and said: 'that is the kind of relationship that i should like to establish with the general secratary.' 'i am perfectly ready on my side,' said brezhnev." from president nixon: alone in the whitehouse._______________i don't doubt trumpy has had more direct business dealing inside russia and that nixon's relationship with brezhnev was political ( despite the hydrofoil )...however that does not mean that power doesn't seek out power for its own benefit ( this particular summit was in june of 1972...as the presidential season was getting under way...nixon was campaigning by showing his ability by dealing directly with brezhnev...cutting out the mediators...sort of...if you don't count the cadillac ) with little regard to public opinion...kennedy...coldest of cold warriors...wouldn't have been caught dead toasting with nikita...he would however party with konrad adenhauer...who, while he was not a party member and was relieved of his post as mayor of cologne, never sustained nazi animus either ( he was arrested and released after the abortive assassination attempt on hitler due to "lack of evidence"...i am thinking suspicion was ample evidence in those [ and these ] days for drastic action...there may have been "no evidence" but he had friends )...political divides dictate odd friendships ( ask noriega )...trumpy isn't the first president to snuggle up with the bear...that he may be the most corrupt and unstable one may have more sinister elements that nixon's cadillac...still..power does not care what you think.

british humor ( beyond the baloon )

"super, callous, fragile, racist, sexist, nazi, potus" mary poppins grows political fangs https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/12/upshot/trade-war-cost-families.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/business/trade-war-china-consumers.html

soybean oil

witless turd or machiavellian genius? i hold an opinion on this matter but that isn't why i came here

this is what i have been pondering since friday...the whole meuller probe, its guilty pleas, the russian business will never bring trumpy down...at best he would end up an "un-indicted co-conspirator" and there would be a pardon after 2020...he is of the elite, no matter what his misguided base thinks, and they will protect their own because they could be next...and as long as they are making money they will put up with his dithering...and twitter rants..and his racism...and his sexism...and his lame-assed claims to some sort of intellect...however...

all the acres and acres of these little plants...

with these little blooms that will eventually turn into millions, if not billions, of pods with soybeans in them are emblematic of a deep-seated hubris that could bring this bozo down with a thud...a 25% chinese tariff on these will cream a good many mid-western farmers come harvest..

not to mention monsanto or bayer's next year seed sales...we all know no one fucks with monsanto and gets away with it without a protracted and costly fight...ask rape seed farmers in canada...they are the devil incarnate and they don't give a rat's ass who they fuck over...and when this clown starts to cost them he may find he isn't king after all...and it goes well beyond that...i am no fan of the globalitarians and the impact they have had in depressing the quality of life for millions of working people all around the world...that said we are likely to find out that the "world's strongest economy" is not what it is cracked up to be and that we are so deeply enmeshed in the "global marketplace" that withdrawal will be a seriously difficult addiction to kick...despite the support of bought whores like mitch mcconnell, trumpy may find the atmosphere among the real powers that be freezing cold...russia is a non-issue...this whole "trade war" business could do him...in the words of woodward and bermstein, "follow the money"

pardon me

i have seen this all before...and it is just as fine an object lesson in the debilitating stupidity the emanates out of swamptown as anything from tricky dick's era...however king richard is a good place to start in analyzing trumpy's bombast and miscalculations ( rudy giuliani is not helping this at all by the by...nixon was a lawyer and his legal team were at least competent even though the arguments they came up with were doozies...as we will be seeing ) after nixon fired archibald cox and eliot richardson took the high road and resigned ( the peanut from alabama would not ) nixon was forced to appoint a new special prosecutor and leon jawarski got the job...he got a subpoena from judge john sirica of the federal district court of the district of columbia ordering nixon to turn over tapes and documents over his knowledge of the watergate break in...nixon tried an end run releasing transcript of the tapes and then sent his lawyer james d. st. clair into sirica's courtroom task him to quash the subpoena because he maintained the transcripts fulfilled its terms...while in open court st. clair said: "my client ( notice he pins the blame for this on nixon...he wasn't going to argue this ) wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as louis xiv, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment"...the argument for the divine right of presidents did not sit well anywhere from the public to congress ( congress had a vestige of integrity then...the rat fucks there now are basically a criminal enterprise )and nixon resigned to avoid the inevitable impeachment...so...does trumpy have the "absolute power" to pardon himself...in a limited fashion he can but not in the absolute...the president can pardon people convicted of federal crimes...not those of a state...so he could conceivable pardon himself of those...any state crimes are beyond his power to pardon...he can be indicted but not tried until his term in office is complete ( impetus for "president for life"? ) in office he can only be tried by congress ( so nixon was correct about that ) and can only be arrested by the sargeant-at-arms of the senate...nixon let ford pardon him ( in the absence of any indictments ) and, no doubt pence would pardon trump if the time came...trump only thinks his powers absolute...he will continue to do so as long as the co-conspirators in congress allow it.

obviously we are a threat

i hear that the department of homeland security has put a call out for companies that can create a database of journalists and bloggers ( one wonders if this would include twitter accounts that indulge in patent distortion and outright bullshit...know what i mean ? ) in an alleged effort to control the dissemination of "fake news"...as opposed to officially sanctioned "real news" ( which i would term a corporatist sort of propaganda heavily skewed towards an addiction to consumption ) from the crypto-fascist fox network and the fucktards at sinclair...i have a number of blogs and the only one i purport to have any factual "news" on is the gardening one because it is mostly about what is going on in my yard and my basement...the others ( some of which have not seen much activity of late...although, for one, that will be changing very soon, one is actually defunct because the garden it was about is no more ) are simply viewpoint with the occasional vituperative rant tossed in to keep the adrenaline going....i want this made clear...opinion..and my opinion is that homeland security are pretty much a bunch of nosy control freaks with an overblown perception of their mandate...i imagine you have to know who the enemy is ( or who the potential "other" is...goebbels and himmler understood this...they were control freaks who were pigs for data too )...in today's n y times maddy albright says don's a fascist...i am not so sure..i am inclined to think he is an entitled immature self-absorbed jerk who can be led by fascists or authoritarian wannabes...i mean look at fucking bolton...in any event i will continue to express my views ( which you may or may not accept...it is still a free country...be advised you do not have the intellectual tools available to you to change my views...they have not been arrived at without some study...people in russia have begun to call putin "vozhd"..this is not a good sign..look it up ) until some bureaucrat decides i am a threat because of said views...this seems unlikely to me...i am not tremendously influential...still authoritarians are micro-managers...there could be a rumpus.

leaks? nixon called a plumber ( and look where that got him )

from allegations of sexual misconduct to leaks regarding a phone call ( which may or may not have been made...alternative facts...fake news...all very orwellian and we will get back to that soon enough ) congratulating vlad putin on an election result that allowed him to barely squeak out another term ( "it is enough for the people to know there was an election. the people who cast the votes decide nothing. the people who count the votes decide everything" joe stalin ) the trump administration seems to be having some trouble finding a calm center where the master of the "art of the deal" can work his magic...there is a solution to all this that is so obvious it beggars the imagination that it has not been forcefully proposed...well..someone has to bite the bullet so here it is...bring g gordon liddy back from retirement...or from the dead if necessary...an old hand at plumbing leaks and a venerable fixer from the 1970s he could set things in whoretown straight for the big guy"...he has a sterling track record folks...from a wonderfully choreographed "black bag job" on the office of dr. lewis j. fielding in an effort to discredit daniel ellsberg...which was blundered in keystone kops fashion by his cuban operatives who jimmied open a file cabinet with a crowbar only to find no ellsberg file...they threw pills around the office to make it look like "junkies" had broken in trying to find drugs and then celebrated a "clean" job later with champagne...competence like this is not an everyday occurrence...hard to find a good plumber ( and this was only one example of the good work he did for the president )..woman problems? after liddy left the white house staff for the greener pastures of the committee to re-elect the president ( creep ) his plan called GEMSTONE to disrupt the democratic national convention ( with the cubans taking part again to sabotage the convention center air conditioning and roast the democrats out..a nice touch john mitchell liked but refused to fund ) included a sub-heading titled CRYSTAL which entailed floating a barge off miami to serve as a listening post to electronically surveil the democrats' headquarters and as a bordello staffed with, in liddy's words " the finest girls from baltimore" to entrap democratic delegates and blackmail them...someone with these credentials could make the the president's troubles disappear...such a valuable asset to the administration should not be overlooked...implausible? break out the newspeak dictionary and look up doublespeak and doublethink...they are daily events in whoretown these days...there is no going back...the only way out is through...the time for talk is over.