Tag: Robert Mueller

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Off the Rails: Phrases We Never Need to Hear Again

A year has passed without me complaining about the phrases and words I hear on a regular basis that cause me to go “off the rails.” I know it may seem like a “nothing burger” to you, but I am mystified by “that moment when” one person said something clever, and it metastasized into slipshod nationwide verbal swill. There are plenty of “bad actors,” so let’s “play the blame game.” There are some repeat offenders that “rolled over” from last year but, “believe me,” there are plenty of fresh ones that would “literally” gag a buzzard off a shit wagon. “Does that make sense?” 

So. The award for the major annoyance for the second consecutive year is the word, “so.” So, when did this affectation take hold? Ask someone a question, and if they’re pundits, reporters, or teens in the mall, they all seem to have the need to preface every sentence with “So.” For example, “How’d you get that scar on your face?” “So, I was at home trying to train the cat to leap through a ring of fire, and she went for my eyes.” If you haven’t noticed yet, now you will.

Dropping the “T” in the middle of a word. This may not sound impor’ant to you, but it’s cur’ains for the lingua franca. I mean, are we speaking La’in now? I first thought this was just a cultural thing, especially among the British, and it is. This irritant is called a glottal stop, and it’s been studied in England since the 1800s. I’m not sure how it reached our shores, but it spread through every strata of society like a norovirus on a cruise ship. Maybe it was Vladimir Pu’in.

The Adult in the Room. All the grownups have left the building so Donnie can haz cheezburger. “All alone” is the pathetic whimper of an insecure man. But don’t worry. Soon there will be all the “executive time” one inmate can stand.

Moving the Goalposts. I saw this once when Tennessee beat Alabama “back in the day,” but they tore that one down. The only other time I’ve actually seen the goalpost move is when a field goal kicker doinks one off the crossbar like the Chicago Bears did last week. That was “literally” a “game-changer.”

Woke. This is what happens when oblivious lawn servicemen crank up those goddamn leaf blowers at 7 on a Saturday morning. Sweet Jesus, didn’t this city used to have some sort of noise ordinance? It feels like I’m trying to sleep on the deck of an aircraft carrier. By this time, everybody’s woke.

Yeah, no. This expression is the common-law spouse of “Sorry, not sorry.” Which is it? Have some gumption and pick a side, “just sayin’.”

LOL. This was cute back in the chat rooms of America Online, but now that there are a variety of smiley-face emojis, this acronym has become archaic. However, people are saying this in public now. Don’t say “LOL,” just go ahead and laugh. This includes ROFL, LMAO, LMFAO, and SMH LMAO. Of course, all this is IMHO.

Drill down. Cable TV hosts use this expression when they’re fixing to get to the bottom of something. We’ll be hearing a lot more of this phrase in the coming year, but out of professional courtesy, it should be reserved for dentists.

Emilia Clarke in Game of Thrones

References to Game of Thrones. Would you believe that there are people who aren’t into Fantasy/Science Fiction and, thus, don’t know what the hell you’re talking about? I’ve never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones, and I don’t like dragons. I am also uninterested in Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and all the Marvel superheroes movies. Does this make me a bad person? I can quote large swaths of dialogue from The Godfather, but I don’t just throw it out there casually. And I’ve frisked a thousand young punks.

MAGA. Fuck you and your made-in-China hat.

No collusion. “No puppet, no puppet. … You’re the puppet.”

Guardrails. See “The Adult in the Room” above.

Thoughts and prayers. I know you mean well, but instead of praying you might consider actually doing something. And they’re always “going out” there somewhere. Shouldn’t they be going in? Just for variety’s sake, after the next mass murder, change it to prayers and thoughts. This illuminates your priorities.

Fake news. It’s curious how the supposed “fake news” keeps turning out to be true. It’s strange that “Individual-1” will only grant interviews to Fox News personalities. Judge Jeanine Pirro will never cross-examine him. He likes Fox and Friends because there’s always a young blonde co-host sitting on the couch in a short dress with her legs crossed. All the time. “This Rusher thing, with Trump and Russia” gets truer every day. All this bombast and middle-school taunting was merely a diversion to distract from the very real news that the president of the United States was under investigation for being a Russian asset. We are living through a nightmare “the likes of which the world has never seen.” But “chillax.” Special Council Mueller is about to “take it to the next level,” literally.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Putin Trumps U.S. — With our President’s Help

On Monday, President Trump met one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. On the prior Friday, 12 Russian intelligence operatives were indicted by a U.S. grand jury for a conspiracy to interfere with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and help Trump win the White House.

Juan Williams

Right now, the Russians are already busy hacking into the 2018 midterms. “With the U.S. midterms approaching, Russian trolls found ways to remain active on Twitter well into 2018, trying to rile up the American electorate with tweets on everything from Roseanne Barr’s firing to Donald Trump Jr.’s divorce,” the Wall Street Journal wrote last week.

Senate Intelligence Committee member James Lankford of Oklahoma recently explained the Russian interference as an ongoing successful propaganda effort intended to “create instability and doubt in governments, because they believe they benefit from the chaos and loss of confidence in U.S. Institutions.”

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, a former Republican senator, said on Friday that “the warning lights are blinking red again” when it comes to the danger from Russian cyberattacks.

But President Trump doesn’t see a problem. “Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election,” the president tweeted. Last week in London, Trump was pushed to say he will bring up Russian interference in U.S. politics but he predicted little would come of it.

“I don’t think you’ll have any ‘Gee, I did it, I did it, you got me,'” Trump said. “There won’t be a Perry Mason here … But I will absolutely firmly ask the question. And hopefully we’ll have a very good relationship with Russia.”

Democrats are pointed in explaining why Trump sees no problem. Putin “supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton,” said Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Engel added, “If we allow foreign interference in our elections so long as it supports our political objectives, then we’ve put party before country and put our democracy in crisis.”

That didn’t stop a delegation of seven Republican senators from going to Russia recently on what looked like a water-carrying mission for Trump’s alternative reality. Senator Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, came back to say that Russian interference in U.S. elections is “not the greatest threat to our democracy,” and “we’ve blown it way out of proportion.”

Senator Richard Shelby, who led the delegation to Russia over the Independence Day break, offered a Trump-like view of U.S.-Russian relations: “The United States does not want, nor does it need, to resume a Cold War posture with Russia, and our delegation trip was a small step towards trying to ensure that does not happen.”

And last week the president distanced himself from U.S. NATO allies. A translated clip from Russian state-run television has gone viral. It shows a Russian commentator marveling at Trump’s trashing of NATO: “I never thought I’d live to see this!” the Russian commentator exclaims. “Neither the USSR nor Russia, who tried many times to drive the wedge between transatlantic allies, but the main player, Washington, and President Trump himself is doing everything to break down the foundations of transatlantic alliance and unity.”

Trump falsely claimed that Germany was a “captive” to Putin because “60 to 70 percent of their energy comes from Russia.” The insulting mischaracterization drew a sharp rebuke from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I myself experienced a part of Germany that was controlled by the Soviet Union, and I am very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany,” Merkel said.
But Trump never misses an opportunity to say nice things about Putin. And despite pleas from his aides, Trump congratulated Putin on his election victory earlier this year — legitimizing what international observers believe to be a sham election.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign manager awaits trial for illicit ties to Russia and his former national security adviser is now a felon for lying about his contacts with Russia.

Trump is banking on Soviet-style propaganda in the U.S. to make Russian hacking and the Mueller investigation into a partisan issue. The winner in all of this is Putin, who is dividing Americans against themselves and America against her allies. Only the American voters can stop it.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

My Sad Secret Society Meeting

CREDIT: Reuters | Lucy Nicholson

I’ve got a confession to make. I’m in the Secret Society. You know the one I’m talking about. Fox News and Congressman Devin Nunes have outed us now, so there’s no use in denying it. They’ve uncovered how the nefarious “deep state” — the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the liberal mass media — is secretly working to take down our peerless leader, President Donald J. Trump.

Fox and Nunes have had help, of course — from patriotic Russian bots, Julian Assange, and from the president himself, who was the first to point out that the institutions we once trusted — to keep us safe from enemies foreign and domestic, to insure justice is served, and to inform the public — are all now in cahoots with one goal: to destroy the president’s plan to Make America Great Again.

At our Secret Society meeting last week (I could tell you where it was, but I’d have to have you killed by an FBI agent), there was much concern about this. Several of our leaders actually said they thought the jig might be up.

First to speak was Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who, let’s be honest, is one of our ringleaders. He told us the bad news — that the president and his minions were onto us. “They’ve figured out that Jim Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, and I are lifelong Republicans in name only,” he said. “As you know, all of us really work for Barack Obama, the One True Kenyan …”

Chants arose in the hall — “THE ONE TRUE KENYAN! THE ONE TRUE KENYAN!” — but Mueller raised his hand, asking for silence.

“Yes, Obama is our leader, and he gave us a single instruction when he left office …”

“Take Down Trump!” we chanted. “Take Down Trump!”

“Yes, but I have to be honest with you,” Mueller continued. “That task is getting more and more difficult. Trump is getting rid of us, one by one. If he can take me out, all is lost.”

Then CNN’s Wolf Blitzer took the podium. “My secret friends,” he began, “those of us manning The Situation Room are doing our best to get out damning information about this White House, but it’s getting tougher. Sean Hannity is on to us. Jeanine Pirro is chewing my butt like a pitbull. Tucker Carlson is one sharp cookie, despite that stupid bow tie. And don’t even get me started on Ann Coulter. He, er, she is a force to be reckoned with! Our measly ‘facts’ and ‘breaking news stories’ about Trump’s Russian connections don’t seem to faze these people. We’re calling in fresh pundits every day, but it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Gloom descended upon the room.

Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein then stepped forward, concern clearly etched on his face. “As we planned,” he said, “I’ve tried from the start to skew this investigation to bring down President Trump. First by appointing my friend, Robert, who despite his heroics in Vietnam and decades of service to presidents of both parties, is, as we all know, secretly a crook and a liberal — and one of our best, at that. But we are facing obstacles that we never dreamed of. This patriotic coalition of white supremacists, Russian bots, right-wing media, corporate billionaires, the NRA, and amoral Republican Congressmen may simply prove too much for us.

“Nothing seems to matter, any more,” he continued. “Trump can do anything. Yesterday, he decided to just flat refuse to enforce a Russian sanctions bill passed by Congress by a combined vote of 517-5! How does any president get away with that? It’s crazy. He just ignores legislation passed by Congress, destroys environmental regulations, tweets insane and verifiable lies, raves about an impossible-to-build wall, and still, we can’t stop him. He can have an affair with a porn star — A PORN STAR! — and the evangelicals just love him more. It. Just. Doesn’t. Matter. I’m starting to believe that there is nothing we can do to stop this guy. … I’m sorry.”

The room fell silent as the perfectly diverse crowd stared into their cups of Peruvian chai latte. After a few moments, we all began to head for the doors, exchanging hugs and the Secret Society handshake. For me, it was a somber flight back to Memphis. It seemed an inescapable dark age was descending. I couldn’t even get through my Vanity Fair. Norway, I thought. Maybe Norway.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

El Pendejo

CREDIT: © Joshua Roberts | reuters.com

Here is my dream scenario: The Robert Mueller investigation finds that the Russians not only hacked individual polling places, but actually flipped the vote in certain precincts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. It could happen. My wife, Melody, voted for Steve Cohen in the last election, and the voting machine registered a vote for his Republican opponent. She had to get a poll worker to help her correct the vote. If it happened with Cohen, it could happen with Trump.

So, after finding that the actual vote count was tampered with electronically with the assistance of cyber-whiz Jared Kushner, Mueller discovers that Hillary actually won the presidency. Being in virgin territory, Congress flounders around for an answer and ultimately turns to the Supreme Court. Since the Court still has residual guilt from unconstitutionally handing the presidency to George W. Bush and setting the world aflame, this time they decide to do the right thing and nullify the fraudulent, dark-moneyed, treasonous, Putin-influenced election of Donny the Liar.

© Joshua Roberts | reuters.com

Robert Mueller

After the election results are overturned and Big Don and his family of grifters are ordered to pack up and get out of that dump called the White House, then the indictments start to fly. The RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) statute, ironically signed into law by the criminal President Richard Nixon in 1970, is invoked, stating that the leaders of a criminal syndicate are culpable for the crimes they ordered others to do or assisted them in the doing. That should just about cover the Teflon Don, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Stephen Miller, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, and Kellyanne Conway. A nice, supermax federal prison awaits their arrival, but because they are a security threat, they must be placed in solitary confinement and placed on a 24-hour watch list. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

The human hazmat suit proved, once again, his complete lack of humanity during his humiliating visit to the island formerly known as Puerto Rico. After publicly feuding with the capital city’s mayor during an unprecedented natural disaster, Trump tweeted “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan (and other Spanish speakers) … who are not able to get their workers to help. They want everything done for them.” Carmen Yulín Cruz, San Juan’s mayor, graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Boston University, then earned her Master of Sciences degree from Carnegie Mellon University. She has previously worked in human resources at Westinghouse, Colgate-Palmolive, and Cellular One before returning to her native Puerto Rico and entering politics. Cruz is perfectly capable of handling a buffoon like Trump, who practiced his jump shot tossing paper towels to a prescreened crowd of jolly hurricane survivors.

While Carrot Top’s biological father was tweeting insults from his 70th day on the golf course, Mayor Cruz was waist deep in contaminated water, begging the government for help. In an interview on the radical Christian network TBN, Trump defended his actions to Holier Than Thou Mike Huckabee, declaring, “They had these beautiful soft towels. Very good towels. And also, when I walked in, the cheering was incredible.” 
After the predictable blow-back from actual human beings with actual souls, the walking circus peanut was forced to read from a prepared speech: “We must all be united in offering assistance to everyone suffering in Puerto Rico.” Then, the Man With No Shame opened Hispanic Heritage Month by mocking a Spanish accent before a group of Latino leaders, saying, “We love Pueeerrrto Rico, or Portorico, as we call it.”

As late as last Sunday, less than 12 percent of the island had power and only half the population had potable water. A power failure in a San Juan hospital caused the mayor to request additional help from FEMA; she received zero response. On October 8th, 18 days after the catastrophic storm, Cruz tweeted, “Increasingly painful to understand the American people want to help and US Government does not want to help. WE NEED WATER.” In return, Trump tweeted from the 14th tee, “Nobody could have done what I’ve done for Puerto Rico with so little appreciation.”

Reputably, posters have appeared all over the island with Trump’s glowing mug over the lettering “El Pendejo,” which roughly translates into “asshole” in English. If further proof were needed to show Trump’s shallow indifference towards Puerto Rico, FEMA Administrator Brock Long stated, “We filtered out the mayor a long time ago. We don’t have time for this political noise.” I wonder if “pendejo” is more or less offensive than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling the president “a fucking moron”?

Meanwhile, the five living past presidents — Saint Jimmy Carter, Poppy Bush, Bubba, Dubya, and Barack — established a joint project called “One America Appeal,” a recovery effort for hurricane victims in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and what looks like Louisiana and Mississippi. Their efforts include a website where donated funds can be targeted to where they’re most needed, and a public service announcement that appeared before Trump’s new whipping boy, an NFL game. The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library announced that all five former presidents will appear at a country music concert on October 21st at Texas A&M stadium. Trump is not invited because he’s not remotely in the same class as the previous chief executives.

Remember when chief counsel John Dean told Richard Nixon, “There is a cancer growing on the presidency”? Trump is the cancer. He is the fungus on the pendejo of life. There is no joy in this White House. One glance at Melania’s face makes it clear she is the unhappiest woman in America, which brings to mind the old quote by author Jill Mansell: “When you marry for money, you usually end up earning every penny.”
Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Made in America

A reporter called my house the other night. He told me there had been a report that I had removed a tag from a new mattress I bought at Costco, one of those that says, “Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law.”
     “No way,” I said. “I’ve never removed a mattress tag. Fake news!”
     “We have three reliable sources who claim you did.”
     “Well, I guess it’s possible my wife might have removed it. I have no idea.”
     “We have video of you in your blue pajama pants snipping it off using black-handled sewing scissors made in Hong Kong.”
    “Okay, I removed it, but everyone does that! This is a nothing burger! I would have been foolish not to!”
     That, my friends, pretty accurately represents a sequence of events that has played out over and over in the administration of President Donald Trump.
     First step, after a story breaks, adamant lying: e.g. “No one in our administration ever met with the Russians.”
     Second step, lying partial admission: “Three of us met with one Russian, but we didn’t collude or talk about the campaign at all.”
     Third step, admission and excuses: “Okay, a whole bunch of us met with a whole bunch of Russians and talked about the campaign, but that’s standard procedure for all politicians. Nothing to see here.”
     Fourth step, aggressive pivot: “We would have been idiots not to meet with the Russians. It would have been campaign malpractice.”
     Fifth step: “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.”
     Repeat, ad nauseum.
     Look, if you have nothing to hide, you don’t lie. You don’t cover up. You don’t hire lawyers. And you don’t have to change your story, because you only have one story: the truth. Something is rotten here. There’s a dying whale on the beach.
     Now it’s “Made in America” week, which is ironic considering the president’s own businesses almost exclusively use foreign-made products, as do daughter Ivanka’s clothing lines. Further irony came in the form of the administration’s move on Monday to allow thousands more seasonal workers to enter the country — the folks who harvest our crops and, not so incidentally, work in Trump resorts and hotels as servers, maids, and lawn maintenance crews.
     “Made in America” week? Their own election wasn’t even made in America. More like “Hypocrisy in America” week, amirite?
     Meanwhile, Sean Hannity denounced the Republicans in Congress for not funding the border wall. Is it just me, or did Trump promise that was going to be paid for by Mexico? It’s hard to keep up.
     During the campaign, Trump also promised a health-care plan that would ensure “health care for everyone” with no cuts to Medicaid and at a lower cost. That promise has collapsed into a raging dumpster fire, with Republicans — who have the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress — unable to pass anything resembling a plan that would do any of that.
     We are teetering forward from crisis to crisis, from outrage to outrage, from one impulsive tweet to another. Congress is dysfunctional, and the administration twitches reflexively, enduring one news story about Russia after another, while waiting to see what Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller comes up with. Most informed observers believe it will not be good news for Trump and his crew. Which will lead to more crises and more dysfunction and more division.
     Trump’s approval rating stands at historic lows, as more and more Americans come to recognize the mess we’re in — a mess wrought with the help of a hostile power intent on destroying our democracy. Surely, we’re near the bottom now (I hope), but Trump was right about one thing: Fighting our way back to some sort of competent, honest government is going to require draining the swamp. For real, this time.