Trump Condemned Evil in Las Vegas. Evil Laughed.

By Karen

We should have expected the Las Vegas massacre when we did nothing about guns after a sick teenager took his mother’s weapons and slaughtered a classroom of little kids, and have come to accept almost-daily mass shootings as normal.

But will 59 killed/527 wounded be the magic “Enough’s enough!” number that finally makes us put a stop to the NRA and its members who think every lunatic has the right to own unlimited assault weapons and ammo?

You won’t hear it from Trump. He couldn’t even muster one sincere word of condolence, relying instead on his teleprompter to describe the Las Vegas attack and to recite, with no apparent irony, “Our unity cannot be shattered by evil, our bonds cannot be broken by violence.”

Fine words, coming from the man who condoned the evil visited upon Charlottesville and who tweets and says whatever stokes divisiveness and violence here and abroad. Watch his response to Las Vegas…

His speechwriters had Trump spout Scripture, but carefully omitted any mention of guns that might be construed as dissing the 2nd Amendment. Go ahead, give God a fit, but whatever you do, don’t upset Wayne LaPierre.

Authorities are frantically trying to determine why the shooting happened. The gunman had no criminal record and apparently no beliefs that would send him over the edge, according to friends and relatives.

I suspect they’re going to find something that links this atrocity directly to Trump’s words or behavior.

There’s a remote chance the gunman was a Trump voter who wanted to take out “Libtards” en masse, but that’s a stretch.

It’s more likely the shooter loathed Trump. No better venue than a country music concert where there might be a high concentration of Trump-loving rubes, a man at the end of his rope might generalize.

Maybe he’d grown sick of watching the world hang on Trump’s every tweet, or Trump’s feeble attempts to ruin as many lives as possible through legislation. Maybe the last straw came when Trump tried to hijack NFL football because he couldn’t stand the players getting TV ratings he had no part of.

I think Trump may be at the center of this simply because of its overwhelming scale. Trump is always claiming that everything he owns or touches is the biggest, best, greatest, most “whatever” in the history of the world.

This gunman, said to be an avid gambler, may have used human lives as chips to call Trump’s bluff and raise him.

The truth will eventually come out. When it does, if an obsession with Trump turns out to be the catalyst, we’ll have to ask ourselves, “Have we had enough yet?” and make Trump answer for the evil he has unleashed by embracing and exploiting people’s most ignorant, selfish, violent, and racist tendencies.

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Credit Reporting Agencies Need to Die

By Karen

The hack at Equifax could make 143 MILLION Americans’ lives — almost half the population — a living hell from identity theft. I’m one of them.

Why did Equifax wait to admit it? The hacking began on July 29, but didn’t go public until September 7.

Three of the company’s top executives, including its CFO and president of U.S. Information Solutions, unloaded about $2 million in stock days after the hack was discovered, claiming it a coincidence. Really? “Information Solutions” had no clue?

Over the summer, two of my credit cards were compromised and replaced. Was Equifax the reason?

And who the HELL anointed Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian the guardians of all my business? I never did.

Conservatives like to yell that government forcing people to buy health insurance is an excessive intrusion into our personal lives. Why haven’t we heard a peep from them about how these agencies hoard personal data on a scale the KGB could love?

I think the answer is the unspoken understanding that these agencies exist to perpetuate discrimination.

They collect data on you — true or false, without your knowledge or consent — and blab it to anyone who asks. Even when it’s wrong, they can keep you from getting mortgage, a car loan, or even a job. Creditors can charge you higher interest just because.

Some years ago, there was this big push for everybody to check their credit reports annually. I reviewed one of mine once and found an entry with some stranger’s name and Social Security number on it.

I let it go because it didn’t seem to matter, and I didn’t know how to refute fiction out of nowhere. Besides, the agencies are reputed to be assholes who’d rather die than admit/fix mistakes, and you must battle them separately.

Basically, they’re a consumer nightmare on every level.

In the wake of Equifax, we’re being advised to put a freeze on our credit reports so no one can open new accounts.

In Virginia, that costs $10 per agency. So Equifax screws up royally and I’M supposed to pay $30 to mitigate their criminal negligence?

It makes the whole hacking story smell like fake news, collusion among the Big 3, a grab for a massive influx of freeze fees.

If everyone Equifax screwed did a freeze, Equifax alone would rake in $1.43 BILLION.

And it doesn’t stop there. I believe you must pay again to unfreeze your report if someone needs to see it. And then pay AGAIN to reinstate the freeze.

Why doesn’t Trump and Congress demand that all three agencies place FREE freezes on all accounts? Just lock down Americans’ personal and credit data en masse TODAY and then deal with Equifax fallout as it comes to light.

And once that’s done, legislate all three companies out of existence and erase their evil, error-riddled databases. Let companies that want to know about your finances get accurate information from your creditors with your permission, rather than rely on unscrupulous, unnecessary third-party data pimps.

The world would be a better place.

Who Needs Civil War Statues When We Have Trump?

By Karen

Donald Trump’s only consistency is that whenever he expresses a reasonable thought, he’s compelled to flip it into something bonkers. He can’t help himself, and nobody seems able to stop him.

His flip-flops on the Charlottesville riots are the latest — perhaps most egregious — examples. In my previous post is video of his first two prepared statements. His ad lib in the first one blaming “many sides” set everyone’s hair on fire. Two days later he tried again and read mean things he clearly didn’t believe about the KKK and neo-Nazis.

Then the very next day, in a berserk press conference on infrastructure, Trump insisted the residents of Charlottesville deserved blame because they didn’t have a permit to repel racists who invaded their city with flaming torches. But then he added that “both” sides have some “fine people.”

Yeah, like those few good Mexicans who slip into the country along with the drug dealers and rapists.

The Washington Post has exposed Trump’s KKK tie by resurrecting how his father Fred was an active member who got arrested at a riot in Queens in 1927.

Trump may resent Charlottesville’s residents for picking on what he sees as his heritage. Any of those white supremacists could have been Dad.

At the end of that press conference, he flipped AGAIN on Charlottesville, bragging about owning a home there and claiming it’s the biggest winery in the United States.

Lies on both counts. The Trump Winery website has this disclaimer, where son Eric makes clear who’s the boss there…

“Trump Winery is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, which is not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their affiliates.”

And as of 2016, the winery qualified as the largest vineyard in Virginia by acreage, but it lagged far behind others statewide and nationally in wine production.

And now Trump has weighed in on the one piece he knows NOTHING about — Confederate statues. Unsurprisingly, he wants to keep them because he has no understanding whatsoever of what they signify. He conflated George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, founders of the country, with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who fought to tear it in half for the preservation of slavery.

It’s increasingly clear that the only way to stop attracting Trump’s roaches to the South is to get rid of the bait. Stonewall Jackson’s great-great-grandsons wrote a great letter about his statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond.

They live here and want the statue to go. It’s a must-read.

We could use Charlottesville to take this conversation in a new direction. Rather than dwelling on Trump’s shifty positions and motivations, we should focus on making him answerable for being a racial divider — in addition to his myriad personal conflicts of interest and destructive actions on trade, climate change, and foreign relations.

Yes, I’m talking about impeachment. It’s time to start that discussion.

PS: Richmond just caught a break. The guy who applied for a permit to rally around the Lee statue on Monument Avenue on September 16 withdrew because he doesn’t want the haters to show up.

BONUS: Seth Meyers takes a closer look. #insightful #hilarious

Trump Regretfully Renounces Bigotry

By Karen

What the beleaguered residents of Charlottesville, Virginia, didn’t need was for Donald Trump to throw shade on them as one of “many sides” guilty of violence last Saturday.

They had as much justification to turn out in force — again — to repel white supremacists from their city as Trump thinks he has to repel Mexicans with a wall.

The only difference: Mexicans come here wanting a better life. The ignorant scum that oozed across Virginia’s borders thinking they had Trump’s blessing just came to start trouble. Their faux mission — to “save” a statue of General Robert E. Lee.

On Friday night, they descended on Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia with flaming torches in lieu of burning a cross. But their big rally planned for Saturday never happened because the decent people of Charlottesville shut it down.

With pepper spray and fist fights, it got nasty. But when you fight with pigs, everybody gets dirty.

It took a deadly turn when a 20-year-old Nazi-loving coward from Ohio plowed his car into a group of residents, killing one woman and injuring 19 other people.

Virginia also senselessly lost two State Police whose helicopter crashed while they monitored the protests from above to help forces on the ground respond to the worst clashes.

In the aftermath, Trump read this speech, mollifying his base with a bored demeanor and tone that signaled he didn’t share its sentiments…

The KKK and neo-Nazi groups got what they wanted. Trump didn’t call them out by name, but implied that C’villers and even the police bore blame for how it went down.

The outrage from left and right couldn’t come fast enough, but it still took the White House two days to draft the speech Trump should have given in the first place. This time, he kept his eyes glued to the teleprompter to let his base know he was just mouthing someone else’s words, not speaking from the heart…

And what he says today, he may undo tomorrow, or in an hour, with a tweet or some crazy, fact-free statement to a reporter.

Trump said in his first try that he wants to study what happened to “see what we’re doing wrong as a country.”

Is he KIDDING? Someone, please show him the hours of rally footage where he’s been appealing to people’s bigotry all along.

Trump, you created this. You love this. You want adoring crowds saluting you with “Sieg Heil!” Admit it.

Charlottesville is only an hour away. Richmond’s turn may be next. “Americans for Richmond Monument Preservation” has applied for a permit to rally around the General Lee statue here on September 16. May the city say, “Enough’s enough,” and deny it.

Trump ran on shredding political correctness. For once, I agree with him. Let’s stop being so understanding and stomp out this ignorant, hate-filled, violent faction that aspires to live in Nazi America with Trump as their dictator.

Purveyors of chaos and destruction deserve no First Amendment rights. They need to be shut down — online, in person, wherever they skulk — or they’ll just keep on bullying and killing.

BONUS: Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe gave a speech on Saturday to show Trump what a leader sounds like…

Trump’s Gaslight Strategy Doomed to Backfire

By Karen

Did you ever see that movie, Gaslight? Charles Boyer tries to drive Ingrid Bergman mad by moving and hiding things, telling her that all her perceptions are wrong, and accusing her of losing touch with reality until she’s reduced to a basket case.

Boyer’s despicable behavior is a recognized thing called “gaslighting.” Merriam-Webster defines it as…

“To attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experiences that have no rational explanation).”

Donald Trump has been trying to gaslight the whole United States.

In the latest attempt, the New York Times poked the administration’s smoldering tire fire until it sparked into Donald Trump Jr.’s email chain documenting his eagerness to hear the Russian government’s dirt on Hillary Clinton — with invitations to Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort to listen in.

We’ve lost count of all the shady meetings between Trumpers and Russians we now know about, but finally there’s rock-solid proof in black and white that the Trump campaign wanted Russia’s help.

I think Junior was more stupid than evil. He doesn’t consider Russians an enemy because they’ve supported his family for years. Quoting from a story in Time magazine…

“‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,’ Trump’s son, Donald Jr., said at a real estate conference in 2008, according to a trade publication, eTurboNews.”

Trump Sr. praised Junior for his “transparency” in releasing his emails in true gaslight style, omitting Junior’s longstanding lies and denials about his Russian connections.

Now Trump calls the whole matter “fake news.”

Uh, when the evidence is written, and the guy who wrote and published it says it’s authentic, it’s called REAL news. And it doesn’t help Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

Trump probably doesn’t care if Manafort gets toasted; he quit the campaign and made millions from Russians. But Kushner faces serious jail time, and spoiled, baby-faced brats typically don’t thrive in the big house.

You know Trump never read the emails himself nor, if he had, grasped how damning they are. He mistakenly believed if Junior tossed them out there with a defiant, “Now what are you going to do about it?” they would sink into oblivion because Junior doesn’t work in government and he can play with whomever he likes.

But Junior’s role in dad’s campaign may make them something criminal. Lawyers will figure that out.

So, trying to gaslight every U.S. intelligence agency, Trump now claims that Putin really wanted Hillary to win because she’d weaken the military. He doesn’t try to make even a little bit of sense anymore.

Whenever it finally penetrates Trump’s skull that precious Jared is in serious doo-doo thanks to Junior, he’ll be turning up the gas full-blast and Junior may realize Dad has a favorite — and it isn’t him.

That may drive Junior straight into the arms of another father figure, Robert Mueller, which can only be a good thing.

When the truth comes out, this nightmare ends, and justice is served, imagine Charles Boyer as Trump in his last desperate moments and Ingrid Bergman as the American people who are fed up with his games…

Melania Moves to DC: Too Little, Too Late

By Karen

Melania Trump woke up recently and remembered she’s a U.S. citizen. She’s also an unwilling first lady now, but nonetheless it’s her duty to protect us from her husband if she can. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is closing in fast on Trump, and the orange man-baby is figuratively throwing furniture around the White House, trying to elude capture.

Maybe James Comey’s testimony about Trump’s self-destructive behavior behind closed doors made Melania realize it’s time to get in the game. Or maybe Ivanka’s failure to control Daddy with her insipid whining, or Jared’s looming legal peril for being a naïve brat who thinks he can swim with the sharks, convinced her.

Whatever the reason, on Sunday, June 11, Melania, son Barron, and Melania’s parents officially moved to Washington. Crossing the White House lawn, Melania even let Trump hold her hand for a few moments before pulling away and shifting her purse so he couldn’t. Watch it on MSN. It starts at about 1:00.

Embed from Getty Images

Perhaps that gesture was his early, and only, birthday present.

Within a day or so of Melania’s arrival, Trump did a complete 180 on his health care bill, whose cruelty he had celebrated in the Rose Garden. Now he calls it “mean.” Coincidence? I think not.

Of course, Trump lacks any grasp of that bill to give specifics on what should change. You can almost hear the Trumps’ conversation. This is probably all Melania had to say to change his mind…

“Donald, the people who voted for you, you know, the poor and ignorant ones. Health care is the only thing the government has done for them in many years. If you take it away now, they will say you are mean, and maybe they won’t vote for you again.”

But let’s pause to reflect on poor Barron. This kid’s siblings are all old enough to be his parents and his father could be his grandfather. And now he’s stuck in the White House all summer, probably cramped in one room, not a whole floor like he had in Trump Tower, with only the Secret Service for company. He has no opportunities to make friends his own age before he attends a new school in the fall.

I don’t know if Barron had any friends back in NYC. He reminds me of a stalk of white asparagus — frail, spindly, devoid of personality. I guess that’s what happens to a child when you raise it in solitude, without sunlight or exercise. Let’s just hope he never turns orange.

Back to Melania: Of all the Trumps, I think she has NOT relied on Fox News for intel. She’s been watching CNN and MSNBC to see how Donald’s being attacked so she can play defense.

She probably started packing to move after she watched Dan Coats, Mike Rogers, and Jeff Sessions play coy with the Senate Intelligence Committee and make things worse. But it was already too late. They brought Washington to its senses and Trump IS now being investigated for obstruction of justice.

Happy 71^st Birthday, Mr. President!

This feels to me like Chris Christie’s Bridgegate, but with much higher stakes. Trump must agree with me, because his choice to replace Comey as FBI director is Christopher Wray, Christie’s personal attorney, who’s quite familiar with how these setups work.

Trump surrounded himself with established Russians tools Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and Mike Flynn because he knew he couldn’t beat Hillary without help — and Russia offered to help.

No other presidential campaign in history ever had so many unexplained interactions with Russians. Trump knew what his minions were doing because he’s a micromanager. Like Christie’s, they operated under orders not to say or write anything tying Trump to their activities.

But once they got caught, micromanager Trump swooped in to stop the investigation, and now he’s in the soup with them.

Obstruction of justice charges may segue into conflicts of interest, illegal business dealings, perjury, and even treason. The snowball is rolling down the hill now. Any Trump attempts to stop it will only bury him, Jared, and their cronies in a deeper avalanche.

Melania can’t save Trump now, and she probably knows it. But she’ll look worse if she doesn’t at least try to stand by her man.

Putin Steps in to Provide Cover for Trump

By Karen

Donald Trump must be positively giddy that Vladmir Putin has decided to lie like a rug to buy Trump more time in the White House.

Putin was interviewed by former Fox News bimbo, Megyn Kelly, who has jumped ship to NBC in hopes of attaining legitimacy as a journalist. To launch her new Sunday night show, she snagged Putin. What’s even more amazing, she managed to keep blood from coming out of her “wherever” during the whole segment.

Putin looked bored or shifty through most of it, and went out of his way to seem almost as ignorant and out of touch as Trump, which we know he’s not. His eyes never register vacant incomprehension, he speaks in complete, coherent sentences, and I’ve never seen him trying to conceal his baldness with a head ferret.

To cite just a few of Putin’s assertions…

• He got seated beside Michael Flynn at that dinner at random, had no idea Flynn was an American general, and had virtually no interaction with him beyond a greeting.
• He has no clue what Kislyak, his U.S. ambassador, does with his time, who he meets with, nor what’s discussed. Kislak doesn’t run to Putin with every little thing.
• So many American executives visit Moscow, there’s no way his intelligence-gathering agency could keep up. He asked, “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something? Have you all lost your senses over there?”
• When Kelly asked if he has any damaging information, the former KGB foreign intelligence officer replied, “Well, this is just another load of nonsense. Where would we get this information from?”
• He also said the accusation that Russia meddled in the U.S. election is ridiculous, and all 17 U.S. agencies who agree it did are wrong.

Putin essentially gave Trump a pat on the back from a safe distance for his stellar performance as a boorish ignoramus in Europe, where Trump behaved as if he was working under Putin’s direct orders to sink NATO and the G7.

On the flip side, it means Putin thinks there’s still milk in the old Trump cow, so the puppets in the White House will be dancing on Russian strings until Putin starts seeing Trump’s henchmen marched off to prison in handcuffs.

Here’s the full interview…

http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/video-embed/960120387521