Category: From The Editor

Trump, Giuliani & Their Constitutional Spaghetti Incident #Resist

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

What’s going on right now, I’m afraid, is what you might call the “spaghetti strategy” of defense on the part of Trump and Giuliani. They are no longer basing anything they do or say on the facts, but rather using their own form of “truthiness” whereby they throw different idea against the wall until something sticks.

Therefore, they honestly don’t care what we think. If you are bound by the rules of logic and evidence and happen not to support their basic concept that nothing Trump did was wrong and Mueller’s investigation is a “witch hunt,” they honestly don’t care what you think. Their entire goal is to divide the country and muddle the issues to such an extent that Trump can’t be pinned down.

In a sense, they’re trying to wait out the clock. They are waiting until the base is prepped to accept Trump firing Mueller or whatever, knowing that in real terms as long as Trump has a Republican majority in Congress he is, in fact, above the law. I don’t even think this strategy is all that risky. Unless something dramatically unexpected happens, I suspect they’re going to pull it off.

What they want, and what I think they’ll get, is an extreme version of the Iran-contra endgame whereby everyone knew Reagan engaged in extra-Constitutional shenanigans, but nothing happen to Reagan for various reasons. So, too, I think Trump will get what he wants — which is stay in power for 8 years — and much like the lack of WMDs in Iraq, this whole thing will be one of those issues where Trump supporters just blink silently whenever you bring it up, never addressing the facts.

That’s our fate, I’m afraid. Our fate is about half the population will know the facts — that Trump not only colluded with a hostile foreign power, but obstructed justice as well, while the other half the population will shrug and enjoy the “humming” economy while the Trump Administration guts the social safety net, tears immigrant families apart and generally ushers in an extremely dark period in our nations history.

Trump’s too smooth to do what Nixon did with the Saturday Night Massacre. Trump will probably do a gradual one whereby he pushes people out or something equally nefarious. A lot of people compare Trump to Reagan and, in some respects, the comparison is apt. Reagan ushered in a new era of political thought that never was reversed once he left office. I mean, the only way Bill Clinton even got elected was by professing his belief in a “Third Way.” So, too, I suspect Trump’s successors of both the Right and the Left will have to work within a new world of Trump’s creation.

Interestingly, this was pretty much inevitable. Baby Boomers are an enormous segment of the electorate and as they grow old and conservative, they force the country towards the Right with them. But, thankfully, they aren’t going to live forever and at some point enough of them will mosey on to the big Grateful Dead concert in the sky that younger, more liberal and diverse voters will finally get a chance for their views to be heard.

Too bad I’ll be an extremely old man by the point. But it’s my only hope at this point. We’re in for a bumpy ride the next few years and I’ll take anything I can that gives me some reason to keep hope alive.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

The Hill & Its Trollish Clickbait, ‘Stopping Robert Mueller’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The Hill, what Capitol staffers read on the john when they are done reading Politico, should be ashamed of itself for publishing the complete and total bullshit article “Stopping Robert Mueller to protect us all.” This article, written weirdly by former Clintonite Mark Penn, is obviously a stalking horse for the current political strategy of Trump and his demon spawn Rudy Giuliani. It is embarrassing to read something that is so comical in its effort to make us believe that the evil “Deep State” is “desperate” to bring down Trump. Penn writes:

With this report on the way and congressional investigators beginning to zero in on the lack of hard, verified evidence for starting the Trump probe, current and former intelligence and Justice Department officials are dumping everything they can think of to save their reputations.

A quick Google search belies this dumb accusation. If anything, Mueller has been quite successful in the last year and he has plenty of reason to keep going in the days, weeks and, if need be, years ahead.

Here’s some more.

But it is backfiring. They started by telling the story of Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat, as having remembered a bar conversation with George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. But how did the FBI know they should talk to him? That’s left out of their narrative. Downer’s signature appears on a $25 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation. You don’t need much imagination to figure that he was close with Clinton Foundation operatives who relayed information to the State Department, which then called the FBI to complete the loop. This wasn’t intelligence. It was likely opposition research from the start.

To quote Hillary Clinton during the Bengazhi hearings, “What difference does it make?”

So what if it was oppo. That doesn’t change the fact that Trump may have colluded with a hostile foreign power to rig a presidential election. It makes me apoplectic that this trash that was spewed out of the FOX News Bullshit Mountain even got written. This is all part of a concerted effort on the part of the Trump – Giuliani nexus to prepare us all for God-only-knows-what.

Even more bullshit:

Time and time again, investigators came up empty. Even several sting operations with an FBI spy we just learned about failed to produce a Delorean-like video with cash on the table. But rather than close the probe, the deep state just expanded it. All they had were a few isolated contacts with Russians and absolutely nothing related to Trump himself, yet they pressed forward. Egged on by Steele, they simply believed Trump and his team must be dirty. They just needed to dig deep enough.

If the fate of the Republic wasn’t at stake, I would laugh. But the time for us to laugh about Trump’s corruption and obstruction is very much over. What’s weird to me is people are willing to engulf themselves in the flames of the Trump pier for, what? Access to power? I mean, really, it’s not like VP Mike Pence is going to really change anything. In fact, if you’re all that concerned about “owning libs,” Pence has an actual ideology that Trump lacks. As Jim Comey confidant Benjamin Wittes famously quipped Trump is “malevolence mitigated only by his incompetence.” Pence is competent and would have an ideology beyond whatever he happened to spew in a tweet that morning.

Here more from the piece that leaves me astonished at its tone-deafness.

This process must now be stopped, preferably long before a vote in the Senate. Rather than a fair, limited and impartial investigation, the Mueller investigation became a partisan, open-ended inquisition that, by its precedent, is a threat to all those who ever want to participate in a national campaign or an administration again.

I am not the type of person to protest. But I can tell you for a fact that if “this….process…stopped” in the guise of Trump firing Robert Mueller without cause I will hit the streets. I would like to think other like-minded people would join me. I am not so naive as to think it would really matter in the end — even well-heeled people are apologists for Trump and the system is so broken that the book The Plot Against America is starting to look more like a documentary as opposed to a counter-factual novel. But this bullshit by Penn doesn’t exactly help the situation.

This part is spews so directly from the dark recesses of the surreal bullshit factory that runs the country right now that I feel astonished it was published.

The president’s lawyers need to extend their new aggressiveness from words to action, filing complaints with Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility on the failure of Mueller and Rosenstein to recuse themselves, and going into court to question the tactics of the special counsel, from selective prosecutions on unrelated matters, illegally seizing Government Services Administration emails, covering up the phone texts of FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and operating without a scope approved by the attorney general. (The regulations call for the attorney general to recuse himself from the investigation but appear to still leave him responsible for the scope.)

The emails between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are widely seen as a non-issue by anyone who hasn’t drunk the Trump Koolaide and it’s embarrassing that The Hill would allow a writer to even mention it. Maybe the “secret society” was off the day they decided to publish it.

Mueller has done more than enough in the last year to prove he has earned the right to be left alone for the foreseeable future. Let’s just see where this leads. If we are still a Republic and not a “managed democracy” like they have in Russia, we have to do that. Trump may want to be an American Caligula, but I’d like to think we haven’t reached that point yet. I still have hope that America’s over two centuries of experimenting in self-rule hasn’t failed yet.

If we follow Penn’s advice, we are little more than a banana republic where rules and laws change at the whim of the Dear Leader. So, if anything, we have to protect Robert Mueller to protect ourselves, not the opposite.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He can be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

V-Log: The Left Doesn’t Take The Insanity Of The Right Serious Enough

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I go into a lot of detail about my thoughts on this matter in this video.

Enjoy.

A Little Idle Speculating: Of ‘Incels & Sexbots’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One of the things that makes me embarrassed to be a man — and a single middle-aged man at that — is the rise of the notion of the “incel,” or “involuntary celibate.” Not content with being insane racists in the guise of the alt-right, the surreal people who inhabit the far, far, far, far Right now want to add gross misogyny to their bag of tricks as well.

It doesn’t take a lot of navel gazing to imagine a future in which the government out of exasperation will start to ship sexbots to incels to shut them up, if nothing else. This idea came to me when someone said the government will eventually force women to have sex with incels. That didn’t make any sense to me, but the idea that at some point sexbots will be so human-like that they might meet the demands of incels seems much more likely.

I once met a guy online who took extreme pleasure in wallowing in the most horrible of ethical quandaries and this seems like it would be right up his alley. I could see a future in which the rights of sexbots are decided in large part because incels treat them so poorly — and the sexbots have become so intelligent — that society collectively decides that something has to be done.

At least, that’s what I think might happen.

Of The Mad King: We’re In A Constitutional Crisis

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Stupid Watergate has finally reached a level of seriousness where we have to stop making fun of it and sit up and take notice at the gravity of the situation. For some time now, there has been talk of this or that dumb thing Trump has done causing us to be in a Constitutional Crisis.

Today’s insane tweet on the part of Trump “demanding” an investigation into what may or may not have happened during the 2016 presidential campaign is the final straw. We’re in a Constitutional Crisis now. The logic of Trump’s legal team is so completely twisted and bonkers that it gives me a headache.

The point is not to determine the facts of the case, the point is to give the Trump base talking points they can use to “own” liberals. This, even though they’ve finally veered off any connection to the facts and now are dealing almost exclusively in lies and misinterpretations.

If the Deep State was so eager to hurt the Trump campaign, why would they keep things quiet via the use of an informant when it came to Trump while they released the second Comey letter just days before the November election. Why is this so difficult to understand.

It’s so difficult to understand for some — if not all — Trump supporters because they are comfortable with Trump’s policies, the economy is humming and in real terms they’re more concerned about their kid’s soccer scores than they are as something as complex as a Constitutional Crisis. They just don’t care. And not until they have a personal interest in all of this will they have an opinion on way or another.

So, I have a bad feeling about this. I suspect Trump is going to do serious damage to Constitutional norms, or democracy and our country. This all goes back to who is going to be Trump’s successor and how he or she addresses all this damage. Are they going to go back to what we expect in all these things, or are they going to use the damage Trump has done has an excuse to redefine what is acceptable behavior on the part of our leaders?

The Web Is No Fun Anymore

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It used to be, not many years ago, that you could pretty much talk about whatever you wanted to online and no one would freak out or take it too seriously. But, alas, those days are long, long gone. Now you have to be really careful what you say, no matter how low-trafficked your Website.

I have been using the Web since its inception and I guess that’s where I got the false sense that because of “practical obscurity” I could say whatever I wanted to about anyone and not have to worry about any one taking it the wrong way.

But, ironically, as the Web has grown in size, so, too, it seems as though the weight people give the content you generate on it has increased. So, unless you do it in the “dark Web” where no one of note can find it, you had better be careful what you write about even the largest star. Even if it’s totally innocuous, someone, somewhere could take it the wrong way if you seem a little obsessed with said star.

I’ve kind of gotten out of that phase in my life now, so I’m more concerned about becoming a professional photographer or writing the Great American Novel than I am having a celebrity crush. But it’s just sad that the moment in time where the Web was a free-for-all is long over. People have a hair trigger when it comes to any content that they may find online that seems in any way weird or potentially that worst of all things, “creepy.”

No one trusts anyone anymore, so people freak out at any moment for any reason over anything that doesn’t fit the norm. This is doubly tragic given how often people say “be yourself.” That’s complete bullshit. The last thing anyone should do online is “be yourself.”

Someone is always watching and judging, ready to pounce if you act weird.

Why Trump Was Inevitable

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Let me state from the beginning that I don’t have all the political, psychological, sociological and even historical insight that I need to properly tell all of this, but I am a more than casual observer of American presidential political history and so I’m going to give it a go.

Having said that, it is clear to me that Trump — or someone like Trump — was inevitable at this moment in our nation’s history. It is obvious to me that what caused Trump was that while we were all enjoying Obama’s pleasant, scandal-free administration the Right was going completely insane. Tribal politics and its associated hatred of Obama for being the nation’s first black president made it so it was inevitable that we were going to have a completely bonkers Republican president at some point.

Add to this the headwinds of historic weakness of Hillary Clinton as a candidate and the election meddling of the Russians really the only way Trump would not have won was if he hadn’t run in the first place. But, really, if you looked at who was likely to get through the primary system at the time, it is highly unlikely that Jeb Bush was going to be the nominee. He was completely detached from the national Republican Party and everyone else who might have won was in some ways worse than Trump because no only were they insanely conservative, they were competent and had an ideology they were willing to defend to boot.

But Trump has his own unique set of bonkers qualities than make him extremely dangerous to the Republic. While he may be too lazy, unfocused and incompetent to be a true authoritarian, his complete lack of adherence to political norms may cause lasting damage to the American political landscape.

So, the issue is, there were and are structural problems with the Republican Party that the average person simply was unaware of unless they happened to catch FOX News one night. When about half the political electorate lives in an insane bubble of surreal conspiracy theories and race-induced rage, it’s inevitable that once they get their opportunity to run the country we’re in for a whole lot of trouble.

The truly tragic thing about all of this is there is no easy fix. The tectonic political, economic and demographic forces that led to the creation of the cancer that is the modern Republican Party aren’t going anywhere. It could be 20 to 30 years before things work themselves out and by the time they do the Republican Party will have turn our once independent judiciary into a bastion of Right wing nutjob hacks whose entire reason for being on the bench is to give old, wealthy white people as much power as possible.

What’s more, there’s a real chance of a civil war. There’s a real risk that we’ve gone beyond the point of no return and we’re going to have an actual civil war in the United States within the next 20 years. I have no idea if it will actually happen or not, but it’s something to worry about.

It will definitely be interesting to see what happens.

Jon Stewart Would Be An Ideal Presidential Candidate At This Point

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This is just an idle daydream, but it seems to me that the ideal person to run against Donald Trump in 2020, should last that long, would be Jon Stewart. I say this because Stewart is everything Trump isn’t — funny, smart and self-aware.

Of course, Stewart, at least at this point, has zero political experience outside of his interest in 9/11 first responder rights and a little bit about veterans affairs. And, of course, there is the obvious issue that he appears to have zero interest in actually doing anything beyond running his petting zoo.

But the match up between Trump and Stewart would be one for the ages. And regardless, I think we would need someone like Stewart to take down Trump. Yet I honestly don’t know. The nation is so divided at this point that there’s no perfect person to do the job.

Trump is so powerful with 40% of the electorate and the economy is doing so well that it will be a difficult fight no matter what. Add to this the continuing struggle that The Resistance has with trying to find some sort of messaging beyond simply being against Trump and you have the makings of a pretty bad situation.

This doesn’t begin to address the issue of what happens if Trump wags the dog using Iran or the DPRk.

We’re going to have to just wait and see, I guess.

My Current Take On The #TrumpRussia Endgame

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

As of late March 2018, here’s my hot take on the endgame to #TrumpRussia.

It seems to me that what is going to happen is it will be a combination of Iran-Contra and the Monica Lewinsky scandals. Trump could very well be impeached, but he won’t be convicted and ultimately he not only survives but prospers as he grows more accustomed to the office of president.

What’s more, I still predict a major war against the DPRK (and maybe Iran) between now and August 2018. I say this for two reasons. One, Trump needs a Wag The Dog situation to get people talking about something else. Meanwhile, he wants to squash any chance of a Blue Wave happening this fall.

The ‘Unwinding:’ ‘Deep State Radio’ Talks John Bolton

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Oh boy. I’ve been listening to the latest episode of Deep State Radio which is about the appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser. The issue for me is it reaffirms everything I’ve been thinking the last few days, which is we are lurching towards a war with at least the DPRK, if not Iran as well. I’m glad that the smarty pants of Deep State Radio are also beginning to freak out a little bit as well.

We really need to accept to take the concept that we’re hurdling towards a massive Wag The Dog in the guise of a war with the DPRK. The issue is that a war with the DPRK — started about August 2018 — would be, in theory, the perfect way to prevent a Blue Wave from sweeping the House and Senate in November.

There is a real risk that we’re going to look back at all of this as such a crass, craven power grab on the Trump Administration that history will not be kind to anyone involved. My real fear, from what I’ve read, is that just as Rex Tillerson gutted the State Department, so, too, will John Bolton will gut the National Security Council staff. This will happen just as the United States is about to go to war with the DPRK.

What is even worse is, I may be low balling the risks of essentially World War III. What I’m saying is, we may have two major regional wars taking place at the same time — one against the DPRK and one against Iran. Throw in the massive amount of instability that would cause around the world, there is a real risk that India and Pakistan would threaten nuclear war. And Israel and Iran may have at it as well along the way. And there is a real chance that the Russians would use all of this as a cover for a major escalation in their low-grade war against Ukraine.

The point of all of this, as I mentioned, is to divert attention away from the domestic disasters of the Trump Administration. Try to remember what was going on in the United States in early September 2001. It’s really difficult. A lot of stuff went down the memory whole once 9/11 happened. So, too, will Stormy Daniels and #TrumpRussia go down the memory hole should World War III essentially happen.

I suggest you listen to this Deep State Radio. It’s really good and affirms much of my thinking about John Bolton and what could happen next with the DPRK, Iran and beyond.