Donald Trump is back in the USSR.

Anyone with a slight inkling of understanding might expect that any controversies that erupted at the Republican National Convention(like say Melania Trump's plagiarism turned potential campaign finance fraud, steamrolling delegates by breaking the agreed upon convention rules, seeming to openly disrespect the mother of one of the Benghazi victims and the Vice Presidential nominee by doing live unscheduled TV interviews while they were speaking, ect) would involve Republican presidential Nominee Donald Trump.

What you probably wouldn't expect is that the  controversies that erupted at the Democratic National Convention  would also involve  Republican presidential Nominee Donald Trump.

Ok so right before the Democratic Convention was set to begin Wikileaks posted a bunch of information gained by hacker that showed the DNC had intentionally and actively tried to bias the primary election in favor of Hillary Clinton over any of her possible challengers. Now to be fair, this wasnt exactly breaking news.....even the most serious allegation, that the DNC possibly illegally bundled and funneled money for Hillary Clinton had already been a news story in its own right. The Wikileaks posting basically moved the stories out of the realm of "its highly likely the DNC biased the election" to "heres the proof the DNC biased the election". And once the DNC chair resigned, it was likely this story might have died off.

Except of course for trying to find out who hacked the DNC in the first place to get those records......and it turned it it appears to have been the Russian Government.

So yea, it looks like the Russian Government released documents timed specifically to damage one of America's political parties, and by implication help the other one.

This is how Donald Trump gets involved, he's the candidate who benefits from the Russian interference.  

But the question remains, why would Russia help Donald Trump in the presidential election? what possible difference could it make to them who the American President is?

Well I'm glad you asked. See just a day or so before Russia leaked the DNC documents, Donald Trump said he would not defend NATO countries, specifically the Baltic States, if invaded by Russia....unless he could see some finaical reason to do so.

As Trump himself put it recapping the conversation:

"What would happen if Russia or somebody attacks?’ I said: ‘I don’t know; have they paid?’ … ‘Well, they haven’t paid, but we have a treaty.’“I said: ‘Yeah, they have a treaty too – they have to pay.’
So you know, if push comes to shove....lets hope the Baltic States have paid up their protection racket money.

Oh and during the Republican Convention when the party was hammering out its platform (as all partys do everytime during the convention) Trump's people insisted on single change to the platform.....removing the part in which the GOP stood for arming and defending the Ukraine (which was invaded by Russia in 2014 and is still occupied). It was literally the ONLY thing in which the Trump team asked for any input of any kind on.


So yea, its pretty clear why Russia would want Trump...he has two major policy positions that would massively help out Russia in what is generally accepted to be their long term territorial expansion goals.

But of course, Trump wants nothing to with it right?

.................................... Turns out I may have to get back to you on that.

So Democrats were quick to pounce of the fact that Trump's policies help Russia as "proof" this was done by Russia to advantage Trump.

Trump then called a press conference to address these allegations, which he of course dismissed out of hand as unfounded, attacked Russia for meddling in American politics, promised consequences then attacked Democrats for this desperate and insane ploy to try to discredit him and pointed out how sleesy this makes the Democratic Party.

Just kidding.

Thats what a normal, sane, rational person would do (and in fact is pretty much what Trumps running mate Mike Pence did). Donald Trump is none of those things however.

Instead Trump called a press conference and said

“By the way, if [Russia] hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails, I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted. Because you’d see some beauties there.[...] I will tell you this: Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

That would be a candidate for President of the United States of America, hoping the government of the United State's primary antagonist for much of the last 70 years, hacked into American Governmental computers and stole information from officials of the American Government.....and that they will release that information to the world ....while also suggesting if they dont already have the information they should keep trying to hack into the American Government to get it just to help him politically.

Or to quote one of George W. Bush's appointees to the National Security Council, former Senior Director for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, William Inboden, Donald Trump's comments are "tantamount to treason."

So yea not surprisingly minutes after Trump made that comment (if not faster) pretty much anyone with an internet connection was diving into his background and the background of literally everyone who's ever been in contact with him to see if it was remotely possible he really was that stupid and/or an agent of the Russian government.

And it turns out......well evidence doesnt look good for Trump. For starters turns out a lot of his top aides, including his campaign manager have strong ties to Russia or even Putin directly.

Then a lawsuit uncovered by the New York Times points to many of Trumps projects in the last few years being financed in part by Russia. In fact he's been doing real estate deals there since 1980...this is all public record.

Now to be fair, literally none of that is illegal or unethical. In fact the financial part is pretty easy to clear up. it would seem to be a pretty easy sell job to say "hey as a successful businessman, its my job to try to make money all over the world. I did a lot of work in Russia, as well as [insert list of other countries here] and I can make as much money for the US as I did for myself. And Ive had tons of practice standing tough with the russians, even when they try underhanded stuff like this"

But again, thats the actions of a reasonable man....and this is Donald Trump.

So Trump took a different approach:

He claimed earlier today that except for a single $95 Million  deal he's never done any business of any kind with Russia ever.

Those pictures are shots of the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant (which is owned by Trump)...in Moscow Russia.

In otherwords, Trump is lying.....and that literally took me about 90 seconds to find on the internet.

Now again, none of what he did is illegal, or even suggests he's an agent of the Russian Government.....but now he's on record as blatantly and stupidly lied while trying to convince you hes honest about his connections to Russia. Im sure there are many more examples too....but really I only need one.

This one is Donald Trump IN moscow at the event...just in case he claims he didnt know about it

Which is why Democrats are calling for Donald Trump to release his tax returns, to show exactly what his dealing with the Russians are.

His campaign chief (one of the ones who used to lobby for Putin) has already gone on TV and said "Not going to happen"....not because of the Russian connection but because of the IRS audit....which Trump has claimed for months means he cant release them (the IRS disagrees).

Now to be fair, I dont think there is anything in Trumps taxes that would link him to Russia in any ways other than the ones we already know about. There really isnt going to be anything nefarious in there.

So why wont Trump do it? Well that gets to the crux of the huge mess that Trump finds himself in....a mess that may bury him if he cant find a way out...especially given that he keeps digging deeper.

Trump cant release his tax returns because he's a liar.....and his ENTIRE professional and public persona is based on a lie. That lie being that he's worth 10 Billion.

Now keep in mind, Trump literally makes his money by selling his name to people because of how much its worth.....the idea being the "Trump" name implies value. In fact according to Trump, it implies 10 Billion worth of value and success.

The problem is, most outside sources estimate Trump's actual value is somewhere between several hundred million dollars and 2-3 billion. Still a TON of money......but nowhere near the value Trumps been claiming to justify what he charges people to slap his name on everything.  And releasing his taxes would prove once and for all, exactly how much hes worth.....and no matter what its not 10 Billion.

So yea, if the truth gets out....Trump may well  lose a ton of current marketing deals.....it will turn out his name isnt what the companies thought it was when they paid for it.....and it will be associated with fraud not profit.  And given that Trump has been blacklisted by most major american banks that discovery could outright end him as a professional.

And the dems knew that when they laid this tramp. Trump had to save himself.......but likely at the cost of his election chances (and with the the GOP election chances). I honestly dont expect this to go away anytime soon....espeically since Trump keeps digging (like with the "treason comment" or even claiming he was willing to recognize Ukraine as part of Russia, as he said just a few hours ago, well after this story broke)himself in deeper.

So yea, lets all get ready to go with Donald Trump on a neverending journey back to the USSR. where he really is about to get knocked out by a "Ukraine girl". Dems dont know how lucky they are.

  

Get to know the GOP VP pick, Mike Pence.

Well I have to hand it to Donald Trump.....he's done the impossible, and found a running mate who might actually be MORE bat-shit crazy than he is, when he picked Indiana Gov and former member of congress Mike Pence to join the ticket.

Now to be fair, youd be well within your rights to have not even heard Trump made a VP selection, let alone never heard the name Mike Pence.

After all, in typical Trump fashion, Trump managed to botch the whole announcement.

So on Wednesday Trump announced that Friday he would announce his VP at a giant press conference at Trump Towers.

Then on Thursday, Trump said he would postpone the announcement to Saturday out of respect for the terrorist attack in Nice France.

This was followed by his campaign chairman saying "no never mind, we actually WILL be doing this on Friday"

This was followed by a campaign spokesman saying "no actually we are going to do this Saturday"

This was then followed by Trump confirming not only were they doing this Saturday, but he hadnt yet decided who the VP was going to be.

Which was then followed by the Donald Trump twitter account announcing Mike Pence as the VP Friday morning.

And then this was followed by the Trump Campaign announcing they would announce the VP pick at the press conference on Saturday.

At which point they re-announced Mike Pence as VP......finally.

Now if you havnt heard about Mike Pence before......youre likely in for a crash course. So with that in mind, here are the top 4 things you need to know about Mike Pence:

5) Doesnt know a damn thing about his OWN party's history...and I mean NOTHING!

So back when he was in congress Pence would post articles he wrote on his website from time to time, one of them, called "A Positive Attitude" ended with the following paragraph:

"The reason I am optimistic is, apart from God's sustaining grace, quite simple. Republicans from George Washington to George W. Bush just have better ideas. [...]"

Now anyone who passed 4th grade history knows that George Washington wasnt a Republican. Or a democrat. Or a Whig. Or a Federalist. Or a Democratic Republican. He was unaffiliated with ANY party and actually encouraged people to avoid them for the good of the country in his farewell address.

Furthermore anyone who passed 2nd grade history knows the first Republican President was Abe Lincoln...the 16th president of the United States.

1st Graders meanwhile know that Washington was the 1st president of the United States, and Kindergartners know that when you count, 16 comes long after 1.

Now to be fair to Mike Pence, I dont know if he is just really fucking bad at history, or never learned how to count. I suppose it could be either.

And before any of his supporters try to say he "mispoke" please recall I pulled that quote from a published article on his website......so he didnt mispeak, he wrote it down, reread it like, presumably had his staff read it, then posted it and was still this damn stupid.

4) Does not believe their is any actual evidence smoking is harmful.

Again quoting from his old congressional website:

"Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill. In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer. This is not to say that smoking is good for you.... news flash: smoking is not good for you. If you are reading this article through the blue haze of cigarette smoke you should quit. The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, second hand smoke or back handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric."
Now so far most of the media seems to only be covering the first two sentences and claiming Pence is against smoking. I included the rest, because I think it actually makes him look worse.

Ok so for starters lets take a look at his "support" for his claims. First, 2 out of 3 smokers doesnt die from smoking. Im going to assume that number was accurate in 2001, (though since pence said it it probably wasnt) when Pence wrote this.

Now 5 out of 6 russian roulette players dont die from a gunshot wound to the head. Meaning smoking is actually twice as likely to kill you as a game where you hold a partly loaded gun to your head and pull a trigger.

Also, can we name any other product in which 1/3rd of users winds up dead because of using it?
Drugs probably.........but weirdly those are illegal because they are dangerous.....and Pence doesnt really seem to mind that.

Second Pence says "9 out of 10 smokers dont get lung cancer". Well 9 out of 10 russian roulette players dont die from a bullet to the left side of the head either. Now thats because most people are right handed, so would be holding the gun against the right side of their heads......but we are just going to ignore that so we can focus on the stat that makes the game look safer.

Finally we get to the next 2 sentences


"This is not to say that smoking is good for you.... news flash: smoking is not good for you. If you are reading this article through the blue haze of cigarette smoke you should quit."


Why should I quit? as you yourself just pointed out......its not like its going to kill me. Like really, if its not going to kill me whats the problem with smoking as much as I want as often as I want?

Now of course what Mike Pence is really trying to say here is that smoking increases your risk of death tremendously, say from heart attack or stroke......but since he also wants to pretend that smoking probably wont kill you and lung cancer is all that matters, he's in a bind.

Hes also in a much bigger one, since this sentence makes clear he KNOWS what he just said about smoking not killing you it total and utter bullshit.

Also as a side note....since when is smoke blue? or a blue haze?.......Ive never seen blue hazy smoke.....though their IS a brand of weed known as blue haze. Mayhaps the governor knows more about that too that he's admitting?

Now finally the end Pence makes it clear why he intentionally lied to you about smoking not killing you.....Government. Cause he's against government in all forms....especially BIG government.....unless he's running it as my next two things to know will show.


3) Believes in state run Media.

All the way back in 2013, Mike Pence, then the new governor of Indiana, had a great idea to combat all the bad press he was getting for being out of his fucking mind.........create his own News service that would only report the news he wanted them to report. In fact the news service, called "Just IN" would be overseen by the press Secretary, and would have direct and exclusive access to the governors mansion.

Because you know, having the news story come directly from the subject of the story and filtered though that subjects staff ensures objective news, amirite?

Now maybe your wondering how Mike Pence could afford to do this, after all running a news organization is expensive. Well he couldnt. Which is where the Indiana Tax payer comes in. They were going to pay for the privilege of being given state run propaganda over news.

Sadly for Pence, and luckily for everyone else, the actual news got ahold of this story before he could get his state run media off the ground.....so as a result Pence backpeddled away from the idea and never got his chance to implement it.

2) Fetal Burial and disability.

Fun fact, it turns out theres another exception to Mike Pence's small government beliefs...vaginas. Specifically what goes in or comes out of them. See basically if you put a Penis in one, you are going to get a Pence in there too.

So as Govenor Mike Pence made Indiana one of the few states to require burial or cremation of fetal remains. The bill also made it illegal to get an abortion due to the fetus being disabled, up-to and including life threatening and non survivable disability's.

Oh and unlike the state run media he wanted to set up.....no taxpayers help on this one....so hopefully if you want an abortion your rich.

So yea, thanks to Mike Pence, in Indiana a terminal ill fetus must be carried to term, cause reasons. Then after having to endure the extra cost and health risks of carrying said fetus you have to bury it at your expense.....because you should have know better than to have sex....even if your married.

 Fun fact, that same bill also makes it illegal to get an abortion because of the babies race.  Because I guess in Mike Pence world, Race is a randomly assigned trait and sometimes a woman of one race will just randomly have a child of a totally different race for no reason and with no way to predict it.

Though to be fair, given his smoking beliefs, its not too shocking he doesnt understand science.

Now the only good news on this one, ironically thanks to Texas losing the recent supreme court case, this law was blocked from going into effect as it was viewed to be too similar to the texas law.

So thats a slight silver lining

1) Believes Mulan is out to brainwash you.

Ok first for those who dont know who or what Mulan is let me help you out:

Thats right, Mike Pence has a Disney movie conspiracy theory [from the column he wrote about it in 1999]: 

"Mulan is a fictional account of a delicate girl of the same name who surreptitiously takes her fathers place in the Chinese army in one of their ancient wars against the Huns. Despite her delicate features and voice, Disney expects us to believe that Mulan’s ingenuity and courage were enough to carry her to military success on an equal basis with her cloddish cohorts. Obviously, this is Walt Disney’s attempt to add childhood expectation to the cultural debate over the role of women in the military. I suspect that some mischievous liberal at Disney assumes that Mulan’s story will cause a quiet change in the next generation’s attitude about women in combat and they just might be right. "

Now not surprisingly at this point, Mike Pence fails world history almost as badly as he failed american history at the beginning of this list.

See Mulan predates Walt Disney.....by about One Thousand Three Hundred Years.

The character Mulan originates in the Ballad of Mulan, a Chinese story dating back to the 6th century, about a Hua Mulan, who does take her fathers place as a solider (so in fairness to Pence he got that part right).

Now Hua Mulan is not believed to have been a real person herself......but was allegedly modeled on the life of Fu Hao, a real Chinese princess turned military general from another One Thousand and Eight Hundred years before the Ballad of Mulan.

Meaning this piece of liberal propaganda, as Pence tries to claim it is, is actually older than Jesus by a good 1200 years or so.

Pence also believes he got one over on Disney, because according to him those incompetent jack asses totally missed how their movie actually disproves the very thing they created it out of thin air to prove...that women cant serve in the military. 

" It is instructive that even in the Disney film, young Ms. Mulan falls in love with her superior officer! Me thinks the politically correct Disney types completely missed the irony of this part of the story. They likely added it because it added realism with which the viewer could identify with the characters. You see, now stay with me on this, many young men find many young women to be attractive sexually. Many young women find many young men to be attractive sexually. Put them together, in close quarters, for long periods of time, and things will get interesting. Just like they eventually did for young Mulan. Moral of story: women in military, bad idea."

Man see how dumb those Disney folks are.....they totally missed something that destroyed a message Pence pretended the movie had so he could look Smart for once.

Who could have seen that coming?

though honestly I must admit, I'm still searching for the article Pence probably wrote accusing Joan of Arc of being a liberal time traveler sent back in time to trick people into thinking women could fight.

Though to be fair, as near as I can tell the only evidence Pence has that women cant fight is that they might have sex. I guess someone never told him "I'm a lover not a fighter" is a figure of speech and not an unalterable binary choice.

So yea, there you have it folks, a proper introduction to Mike Pence....and given how badly his running mate botched the VP announcement, likely the last proper introduction he's ever going to get.

The Impotency of Speaker Ryan

So earlier today, Speaker Paul Ryan met with Majority leader Kevin McCarthy and informed McCarthy that he is functionally impotent.

Now I dont mean Speaker Ryan told the Majority leader he couldnt get it up in the bedroom....I mean he informed McCarthy, that he cant get it up politically.

So perhaps you remember a few weeks ago after the orlando shooting, the  House Democrats staged a sit in on the floor of the US House, to demand a vote on a bill banning suspected terrorists from owning guns...a vote Speaker Ryan refuses to take.

Well Speaker Ryan is now talking about investigating those democrats to see if they broke any rules/laws and then punishing them.

Well I'm going to save the speaker a lot of time and money here and go ahead and reveal the results of the investigation: Yes they broke every single rule they could think of.......that was the fucking point.

So the layperson might not know this, but sitting on the floor of the capitol is an arrest-able offense. And its not an accident Democrats staged a Sit in on the floor, rather than bringing out chairs or doing a "Stand in".

Its also clearly against the rules to have electronic devices in the House Chamber.....and as soon as the Speaker turned the cameras off, the Dem's whipped out their electronics.

Then they ordered Pizza......incidentally food is also banned under house rules.

Oh and then they had Elizabeth Warren deliver donuts.....Warren of course being a US senator.....and therefore not allowed in the house unless invited by the Speaker. Other senators later joined her.

Then when Speaker Ryan finally turned the cameras back on to hold a vote on something else. Democrats starting Singing. By the way Singing in the capital is considered a sign of protest and an arrest-able offense.

Now all of these actions were undertaken intentionally by Democrats who were basically daring Ryan to come after them.

The Democrats believed (and I agree) that headlines reading "Speaker Ryan [insert punitive action] against Democrats who want to stop terrorists from getting guns" would be a fucking PR nightmare for the GOP.

Which is why Ryan did nothing at the time to stop it.

Which raises the question of what the fuck hes doing now.

Given that as it stands their is no question Dems broke the rules, an investigation is a best a waste of time and money.

At worst, it will find no actionable evidence of wrongdoing......meaning they would say Ryan cant do anything to stop that kind of protest from happening again. At which point Ryan might as well turn over his Gavel to Nancy Pelosi as he will had ceded functional control of the House the Democrats.

But even the best case is a disaster for Speaker Ryan.  Ok so the House investigation finds actionable wrongdoing (which they will)....congratulations Paul Ryan just turned a couple days of the "Speaker Ryan [insert punitive action] against Democrats who want to stop terrorists from getting guns" headlines that he would have gotten if hed taken immediate action into weeks or months of "Speaker Ryan investigating Democrats who want to stop terrorists from getting guns" only to wind up in exactly the same place hes at now.

Actually no, he might be in a slightly worse place.

First off, lets be honest, the Dems would use ever single second of testimony the would have to make to hammer Paul Ryan and the Republican party on being "pro allowing terrorists to have guns", adding to the already horrid PR nightmare for Republicans.

Also as far as America is concerned, this is an old news story that is currently dead......in short no one is watching right now, so the public wouldnt really notice or care if Ryan did nothing.....and should Democrats try this play again, Ryan could paint it as sabotaging the government/holding things hostage, just as the Dems have claimed the GOPs been doing for years.

But doing nothing doesnt work that way after all the time and money and headlines have gone into an investigation. Post investigation, post finding actionable wrong doing, deciding to do nothing about it is tantamount to a national admission of near permanent impotence, as it effectively announces that you can break any rule you want in the house at get away with it. At which point I suspect the House Republicans will find themselves voting on their 3rd speaker in 2 years.

But here's the thing....doing anything also ends badly for Speaker Ryan.

What ever he does results in a round of  "Speaker Ryan [insert punitive action] against Democrats who want to stop terrorists from getting guns"  following the extra ones created by the investigation.

Furthermore Ryan is taking about bringing in House sergeant-at-arms, Paul D. Irving, meaning he wants effectively a criminal investigation......and this creates an extra problem.

Ok so arresting nearly 40% of the House membership (and pretty much ALL of the minority party) would itself look pretty fucking bad as far as creating a PR nightmare the GOP might never get out from.

But it would actually be even worse as several members of the sit in were also Democratic Senators, [including at a minimum] Senators Mazie Hirono, Chuck Shumer, Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Boxer, Corey Booker, Ed Markey, Al Franken, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, Bob Menendez, Sherrod Brown, Mark Warner, Patrick Leahy Senate Minority Whip Dick Durban and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

Now say what you will about Majority Leader McConnell, but for senate sovereignty and being an equal branch of government to the House reasons alone he would probibily refuse to let any actions carried out by the House Investigators to carry over into the senate.

He, or any other majority leader in Senate history or future, damn sure is not going to let ANY SPEAKER even his own parties march into his chamber and arrest 15% of his membership, including the minority leadership. Period end of conversation.

Meaning should Speaker Ryan decide to go this route, he's likely kicking off a pissing contest with his own party in the senate....one hes all but assured to lose.

And remember, all of this will be taking place under months of avoidable headlines about how House Republicans refuse vote to stop terrorists from getting weapons.

Its an irony really......Speaker Ryan was made impotent by the democrats when they staged their sit in.....but had he done what congress normally does (that being nothing) no body else would know about it.

Now out of vengeance for making him realize his impotent he's going to stop at nothing to make sure everyone knows how impotent he is, for there is not a single scenario left in which Paul Ryan, or even the Republican Party as a whole doesnt come out on the worst end of this should he actually lose his mind and go this route.