Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

A PAIR IN HELSINKI
https://claytoonz.com/2018/07/19/a-pair-in-helsinki/

This is something I drew just for social media because it amused me and I knew I could knock it out really quick. I had no intention of sending it to my newspaper clients.

Then I thought that a few would want the option and would probably run it. I’m thinking of the alternative weeklies. So, I sent it to my clients with a warning that some of them may not even want to open the files.

I also thought, since I never win journalism contests that maybe I’ll put it at the top of all my entry packages. Heh. Heh. Package.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

When I wrote, back in February, that I was skeptical that President Donald Trump would ever be proved to have secretly colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election in his favor, I mistyped.

What I meant to write was that I wasn’t skeptical.

Last week’s events have nullified my previous skepticism. To recap: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein revealed indictments against 12 Russians for the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, and we learned that Russian hackers went after Hillary Clinton’s private office for the first time on the very day Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” At the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump attacked a close European ally—Germany—and generally questioned the value of the alliance. Next, he visited the United Kingdom and trashed Prime Minister Theresa May. Then, in Helsinki, he met with Vladimir Putin privately for two hours, with no U.S. officials present other than a translator. After this suspicious meeting, he sang the Russian strongman’s praises at a news conference at which he said he viewed Putin’s denials on a par with the unanimous and unchallenged conclusions of America’s intelligence agencies.

With every other world leader, the physically imposing Trump attempts to dominate—witness his alpha-male handshakes with French President Emanuel Macron or his flamboyant man-spreading next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Yet with the diminutive Putin—who is maybe 5 feet, 6 inches tall—he’s oddly submissive. During the public portion of their encounter, Trump was slumping in his chair, as if defeated. Why? Why did he insist on a one-on-one meeting with Putin in the first place?

And why does Trump inevitably return to questioning the irrefutable evidence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election? We can dispense with the explanation, conveyed anonymously by senior administration officials, that “his brain can’t process that collusion and cyberattacks are two different things.” We can also forget about the widely held theory that he views the various Russia investigations as a threat to the legitimacy of his election, and therefore a devastating blow to his sense of self-worth.

Or, at least, neither offers a sufficient explanation for why Trump consistently parrots Russian talking points on NATO, the American media, U.S. troop deployments, Ukraine and the legitimacy of the postwar liberal order. What does any of that have to do with his tender ego? Do we really think Trump has an informed position on, say, Montenegro’s history of aggression? Could Trump find Montenegro on a map?

Nor is it credible to point to actions his administration has taken that are “tough on Russia.” Trump has questioned proposals to supply the Ukrainian government with anti-tank missiles and sniped at Congress for wanting to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow.

...

You don’t have to buy Jonathan Chait’s sleeper agent theory of Trump to believe that something is deeply weird about all this. Nor do you need to be convinced that Putin is hanging onto a recording of something untoward that may have taken place in a certain Moscow hotel room. You don’t even have to buy the theory that Trump’s business is overly dependent on illicit flows of Russia money, giving Putin leverage. As Julia Ioffe posits, the kompromat could well be the mere fact of the Russian election meddling itself.

As for my argument that Trump’s collection of misfit toys was too incompetent, and too riven by infighting, to collaborate with Russia, this one might still be true. There were certainly sporadic, repeated attempts by some on or around the campaign to collaborate, but we don’t know if, or how, those flirtations were consummated. But certainly, the intent was there, as Donald Trump, Jr. has said publicly. They were all too happy to accept Russian help, even if they weren’t sure they would be enough to win in the end.

We might never get clear evidence that Trump made a secret deal with the Kremlin. It would be great to see his tax returns, and perhaps Mueller has evidence of private collusion that we have yet to see. These details matter. But in a larger sense, everything we need to know about Trump’s strange relationship with Russia is already out in the open. As The Donald himself might say, there’s something going on.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[xy5jn0]

 

[xy5jn0]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The National Guideline Clearinghouse is a federal database intended to help doctors answer almost any medical question you can think of: Can this emergency room patient tolerate a procedure that normally requires an empty stomach? Does that patient need a stent? Which antibiotic should this patient be started on?

If that sounds like a small matter, it isn’t. The sheer volume of medical information now within a few clicks’ reach can make it difficult, even for doctors, to separate wheat from chaff. Clinical guidelines based on careful consideration and solid impartial research can be difficult to tell apart from those based on weak data, or rooted in a clear conflict of interest (usually a financial stake in whatever treatment they are promoting). The clearinghouse, which not only vets countless sources of medical information but also makes its results easily searchable, is regarded as the most dependable repository of its kind in the world.

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services took it offline, the latest casualty in an administration determined to eliminate science from the government’s agenda.

The official explanation is maddening enough: a budget shortfall that roughly equals the amount Tom Price spent on travel during his brief tenure as department secretary. The site costs just $1.2 million a year to operate, and is maintained by an agency with a budget of more than $300 million.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them.

The president’s failure to defend the United States intelligence community’s unanimous conclusions of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and condemn Russian covert counterinfluence campaigns and his standing idle on the world stage while a Russian dictator spouted lies confused many but should concern all Americans. By playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands, the leader of the free world actively participated in a Russian disinformation campaign that legitimized Russian denial and weakened the credibility of the United States to both our friends and foes abroad.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

You, too, may discover yourself to be ‘the real enemy of the people’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/07/20/you-too-may-discover-yourself-to-be-the-real-enemy-of-the-people/?utm_term=.34f6a126bed0 (Opinion | You, too, may discover yourself to be ‘the real enemy of the people’)

It’s coming down to two choices. You either accept President Trump’s version of reality, or you are the enemy of the American people. We are not quite there, but we’re whisperingly close.

Some of us have already been declared to be the enemy of the people, in our own country, for the un-American transgression of exercising the quaintly obsolete right formerly known as freedom of the press. But don’t think you’re so safe out there with that other quaint relic, freedom of speech. Or even freedom of thought. Trump spelled out the dichotomy yesterday: “The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media.” See how that works? There is Trump’s version, and then there are enemies of the people.

How quickly we are absorbing this “enemy of the people” terminology. Remember when that was a phrase of totalitarian governments? Let’s think back, those of us still willing to think without Trump’s guidance. Oh yeah, it was a term used in the Soviet Union! What a truly strange and remarkable coincidence. Now, if you are looking for more dots to connect, who has said how fervently he misses the Soviet Union? Well, what do you know, Vladimir Lenin! … I mean Vladimir Putin! Newly declared FRIEND of the American people!

One may ask oneself, and believe me, one has: What could be the result when the president describes you as an enemy of the people, at the same time he is almost surgically attaching himself to the hip of a Russian dictator? Try as one might to suppress it, the word gulag worms its way into the neocortex. Visions of freezing cells and fish-eyeball soup dance where sugarplums once frolicked.

It has been remarked that no outrage of Trump seems sufficient to deter his followers, or his progress. We are now at the point where he flirts openly with taking Putin’s side in Putin’s war on American democracy. I, for one, am uneasy about waiting to find out just where this ends.

If you’re more of the let’s-wait-and-see attitude, all I can say is I’ll save a cold fish eyeball for you.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

AN INCREDIBLE OFFER
https://claytoonz.com/2018/07/20/an-incredible-offer/

When Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to allow Robert Mueller to fly to Russia and question the people there he’s indicted in exchange for the U.S. to send over American citizens Putin wants to throw out of high rises, Donald Trump should have given a very quick and negative response.

Trump should have said, “let me think about it and now that I have thought about it hell no.” No commas. No spaces. No pauses. Maybe throw in an another expletive. Instead, because he’s Donald Trump who puts his personal interests before those of the United States and engages in treasonous behavior, he said, “it’s an incredible offer.”

That was Monday. Later in the week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president will “meet with his team” to mull over the “incredible offer.”

Even though nearly 80% of Republicans polled believe Trump’s Helsinki summit with Putin was a success, Republicans in elected offices had a little trouble swallowing the idea of handing Americans over to Putin.

The Senate voted 98-0 to approve a resolution introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that the U.S. should “refuse to make available any current or former diplomat, civil servant, political appointee, law enforcement official, or member of the Armed Forces of the United States for questioning by the government of Vladimir Putin.” In other words, no. The Senate actually compromised and passed something in less time than it took Donald Trump to decide that handing American citizens over to Putin was a bad idea.

It took four days for Trump to reject Putin’s “incredible offer.” Huckabee Sanders said in a statement, “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it.” It was made in “sincerity?”

One of the people Putin wants handed over is Obama’s ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. He said, “Most shocking, and just lamentable, I think is my real reaction, when the White House was given the opportunity to categorically reject this moral equivalency between a legitimate indictment with lots of data and evidence to support it from Mr. Mueller with a crazy, cockamamie scheme with no relationship to facts and reality whatsoever, the White House refused to do that.”

Bill Browder is an American-born British financier who successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators. Putin has put out international warrants on him for years, which Interpol keeps rejecting. Despite giving up his American citizenship, Trump was still considering handing him over. Browder said the idea, “is probably one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard coming out of [Trump’s] mouth.” That’s a huge statement because a lot of crazy has come out of that mouth.

Browder summed up the situation best by saying, “What President Trump was saying is that he wants to take a bunch of loyal patriots, people who have given up money for government service to serve their nation, who have been protecting this nation against Russian interference, Russia organized crime, and he wants to hand them over to the Russian criminals. To hand me over to Putin is basically to hand me over to my death.”

Seeing as this one of the public disasters from Helskinki, one has to ask; Just what the hell did they agree to in their two-hour private meeting?

Trump will get another chance to suck up to Putin because, wait for it….he’s invited him to the White House. Obama didn’t grant Putin even one summit, and in less than two years Trump is going to give him two.

One current diplomat with the State Department said, “The president has first and foremost his interests at the top of his mind, as opposed to the government’s. That’s very clear over the past week and a half, between shitting on our NATO allies and kissing Putin’s ass. He cares more about himself than the nation and any of us who serve it.”

I saved the best for last. The diplomat (remember, he’s still working for Trump) also said, “Either he’s compromised by Putin or he’s a pussy, in which case he should grab himself.”

 

[xy5jn0]

It’s Undeniable: Trump Is Blessed With Really Stupid Enemies - Kurt Schlichter

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[xy5jn0]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]