The Question About Trump's Impeachment Probability

There are three guys under investigation of Trump’s associates.  There is Jered Kushner.  Then there are Coehn and Epstein who are two Jewish attorneys or whatever.  It’s a question mark whether Trump is actually going to have severe action or impeachment take place.  There is buzz in the media about Jered Kushner stepping down from his many responsabilities.  But several times Trump has said he has compete confidence in Kushner and “Everybody respects him”.   I guess there is an outside chance that if the democrats take over Congress next year that they themselves could initiate impeachment proceedings, though they didn’t do this against President Bush when everybody was expecting it.  Those 35 Articles of Impeachment were making the rounds on the internet in 2007.   I haven’t seen even a draft of what articles of impeachment would be brought against Trump.  There is still talk about maybe we’ll get into a war with North Korea.  That’s what Bill believes.  I don’t think Trump’s quite as insane as his rhetoric because when push comes to shove Trump backs down.  He says he’s avidly pro Israel but still backs the two state solution which Obama, Bush and all the other Presidents have pushed.  As you know I myself have given up on the two state solution because it’s no longer workable.  There have been too many Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and neither the UN or anything we say had caused Israel to back down or pull out of settlements already there.  Trump backed down on the currency thing with China.  Trump backed down on making Mexico pay for the wall.  And of course Trump completely backed away from both the birther thing with Obama and also locking Hillary up for her misdeeds.  Many a Republican candidate has stated that on day one of taking office he was going to repeal Obama Care.  That never happened.  And of course the Courts have had a thing or two to say about the Muslim travel ban, which still hasn’t gone into effect because new court rulings keep blocking it.  There is still no evidence that Trump’s federal budget for 2017 or2018 is going to take effect.  There are still people like Judy who blindly defend anything Trump does blaning it all on “fake news” by the media or whatever.  I am assuming Trump only has 38% vote of confidence of the American people.  With a number like that you’d think maybe some of these Republican congressmen would get phone calls demanding some sort of punative action be taken against Trump even if it’s only a vote of condemnation.   

President Trump is nearing a final decision on whether to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, with one White House official saying Wednesday that the president is leaning toward an exit but three others cautioning that he has not reached a verdict.  The matter has deeply divided the administration for months. Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have urged the president to remain in the deal, and White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have been pushing for a withdrawal.  A withdrawal would put the United States in the same camp as Nicaragua and Syria: a tiny group of countries refusing to participate in the almost universally supported Paris climate change agreement.  Trump added to the intense speculation about the future of the agreement Wednesday morning, tweeting that his decision will be announced “over the next few days.”  There will be ads in the major news papers tomorrow urging Trump not to withdraw from the Paris accords, which would send the wrong message to the world.  

There was a successful missile interception shot by the United States today.  Such interceptor missiles are only about fifty fifty in accuracy even now.  We should improve those odds.  Back when they had the SCUD missile shoot downs in Gulf War I in 1991 the media led us to believe we could shoot them down at will with the Patriot Missile.  We haven't heard about Patriot missiles in the past two decades.  The truth is back then our average was only abut forty percent if not less.  But the North Koreans can't even launch off a missile without it going down in the Sea of Japan or else exploding or toppling right after it's launched so I don't think we ourselves have anything to worry about yet.  It's Seoul and South Korea are the ones that we have to worry about.

It was Wheel of Fortune and then NCIS.  I ate two candy canes from my red jacket to stave off stomach acid because I was still hungry.  I looked for the third candy cane this morning but it wasn’t there.  NCIS ran till past nine and there was jaded stuff about jury psychology and profiling which if true causes you to lose faith in the justice system knowing how cynical the attorneys are about jury psychology and how “We know how each juror is going to vote even before they have consciously made up their minds themselves. 

YESTERDAY AFTER LUNCH  Purlita returned the clothes a little before one I guess.  Though I didn’t know she had returned them because my basket wasn’t on Bill’s bookcase.  I think everything was there.  One sock seemed to be missing but then a sock turned up over my tennis shoes.  I figured I hadn’t put it in the wash but this can’t be because the shoes weren’t there before.    I questioned the few number of regular shirts but I guess it adds up.   I watched “Days of our Lives” and it featured Maggie and Damos having at it.  Damos found out he’d been sacked as CEO.   At a quarter to two Bill and I were informed that we had to leave right then.  I already needed a cigarette and I continued to crave a cigarette.  This time Federico took us via Cerritos to Walker and then down.  Kennedy High School has some massive new building off to the left like an auditorium or something that threw me.  We got there maybe ten after two.  We waited in an increasingly packed waiting room.  I read a little Time but my nicotine craving kept me from focusing.  Bill was called in at sixteen minutes to three.  These appointments must be long because a long time passed before I was called in at nearly ten after three.   It was kind of a replay of the previous appointment.  I asked Dr Nichols whether all of the fresh pimples weren’t a bad sign at this stage.  He didn’t respond.  Bill was given a new primary treatment prescription.  I just received the purple stuff on my butt and the light treatment.  For at least the third time in a row I got a shot in the butt to control itching.  I used the restroom key.  I was given a prescription for some ointment, which I hope helps.  There was a bunch of other paper work.   Our next appointment is also together at 3:15 on Tuesday afternoon.  I told them Tuesday afternoons were a bad time and got no response.   We returned home by the same route we took there.  Dr Saran will no longer be working here.  Federico will go on vacation on June 15^th.  It was ten to four when we got here.   Luck shone on me because I saw Larry in the hall and he lent me a cigarette- - - a whole cigarette.   I now realized I was so hungry I was about to pass out.  Fortunately we were served our plate promptly.  It was a chicken breast with some sort of spices on it.  There was buttered asparagus and those roast potato wedge cuts.  I got three more wedge cuts from Kathy.  We had butterscotch pudding for dessert in a small portion.  Then luck shone on me again.  On impulse I asked Glenda if I could have coffee and she agreed.  But I knocked on her door and there was no answer.  Then I went down to Chris’s room and knocked there.  I asked the other guy if Glenda was there and it turned out she was and she’d forgotten.  She accompanied me down to her room where I got my nice strong shot of instant coffee.     I haven’t gotten my Chase bank statement this month.  

Kushner's Suspicious "Back Door" Connection

This is Saturday at nine thirty and I have Chris Matthews on now and he and the Rachael Maddow show (which I had on from 8:15) are talking about this back door channel of communication between the US and Russia.  They are still only calling Jered Kushner a “person of interest” and not a suspect.  When police tell you you are not a suspect but a "person of interest", you're a suspect whether they admit it or not.  That's how it works.  So for the FBI to say that Trump is not a suspect but they are still carrying on their investigation, Trump is kidding himself of he doesn't think they're referring to him.  Meanwhile Trump finished up his nine day trip today and is now on his way home.  They were talking on MSNBC that the "smoking gun" with Nixon was that June of 1972 tape where Nixon told the FBI to "stay the hell out of this investigation".   I think there are multiple "smoking guns' in the Trump case if people add all the evidence up together.  Certainly a "back door pipeline" to Russia seems suspicious as hell even if Mc Masters says that such back doors are completely normal.  I have no doubt there are people in the media with more experiance than I do that such "back doors" are suspicious.  The whole role of Jered Kushner in the Trump has been questionable from the git go.  And to think that it's technically for relatives to be a part of an Administration.  But Kushner is Trump's "go to" guy and is the functioning Vice President rather than Mike Pence.  How say you?  Shall we take a poll?  The big news of last night is that I went and got coffee from Glen in his room for five sugars.  I hit the mother lode.  Glen just dumped all sorts of Nestcafe in my cup and said ‘Is that enough” and I eagerly said yes and left before Glen was any the wiser.  I had a big strong cup of coffee last night and I’ve had a total of three cups of coffee from that supply and there is coffee for one more.  I just had a cup of coffee now and surprised there was at least a whole cup left.

For the first time astronomers may have actually witnessed the birth of a black hole over the past seven years.  Some big stars don’t go supernova first but undergo what they call a “failed supernova”.   I have C-Span on right now.   They have the text of the President’s new budget and it’s like a PDF type format but it’s different from PDF.  I watched the speeches given at that new glass NATO complex with the piece of the Berlin Wall and a piece of the North Tower.  Trump’s speech was brief.  Norman Goldman just came on.   I went out and borrowed a cigarette from that new Tao guy.  

Rhapsody in Black had June of 1962.   They played a Drifters song I had never heard before.  They played “Playboy” by the Marvolettes and “Lover Please Come Back” by Clyde Mc Phatter.  They played “It’s Twisting Time” by Hank Ballard, a variation on “Finger Popping Time”.   They played the original of “Fortune Teller” and the original Arthur Alexander version of “Where Have You Been All My Life”, which the Beatles played in Hamburg but it’s not identified on my copy.   They played “Twist, Twist Senor” by the US Bonds, “Night Train” and “I Wish We Were Married” a song I happen to remember.  But they had these long money raising breaks.  One at the bottom of the three o clock hour ran seven minutes or longer and I just gave up and turned it off.  Then I shaved and went outside looking for cigarettes.  I believe we’ve hit most of the bases. 

Round three is over with.  The Cavileers will be playing the GS Warriors for the third year in a row.  I guess the Cavileers beat Boston on Thursday night and now they don’t play game one of the NBA finals till Thursday June first, when I have my money.  The lead singer of Sound Garden died a few days ago.  People say it was suicide.  But some call it a “mishap” with anti-anxiety drugs.  Also just today Greg Almon died at age 69.  That was in Savannah, Georgia.  He was older brother of Dwane Almon.  Dwane was the lead guitarist and Greg was vocalist and keyboardist.  He was married to Cher and in 1976 they had a son named Elijah Blue, whom I haven’t heard about since.  I await any messages from the Other Side.  

Travels of the Trumpster

First President Trump went to Saudi Arabia.  The thing that stood out here is Trump's strong siding on behalf of the Sunni Moslems against the Shiite Moslems.  Trump seemed to endorse all of the military escapades by Saudi Arabia against her neighbors, for instance in Yemen, where they are fighting for freedom but the Saudis want to deny them that.  Clearly with all of the weapons sales going on Trump is hoping for a major war in the Mideast.  The other thing Trump did was his kiss-ass performance refusing to call ISIS as radical Islamic terrorists, something he made such a big issue out of in the 2016 campaign.  It would seem that Trump in particular wants some attack against Iran.  They just reelected a moderate in that country who is democratically supported by its citizens.  Trump seems to have a thing against both free elections and moderate.  Trump didn't visit moderate Islamic nations such as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.  Trump loves these despotic dictators such as in the Philipines and in Turkey.  Why Trump is making such a big thing about being friendly with Turkey I don't know.  The Turkish government sure isn't friendly toward our citizens.  Then Trump moved on to Israel.  What stands out here is this clinging to the two state solution in Palestein.  Clearly the Palestinian situation has deteriorated so far that a two state solution is no longer in the picture.  What you have essentially are two prison camps.  One on the West Bank and hopefully geographically fragmented with all of the best land taken by Israel.  The other more glaring case is in Gaza.  Israel has bombed those people into near lifelessness.  It's a wonder they have the spirit to do anything.  They are a beaten down people who have been forgotten by the rest of the world.  What is necessary is for these Palestinians to be afforded the same civil rights as Israeli citizens.  But that's not going to happen.  It's like Jimmy Carter says in his book.  It's functional Aparteit.  They are a permanent class of second or third class citizens with no hope their situation will ever get better than it is right now without the United Nations stepping in.  The United Nations has pass numerous resolutions against Israel's actions and most all of them have been vetoed by the United States.  Today Trump visits the Vatican.  One can only wonder what sort of conversations President Trump had with Pope Francis.  I imagine they were very awkward.  Trump't trip won't get any easier when he goes to Brussels and has to tangle with all those trade people, and deal with the frustrations of NATO, an organization Trump criticized heavily in the Presidential campaign last year.

Donald Trump’s secret may be as simple according to Norman Goldman, as the knowledge that people are binary in their thinking and want basic, simple questions answered and once these are agreed to they have these people on the right locked in come hell or high water.  It’s like buying a car and all you want to know is “What is the monthly payment” and once they know that they don’t care about how much they pay or whether the car is really a good deal.  In this case Republicans have no appetite for nuance or shades of gray.  They also don’t care about the full spectrum of Presidential responsibilities.  All they want to know is whether he’s pro God and anti gay and anti minorities taking their pay checks and hiking their taxes.  They don’t care whether Trump is fundamentally emotionally immature or will get us into a war or even whether he’ll balloon the deficit or crash the economy.  It’s how Trump won.

Donald Trump Has a Good Day in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — With trumpets blaring, cannons booming and fighter jets streaking overhead trailed by red, white and blue contrails, President Trump arrived in the scorching heat of the Arabian desert on Saturday hoping to realign the politics and diplomacy of the Middle East by forcefully reasserting American support for Sunni Muslim countries and Israel against Iran’s Shiite-led government.  The start of Mr. Trump’s first trip abroad since becoming president — coming amid the scandals and chaos engulfing his administration — was intended to be a blunt rejection of President Barack Obama’s vision for the region. Mr. Obama sought a reconciliation with Iran and negotiated a deal intended to keep Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.  The day proved to be almost everything a besieged White House could have wanted. After weeks of stormy politics and out-of-control news cycles, the president stayed rigorously on script and restrained himself on Twitter. His staff boasted about the business deals being signed, and the visual images beamed to Americans back home showed a president seemingly in command of a world stage.   The Saudis treated him like royalty, with red carpets, lavish meals and American flags flying everywhere. They repeatedly used the word “historic” to describe his visit, gave him a medal, projected a multistory image of his face on the side of the palatial Ritz-Carlton hotel where he was staying, and treated him to a colorful dance display in which his staff joined in with scores of white-robed Saudis and even the president swayed back and forth.  My response to all this is “Screw you, Donald Trump”.  It’s the all war all the time president giving a firm rebuke of peace.   I guess Trump had a good day, though.  

WASHINGTON — The Chinese government systematically dismantledC.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.  Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.   Trump is too busy being cozy with China now to care about any of this. 

Of course Trump is still going to be highly investigated and his troubles are not over yet.  There were two stories late last week I haven't commented upon here.  One was calling Director Comey a "nut job" to the Russians and boasting to them that the pressure was off now because Comey was getting a little too close to the Russian connection.  The other story is that Jered Kushner or some other high official currently in the White House staff has unmistakable and identifiable ties to Russia.  We are waiting for further news.  

Anaheim and Nashville are playing in round three of the NHL play-offs right now on NBC.  It’s a scoreless game and they are tied up at two wins each so far.  Nashville beat St Luis and Chicago to get here.  Anaheim defeated Calgary and Edmonton.  [The results of the game were that Nashville beat the Anaheim Ducks three to one on a late score just before the end of the game.  The Anaheim Ducks now need to win the remaining two games]  There’s a bit more coffee left in Bill’s jar than expected.  I had a cup now to wake me up and knock me out of my negative lethargy.  I had a third Clipper cigarette just now because smoking one of those cigarettes is like not smoking anything at all.  I want to feel like I’ve actually smoked something.  

Special Prosecutor Bob Muller is Selected

 Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein or whoever just appointed a special prosecutor.  I'm surprised he had a change of heart because this is the hand picked guy Trump put in that post to insure that the status quo was maintained.  This is perhaps the biggest news story of the entire Trump administration.  It signifies a definite turning point shades of Watergate.  It's like Goldwater coming to Nixon in early August after the "Stay the hell out of this investigation" remark got reported where Nixon called off the FBI.  That was the turning point where congressmen convinced Nixon it would be pointless to fight the impeachment since a resolution had already been voted out of comittee.  This was on the Norman Goldman show, but prior to that I was watching other videos from the Washington Post.  Mc Connell wants a little less drama.  The Senate Majority leader and Paul Ryan are now equivocating in their undying support for Trump.  It’s former FBI head Bob Muller from the Bush and Obama administrations.  He served from 2001 to 2013.  Judy doesn’t believe there is any substance to any of these charges but it’s all some massive media blow-up for ratings.  Judy is really going to the wall for Trump;.  The best Judy can say is that if Trump did any wrong then "All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God" and therefore anything they do should be overlooked.  I don't think Judy yet understands the magnitude of this special prosecutor appointment.  You can’t buy that kind of loyalty.  Her view continues to be "Trump had pledged to do a lot of marvelous things for this country and the media and congress should just get out of his way and let Trump get about the business of running the country.  Judy also doesn't understand that this is not "just another congressional comittee" like we had with Hillary and Bengazi.  This is serious.  Muller has the power to subpoena witnesses and to reccomend indictments to the Justice Department.  We also talked about my health. 

Here's other stuff.  "Based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command," Rosenstein said in a statement. "A special counsel is necessary in order for the American people to have full confidence in the outcome. Our nation is grounded on the rule of law, and the Public must be assured that government officials administer the law fairly."  As special counsel, Mueller will have broad investigatory powers to look into how Russia may have influenced the 2016 election. The investigation, which could take months and will follow a separate track from congressional inquiries, likely will involve accessing classified documents and interviews, and Mueller can also convene grand juries and seek indictments if he deems it appropriate. He will have access to all the information the FBI and Justice Department have compiled so far.

Trump said in a statement after the announcement that he expected the probe would find no collusion between his 2016 White House campaign and foreign countries.  No matter what happens Shawn Hannity and FOX news are going to pretend this whole development of yesterday never happened.  No matter how much evidence piles up they continue to say blindly "There is not one shred of evidence of any guilt of any administration official".  It's the blind leading the blind on the FOX right.  

Roger Ailes founder and longtime head of Fox News, died Thursday morning at 77, according to a statement released by his wife.  "I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger Ailes, passed away this morning," Elizabeth Ailes said. "Roger was a loving husband to me, to his son Zachary, and a loyal friend to many. He was also a patriot, profoundly grateful to live in a country that gave him so much opportunity to work hard, to rise — and to give back."  The former Fox News chairman was credited with making the channel a ratings powerhouse over his 20 years at the helm. The right-wing channel is divisive, though, and Ailes’ personal legacy was clouded by allegations of sexual harassment.  “No one did more to change the media landscape than Roger Ailes, but no media executive did more to divide America,” said Joe Peyronnin, a former network news executive who worked for Fox before Ailes was hired to launch the news channel.

TWO DAYS AGO:  The latest Trump news is that a memo came to light where Trump instructed Director Comey not to pursue any investigation of Flynn or the Russian connection.  This will increase the likelihood of impeachment.  This is some E mail memo or a series of E mails time and date identified to late January.   Comey thus had kept quiet about this request of Trump for four months.  We hear Comey was also requested to give his undying loyalty to President Trump personally.  This is besides the Israeli connection of yesterday where Russia was informed of intelligence Israel had on ISIS.  The trouble is that Russia could turn around and sell this information to Israel’s enemies.  No doubt we’ll be hearing more on these issues.  But don't tell Judy that.  Suddenly compromising Israel's security is of no concern to her.  Whatever she hears she thinks the media just makes it up as though Israel's security concerns were not real or Russia could not turn around and sell this information to Syria or Iran.  Meanwhile we haven't heard any more about Assad's crematoria where he cremates the bodies of the thousands he's butchered.  In other late news Turkey's private security guards beat up protestors on US soil and they can't even be arrested for their deeds because they have diplomatic immunity.  Trump not only likes to order beatings of dissenters in his own campaign rallies, now he allows foreign Turkish thugs to do it.   

This morning I had Thom Hartman on briefly and went out to talk to Phyllis wondering if I had an appointment to see Dr Nichols.  I went to look at the menu but then Tim or somebody says I have an appointment in a few minutes to see Dr Nichols.  I went back here and closed down the computer and went out by the kitchen and waited for the other patient in a wheel chair to join us.  We made all the green lights going there.  In the waiting room there was a guy who threw a fit because others were called in ahead of him and he got their first.  He used profanity and they asked him to leave.  At 10:20 I was ushered into the examining room and there I waited over 25 minutes to see Dr Nichols.  I told him about my butt and he looked at it and asked me if I woke up nights with the butt itching.  I said I did.  I told him my butt was the only place I was itching now.  He put some dark purple stuff all over my butt and when I got home I looked at it and it’s terrible.  Dr Nichols also gave me a shot in the butt and said he wanted to see me in two weeks.  He says I was on the road to recovery.  Then I used the restroom key and went down to smoke two cigarettes on the bench.  Then I went inside and went up to the waiting room and Tim and the patient were not there and a lady says “Then went inside”.  I went down and sat in the lobby on a chair.  They returned down the elevator and we were able to go home but we didn’t arrive here till about ten to twelve.  The dining room was clearing out.  We had a hot dog with lots of catsup, a salad, and a banana.  I asked for coffee and juice but I didn’t want soup. 

HERE ARE FIVE ECONOMIC FACTORS THAT ARE RUINING AMERICA

1. Globalization–free flow of capital, labor arbitrage

2. Nearly free money from central banks for financiers and corporations

3. Pay-to-play “democracy”

4. State protected cartels that privatize gains and socialize losses

5. A system stripped of self-correcting feedback and accountability

The writer says that the economy is rigged against the poorer middle class now.

Secret Meeting with Russians in Oval Office

 Donald Trump in a Washington Post article secretly had high Russian officials to the Oval Office where he shared classified information with them.  The meeting was so secret that reporters were not informed of it at all and our allies weren’t contacted.  They “planted the Russian flag” in the Oval Office.  This meeting came one day after Comey was fired and Norman sees a connection in that.   Meanwhile the polls continue to give President Trump bad ratings.  He has now fallen to 36% confidence.  74% of the American people believe that congressional or FBI investigation is not good enough to get to the bottom of the Trump Russian connection.  They all want a special prosecutor named, and conduct a "bi-partisan" investigation.  Last Sunday on Meet the Press, Senator Lindsey Gram indicated he wanted this Russian connection pursued to the max and Graham wants to see Russia punished- - even if as claimed the actions did not affect the results of the campaign.  That's like denying no insulin equals high sugar in the blood if you're a diabetic.  

There was a “kill” program to terminate the massive computer virus that was unleashed upon many nations’ computers around the world affecting hospitals and many other vital data center.  It’s the usual ransom ware where you get these red letters telling you to pay so many thousands of dollars or your data will be lost for good.  I don’t know if they pay up but I imagine if money is their goal they won’t ask an excessive amount.  However if their goal  is out and out sabotage than the money is an after-thought because nobody will be able to pay it.  Now they have some new terrorist program to defeat the new “kill” switch on the virus.  Apparently this virus was developed by the United States government itself.  Shame on us!  

This next story shows that this Supreme Court can side with the liberals on occasion and give them a break, even with the line-up of justices now.  They have sided with liberals a couple of times this way.  WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday announced that it would stay out of a fight over a restrictive North Carolina voting law. The move left in place a federal appeals court ruling that struck down key parts of the law as an unconstitutional effort to “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”  As is the court’s custom, the justices gave no reason for declining to hear the case. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a statement noting that there was a dispute about who represented the state in the case and that nothing should be read into the court’s decision to decline to hear it.  The leaders of North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Legislature seized on that point on Monday, all but stating that they would seek to enact new voting restrictions after their defeat.

Sixty Minutes had a good show.  Eye on LA was in reruns and I spent some time in the front room.  I also spent time in the front room earlier in the day.  FBI director Comey was interviewed in 2004 or something during the Andy Card and John Ashcroft Attorney General crisis in that period where Ashcroft was in the hospital and was prevented from signing off on a bold new surveillance plan.  Comey was Deputy Attorney General and he resigned in protest.  Then it was Bin Laden’s son during the middle segment.  He’s walking in Bin Laden’s footsteps and is calling for avenging the death of his father.  He is in his late twenties.  Then there was the Mars landing of Curiosity and other space rovers.  They had to use a special saucer device to land the Curiosity.  There was talk about Martian rocks being older than earth rocks and how we could learn from this.  Then it was NCIS Los Angeles.  I was almost asleep at eight thirty when Bill gave me a second pack of cigarettes, shades of Janet that one weekend.  I was grateful but also in his debt.  I watched “Madam Secretary” till nine thirty.  The bedspread was thin and the blanket wasn’t doubled over to I doubled over the bedspread and that worked a long with wearing the pajama bottoms.  I had a second cup of coffee after eight thirty.  You’d think I would sleep through the night but I didn’t.

The government said Monday it believes the Syrian government has built a large crematorium near the notorious Saydnaya Military Prison in an effort to hide mass atrocities carried out there, and placed the onus on Russia to rein in the regime.  Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, laid out newly unveiled declassified intelligence in a series of photographs and said Russia, a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad, must use its influence to stop Assad's continued atrocities.  I just hope that Assad is not one of the brutal dictors whom President Trump is interested in having a positive relation with as is the leader of Turkey and the leader of the Philipines.  

The big news late last week was that there may be a taping system in the White House and that Trump was taping conversations with Director Comey in January.  Now Trump is saying for Comey not to "leak information" about the meeting or he'll release the tapes.  If there are tapes they will put Trump and not Comey in a bad light so I'd call his bluff.  They are going to do everything in their power to muzzle Comey and I would imagine that that includes not allowing him to testify before any congressional committee.  Most if not all of the stuff Shawn Hannity says about all this is pretty much non compus mentus.  

Details of the FBI Director Comey Firing

In the past two days the firing of FBI director Comey had dominated the news.  The network news did a pretty good job of reviewing the impressive number of facts last night.  As you know Comey was fired while he was in Westwood speaking at an FBI convention and was on his way to a recruitment thing for other FBI applicants.  But while in transit from one location to the other he learned from watching television that he had been fired.  He then received a phone call from a guy who read Trump's official dismissal letter saying that he no longer has confidence in his performance.  That's pretty vague.  FBI director Comey was scheduled to testify today before Congress and now that is canceled.  Now there are other people testifying. There was talk the "Justice Department" no longer had confidence in him, meaning AG Jeff Sessions, who is far right.  The letter made reference to three different times Trump allegedly contacted Comey saying he was not under investigation for any of the Russian hacking stuff.  There was talk about his handling of the Hillary exhonoration last July that he was 'unprofessional' in his remarks about her.  However ABC news learned that Comey was seeking more funding to bore on on the Trump and Russian connection.  Also there was a memo from the deputy FBI director that Comey was about to uncover the truth about Trump and Russia and for this reason Comey had to be fired now.  Apparently people at one of these late night shows applauded when they heard that Comey had been fired and Rush Limbaugh made a lot of this saying the democrats are so mixed up now they don't know the current proper political response to news events.  Many have compared this to the Saturday Night Masacre of October of 1973 when President Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archabald Cox in Watergate.  Now Chuck Schummer and other democrats are saying that it's imperitive that we hire on a special prosecutor to handle the Russian connection.  But Majority Leader Mitch Mc Connell says that two investigations would only be confusing and interfere with each other.  This kind of reasoning is of course ludicris.  I realize this news summary is a day late and a dollar short but I've been busy with personal business in my own life and haven't had the time or the concentration to get my blogging act together.

ROCK COMPILATION UPDATE:  I turned on Stephanie Miller.  But then I got mentally distracted.  I wanted to know where the rock compilation of “One Person Plus the Truth” album.  It’s the follow up to “Nothing Left to Roll” but it turns out there was only one song changed.  Shell Silverstein was taken off and “Gloria” by the Doors had been added.  But the collection doesn’t appear till February 11^th in the “Rocca Rolla” blog.  I had a heck of a time trying to find it.  It’s just one song different.   Inquiring Minds want to Know.   

■ Andrew G. McCabe, the acting director of the F.B.I., is testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

■ The committee’s top Democrat asked Mr. McCabe to tell senators about any efforts by the White House to intervene with the Justice Department’s investigation of o Russia’s meddling in the presidential election.

■ President Trump had been talking openly about firing James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, for at least a week, according to people close to the president.

■ Days before he was fired, Mr. Comey asked for a significant increase in resources for the inquiry into Russia’s election interference, according to four congressional officials.


Rather than start an investigation of "Voter Fraud", which statistics say are almost nil in national elections, they should open an investigation on voter surpression in places like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and in Florida. Trump is clinging to the myth that he somehow won the popular vote last November.President 

Trump planned to order a voter fraud investigation Thursday, thrusting back into the spotlight an issue that few other Republican leaders want to tackle as he tries to divert attention from the controversy over his firing of FBI DirectorJames Comey.

A White House official said Trump would sign an executive order appointing a voter fraud commission that would examine “voter fraud and suppression” while reviewing “policies and practices that enhance or undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of federal elections — including improper registrations, improper voting, fraudulent registrations, fraudulent voting, and voting suppression.”

Centerist Macron Wins over Le Penn In France

This is Monday May 8, 2017 after breakfast.  Today is VE day or Victory in Europe day in 1945 and the European theater of combat was won.  Today is also the day 45 years ago in 1972 that I came home from the hospital after my Suicide attempt a little after three in the afternoon.   This weekend it was victory over the conservatives.  Macron beat Le Penn in the election on Sunday for President of France and it’s a rebuke to the move to elect “Trump II” in France.  They say Le Penn was getting help from Putin and the two of them met personally, which seems strange to me.  Macron is what is known as a “centrist” but the same could be said of Hillary Clinton and we know what happened to her.  Now she is surfacing and sharing her feelings about the past election of 2016 and how she is no friend of FBI director Comey.  The Trump health care plan will affect the red states more adversely than the blue states because they will be the states to “opt out” of the pre existing condition regulation.  Also Madic-ade will be cut in the red states as well as a host of women’s issues that will no longer be covered.   So now all of the pundits are saying that there could be a Democratic landslide in congress as Republican congressmen in districts that voted for Hillary will now return to voting Democratic for Congress as a protest. 

The Cleveland Cavileers defeated the Torranto Rapters in Torranto sweeping them in a four to zero victory.  The game was covered on ABC and I watched it from about one to a little after three when the game concluded.  I think the Jazz have one game left to try and turn the tide against the GS Warriors.  The Ducks play the Edmonton Oilers tonight in Edmonton in game six where all they have to do is win to win round two in the NHL playoff.   Of course ABC blacks out round three in the NBA.

Last night it was ABC network news and cruising Ventura Blvd from east to west to find the best eating places mainly.  I went for medication at seven and it was Ricardo doing it.  I smoked.  The first Sixty Minutes segment was on immigration.  The middle segment was this 97 year old prosecutor at the Nurremburg trials who prosecuted SS troops who killed over a million Jews, Gypseys and Communists in eastern Europe shooting them all in a ditch.  He has a sunny disposition despite the grim realities he has to live with.  Now he’s on a crusade to end all war because war turns normal people into mass killers.  Then it was the Chicago Cubs manager and the Cubs’ five year campaign for self improvement leading to winning the World Series.  Then it was NCIS Los Angeles on channel two, with touchy reception.  

FBI director James Clapper and Sally Yates met jointly before the Senate Judiciary committee today, carried on CSPAN (CNN)Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates said Monday that she alerted the White House earlier this year that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn could be "essentially blackmailed by the Russians."  "We believed that Gen. Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians,"  Director Clapper was first to give an opening statement that was very meaty with material. Yates told a Senate judiciary subcommittee, in a high-profile hearing on Russian meddling into the US election.  Yates told the panel that she had a meeting with White House Counsel Donald McGahn on January 26 to tell him that she had information that statements by Vice President Mike Pence, based on his conversations with Flynn, were false. She was joined in the meeting by a senior career official in the Justice Department.  "We weren't the only ones that knew all of this, that the Russians also knew about what General Flynn had done and the Russians also knew that General Flynn had misled the vice president and others," Yates said, relating the contents of her conversation with McGahn.  Yates was speaking at a hearing led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who opened the hearing with an implicit rebuke of the President and his alternative explanations for the interference in the election.  The South Carolina Republican said the hacking was not the work of "some 400-pound guy sitting on a bed or any other country," a reference to a comment Trump has previously made on the matter.