Inside the Republican Playbook

Alec Baldwin as Trump being visited by the ghost
of Michael Flynn on Saturday Night Live

Kudos to the staff writers of Saturday Night Live, last night's episode hosted by the talented Irish actress Saoirse (pronounced like 'sayer-shia') Ronan was pretty hysterical.

Ronan was really impressive (and earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination) in the critically-acclaimed and genuinely touching 2015 romantic drama Brooklyn, but she displayed a genuine natural talent and flair for comedy and improv on SNL that was impressive - not all actors have that gear.

The opening skit with Alec Baldwin returning to skewer Trump in a twisted political take on "A Christmas Carol", in which 45 is visited by a chained Michael Flynn as "the Ghost of Witness Flips" as well as former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, Vladimir Putin and Hillary Clinton, must have had the real Trump seething.

The faux girl-group video performance of "Welcome to Hell" was a pretty brilliant use of biting social satire to highlight the shocking absurdities and prevalence of sexual misconduct in American society.

It certainly didn't hurt that U2 played two live songs either.

Like the millions of other people who tuned into SNL last night, I really needed a few good laughs for a change, and welcomed a light-hearted break from the mind-numbing cacophony of ethical corruption and devise politics that have become the hallmark of Republican politicians this week.

In Washington, Alabama and beyond.

Trump using a racist slur in front of members of
the Navajo Code Talkers in the White House

In what has by now become an intentional and calculated (albeit disturbing) media strategy by the White House, Trump once again made an overtly racist and inflammatory comment in an effort to shift media focus away from the growing fallout from the special counsel investigation as well as the absurdities of the Republican tax scam.

He decided to honor surviving members of the Navajo Code Talkers by setting up the podium in front of the portrait of the controversial 7th president of the United States, Andrew Jackson.

Don't think it was some kind of random coincidence that he used the occasion to (once again) derisively refer to Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas" either.

An offensive racial slur that, according to a CBS News article lastTuesday, left families of the Navajo Code Talkers totally "dumbfounded" after Trump said it at a ceremony meant to honor Native American Marine Corps veterans .

Decorated heroes whose ability to use the Navajo language to send and receive indecipherable classified radio transmissions in combat were critical to American military victories against the Japanese Army in the Pacific during World War II.

Trump's use of the slur in front of the portrait of Jackson earned him widespread criticism.

An artistic rendering of the "Trail of Tears"

Remember when the unhinged, resident Republican fear-meister Rudy Giuliani described Trump's 2016 election victory as "One of the greatest victories for the people of American since Andrew Jackson." ?

In 'A People's History of the United States', historian Howard Zinn notes that, "Jackson was a land speculator, merchant, slave trader and the most aggressive enemy of the Indians in early American history."

Jackson's decision to sign the Indian Removal Act of 1830 into law engineered the systematic ethnic cleansing of multiple Native American tribes from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River between 1830 and 1850.

A blight on the tapestry of American history commonly known as "The Trail of Tears" during which members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee and Muscogee tribes were systematically removed from their lands and forcibly-marched hundreds of miles west in a brutal, mass forced-exodus that lead to the deaths of approximately 3,000 - 4,000 indigenous people along the way.

As in many examples of the displacement, enslavement or slaughter of indigenous peoples the real number will never be known.

But that portrait of Jackson was apparently a small but sketchy part of Republican efforts to ram through a "tax reform" bill which is essentially one of the largest transfers of wealth to the richest 1% and corporations in U.S. history.

One which will add a staggering $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years and eventually force serious cuts in bedrock social spending programs like Medicaid, it's hardly surprising Trump would try and use his own bigotry to shift media attention away from what Republican Senators are trying to do behind closed doors.

Good governance? Handwritten notes on a page of
the Republican tax bill

Trump, and the Republicans who hold legislative majorities in the House and Senate, are so desperate to produce some kind of measurable achievement (even one which will raise taxes on the poor and working and middle class), that they not only blocked Democratic Senator's requests to allow time for the nearly 500-page tax bill to actually be read and analyzed.

They're actually trying to hide what's in it from the American people.

The version Republicans brought to the floor late Friday night actually had hastily-scribbled and almost indecipherable handwritten notes scrawled on some of the pages concerning obscure provisions like modifications to s-corporations.

S-corps are just one of the sketchy ways the super-wealthy in America pay tax on their income at a rate far below the rate at which the average Joe or Jane pays tax on his or her job income.

As defined by Investopedia, S-corps "allow a corporation with 100 shareholders or less the benefit of incorporation while being taxed as a partnership. The (S) corporation can pass income directly to shareholders and avoid the double taxation that is inherent with the dividends of public companies."   

Like other experts, I sure can't decipher exactly what those notes (pictured above) mean, but you can bet some high paid lobbyist or corporate tax attorney wrote them to throw in a little something extra for America's struggling top earners.

Edgar Welch, the man who stormed Comet Ping
Pong in D.C. based on the fake Pizzagate story

So it's pretty clear that the timing of Trump's willingness to publicly use petty, divisive racist comments to stir up controversy is intended to keep members of the American public from focusing on the massive tax swindle Republicans are trying to pull off - as well as the special counsel investigation.

It's the reason he continually uses the words "fake news" over and over and over in order to sew distrust of fact and information among his supporters.

It's the same Russian counter-intelligence strategy that pro-Trump conservative organizations, big Republican donors and Russian operatives, who used technology and social media to turn a fake news story about Hillary Clinton being part of a pedophile ring that conducted satanic rituals in the basement of a family restaurant in Washington, D.C. called Comet Ping Pong, to stoke anti-Clinton sentiment to manipulate voters.

A bogus story re-tweeted millions of times by thousands of gullible Trump supporters including Michael Flynn, Jr. and comedian-actress Roseanne Barr - who Tweeted about it to her 400,000-plus followers on Twitter back in February.

If you get a chance, take some time to check out journalist Amanda Robb's in-depth analysis of the unfolding of the fake "Pizzagate" story, "Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal" published in the November 30th issue of Rolling Stone.

Inside the real Comet Ping Pong

As Robb notes, "The original Pizzagate Facebook post appeared on the evening of October 29th, 2016, a day after then-FBI Director James Comey announced that the bureau would be reopening its investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state."

The story, which was stoked by kooky conspiracy theorists like Douglas Hagmann, Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince (the brother of secretary of education Betsy DeVos), and InfoWars host Alex Jones.

As Robb reported in her RS article, after Prince falsely accused the NYPD of investigating claims that the Clintons "went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein" during an interview on Breitbart Radio, an enraged Alex Jones seized on it as evidence and told his audience that "Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped" children.

Which would be funny if it hadn't prompted 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch to pack a loaded assault rifle and a handgun and drive from his home in North Carolina up to D.C. and walk into Comet Ping Pong to "self investigate" last December.

Fortunately there was no actual basement, no children being held prisoner and no one was hurt when he fired his gun - Welch was eventually taken into custody without incident - he was sentenced to four years in prison this past June.

And that's where he'll languish, a disturbed and gullible by-product of a fake internet conspiracy story that was a part of a massive international effort to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 elections, elect Trump president and undermine American's faith in democracy in the United States.

All with the help of members of the Trump campaign in violation of U.S. law.

Almost sounds like something out of an overly long Saturday Night Live skit, but it's straight out of the Republican playbook.

Lost In the Bushes

Paranoid? Or just delusional?

In a Washington Post article on Saturday, reporter Phillip Rucker quoted an unnamed high level Republican source close to the White House as worrying that Trump is "in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion." 

Arguably, millions of people had already reached that conclusion the moment Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign by accusing Mexicans of being rapists and drug dealers.

Particularly given the widely-respected Constitutional scholar and Harvard law professor law professor Laurence Tribe's op-ed in the Washington Post on Saturday explaining why Trump needs to be impeached.

Let's be clear, even though I'm admittedly somewhat biased in the political sense, I'm not simply saying Trump needs to be impeached because I don't agree with his political views.

This guy has obstructed justice and continues to violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution due to the astonishing range of ways in which he continues to use the power and influence of his office to directly channel financial profit to himself and his family.

Late this afternoon WaPo reported that Trump revealed highly classified intel on a possible ISIS attack with (of all people) the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister during a meeting at the White House last week - the day AFTER he fired the FBI director leading the investigation into links between Russia and members of the Trump administration.

Part of the title of my previous blog, in which I used the term "car-wreck presidency" to describe the unmitigated chaos of the current presidential administration, it's a phrase borrowed from journalist Matt Taibbi's words from his April 6th Rolling Stone article, "Trump the Destroyer".

It's not my habit to assign homework or anything on this blog, but if you do have the time and haven't already done so, I would highly recommend you take some time to read it.

I've found it helpful to put Trump's publicly warning former-FBI Director James Comey about "leaking to the press" on Friday just days after firing him, into some kind of context.
  

Republican Senator Dean Heller

Trump's (latest) actions are so far outside the boundaries of normalcy and ethics that even some Republicans, including Nevada Senator Dean Heller, are now saying that an independent investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections and links between Russia and members of the Trump administration "should be on the table".  

The erratic POTUS is loosing popular support, even among his own base.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in the wake of Comey's firing puts Trump's approval rating at an anemic 29%.

According to a Newsweek article by Tim Marcin last Thursday, Trump is actually loosing significant support among the segment of white voters who elected him in November.      

Any newly-elected presidential administration is going to have it's fair share of missteps as a new commander-in-chief and the staff responsible for handling the herculean complexity of running the executive branch of the federal government learn how to operate the levers of power.

But the baffling jumble of policy announcements and executive orders, which are often contradicted by Trump's own nonsensical Tweets or statements, sew disorder and confusion.

The daily White House press briefings conducted by Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (the daughter of former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee) are so rife with false statements and bogus facts that they're now being openly ridiculed by many in mainstream media

Spicey answering questions in near darkness Tuesday

For Pete's sake, on Tuesday night poor Spicey spent several minutes hiding in the bushes outside the White House in an attempt to avoid talking with reporters demanding answers about Trump firing the FBI Director.

Take a couple minutes to watch CNN's Don Lemon laugh at Spicer's attempts to justify the fact that Congress will not authorize billions for Trump to build the "beautiful wall" along the southern border with Mexico that he made a central theme of his campaign.

Each day it seems like this presidency gets more and more surreal.

At this point it's more of a horror show-circus than a presidential administration.

As Politico reported earlier today, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus scolded members of the senior staff for putting clips of fake news on Trump's desk.

Including the embattled former Fox News commentator Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, who slipped POTUS a copy of a phony Time Magazine cover about climate change.

Seriously, what kind of White House is this when a Fox News opinionator can slip into the Oval Office and put a fake magazine cover that's been known as an Internet hoax for years on the desk of the president?

The Trump administration conducts itself like some kind of vindictive, punch-drunk boxer who ignores the rules of the ring, issuing right-hand hooks, sweeping jabs, sneaky upper cuts and body blows even after the bell rings - not just to win, but to try and pummel the opponent into submission.

That's just how Trump, who famously fawns over authoritarian leaders who trample human rights and jail or kill their political opponents, and considers Roy Cohn a mentor, operates.

Trump with Machiavellian mentor Roy Cohn

Cohn is the combative, Machiavellian attorney who served as the chief counsel to anti-Communist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy during the controversial Senate hearings into wide-ranging Communist infiltration of the U.S. government in the 1950's.

He later represented notorious Mafia figures like "Fat Tony" Salerno and John Gotti and is widely considered the man who shaped Trump's propensity to respond to any disagreement with all out war.

To regard any critique as an insult and keep a lengthy enemies list.

Trump first hired Cohn to represent him in the early 1970's when the government accused the Trump organization of widespread discrimination against African-American applicants in Trump-managed apartment complexes in New York and Virginia.

Cohn died 31 years ago but his influence on the chaotic and combative 45's White House is very much alive today.

Given everything else going on in the world today, it's not easy for the average American citizen to keep up with everything White House Inc. is doing and what Trump's strategy for governing actually is.

The glimpses we do get are genuinely horrifying.

On Friday Jessica Huseman of ProPublica reported that Trump is expecting to tap the conservative talk radio host from Iowa Sam Clovis as the undersecretary of the US Department of Agriculture; a position normally held by scientists with years of experience in research and economics.

Sam Clovis: Science? Who needs science?

So a guy with zero scientific knowledge or degree who's loyal to Trump and denies the existence of climate change, will likely head up the department that manages research for the USDA - a federal department with over 100,000 employees and a yearly budget of almost $140 billion.

That's the department responsible for creating the federal laws that govern forestry, farming, and food.


It also oversees the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) that provides poor and working class Americans with food stamp assistance.

What's going to happen to American kids and families who depend on SNAP with Sam Clovis at USDA is too scary to ponder.

To sit down and look at the totality of how this White House operates and what it's priorities are is to face the horror of this presidency; and the damage it's doing to America's reputation, political institutions and the people those institutions are supposed to serve.

Sean Spicer huddling in the bushes while trying to avoid answering questions from the press about why the president fired the director of the FBI is an apt metaphor for Donald Trump's presidency.

An administration huddling in the bushes of lies in a forest of secrecy to avoid the scrutiny of a free and open press - and the American people they're supposed to serve.

Is Trump truly "in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion" as Phillip Rucker says a Republican insider suggests?

Based on his decisions, actions and words in the past few weeks, sadly for America, it seems likely.