Belated Bombshell: Trump is Working for Russia!

By Karen

Well, Da! Since The New York Times report last week that the FBI launched an investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, my déjà vu has been off the charts. Every time I see TV pundits picking over Trump’s multitude of pro-Russian statements and actions as if they’re seeing them for the first time, I go into a meltdown.

Why? Because any person over 12 who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention knows Trump’s allegiance to Russia has always been sincere and all-consuming.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing.”

On Russian meddling in the election: “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia.

I could go on and on. These and many other outrageous statements the media reported with insufficient push-back left many of us thinking, “Holy shit! Why isn’t somebody stopping him?”

Right after Trump fired Comey, he invited Russians into the Oval Office to gloat with them about it. We found out from Russian photographs because Trump allowed no American witnesses.

And then we heard about the two-hour private tête-à-tête with Putin in Helsinki, to which Trump allowed no American witnesses save an interpreter, whose notes he later confiscated and probably destroyed. Afterward, Putin bounded before reporters, smiling like he’d just gotten the world’s best blow job, with lumbering Trump looking like he’d been forced at gunpoint to swallow.

And let’s not overlook Trump’s ever-growing mountain of tweets professing love for all things Russian. Out the other side of his face he claims he’s been harder on Russia than any president, ever — even as he tries to relieve Putin’s oligarch henchman and Paul Manafort BFF, Oleg Deripaska, of American sanctions.

For three years, the media has asked, “What could POSSIBLY be going on?” when it’s been obvious all along.

Trump’s Russia fixation is all about money. Back in 2008, (I’m quoting Vox) Donald Trump Jr. said, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” In 2014, Eric Trump said, “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Over many years, Trump has done a high volume of all-cash real estate deals at his properties in New York and Florida with Russians worth hundreds of millions.

U.S. banks refuse to lend to Trump because he’s a notorious bad risk, and Trump’s burning bridges with other countries now. I believe he naively thinks that if he presents Putin with the smoldering ruins of the United States on a platter (with the Statue of Liberty’s head on the side), Trump will be ensured wealth beyond his wildest dreams forever — including a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Where Trump miscalculates bigly is that his life post-White House will be anything but business as usual, happily ever after. Trump and, apparently, the 25-30 percent of racist morons who still support him are the only ones who fail to see he’s heading to prison. The feds and New York state have so many felonies to nail on Trump, he’ll look like a used piñata by the time they’re finished with him.

Tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, misuse of funds, conspiring with a hostile power, emoluments violations, campaign finance violations, obstruction of justice. Those are just his greatest hits. Even with plea deals, Trump at 72 faces what’s left of his life behind bars. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is assembling and fleshing out the pieces with hard evidence that will be gift-wrapped and shoved down the throats of every Trump voter and enabler in Congress.

On January 14, in response to the NYT article, Trump uttered the words destined to be carved on his tombstone…

Trump will be pressed on that point, and we know his first response will be, “I never said that.”

When confronted with the video, he’ll say…

“I have never received a paycheck from Russia. When you work for somebody, they have to give you a paycheck, right? Do you think Putin would ever give me a paycheck? What have I ever done for Putin? I hardly know the guy. I don’t get paychecks from Putin. I’ve never even been to Russia.”

What we’re seeing is quid pro quo in action. On the promise of future riches, Putin provides Trump’s marching orders (“Pull your troops out of Syria,” “Pull your troops out of Iraq,” “Destroy NATO,” “Give Deripaska a break,” etc.), and Trump will do as ordered until Congress stops him, one way or another.

Donald Trump is a liar, a thief and a traitor. He’s lurching blindly toward the worst possible end. It can’t come soon enough.

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Three Christmas Wishes for Trump

By Karen

Evidence of the Trump gang’s corruption is gushing in such a torrent, I feel like I’m being waterboarded with it. And Special Counsel Robert Mueller hasn’t even shared his festering treasure trove of crimes uncovered.

The stench of Trump’s desperation is pervasive as he tries to keep such chaos churned up that we give him a pass because we can’t comprehend the sheer volume of his vileness.

But I think the best approach is to let the subpoenas fly. First, arrest and indict everyone who enabled Trump and lied about it — Stone, Kushner and Don Jr. for starters.

With them should be Trump himself. His orange slime is oozing through every tentacle of this whole mess. He incessantly confesses to it on Twitter by projecting his own guilt onto everyone around him.

Trump has fans who would still like to paint those who have flipped — Cohen, Manafort, Flynn and others — as liars. But they probably wouldn’t have flipped if Mueller hadn’t shown them solid paper trails documenting the felonies they’d committed on Trump’s behalf.

As Mueller assembles this 100,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of greed, corruption and treason, you can see Trump flailing as if he feels Mueller is the one building a wall, methodically entombing Trump behind it, brick by brick, layer by layer.

Mexico will be laughing its ass off at the irony.

This country was founded on rebellion against an unstable, unjust king. Yet we’re sliding into dictatorship while debating whether a common crook can be indicted because —through our quirky voting process, not because he earned the most votes — he lucked into a job title he’s proven himself incompetent to fulfill.

Besides, Trump’s a tax evader — he bragged it proves he’s “smart.” A fraud — Trump University. A thief — stiffing suppliers and contractors. A money launderer — Russian and Saudi grossly overpriced real estate deals.

Then we have brazen obstruction of justice and witness tampering, well-documented in interviews and on social media. Not to mention treason — violating his oath of office by approving of Russia’s and Saudi Arabia’s aggressive attacks to destabilize the U.S.

Every day, Trump’s businesses profit from foreign governments openly patronizing his properties to bribe him.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Trump is a walking crime against humanity.

Trump rightfully should have been behind bars years ago. If he hadn’t wandered into the White House and hit greater scrutiny because of his misuse of power, he and his idiot kids probably could have gone on cheating and swindling people indefinitely.

If anything, the law should apply to Donald Trump harder and swifter BECAUSE he’s the president. And because he’s disgraced the office by gleefully spitting on his responsibility to model honesty, integrity and morality.

It’s time to throw Trump on the pyre of evidence against him and light the match.

Once Trump is behind bars for life, removing him from office through impeachment becomes moot, a no-brainer. Congress can rubber-stamp it.

My three wishes for Donald Trump for Christmas are: indictment, conviction and impeachment.

Feeling Some Post-Mid-Term Blues

By Karen

The mid-term election yesterday was supposed to reject Trump’s first two years of mocking and dismantling every constructive thing this country has ever achieved. I expected decent, disgusted people of all political stripes, women, millennials, new voters, LGBTQ and minorities to turn out in droves and tell the GOP loud and clear that “treason” is not the new word for “policy.”

WTF happened? Yes, the numbers were up, but what’s with the tepid results? Democrats won only 28 seats in the House and actually lost ground in the Senate.

Today, Dems should be able to tell Trump and his spineless enablers in Congress to “STFU. We’re back in charge. We’ve had enough of your bullshit. Don’t even try pushing through any more. Ain’t gonna happen.” But they can’t. And Republicans are gloating.

One bright spot happened in my neck of Virginia. Senator Tim Kaine (Hillary’s running mate) beat Corey Stewart by 16 points. Stewart’s a Minnesota-born Trump Mini-me who brands himself a Confederate neo-Nazi and promised to run a “vicious” campaign. In this victory speech, Kaine said voters had sent a message of “good over evil, light over darkness, understanding over ignorance.”

Amen.

In my congressional district, VA-7, Democrat Abigail Spanberger beat Dave Brat, a Trump-loving, misogynistic tea party darling, in a satisfying upset. True to his name, Brat refused to concede, probably hoping for divine intervention from Putin.

And in New York, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. But the district she won is already heavily Democratic. Whereas on nearby Long Island, racist misogynist Republican Pete King won his 14^th term.

It was also gratifying to see Wisconsin voters finally kick their scheming, lying scumbag of a governor, Scott Walker, to the curb.

But in Montana, Republican Congressman Greg Gianforte who body-slammed a Guardian reporter, and who Trump proclaimed “his guy,” kept his seat.

In Florida, sharp, classy, articulate Democrat Andrew Gillum lost the governor’s race to Ron DeSantis, a bigot who urged voters not to “monkey up” the election by voting for a black man.

In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams should have easily buried Brian Kemp to become the country’s first black female governor. Kemp refused to stop overseeing the election he was a candidate in because he was too busy rigging it to disenfranchise minority voters every which way he could — and now the results are too close to call.

And probably the most stomach-turning result came in Texas, when that sleazy hypocrite everyone loves to hate, Ted Cruz, managed to beat Beto O’Rourke by 3 points and keep his Senate seat.

Whenever California manages to drag in its results, Democrats will probably pick up a few more seats, but not enough to assuage my disappointment with the bottom line.

I really, REALLY believed this country had enough good people to slam the lid on the Pandora’s box Trump has opened with his celebration of greed, ignorance, hatred and oppression, but it simply didn’t happen.

Either too many reasonable people stayed home in the mid-terms, or we really are eyeballs-deep in stupid, backward-looking racists who think their best interests are served by a con man who preys on rubes while he runs the country into a ditch to enrich himself.

The Senate is still poised to rubber-stamp whatever acts of treason Trump proposes. I hope that when the House committees investigating Trump’s myriad crimes switch to Democratic control (buh-bye, Devin Nunes!) they will crank up the heat to full-blast, get the subpoenas flying, and stoke Trump’s fears about spending the rest of his life jail until resigning seems a safer alternative to running for re-election.

And then there’s always Robert Mueller. Our last hope.

Saudi Solution is Simple: Show Us Khashoggi’s Body

By Karen

Trump and Kushner are still playing coy over whether they believe Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the killing of Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2.

One story is that Khashoggi synced his Apple watch to the iPhone he left with his fiancée outside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, which saved a file to the cloud of what the watch recorded happening inside the building. However, the BBC dissected the gadgets’ capabilities and debunked the likelihood of this.

Turkish authorities claim to have audio and video of Khashoggi’s murder. They’re reluctant to share this information and reveal the true extent of their surveillance practices. Understandable. But they’ve released plenty of gruesome details.

Meanwhile, the Saudis have been using Trump as their stooge to float a series of denials and fanciful lies, including that 60-year-old Khashoggi got into a fistfight and was accidentally strangled when somebody put him in a chokehold.

Based on Turkey’s revelations, it appears Khashoggi was ambushed by 15 Saudi men equipped with a bone saw, flown in specifically for the occasion. Once Khashoggi entered the consulate, he was tortured, apparently had fingers cut off, then drugged and dismembered while still alive by a man who told the others it was good to listen to music whenever butchering a person.

If none of this happened, the Saudis should be able to produce Khashoggi’s completely intact corpse.

But they haven’t. They can’t even say where it is.

Instead, there’s video of a body double wearing a fake beard and Khashoggi’s clothes (but not his shoes) leaving by the consulate’s back door with another man. Cameras also caught the double entering a public restroom and emerging in his original clothes, sans beard, then dumping a shopping bag (containing Khaghoggi’s clothes, presumably) in a dumpster.

A small handful of Republican senators (Paul, Sasse, Corker and Graham) have professed outrage, but we know they’ll be dancing in a chorus line behind Trump when he soon kisses MBS on the lips and declares his everlasting devotion to Saudi Arabia.

The truth is that Trump is personally terrified that sanctioning the Saudis will cut off the sweet, sweet flow of cash into his own pocket; instead, he feigns concern over losing a $110 billion arms sale that was tentative at best.

The world sees an impotent United States making excuses for unimaginable barbarity on a man Trump keeps reminding us only lived here on a green card, as if his life mattered less than any blond-haired, blue-eyed native redneck.

The Saudis may have done the killing, but this blood is all over Trump. Without his daily rants about the press being “the enemy of the people” and rally ravings about how he loves to see journalists body-slammed, encouraging his moronic supporters to hate the legitimate news media, he sends a deadly signal.

Bottom line: The House of Trump loves terrorizing journalists. The Saudis gave him the gift of showing what can happen to anyone who dares to question or criticize the powers that be. In Trump’s eyes, that’s a plus, not a problem.

Don’t Let the Babble Bury Kavanaugh’s Many Flaws

By Karen

I watched all of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s and Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony before the Senate Judicial Committee last week. Republicans seem thrilled to limit their vetting to a possibly unprovable he-said-she-said scenario of attempted rape.

Matt Damon dropped by SNL for a parody of the Kavanaugh hearing. It’s hilarious but terrifying because it’s only a mild exaggeration of what happened that day.

Brett Kavanaugh has displayed so much more about his unfitness for the Supreme Court that his underage drinking and rape aspirations in high school are the least of it. While writing this, I discovered another Yale classmate, Chad Ludington, has just joined the growing list speaking out about Kavanaugh because they know firsthand that he’s lying about his behavior. Here are some other red flags we must not forget…

Sense of Entitlement – Kavanaugh talks about the Supreme Court job as if it’s owed to him. (Tough shit, Merrick Garland.) Trump’s so desperate for a justice who believes the president is above the law, you have to wonder how much smoke he’s been blowing up Kavanaugh’s ass.

Belligerence – Demanding Senator Amy Klobuchar tell him her drinking habits was so obnoxious, someone must have persuaded him during a break to apologize, even though he was only using Trump’s deflection technique. Kavanaugh also behaved like a peevish brat in refusing to answer Senator Dick Durbin’s question about whether he’d want an FBI investigation to clear his name. I could write all day about Kavanaugh’s displays of arrogance and disrespect to the Democratic side of the committee.

Partisanship – He actually managed to drag the Clintons into his opening statement, as if they have anything to do with anything. Kavanaugh’s impatient, almost sneering contempt for Democratic questioning conveyed that he will be anything but impartial if he manages to get through this. He all but said to them, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Alcoholism? – From his flushed face and constant water-gulping, it appeared Kavanaugh may have been drinking earlier that day. And what other SCOTUS nominee has spent so much time talking about beer? Heavy drinking seemed to be his part-time job for many years, so how do we know he’s doing doing it now?

Lying – Following another Trump example, he lied about easily verified things, such as the meaning of boofing and a Devil’s Triangle, and that he could drink legally in high school (he was only 17). Other examples are too numerous to list here.

Gambling? – Since the latest hearing was about attempted rape, there was no mention of the $200,000 credit card debt Kavanaugh racked up mainly on baseball tickets but managed to quickly pay off before his federal judgeship although he didn’t have that much money in the bank. Was he betting on games?

Financially Compromised? – Kavanaugh’s funding sources are almost as murky as Trump’s. His ($220,600) and his wife’s ($66,000) salaries seem a tight fit for their lifestyle. They bought a $1.2 million house Kavanaugh described as a “fixer-upper” that’s expensive to maintain. They joined a country club with a $92,000 entry fee and $9,000 annual dues. They have two daughters attending a $10,580-a-year-per-child private school. He seems to be getting extra cash somewhere, but it’s not revealed in his financial disclosures.

Contempt for Women – Four women have shared stories of Kavanaugh being an aggressor or of doing nothing while his friends gang-raped girls. He’s anti-abortion and considered most likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. He seems to see himself as a privileged white master of the universe, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.

In addition to whatever the FBI finds, I think we’ve seen and heard enough about Brett Kavanaugh to know he’s the last person this country needs on the Supreme Court. May the FBI interview enough people this week and corroborate descriptions of this despicable man to not only keep him off SCOTUS, but to kick him off the bench altogether.

Argento Tries Patching Her Crumbling World with Lies

By Karen

From a page out of Donald Tump’s playbook, Asia Argento’s latest strategy is, “If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again — and hire a new lawyer.”

Page Six has reported that Argento is reneging on her deal with Jimmy Bennett to send him $180,000 in monthly $10,000 installments until she pays off the $380,000 settlement to which Anthony Bourdain contributed $200,000 back in April.

The story states that Bennett has so far received, $250,000, so the math implies he got checks for May, June, July, August and September.

Page Six isn’t a paragon of journalistic integrity, but I would guess that, without access to Bourdain’s wallet, Argento is strapped for cash.

(BTW, media reports are now jumbling all these numbers. I’m sticking to figures provided by The New York Times in August; they received and authenticated the legal documents.)

Argento has been dropped from X Factor Italy, her only steady employment I’m aware of. She will appear only in initial episodes already filmed.

Also, CNN has pulled from streaming all episodes of Parts Unknown Argento was involved in: Rome, Southern Italy and Hong Kong. She was shooting in Florence with Bourdain two weeks before his death, but that one’s apparently toast because it’s not in the seven-episode “Final Season” CNN will air this fall.

Returning to Page Six, one bit they nailed is that Argento has replaced her lawyer Carrie Golding with Mark Jay Heller, a celebrity ambulance-chaser who has represented Lindsey Lohan (whatever happened to her?) and many others.

Heller wrote a statement about his newest client that’s featured on his homepage. (Don’t miss the video at the top showcasing what a sleaze he is.) The title: “Asia Argento Launches Phase Two of the #MeToo Movement.”

It’s hilarious because Argento has been persona non grata with #MeToo since her romp with 17-year-old Jimmy Bennett came out in the NYT.

But what exactly is “Phase Two”? Heller explains…

“Phase Two of the #metoo movement dictates that the voice of a victim, even one with a history that may be in question, should be heard and she is hopeful that in the Court of Public Opinion it will ultimately be determined that Asia never initiated an inappropriate sexual contact with a minor, but rather she was attached by Bennett and might even be suffering the fallback of a smear campaign by those already accused who may have a vested interest in their accusers being denied credibility.”

Heller includes a little “smear campaign” of his own on Jimmy Bennett by mentioning that in 2014 (after Argento assaulted Bennett) he was allegedly charged by the LAPD with “unlawful sex with a minor,” “stalking,” “child pornography” and “child exploitation.” Heller also gratuitously mentions Bennett’s lawsuit against his parents for allegedly stealing his earnings.

Argento’s schtick now is that she was unequivocally raped by Bennett. Forget that spider-poised-to-strike selfie of breathless anticipation she posted on Instagram before he arrived for their rendezvous.

To make matters even more confusing, Rain Dove, the significant other of Rose McGowan (Happy 45^th Birthday, Rose! Your suddenly gray stubble-do looks fab on you!), has been feuding with Argento on Twitter today.

The Daily Mail has published texts of Rain and Argento discussing Bourdain’s death not being suicide, and Argento drops the bomb, “there was a witness.” But it’s unclear if she’s talking about Bourdain’s death or about Rain not sharing with Argento related documents s/he supposedly has (how?).

If you’re drinking anything right now, please swallow before reading this last paragraph of Heller’s statement about Argento…

“When the true facts are clarified, we know Asia will return to her International prominence as an award winning and acclaimed Actress, musician and Director.”

The “true fact” we know about Asia Argento is that she will say or do anything to get what she wants, and then betray whoever it takes to cover her misdeeds.

Again, straight from Trump’s playbook.

Asia Argento’s Claim of Talent: Deceitful Above All Things

By Karen

Still trying to wrap my head around Asia Argento’s alleged statutory rape of Jimmy Bennett in 2013, and Anthony Bourdain’s alleged participation in the cover-up earlier this year, I just watched the movie that spawned the whole mess. In 2004, Argento cast Bennett in The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things when he was 7 years old. It’s available for free on Amazon Prime.

Bennett plays young Jeremiah, and Argento plays Sarah, his drug-addicted prostitute mother. Argento also received script credit and directed the film, set in West Virginia.

How Argento got the rights to this “JT Leroy” story by sleeping with the woman who masqueraded as Leroy, and then cheated on Leroy to “his” face by sleeping with a man is a story in itself. Basically, it’s another example of Argento’s now well-recognized schtick of using people for her own ends before shitting all over them.

Back to the movie. Here’s the trailer (Bennett is the youngest boy)…

In badly fitting blonde wigs, Argento’s hit-or-miss Southern accent is the extent of her acting. The rest is pretty much her typical behavior as she’s posted it on Instagram for years.

In a nutshell, the story celebrates child abuse in myriad forms. Sarah makes Jeremiah her captive audience to watch her smoke, drink, do drugs, and have sex with strangers whenever he isn’t being tortured.

The photography includes lots of shots of Argento on all fours poking her barely-clad ass at the camera as if she considers it her best feature.

Jimmy Bennett looks scared, sad and finally numb throughout his portion of the film. Fortunately, his gig is done and he’s replaced by two older twins before a man rapes the Jeremiah character.

The rape scene may be the film’s most tasteful bit, with Argento stepping in to play Jeremiah’s fantasy that he’s Sarah. What, you didn’t think for a moment Argento would have a sex scene in her movie without her, did you?

Afterward, the only indication of “how it went” is Jeremiah trying to wash blood from stained frilly panties.

In one climactic scene, Sarah makes this speech to Jeremiah. It’s easy to imagine Asia spitting these words at Tony during one of their arguments…

“You think I need you? You’ve done nothing but ruin everything. Always. I sacrificed so much for you, you shitty bastard. I could have been something. I had to give it all up for you. By myself I’ve always landed on my feet. Never forget that.”

Making the film gave Argento an opportunity, in the name of art, to experiment with destroying a child. Four years later, in 2008, she gave birth to her son, Nicola. In 2013, before Nicola was 5, Argento allegedly had sex with Jimmy, the boy she knew best when he was only 7.

We’re left with 97 minutes of film showing how coarse, cruel and slutty Argento can be. It boggles the mind to think Anthony Bourdain ever watched it and found it impressive work.

Jimmy Bennett’s upbringing must have been nightmarish for his parents to allow his participation in this travesty, and then to allow him to keep in touch with the woman responsible.

BONUSES: Here’s a 2006 review still available online by Jeremy C. Fox at Pajiba that discusses the Leroy book and gives the movie and Argento much more credit than I do, but he’s ultimately disappointed.

Snippets of dozens of professional reviews are at Rotten Tomatoes, but I found most full versions no longer accessible.

Oops! Just found another one from 2006 by Ty Burr at The Boston Globe. Enjoy — or puke!