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.

Advertisements

Will Trump Meet His Match with Asian Jet Lag?

By Karen

I love when Donald Trump goes abroad because he becomes somebody else’s problem. When he crosses many time zones, we don’t wake up dreading to see on Twitter the fruits of his potty sessions.

I think Trump’s first (and probably last) jaunt through Asia will wreak such havoc on his mind and body, no one will ever mistake him for a world leader again.

Map – CNN

Tonight, Trump sleeps in Hawaii, which is 6 hours behind Washington. If his usual bedtime is midnight, it will be 6 p.m. there. He could use the extra time to meet those investigators he hired there who supposedly uncovered bombshells about Obama’s real birthplace.

When Trump leaves Hawaii for Japan, his watch hops ahead 19 hours.

In Tokyo on Sunday, local time will be 13 hours ahead of DC. So, if it’s noon at the White House, it’s 1 a.m. the next day for Trump. He may start showing cracks then.

Tuesday, he flies to Seoul, enjoying the same time zone as Tokyo. Then on Wednesday in Beijing, Trump gains an hour. So, 6 p.m. in China is 6 a.m. that day in DC.

Next he’s off to Vietnam, gaining another hour in Da Nang and Hanoi on Friday.

Sunday, he flies to Manila and loses the hour he gained in Vietnam as he meets his soulmate, the Filipino despot Rodrigo Duterte. Trump should be a babbling idiot by then, so it promises to be an interesting conversation.

Heading for home on Monday, Nov. 13, when it feels like noon for Trump, it will be midnight of the previous night back in DC.

If you don’t think all this time-hopping isn’t going to drive our Man-Baby-in-Chief bat-shit, you don’t know Trump.

Holding Trump’s leash the entire time will be his nannies Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly. Ivanka isn’t going, and CNN reports that Melania and Jared Kushner are only scheduled for a portion of the trip.

If the time changes weren’t bad enough, Trump must also navigate Asian cuisine. His caretakers hope to keep him on shoe-leather steaks slathered in ketchup with two scoops of ice cream on the side (hold the chopsticks).

But banquets are planned. China’s president, Xi Jinping, wants to “treat Trump almost like an emperor,” according to CNN. Xi knows the more gold-plated and vulgar he can make Trump’s reception, the warmer their relations will be.

Vietnam also plans a big welcome for Trump and hopes he will explain why he shits on them every chance he gets.

It seems highly unlikely Trump can refuse every Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese dish he’s served without offending someone. On the bright side, more toilet time to catch up on tweeting.

Trump was a gauche boor in Europe earlier this year, where the cultures aren’t such a stretch. In Asia, his potential to be a world-class ass is infinite.

Meanwhile, will Kim Jong Un in North Korea feel like the snubbed kid in the ‘hood and start lobbing missiles in Trump’s direction, just for attention?

Will Trump throw a hissy about “Little Rocket Man” and get Seoul vaporized?

Trump thinks the Mueller investigation is bad, but he’s now got 12 days to tip-toe through a minefield of diplomatic issues he doesn’t understand, while his already-addled brain gets raped by jet lag. And his handlers can’t control Trump’s most deadly weapon — his mouth.

This trip may actually beat Robert Mueller in causing the big orange couch potato’s inevitable and total meltdown.

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

Foreign Travel Fails to Enlighten Trump

By Karen

We paid for the man-baby to have nine days of nonstop play dates in the Middle East and Europe. He showed his gratitude by behaving like the quintessential Ugly American, going out of his way to belittle and demean his hosts in Europe.

Surprisingly, Melania allowed herself to be dragged along, even though Ivanka would have been thrilled to handle all first lady duties. But Melania made it clear she wasn’t happy. She avoided Trump’s touch in public as long as she could, usually with a scowl. Finally, she relented at their last stop, Sicily, by helping the Geezer-in-Chief leave Air Force One.

Notice, his hand is on top of hers so he can push down. When any real gentleman approaches a lady, he does so with palm up so she can rest her hand in his.

But backing up to their first stop in Saudi Arabia… we saw Trump dance around with a sword, curtsy upon receiving an obscene gold necklace, and hand the Saudis a “great” $100 billion arms deal. Yeah, Saudis deserve YUGE discounts from American manufacturers on weapons they’ll buy to kill us with.

Next stop was Israel, where Trump received warm hospitality after betraying their confidence by bragging coded intelligence from them to his Russian BFFs in the Oval Office.

The Israelis did make Trump stand with his face to the Western Wall. Trump didn’t seem to register his resemblance to a little kid being punished.

Then it was off to Europe to meet a gaggle of leaders, including the Pope. The Pope managed to come through unscathed. But the remainder of the trip was a disaster. The other European dignitaries made the fatal mistake of not immediately falling into line to kiss Trump’s ring and tell him how wonderful he is.

France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, did give Trump a few “hand jobs,” but they left Trump ungratified. Macron’s more steely grip rendered Trump’s famous dick move for asserting his own dominance a failure.

But lest anyone forget who the biggest bully was, Trump shoved the prime minister of Montenegro…

The prime minister graciously said he didn’t really notice, but Trump still looked like a jerk.

As always, lacking the cojones to face the confrontations he instigates, Trump refused to tell the group whether the U.S. will continue to honor the Paris Climate Agreement.

Now that he’s back in the White House, with his Twitter, his blankie, and his thumb in his mouth, all signs point to Trump backing out any minute — because he doesn’t understand what it means.

Trump thinks he’s “Making America Great Again” by chucking all this country’s influence and leadership. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is evidently done trying to make nice with Trump and the insipid Ivanka, is telling her fellow leaders not to rely on the U.S. for anything for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, on the home front, investigators are closing in on that baby-faced weasel, Jared Kushner, for trying to establish a clandestine communication channel directly with the Kremlin. I can think of only two reasons Kushner and Trump would want that:

1. The Trump administration intends to negotiate peace in our time without our government finding out about it, or
2. The Trump and Kushner organizations have many shady, but lucrative, business deals they intend to continue with Russian oligarchs, and they need to keep Putin in the loop because he has the final word.

BONUS: Garrison Keillor captured this country’s mood while Trump was gone. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Trump’s New Struggle to Keep Up with News

By Karen

For the first time since he made fomenting chaos his new occupation, Donald Trump now finds himself reacting to the news instead of dictating what it will be.

Upon learning that FBI Director Comey kept notes documenting how Trump probably tried to squash the Russia investigation to obstruct justice, Trump issued a terse statement that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Apples to oranges, Trump. Either Trump doesn’t know the meaning of the word “obstruction,” or he’s choosing to refute the charge he thinks he has a better chance of beating. Nice try. Now we’ve got a special prosecutor who isn’t inclined to chase Trump’s squirrels, like Nunes and Chaffetz were.

Trump’s on the ropes now. Just yesterday, he went off script to whine at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation, saying…

“Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine. Look at the way I’ve been treated lately — especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can’t let them get you down.”

See it at 19:17. This video was created by the White House, so let’s see how long it remains available.

I see several takeaways…

When Trump speaks with “surety” about being the most abused president in history, you know it’s bullshit because he’s abysmally ignorant about American history, and presidents in particular.

Anyone planning to meet him on his upcoming foreign trip has better fasten their seatbelts because he’ll undoubtedly be sniveling about how ill-treated he is back home, futilely seeking reassurance from strangers for his corruption and incompetence.

When he repeatedly says things like, “Never, ever give up” and “You can’t let them get you down,” rest assured, “they” are getting him down and he could announce he’s giving up at any minute.

Of course, he won’t phrase it as giving up. I predict Trump will throw in the towel when the subpoenas start flying and his cohorts are singing like canaries to stay out of prison. Trump will say he prefers to return to his “wonderful life” in Trump Tower, or cite pressing Trump business interests that must take precedence over running the country, which nobody ever told him wasn’t going to be a part-time gig.

He may even go so far as to express a desire to spend more time with his family, although those he clearly holds most dear — Ivanka and Jared Kushner— are already with him in the White House every day.

Then Trump will slither away, leaving a trail of slime, as he always does, leaving his hapless enablers to face the consequences. If they go to jail, he’ll pretend he never heard of them.

Trump’s abbreviated administration will flame out as the greatest disaster ever to hit Washington, DC, but he’ll claim to his dying breath that we’ll be seeing his face on Mt. Rushmore any day now because he was the greatest president in American history.

Sad. Truly sad.

Trump’s End Finally Begins

By Karen

For the first time since the presidential election, I woke up this morning without a feeling of impending doom, thanks to former FBI Director James Comey. It must have been a flash of clairvoyance when I wrote my previous post and envisioned Comey handing Trump the shovel with which to dig his own grave.

Comey’s shovel takes the form of detailed notes on his encounters with Trump.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also thank Donald Trump himself. His unwavering arrogance, greed, willful ignorance, and insane words and actions have made it possible to get rid of him sooner rather than later.

Trump has barely been in office four months, yet he’s racked up such an impressive roster of potential crimes and conflicts of interest, he’s set a virtual smorgasbord of grounds to nail him on. For good measure, he’s probably put people like Mike Pence, Sean Spicer, and Sarah “Spawn of THAT Huckabee” Sanders in legal jeopardy because they’ve lied their asses off to cover for him. Not that Trump has appreciated it. He’s gone out of his way in TV interviews to expose them as liars with his own loose lips.

To briefly recap: Trump fired Comey, then said he did it because of the Russia investigation. Then Trump threatened Comey, via tweet, not to “leak” anything to the press, lest Trump make public “tapes” he’d secretly recorded.

Just for additional chaos, Trump immediately followed up by feeding highly classified information from Israel to two Russians whom he personally invited to visit the Oval Office and consider it their home away from home.

When I heard yesterday that Comey actually trumped Trump by documenting every meeting and conversation where Trump tried to squash the Russia investigations — all of which can presumably be verified with Trump’s precious tapes — I became positively giddy.

It sent most congressional Republicans skittering like cockroaches under a sun lamp. Charlie Rose said on CBS This Morning today that they had invited 20 Republicans to comment on this development and got no takers.

Through his own miscalculation, Trump has had his poison picked for him. Obstruction of justice it is — for starters. While Congress works on that, the media can continue its investigations into Trump’s myriad fishy financial dealings and verify all his bona fide ongoing conflicts of interest. I like to think of those as the top layer of dirt to be shoveled onto his political coffin.

The evidence against Trump’s operating system of corruption and all-round depravity is stacking up so high, any Republican who continues to defend Trump at this point must have a death wish.

Next up: Trump goes abroad on his first foreign trip, which includes Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican. It will provide limitless opportunities for Trump to show other world leaders that the United States chose a clueless fool to lead us.

Comey Provides the Shovel, Trump Does the Digging

By Karen

Waiting for the dust to settle on FBI Director James Comey’s firing before writing about it, I realized the dust never settles with Trump as he lurches from one self-inflicted crisis to the next. The silver lining here is that he’s brought himself closer to impeachment.

After the uproar over Comey’s dismissal, Trump actually had the nerve today on Twitter to threaten Comey into silence…

For the record, when you’re unemployed, you have no job to leak about. Comey the private citizen can now only reminisce about his good old days at the FBI.

Trump’s treatment of Comey was extremely passive-aggressive for a self-described tough guy who probably nursed boners under his conference table whenever he got to say, “You’re FIRED!” to someone’s face on Celebrity Apprentice.

Trump the chicken even timed it so Comey was on the West Coast and saw the news on TV before the actual termination letter made it all the way to the FBI, just blocks from the White House.

That’s gratitude, Trump-style. He practically dry-humped Comey in public every chance he got after Comey helped throw the election to Trump, but the bromance ended as soon as Comey started testifying to Congress and mentioning Russia.

Writing Comey’s termination letter, Trump’s paranoia surfaced as a plug for his own innocence, claiming Comey told Trump three times he’s not under investigation. No doubt that will soon be exposed as another Trump lie, but Trump will keep swearing it’s true because it’s now in writing.

In the aftermath, Trump’s flying monkeys, including Mike Pence, swarmed the media to declare the firing was Trump’s vengeance on Comey’s unchivalrous behavior toward Hillary Clinton.

Were they KIDDING? Who the hell did they think would be believe that, after listening to hours of Trump chanting his mantra, “Lock her up!”

True to form, Trump immediately threw egg on their faces by yapping to NBC’s Lester Holt, stating the Russia investigation totally figured into his decision to fire Comey —because Trump wants the investigation done more quickly. Here’s a link the interview on NBC, which I assume Trump will be unable to scrub.

May 17 NOTE: I originally posted the entire interview below from YouTube, but it disappeared within days, as unflattering footage of Trump seems to do. The photos I used in an early post about Trump dissing Melania at his inauguration suffered the same fate.

Note these things: I think for the first time ever, Trump refers to himself in third person at 1:04. I believe he’s trying to distance his mind from the disgrace and humiliation he knows is coming. He must separate “President Guy” from “Business Guy” to keep his porcelain ego from imploding when impeachment proceedings begin.

Also watch for sniffling. It started during the debates with Hillary. Now he’s under the gun again and it’s back at 2:12, when he claims the Russia investigation is a Democrat excuse. Again at 2:46 when he claims Comey requested a dinner to implore Trump to let Comey keep his job.

For the record: Comey was in year 3 of a 10-year appointment by Obama. He wasn’t on some list of people it was Trump’s prerogative to keep or discard. He’s only the second FBI director to be fired in all of U.S. history. After handing Trump the election, Comey had no reason whatsoever to be concerned about his job.

I believe Trump fired Comey because 1) He can’t stand anyone stealing the spotlight for even one minute; he even revealed his jealousy by calling Comey a “showboater” and a “grandstander,” and 2) Trump feels Comey was tightening the noose on Russia.

To comfort himself with a treat, the very day after Comey’s firing, Trump filled the Oval Office with beaming Russians, photos of which the Russians promptly published. The Trump White House pretended to be shocked — SHOCKED — at the “leak.”

Putin allegedly insisted on that meeting, and Trump caved. Putin’s now playing Trump for a fool while Trump kow-tows, thinking there’s still a chance of earning Putin’s approval and being considered an equal — if only to keep Putin from releasing his dirt on Trump and his whole rotten circle.

At this point, Trump is a lab rat in a maze whose walls are collapsing, and he still can’t figure out where the exit is.

Trump was baffled that anybody got upset about Comey’s firing because he thought saying it was over Hillary was the perfect cover. But his chronic dishonesty has finally caught up with him. Every time he spews a new lie, he digs the hole deeper.

Congress now has no choice but to bring in a special prosecutor because Trump has lawyered up. His every defensive move indicates there’s much more lurking under the tip of this iceberg.

Just today, his legal team, in a letter probably backdated to March 8, since all of Comey’s paperwork dated this week failed to pass the smell test, said there’s basically nothing too Russian in Trump’s taxes for the past 10 years.

But his law firm, Morgan Lewis and Bockius, happens to be part of a global firm that was named “Russia Law Firm of the Year” in 2016 by London-based Chambers and Partners, a firm that ranks lawyers and law firms.

Nope, nothing to see there. I just hope the taxpayers aren’t now picking up the tab for Trump’s bogus legal consultations.