Category: Tsar-A-Largo

Korean War 2.0: DPRK, TrumpRussia, Ukraine & A Possible WWIII

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Something’s up. My spidy senses are tingling. I have grown very jaded and cynical about anything having to do with North Korea, but the curious statements coming out of the Trump Administration the last few days about the DPRK make me scratch my head a little bit.

I see the North Korea situation as a major gimme for Trump. It’s his huge backup fail safe should the TrumpRussia problem finally go China Syndrome and look like it’s going to end his administration. It may very well be that nothing happens. It could be that Trump will leave office in four to eight years and the DPRK will still be there and this long-term problem we have with them will be kicked down the road for another long bit.

Or…the Trump Administration is singling that they’re going to strike the DPRK in some way and let the chips fall where they will. Now, remember, the DPRK is very unpredictable and they very much want to survive, so the States might do some limited bombing and, well, nothing might happen.

Or, all hell will break loose and 500,000 people in Seoul and beyond might die in the first month of the conflict. Such an enormous regional war would have a dynamic all its own and some pretty amazing things might happen. It doesn’t take too much to think maybe Trump might use the DPRK to wag the dog. He might attack the North Koreans, sit back for them to freak out and in the ensuing chaos use pardon the hell out of people left and right and maybe even fire Bob Mueller along the way. There simply would be so much going on in Washington D.C. and beyond that the press wouldn’t be able to keep up. Add to this the possibility that Trump doing this might be seen by Russia as a green light to attack Ukraine in a big way — not to mention whatever Iran might cook up — and you have the makings of something that would be marketed by the American press as WWIII.

Or not. I am so jaded that I have a feeling the whole kick-the-can-down-the-alley option is what is going to happen with the DPRK. It would be so callus, so transparent if Trump wagged the dog with the DPRK at this point that, well, I don’t quite know what to think of that prospect. That Trump would use the potential death of half a million people — at least — as political cover to save his own presidency kind of blows my mind. But it would make a lot of sense. By the time the States finally got around to winning the war in three to six months, TrumpRussia would be a forgotten scandal and Trump would be in a strong position to win the mid-terms and potentially a second term.

But so much could go wrong with a war with the DPRK that I just don’t know. I just don’t know if I’m reading too much into all of this or what. I can’t get a handle on it. I think everything is going to work itself out and nothing is going to happen. The alternative is to horrible and bloody to brood on for too long. I mean, the Chinese and the Russians could get involved, the DPRK could attempt to bomb Japan. Or they could attempt to nuke Seoul in some sort of blackmail situation. Wars are easily started and difficult to end as the old adage goes and Korean War 2.0 would be no different.

Only time will tell, I guess.

Ok, Intelligence Community: You Say, ‘Time To Buy Popcorn’….But Why?

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

So, all these people seemingly in the know are atwitter on Twitter about Something Big about to come out. Something big enough that we should all buy some popcorn to enjoy it with. It seems a lot of people know about it from a wide spectrum of types of people because people on both the Left and the Right are kinda beginning to freak out.

That makes me believe that either there’s something floating around in secret that’s about to pop out, the intelligence community knows something we don’t, or some reporters are about to break a big, big story. What this super-secret information could be, however, remains a mystery.

I’m thinking it has something to do with TrumpRussia. If I got way too excited, I would go so far as to say it was the notorious “pee tape.” But, more likely it’s something that can easily be rationalized out of existence by the Sean Hannnity’s of the world. Or not even rationalized out of existence, just spun so hard that they will collectively shrug their shoulders and tell us it’s both fake news and no big deal even if it was true.

Regardless, it seems as though both sides know about it and are prepping their respective audiences for it to drop and drop soon. I have no idea how “soon” it is or how big it is. But it’s coming. It will be interesting to see how entertaining and important it actually turns out to be.

Let’s Talk Trump, Collusion & What Happens Next For The Resistance

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It pains me to say this, but the Right is, in real time and right in front of our eyes, processing the fact that Trump probably really did collude with the Russians and by the time the process is over they will say they’re cool with it and we should just move on.

Let that sink in for a moment.

So, if you think that when and if collusion on the part of Trump and or his “satellites” is proven that we’re all going to hold hands and collectively get rid of Trump, you got another thing coming. There won’t even be a moment of silence on the part of assholes like Sean Hannity. They won’t even skip a beat. They will have their talking points prepared, they will rationalize it out of existence and for them, at least, there won’t even be a hiccup.

Let that get through your haze of fury when it is one day — maybe sooner than you think! — proven that Trump is, relative to previous standards of such things a fucking traitor. The Vichy Republicans are going to suck Trump’s treasonous cock so hard that they’re going to gag. All they care about is power. All they care about is winning the argument of the moment. They don’t care about the country, they don’t care about you and your patriotic feelings. They just care about keeping Trump president for as long as possible.

I used to think that there would be the Pence Pivot if Trump was proven to be a traitor. But given what’s going on with the Right right now, that won’t even happen. They’re going to stick with Trump until the sun burns out. And, given the evils of gerrymandering, it’s possible nothing will ever happen to Trump. He will not only survive, but prosper.

He will prosper because people like me will waste months of our time being furious about Trump’s collusion as he pushes through insane Federal judges, even more insane legislation and executive orders. So, really, we’re fucked. The only fucking thing that’s going to save our sorry asses is some sort of magical Blue Wave in 2018. Think of all the horrific damage Trump and his ilk can do to the nation between now and — at the earliest 2019. That’s only if we’re able, as The Resistance, to overcome some big hurdles.

And it’s very possible that should we manage to get anywhere close to impeaching and convicting Trump that the real crazies will pop out of the woodwork, go mainstream and demand a few states leave the Union. I’m being completely serious. It’s possible that, like President James Buchanan, Trump’s the only thing stopping a real secessionist movement from happening now instead of later. In hindsight, just like the late 1850s, we will say that the late 2010s were obviously the moment in time when the nation was about to tear itself apart, it was just a matter of the conditions being right.

So, for the duration we are stuck with Trumplandia. We live in a dystopian present. Nothing is going to happen. And it’s very likely possible that it could be four or six or maybe never before Trump is impeached and convicted. And if he is, there could be consquences far beyond what we ever imagined.

I don’t have much hope in the short term. We’re fucked. Even if there is proof that Trump colluded in some way, the Right will have already processed it and moved on to something else. This is not fiction, this is reality. This is what’s really going on in America right now and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it for the time being. I would thus suggest we all take a deep breath and figure out ways to engage, not rage.

There doesn’t seem to be much other course of action for the time being.

‘Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick….?’ What Gives, Benjamin Wittes?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Is something big about to drop today, or nah? Benjamin Wittes, someone in the know, as they say, is being rather coy with a ticking tweet. It’s all very frustrating. What could that possibly mean? Is it something big-good like Jim Comey has tapes that back him up or something big-bad like Justice Kennedy retiring?

It’s all very frustrating.

I want answers, I need answer.

Maybe it’ll happen today, maybe it won’t.

We’ll see, I guess.

Watch & See, Trump Is Totally Going To Fire Bob Mueller

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

All the conditions are there for Donald Trump to fire special council Bob Mueller. Trump is laying down the groundwork to do it, at least. He’s complained that Mueller and former FBI director Jim Comey are too close. And he’s generally made it clear that he’s thinking about it.

I am not one of those who thinks anything will happen should Trump fire Mueller. Though there would be an instant Constitutional crisis, as I understand it, it was about a year from when Nixon did something similar to the point when things came to a head in the Watergate scandal. And that was at a point when things were a lot less partisan than they are now and generally both sides did the right thing when they were called to do so.

So, there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth. A lot of people like me be furious. But, in the end, this bloody, pitched political battle will continue. It could be years and years before the right thing happens and the Special Prosecutor law is brought back again, and that point, Trump could almost be out of office.

And, so, in effect, he will win.

The Elements Of Trump

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One of the things that makes Donald Trump so difficult to understand is he has all kinds of influences and elements that are rolled up into one flaming dumpster fire full of shit that can be difficult to understand. Here is my modest attempt to make sense of it all from my novice presidential historian point of view.

1. President James Buchanan
Trump definitely has elements of President Buchanan to him. He seems like the kind of guy who would let states peacefully leave the Union simply because he felt he didn’t have the power to stop them legally. He seems like on a basic level, his presidential instincts really are that bad. And, given the rhetoric of some of the surreal, extreme Right wing people, should Trump lose in 2020, he definitely might have the opportunity to prove one way or another if he would let states leave the Union.

2. President Richard Nixon
Trump has a heaping helping of the self-defeating paranoia and tendency to double down and triple down in the case of a screw up. Especially in the case of the non-existent tapes Trump definitely has a Nixonian tendency to shoot himself in the foot. One aspect that Trump doesn’t have is the smarts that Nixon had. Trump has Steve Bannon, but that only goes so far. A fish rots from the head and Trump for the most part is way, way, way, way in over his head with regard to most issues.

3. President Bill Clinton
One thing Trump shares with Bill Clinton is his willingness to admit defeat in an effort to save his skin. So, it is very possible that should in a few years it look like Trump’s goose is cooked, he could very well say he’s sorry and save his own political hide. Nixon would never say he was sorry, so he lost the presidency. But it’s very possible Trump could save himself on a political level by simply admitting his “satellites” did, in fact, collude with the Russians.

Of course, there is a little bit of Chauncey Gardner from Being There in Trump. He’s just the right dude in the right place at the right time. And he absolutely refuses to give up, no matter what. So, I suspect barring something really awe inspiring politically, that we’re stuck with Trump for four to eight years. We just have to accept that.

Ugh. Trump’s Such A Fucking Liar

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

What gets me is Donald Trump can lie to his supporters’ faces repeatedly and he faces no consquences. What is up with that. His most recent lie — one that he just admitted to — is that there are no “tapes” as he called them. If he hadn’t tried to threaten Jim Comey in the first place by tweeting that, then Comey wouldn’t have released the information in his memorandum and there’d be no special council.

Which, come to think of it, may be why Trump has admitted to this lie in the first place. He wants to fire Mueller and this gives him a pretext to do so. He can say there were no tapes, this was all a big misunderstanding, let’s move forward. He might even pardon a few people along the way.

It’s all very frustrating.

The Resistance Has To Accept The New Normal Of Trumplandia

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It is too easy for members of The Resistance to get caught up in the moment and think that Donald Trump is going to resign or be impeached and convicted anytime soon. If the Washington scandals of the past are any indication, we have, at least, a year of this imbroglio ahead of us, if not far longer.

The American system of government is such that it really is nearly impossible to impeach and convict a president. It just doesn’t happen. And, really, given how partisan things are and how complicit the Vichy Republicans are in TrumpRussia, even if collusion is proven between Trump “satellites” and the Russians, there is a real chance that the Vichy Republicans will just shrug and tell us that the truth is now known and we should just move on.

That doesn’t begin to address the very real possibility that a year from now when the mythical “blue wave” seems about to come crashing down on Congress, that Trump may address the nation, apologize and admit to what happen then pardon and fire everyone involved and ask the nation to move on. He did something similar during the Access Hollywood tape incident and there’s no reason to think he won’t do it again. When he knows he’s trapped, when he knows there is absolutely no way out other than apologize, he has no problem doing just that. A lot of people on the center-Right would be appeased and because of gerrymandering, it’s possible that would be enough to prevent the Congress from flipping. That doesn’t even begin to address a major terrorist attack or a wag the dog type war with Iran or North Korea.

One thing that really bothers me is how some on the Right say they want to vote for Trump again even more whenever people like me get upset and outraged over something Trump has done. It makes it very difficult for us to have any type of discussion at all.

Another thing that really bothers me is that even if I should get what I want — which is Trump’s impeachment and conviction — the very moment it becomes obvious that that, in fact, will happen, there will be the “Pence pivot” on the part of Republicans and they will say they wanted Mike Pence to be president all along. It is a very sad commentary on how things are these days that we have to deal with such surreal partisan ways of thinking.

At this point, we just don’t know how history will look at this point in time. It could be that it will be seen as a hiccup like Iran-Contra, or it could be see as something significantly more important like Watergate. We just don’t know. We are in the middle of a bizarre and unprecedented era. This new normal is taking some getting used to because the center-Right wants to keep re-litigating the 2016 election and the Obama years, while the center-Left just stays apoplectic over the latest incredibly bonkers thing that Trump has done.

As such, it is very possible that Trump will not only survive, but prosper. The Resistance could be split in 2020 and he could walk right through the middle of it. Trump is a moron, but he’s strangely politically adept in a ways that I don’t fully understand. So The Resistance really, really needs to stop getting outraged so quickly and so often and focus on the real issues at hand, not the scandal outburst of the moment. It’s too easy to get distracted from the horrific things Trump is doing policy wise because of the latest shiny bauble of an outrage.

Having said all of this, The Resistance as part of this New Normal needs to keep an eye on what’s really at stake. Trump is forcing through completely bonkers people to be put on the Federal bench, Obamacare is being replaced with secret legislation and overall it seems as though 20 years from now the consquences of Trumplandia will only slowly be understood.

All I can say is what I always say at this point — stay engaged. Don’t get worn down by Trumplandia. Don’t tune out. Don’t let it all become white background noise. Stay focused. We’re going to have to suffer for a few years, but hopefully, despite everything, we can eventually get things to swing back to some sort of normal situation again.

But maybe not. It could be, like Watergate, that TrumpRussia will usher in a new, dark period in our political history that will reverberate for decades to come. That is something we really need to take into consideration. It’s very possible that that is what is going to happen. That is painful to think about, but it’s very real possibility.

Shelton Bumgarner is the editor and publisher of The Trumplandia Report. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail.com

Of The Resistance, Watergate, TrumpRussia & The Coming ‘Pence Pivot’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

In some ways, the similarities between Richard Nixon and Donald Trump are spooky and in other ways, they’re just not there. Nixon was actually, like, smart and stuff, while Trump is a pretty big moron. As I have said before, Trump is kind of like the movie Being There’s Chancy Gardner on mushrooms. He’s weirdly politically adept in a horribly divisive way.

I have Watergate on the brain because it’s the 45 anniversary of the weekend the original break-in took place and it’s pretty obvious that we’re not even in the second act of this tragedy. The story started on Nov. 9th, the inciting incident was the firing of Jim Comey and now we’re waiting for something to push the protagonist into the second act. The thing that comes to me off the top of my head would be Trump firing Bob Muller. That seems to make the most sense. But we’ll see.

Remember, Watergate took two full years to play out and that took place in the context of far less partisanship, much different technology and a president who had the good sense to at least keep his bizarre ramblings to himself — if albeit on tape. One thing about TrumpRussia that makes it worse than Watergate is the foreign aspect. But just look at the parts of the scandal we have to wade through in the coming years.

1. Possible collusion between Trump’s “satellites” and Russian hackers
2 What is the deal with Flynn?
3. The firing of Jim Comey.
4. All sorts of weird money issues.
5. Enormous, epic and glaring violations of the emoluments clause.

One thing is for sure, we have at least a year of this bizarre drama ahead of us. I give it a year because about a year from now is when the 2018 mid-term elections will really begin to heat up. So it seems as though there is a real chance — if the Access Hollywood tape is any indication — that Trump may very well apologize to the nation for what happen, admit that his “satellites” did collude with the Russians and then pardon everyone he can think of while firing Bob Muller. That would be one tactic he might use to get himself out of his sticky wicket.

If he doesn’t do something like that, the he may very well just drag Bob Muller’s reputation through the mud to such an extent that in the eyes of the center-Right at least, there won’t be any credibility to anything the says. If something like that can happen to John Kerry, then it can happen to anyone in Washington.

One interesting thing is I have a feel that at the very moment that people like me — the center-Left and people on the other side — the center-Right — can agree that Trump has to go, the center-Right will, without blinking, do a “Pence pivot” and say no matter what, it was all worthwhile to get a President Pence. That is mind boggling and so outrageous — and so easy to imagine to happening — that I have to say it makes me kind of depressed. We won’t have any moment in time when both sides agree that Trump was a tragic mistake that could have been avoided.

Within moments, we’ll go from fighting over Trump to fighting over Pence without the center-Right missing a beat. Some about the “Pence pivot” is so intellectually dishonest that it makes me white hot. People don’t really vote for the veep, they vote for the president. All of this tragedy that we’re wading into could have been avoided if people had just seen Trump at the time for what he is — an existential threat to the Republic.

It is all very sad and unsettling and makes you wonder how history will view TrumpRussia 20 or 40 years from now. Will it be seen as “worse than Watergate,” or something more along the lines of Iran-Contra or Whitewater. If Trump plays his cards right, he definitely go go the Ronald Reagan Iran-Contra route, even though Trump is no Reagan and TrumpRussia is a lot worse than Iran-Contra.

One thing The Resistance really needs to keep its eye on, instead of risking outrage fatigue, is the agenda that Trumplandia is pushing through while we’re all busy being upset over the details of TrumpRussia. We need to keep an eye on how Trump is attempting to pack the Federal bench with insane people. We need to keep an eye on the secret efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare in the Senate. We need to keep and eye on the effort to generally destroy the social welfare state that, ironically enough, many Trump voters desperately need.

Regardless, there are no easy answers. As I have said, history doesn’t go in a straight line. We’re barely in the middle of the TrumpRussia scandal era. We’ve got, at a minimum another year of all of this ahead of us and it could be much longer than that if you through in a major terrorist attack or a wag the dog war with Iran or North Korea.

All I can say is keep your emotional powder dry. Stay energized. Stay engaged. Don’t get overwhelmed. Vote. Be willing to talk to someone you disagree with, even if you think there’s no chance of changing their mind. It’s the only way we’re going to make it through this tragic event.

Some Things The Resistance Needs

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

As I keep saying, I’m hard at work on a novel about this bizarre era we live in, so I kind of have all of this on the brain right now. Here are two things I’ve mentioned before that The Resistance needs that I will review.

1. A Gawker-Like Website
The Resistance needs a Gawker-Like — or Spy Magazine — for this era. We need a go-to site for woke commentary in blog form about what’s going on in this era. Trump isn’t going anywhere and the sooner we understand that, the better. It seem as though some people think they shouldn’t start anything that would help The Resistance because they think Trump is going to resign or be impeached sometime soon. That just isn’t going to happen. I have suggested Playboy could be the media organization that would most benefit from such a thing, but it doesn’t seem they’re going to pay me any attention or even know that I’m talking about it.

2. A Twitter Killer
We need a better mousetrap. Twitter is great in some ways, but a real pain in the but Trump became president, in part, because of his use of Twitter. All of this is insane. We need something that uses the concepts of the old Usenet from 20 years ago in a modern way. At least I thin we do.

Anyway, no one cares. No one is listening to me. We’re going to just suffer as the Trump era grinds on and nothing changes, except for the worst.