A Field Guide To Spotting Traitors

This used to be a lot harder.

In some cases, it might take years to figure out who the traitors were. 

The Cambridge 5, for instance, got away with all sorts of treasonous shit for decades.

But now, just look for the people with an "R" next to their names.*

It's just that simple.

* the "R" stands for Russia.

Kompromat

 "Kompromat" is literally compromising material.

The Russian's (and the Mob, for that matter) are famous for collecting--and using--kompromat.

It may be of a sexual nature. 

It may be of a financial nature.

It may be of some other personal nature.

It is used to blackmail and extort.

At this point, it feels like almost the entire Republican Party is being blackmailed.

Why else would they have supported, and continue to support, a mobbed up tub of lard in debt to the Russians?

Why do they sometimes appear to be willing to say and do the right thing, only to suddenly change course 180 degrees?

Kompromat is the only logical answer.

The Russians and/or Trump must have serious "dirt" on all of them--especially the ones who openly grovel before Putin and his lapdog, Donnie.

Send In The Clowns

So the time has come for Moscow Mitch McConnell to have his show trial. Stalin would be so proud.

Of course, in Stalin's Russia the innocent were convicted, and here the guilty will walk. But still...

Let's sit back and watch the gutless Republican Insane Clown Posse, led by Mitch and that Belle of the South, Lindsey Graham, dissemble and distract, whatever it takes to muddle the proceedings. That remains the only thing they're really good at.

To be blunt, what we have here is a bunch of traitors, bought and paid for by the Russians, with Moscow Mitch acting as bursar, doing their damnedest to keep an idiot, a crook, a liar, in short a complete embarrassment to the nation, in office. 

"Follow the money" and you will end up in Moscow.

Witnesses or no witnesses, it won't make any difference to the Trump Cult.

They love their boy. And won't believe anything negative about him. In their tiny, malformed brains he is them and they are him. A match made in Hell.

Send in the clowns? Don't bother. They're here.

By A Thousand Cuts

Will ISIS, or ISIL or Daesh or whatever the fuck they're called, manage to carry out an attack in the US?

I don't know.

Trump can bluster, Lindsey Graham can clutch his pearls, Bill Kristol can call for a million troop deployment, John McCain can scream "I told you so!", Jeb "The Smart One Is A Relative Term" Bush can do whatever it is he does, Ted Cruz can act dead butch, and all the Fox News puppets and panderers can froth at the mouth about Obama's "weakness/incompetence".

None of them know either.

(Although it does seem like many of them would welcome it, if only to finally put that uppity negro is his place.)

I do know that from what I've read 9-11, which got us into this particular mess,  could have been prevented if we hadn't had a smirking frat boy simpleton and a slathering oil whore chickenhawk running things...

I also know that at some point in the not too distant future a white male psychopath, armed to the teeth thanks to our Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment and our esteemed Congress's fear of the NRA, and nursing some sort of grievance against "them", will shoot up an American school, or movie theatre, or shopping mall, or.....

That is indisputable.

Now, which do you think is more likely to happen first?

Oh, one more thing that is indisputable. If the crazy nihilist Muslims are here, it won't be very hard for them to get all the guns they want.

So, how's this for a campaign slogan:

"ISIS and the Republican Party: Working Together To Keep Americans Scared"

The Big Tent

You can't say the Republicans aren't the party of diversity.

Right now they've got a black fool, a female fool, two Hispanic fools, a bunch of white male fools, probably including a closeted gay fool, all running for President of these here United States.

Take your pick!

Go on, choose.

But be prepared to hear science denied, every minority offended, lies about their business accomplishments, immigrants demonized, war and more war promoted, the disenfranchisement of millions of people applauded, the prospect of healthcare being taken away from millions more equally applauded, the despised poor ground beneath their boots, the incessant meddling in women's personal lives, and the non stop worship of the almighty gun.

You know, the family values, take our country back, stuff the GOP is so fond of.

Clown Time Is Never Over

Time flies, and before you know it, registered Republicans across this great land of ours will have to make the difficult decision of choosing which disastrous current or former governor to anoint as their party's presidential candidate.

Of course, they could pick from the covey of past and present truly awful U.S. senators running for the job.

Then there's always the business woman who almost ruined a major American corporation.

Or the noted surgeon who has the political intelligence of a salamander.

What about the bigoted blowhard billionaire, who makes the noted surgeon look like Thomas Jefferson?

So little time and so many buffoons to choose from!

Dr. Strangelove, or: John McCain Doesn't Know Anything About Anything

I've lived in Arizona for a long time...certainly much longer than Senator John McCain. I'll probably be here long after he's gone, too. And, if you put a gun to my head, I still couldn't name one thing he's done for the people of Arizona.

But even worse than his lack of any tangible legislative achievements is the faith that some media types seem to put in his foreign policy acumen. Let Vladimir Putin fart and there's McCain, expounding...

And he's always wrong. Always.

Remember "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"? Remember "We're all Georgians now"? Remember his predictions about the Iraq War? Remember the Keating 5?

Here's McCain's curriculum vitae: He was a prisoner of war. Doesn't that mean that he fucked up on some fundamental level?  He survived imprisonment. That's his expertise.Then he dumped the first wife on her sickbed, married the young daughter of a wealthy liquor distributor, ran for a safe Republican seat in the House, and then, because the voters in Arizona get all mushy over a boy in uniform--regardless of their qualifications--he ascended to the Senate. The rest, as they say, is history. I will only add that with the first big, important decision he had to make as a Presidential candidate he gave us the gift that is Sarah Palin. Res ipsa loquitur.

None of this makes him an expert on anything, except opportunism.

Now, on the other hand, if you were casting a screwball comedy, McCain and his little buddy, Miss Lindsey Graham, would make a perfect couple: A bitter old man and a dithering hysteric.

Well, hell, I guess that's exactly what we're living through, though, isn't it?

A screwball comedy where the most ridiculous people are taken seriously.

The Charge Of The Lightweight Brigade

Oh, what manly men they are!

William Kristol!

Lindsey Graham!

John McCain!

Charge for the guns they said!

(You go ahead...we'll be back here...watching...and cheering...)

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward!
 
Look, there's little Billy Kristol, son of the intellectual father of the neo-cons, Ur-chickenhawk, always on the lookout for ways to keep Israel safe for apartheid.

Right next to him is Lindsey "Belle of the South" Graham, who proudly served in the US Air Force and yet somehow never left South Carolina. No doubt he was keeping Charleston safe from the Iraqi hordes. Just like W. kept the bars of Texas safe from the Cong.

And in the lead, of course, is John "Maverick" McCain, who, and let's be honest now, has milked being a POW for 40 some years. He parlayed being captured into a seat in the House, then the Senate, and almost into the White House itself. Along the way he has somehow earned a reputation as a foreign policy 'expert'. Expert in his case is defined as being wrong about just about everything. But, fuck it, I guess we're all Ukrainians now, right John?

Some folks never tire of war. Indeed, the very idea of it makes them feel all warm and gooey inside.

Especially when they're not going to get their hands dirty fighting it.

A Bit Of Harmless Fun

We all sit, with bated breath, waiting for the Great Syria Debate.

The nation's best minds, seated in our hallowed Congress and representing all reasonable points of view, will, with the highest intellectual rigor and the wisdom that is our country's birth right....

And blah blah blah.

Louie Gohmert is a member of the United States Congress. So is Trent Franks. So are Steve King, Darrell Issa, Ted Cruz, Dana Rohrabacher...oh, the list goes on and on. Inhofe, Flake, Paul, McConnell, Graham, and Sessions. Quite the brain trust, ain't it?

The Congressional debate over Syria will make monkeys throwing their feces at each other look like Masterpiece Theatre.

Some of these morons will still not admit that the President is a native born US citizen. They're just not sure...

Or perhaps they are sure, but they know they have to act like idiots to appease their idiotic base. I don't know which is worse: to be an idiot or to just act like one because you're afraid.

Our Congress is full of bought and paid for "climate change" deniers, evolution deniers, healthcare crisis deniers, gun nuts, racists, homophobes, misogynists, Ayn Rand quoting dweebs and hopheads chanting "USA USA!" as they stuff the Koch brothers' money into their pockets.

Expecting them to do anything in a sane and timely fashion is asking way too much...it would require them to put aside their personal passions and pettiness and act like statesmen. And that's not going to happen.

Anyway, the truth is that there is no good solution to what is happening in Syria. It is a civil war between a murderous despot, who is supported and supplied by Russia, China and Iran, versus a collection of armed sects. And trust me, the Russians and Chinese really don't care who Assad gasses. Because they both reserve the right to brutalize their own citizens as needed and by whatever means necessary. Besides, this gives them all a chance to screw with the good ol' USA.

Based on our lies about Iraq, why would the other member states of the UN trust us now? Even our British friends are tired of war. And if by chance Assad could be removed, who would replace him? There is no fertile ground for democracy to take root. Modern Syria is, like most of the Arab states in the Middle East, an artificial construct, left behind from the remains of the Ottoman Empire after the first World War. Cobbled together by the British and French out of tribes that have been killing each other for a thousand years, since the original schism in the Muslim world. And apparently you can now throw al-Qaeda into that mix. What kind of coalition government would that toxic brew yield? And for how long?

I have no doubt that there are many peace loving, innocent Syrians who want to live in the 21st Century and not the Middle Ages. After all, most people everywhere just want to get along with their lives, watch their children grow, and age as gracefully as possible. Unfortunately, in Syria they have no power, nor any say in what happens to themselves or their state. Personally, I would pack all I could and head for the nearest border.

I'm afraid the slaughter of the innocents will continue for the foreseeable future, until all innocence is lost.

Hey, Whatever Happened To...

Hey, whatever happened to Benghazi?

This was going to be the scandal that brought down the Obama administration. Or prevented the Hillary Clinton administration. Or both!

Darrell Issa, super patriot, self-made multimillionaire, blah blah blah, was going to get to the bottom of "the cover-up". Remember? It was worse than Watergate! The worse scandal ever, etc etc. The Republicans were licking their collective chops, with both John "Maverick Is My Name" McCain, and his BFF, Lindsey "Belle of the South" Graham howling from the rooftops.

Then it turned out that the Republicans had gutted the State Department budget--including security--and maybe, just maybe, Benghazi was a CIA outpost. And you know how them foreigners love the CIA. Hmmm.

Hey, whatever happened to the IRS scandal?

This was going to be the scandal that brought down the Obama administration.  Worse than Watergate, etc etc.

Darrell Issa was going to blow the roof of it, expose the seamy inner workings of a corrupt President and his corrupt minions. Corruption!

Turns out the IRS is underfunded, understaffed, and swamped with requests for 501 c4 status from both left and right leaning groups. So the Tea Party wasn't being singled out for persecution after all. Hmmm.

It also turns out that Darrell Issa is kinda like one of his car alarms. Loud, repetitive, and ultimately an empty annoyance.

OK, but what about the NSA scandal! Surely this will bring down Obama...won't it?

But wasn't the Patriot Act pushed through by the Bush administration and a panicky Congress in the aftermath of 9-11? And, with all apologies to Edward Snowden, haven't people (at least those paying attention) known for years that the NSA--and our other intelligence agencies--gather massive amounts of information. On everyone, everywhere. Hmmm.

Now, we can and should have an open and informed discussion about whether this is the sort of thing that an allegedly "free" society should engage in. And how to best protect our right to privacy while still protecting the nation's security. But to pretend that this behavior is somehow unique to the Obama Administration is the sort of half-baked palaver that, well, people like Darrell Issa indulge in.

No, when the history of the Obama years is written, the biggest scandal will be how the Republican Party was held hostage by reactionary extremists, funded by a handful of greedy billionaires, and in return, how they held a country's future hostage because of their intense hatred of one man.

Now that's scandalous.

"Is There No One Else?"

The various Republican responses to the State of the Union speech brought something sharply into focus: Every time the Grand Oligarch's Party sends someone out to debate, attack, or counter President Obama, I'm reminded of a scene from Troy.

Early in the movie, Achilles (Brad Pitt), is to battle, mano y mano, with the best the other side has to offer. Of course, because he's Achilles and Brad Pitt,  he dispatches his larger, seemingly more powerful rival with shocking ease and an almost carefree nonchalance. Then, he stands facing the rest of the enemy army and says, challenging and mocking them in the same breath, "Is there no one else? Is there no one else?"

Mitt "I Really Didn't Want To Be President Anyway" Romney?

Marco "Always Remember To Hydrate" Rubio?

Rand "Yes, By God, I Believe This Shit!" Paul?

John "Weepy" Boehner?

Mitch "Corn Pone" McConnell?

John "Did I Mention I Was A POW?" McCain?

Lindsey "Belle of the South" Graham?

"Is there no one else?"

Senatorial Snark

John McCain, R-Hanoi, and Lindsey Graham, R-Hillbilly, could not muster up the decency to give President Obama any credit whatsoever for the impending demise of Moammar Gadhafi. They managed to praise the Libyan people and NATO forces but found nothing good to say about the actions of our President. In fact they condemned Obama for not using more US air power earlier.

Of course, Graham is stuffed so deep in the Israel Lobby's pocket it's a wonder he can still breathe, and both he and McCain were cheerleaders for W's Iraq war, (Arizona's favorite POW also had a hardon for bombing Iran), so maybe this dynamic duo's realpolitik expertise is just a little suspect.

McCain in particular has been wrong so many times that taking his advice about foreign policy (or anything for that matter) is the same as taking Casey Anthony's advice about childcare.

Indeed the "legend" of Maverick John McCain is based almost entirely on his being a prisoner of war 40 years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that means he got caught and surrendered.

Call me old fashioned, but holding your hands in the air and saying please don't shoot me does not qualify one as either a hero or a foreign policy expert. And only in Arizona does it qualify you for the Senate.