Part One – So Much News, it’s Hard to Keep Track

Chaos Reigns

Starting off with Russia (again), this whole thing has gone way beyond the hacking & leaking on Dems’ campaign emails that we’ve known about for a year.  We also already discovered in these past few months about the Russians running fake ads on Facebook & Twitter, but now Google & various internet platforms have also found Russian interference through placing ads.  The more we’re learning, it’s increasingly obvious this interference from a foreign adversary was far more widespread & pervasive than was ever envisioned.  The investigations need to undercover all the ways Russia intervened so we can figure out a way to stop it, plus find out if they had inside help from Americans.  If we keep allowing our electoral process to be tarnished, our entire democratic system is delegitimized.  We’d also better believe based on what they learned, Russia will be even more insidious the next time in infiltrating our election campaigns.  And based on the way Trump ignores & denies it even happened, he doesn’t seem to care about these attacks on our democracy.  Maybe he wants the interference to continue for future elections?  Maybe he was in on the last attack?  Interesting how he’s ignoring the Russian sanctions.

As is routine for him, Trump attacking others only makes him his own worst enemy.  It also makes him look small.  Although he said this week he doesn’t undercut anyone, his snipes are who he is.  As for the war of words with Corker or Tillerson or anyone else he picks fights with or has revenge motives, it only goes to show how temperamentally unsound & mentally unstable the President is.  It’s why we hold out so much hope in the Russian scandal, so we’ll be able to legally remove someone with the maturity level & attention span of a toddler, along with his dangerous hair-triggered temper.  He’s not governing or leading, he’s spending his days scheming how to mock & insult political opponents.  He doesn’t know & might not care how to responsibly perform the duties of President, since his ego-fueled narcissism lives only for the adulation & hero-worshipping coming from his fanbase.  When any public figure tries to punch holes in his self-aggrandizing façade of himself being this great omnipotent king, he can’t handle the challenge & immediately lashes out.  Trump can’t handle criticisms in a job where that comes with the territory.  It’s the type of disturbing personal trait which might be entertaining on a reality TV show, but a recipe for disaster for a nation’s ruler.

Corker is right by insinuating this is a person with the impulsivity & lack of judgement that he very well could bring on WWIII.  Being so incredibly thin-skinned perhaps stems from some deep-seated insecurities, but whatever psychological issues he appears to have, he’s not the person who should preside over the nuclear codes.  The White House staff admit his frequent outbursts & bizarre actions have them alarmed, even describing him as a pressure-cooker ready to explode.  If things get bad enough with aides in the White House who see his erratic performances firsthand on a daily basis, should they determine his increasingly questionable mental state cannot wait for proof of criminal activity to have him removed from office, there’s always the 25th Amendment as an emergency measure.  They may need the courage to risk their jobs knowing America is at risk.

Internationally, I do hold out hope that Trump’s unconventional ways & playing the part he is uniquely qualified for in carrying out the madman theory, where his negotiation skills & the world believing he’s crazy can force the relevant players to the table.  If we can convince powers like Russia & China the dire consequences of a nuclear Iran & North Korea enough to gain their cooperation, where some combination of sanctions, negotiations & yes, even military strikes, such high-risk strategies may be necessary now to establish a much safer world for decades to come.  I just don’t think we can afford to sit back passively & watch it all happen in Iran & North Korea.  Failing to take proactive steps & allowing nukes to keep spreading, it’s easy to envision mankind being soon on the brink of destroying themselves.  If we can somehow through smart strategies & alliances stamp out the immediate threats presented by Iran & North Korea, it could set a critical precedent where the world cannot stand for & will not allow any more proliferation of nuclear weapons.  When tempted nations who consider entering the nuclear arena see the world means business & will respond harshly by coming down hard on them, it could establish accepted norms with countries throughout the world realizing that building a nuclear weapons program isn’t even a viable option.

But such wishful thinking is still a longshot at best & the risks incredibly high.  Unfortunately, there’s probably greater odds Trump’s lone-ranger plans & veiled threats will backfire, either through an international incident or miscalculation, or Trump just flat-out impulsively launching an attack, escalating into mass casualties on both sides.  Events could even turn catastrophic by spiraling into WWIII (Corker’s words have real merit), where the use of nukes would make it a war far beyond any other.  So either of these best or worst case scenarios, were they to occur, would dramatically change the world going forward, be it making our life on Earth a much safer place or threaten our very survival.  There are no good options, but doing nothing is probably the worst option.  Personally, I believe the odds are far greater the Russian scandal may interrupt whatever plans Trump may have, where he’ll soon be forced from office with no real accomplishments to his credit.  But we should still be very concerned he might do something rash before heading for the door.

Yes indeed, the greatest threat the whole world faces is the proliferation of nuclear weapons.  On that note Jimmy Carter was right & it’s even more true today.  One of the most important responsibilities of world leaders is to feed into the narrative nukes cannot be permitted to spread & should never, ever again be used.  On that note we need the whole world to buy into that mantra to the maximum extent we can.  And then there’s Trump.  He seems obsessed with nukes, of having the most & the best, along with the justification to actually use them.  The more our own American leader can set the dangerous precedent for other world leaders, that it’s OK to have license & such loose attitudes about using nukes, the closer we come to setting the stage for warring countries to blow up the whole world.

Bob Corker is emboldened to comment about this unhinged shambles of a presidency since he’s going to retire (Charlie Dent is another rational GOP rep speaking out as he’s ready to retire), but there are a whole lot of GOP congresspeople who privately are similarly alarmed, with many even in the White House sharing those fears.  And it’s telling we don’t hear those taking Corker to task in defending Trump.  Keep in mind where impeachment proceedings would begin pending Mueller’s findings.  But not many in Congress are speaking out yet since there is that large Trumpeter army out there still loyal to their master as they keep getting their marching orders through echo-messaging, so for the time being it’s still a political calculation for GOP reps not wanting to offend anyone in their base.

There’s already enough evidence for impeachment based on obstruction if Congress had the political will.  But we need to wait for the investigators to uncover the complete picture where there well could be far more damning & concrete evidence, from which such proof of obstruction, conspiracy or other such criminal offenses by Trump could make it much easier for Congress to proceed, while the public outside loyal Trumpeters can readily accept the actions our constitutional laws demand we take.  Mueller’s findings whenever he puts it all together likely holds the key.  With the congressional investigations having gotten so bogged down in partisanship & Nunes is still a stooge for Trump, as I called for early this year we should really appoint an independent commission.  America must find out the truth!  In correcting these definitions from common phrases coming from Trump & his echo, fake news is actually whatever Trump & his echo say, & drain the swamp means to give the boot to Trump & anyone else investigators can ultimately prove were involved in the Russian scandal.  Just wanted to clarify that since echo-fans have it all wrong.

I’m not a liberal & never have been, be we share a common goal of pushing back against someone who has given every indication he might be a sociopathic lunatic who could do untold damage to our country.  Liberals, moderates & conservatives alike can do a great public service & help preserve America’s democracy by informing others who may not yet view our President for the person he truly is.  That’s why I request you please share this info, including lots & lots of links below to some valuable news articles.  Trumpeters & the echo-crowd may be initially taken aback & some even get livid, but they can thank you later once they’ve finally seen the light.  Some will always stay in the darkness of the echo, but we only need to bring enough back to reality in saving the GOP & help make them a governing party again, so we can get America back on track.  Even Dems need a sane GOP, so we can someday work together in constructing important bipartisan legislation to tackle our numerous challenges.

As always, the links from the newsfeeds are mostly about Trump.  The smorgasbord of choices starts out with evidence of obstruction, impeachment articles, various other stories & players about the scandal, & Russia infiltrating the social media platforms.  Not just Russian cyberattacks, but recently North Korea has gone after our power grid, which our very survival demands we stay ahead of them, even without current presidential leadership.  Conspiracy-theorists within the echo warn us of this evil deep state, but cyberattacks are just one example how we must depend on this so-called deep state to save us from our enemies.  Moving down the links, there are Corker & Tillerson articles with the staff in the White House regularly seeing the prez going berserk with a very tenuous grip on his own sanity.  See the Vanity Fair article below about Trump, where it states he hates everyone in the White House & is coming unraveled.  As it looks increasingly like Trump’s losing his grip on reality, John Kelly came out today to basically reassure us, that although we have a nut heading the White House, John’s trying to do his best to keep that crazy train on the tracks.  In the Right Turn article towards the bottom, Rubin points out how evangelicals turned Trumpeters have gone from values voters into amoral theocrats, while the last links reveal Trump’s sagging approval numbers.  Always lots of news with this President.