Ex-squeeze me?

(Nov. 12, 2017)

President Donald Trump told reporters that he believes both the U.S. intelligence agencies when they say Russia meddled AND Russian President Vladimir Putin's sincerity in claiming that his country did not interfere.

Citizens, the POTUS...

"What I said that...I'm surprised that there's...uh... any conflict on this...what I said there, was that I believe he believes that, and that's very important for somebody to believe. I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election."

"As to whether I believe it or not, I'm with our agencies, especially as currently constituted with their leadership. I believe in our Intel agencies, our intelligence agencies... I've worked with them very strongly... uh... there weren't 17 as there was previously reported, there were actually 4... but they were saying there was 17, there were actually 4...but as currently... uh, led by... fine people...I believe very much in our intelligence agencies. Now...at the same time...uh...I wanna be able 'cuz I think it's very important to get along with Russia, to get along with China, to get along with Vietnam, to get along with lots of countries because we have a lot of things we have to solve. And frankly, Russia, China in particular can help us with the North Korea problem which is one of our truly great problems."

"So,...I'm not looking to stand and start argung with somebody when there's reporters all around and camera recording our conversation. I think it was very obvious to everybody...I believe that President Putin really feels and he feels strongly that he did not meddle our election.

What he believes is what he believes. What I believe is that we have to get to work and I think everybody understood this that heard the answer. We have to get to work to solve Syria, to solve North Korea, to solve Ukraine, to solve terrorism."

"Russia has been very, very heavily sanctioned. They were sanctioned... at a... very high level...and that took place very recently. It's now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken. Those are very important things. And I feel that having... Russia...in a friendly posture as a opposed to always fighting with them is an asset to the world and an asset to our country, not a liability."

"We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar." David Brooks

Complicit GOP Leadership

All of the GOP leadership will be indicted; Pence, McConnell, Ryan, etc...they were all complicit in one way or another. 

That's how the 'compromat' strategy works; compromise as many as possible so that all are implicated and at risk. The underpinnings of this reasoning are coming to light slowly, drib following drab. Robert Mueller is playing everything very close to his vest - as he should. 

However, there are many journalists, professional and aspiring, who are investigating this very question - who of the administration knew and when did they know it.  It's the traditional tact, but this time their investigation includes the questions, "Who are complicit and how?"

In April the New York Times reported that Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, knew about the CIA report of Russian intervention in the 2016 election. He put the brakes on any active investigation by pooh-poohing the report. McConnell went so far as to issue a watered-down letter (link below) to electoral officials which never even mentioned Russia but indicated un-named 'malefactors'. 

Link to letter to the National Association of State Election Directors
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000157-7606-d0b2-a35f-7e1f2aac0001
(Full disclosure; the letter was signed by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.)

Before leaving office the Obama administration warned the incoming Oval Office occupant of the CIA and FBI findings of evidence that Russian operatives had acted to derail the electoral process.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/?utm_term=.04a56dfebd45

The leadership of the transition team (Drumpf, Pence, Nunes, Gowdy, Flynn, et al) well-aware of the confiscation of the two compounds used by Russian diplomats, the deportment of Russian Embassy officials and the sanctions on the Kremlin in response to the seizing of the Crimea and the aggression against the Ukraine. They were aware of the tensions between the US and Russian. To claim to be unaware of the fragility of relations between these two nation would be to declare that you are a moron of monumental proportions and completely unqualified to have any government position. The transition leadership most assuredly knew about Obama's intelligence briefings regarding the Russian interference.  

The notion that these jamokes (Drumpf, Pence, etc) did not see the national security problem they were inheriting is, quite simply, preposterous.  So, why did they do nothing, say nothing, take no action except to down-play the very idea that Russia interfered with the 2016 election? Why did Drumpf demean the idea with his '400 pound guy on a bed someplace' caricature? Why has Pence held to his lie concerning being unaware of Flynn's sinful transgressions - those which Congressman Elijah Cummings  and the out-going presidential team warned him about? Both Pence and Drumpf and the rest of transition leadership knew about Obama's warning. They all knew that Flynn had been fired by Obama.

My answer to these and other questions is this: they all knew to some degree and are therefore complicit in the crimes for which Mueller issued indictments for the 13 Russian nationals and the 3 Russian companies.   

Since the release of those indictments, there has only been a bit of shadow-play from Senator Grassley coaxing the Drumpfen-duffer to take action (between disco parties and golf). The GOP have gone mum - probably distracted by their fervent thoughts and prayers. 

More indictments will follow as Mueller moves up the 'food chain'.

I Call B.S.

I call BS...
Gov Bevin, of Kentucky, has given interviews recently in the wake of the Parkland murders whereby he tries to shift the narrative away from guns and onto other societal causes (specifically video games!)for the plethora of multiple homicides by gunshots in the USA.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/16/17020768/video-games-violence-shootings-kentucky-governor-matt-bevin

During one informal interview I watched, (sorry, still looking for the link) Gov. Bevin took an apocryphal jaunt down a false memory lane relating happy stories about kids bringing Christmas guns to school to show them off to friends. This is disingenuous  twaddle at the very least and a red herring. Moreover, he cites a  false 'fact' that Americans had more guns in some by-gone age. This, again,  is ludicrous. According to the Congressional Research Service, there are roughly twice as many guns per capita in the United States as there were in 1968: more than 300 million guns in all.
https://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/462017461/guns-in-america-by-the-numbers

Since 1972, there has been no appreciable change in the number of households which have guns in America. However, 3% of Americans own the vast majority of guns.  And the preponderance of those gun owners live in Red States which went overwhelmingly for the Drumpfen-shite.

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/a-minority-of-americans-owns-most-of-the-guns-and-drives-gun-agenda-studies-show

https://www.statista.com/statistics/249740/percentage-of-households-in-the-united-states-owning-a-firearm/

Gov. Bevin, who is endorsed by the NRA and has spoken at the NRA-IRA Leadership Forum, is a yet another NRA-purchased moron; ignoring the multitude of nations where access to guns is limited, highly regulated and where there is a vastly smaller incident of mass-shootings and murder.  After the Las Vegas mass-shooting last year that left 58 people dead and 851 injured, Bevin publicly shot down calls for gun control legislation, saying: "You can't regulate evil."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/16/violent_video_games_guns_florida/

Thankfully, he's already facing a serious back-lash for his obtuse stance on guns in the wake of the Parkland murders.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article200251909.html

https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/kentucky-gov-blames-video-games-for-florida-school-shooting-w516826

There are plenty of statistics to parse regarding gun ownership, types of weapons owned and their relationship and relevance to gun deaths. Lots of cherry-picking is done by the NRA spokes-people and self-styled 2nd Amendment fanatics who try to deflect away from guns being the cause of gun-death(!) by citing deaths by other means; disease, opioids, hammers, poisons, etc, (ad nauseum, ad absurdum). A prevalent one is the brutal murders in China perpetrated by knife-wielding mad-men. Somehow, in the minds of these cherry-pickers, the fact that people die of other causes than gun-shot wounds removes the onus from the weapons themselves. They recite the NRA talking-point; "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."

Legislation restricting availability of semi-auto firearms is not a panacea. There is no 'magic bullet' to solving this horrific situation but there are clear steps to be taken; other nations have provided examples. The USA should follow those examples.