By any metric... treason

Okay we'll start with a member of the "deep state" 

“No collusion’? I managed Russia operations at the CIA. Read between the lines.”An expert shows how hard it is to press spy cases in a country that demands total proof to convict… 

...though all our intel/FB/military officers can see what’s monstrous. To shrug aside such warnings you must swallow the “deep state” incantation – that nearly all the men and women who defended us from Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden are now, suddenly – more than 100,000 of them – are united in conspiracy against dearly beloved Rupert Murdoch and Vladimir Putin. While reading, remember who the writer was, how he served. This article forces your RASR to choose.

Oh, a side note: He cites the infamous American traitors and Soviet agents Bloch and Hanssen. Unmentioned is Aldrich Ames and the Walkers and several other Soviet spies who did us terrible harm, during the Cold War. What NEVER gets mentioned is a stone cold fact: all of them were republicans. For 70 years the USSR communist party tried to suborn the American left, and it paid off once, with Klaus Fuchs. But from the 50s onward, it was a complete failure. Effectively, the American left was of no use to Russian spymasters. So? In the 1990s they dropped all Marxist cant and symbols, switched to mafia-oligarchy, and suddenly every method that had failed in suborning the American left worked gangbusters on the U.S. right.  Ponder that.

Then ponder how the "deep state" enemies of the Putin-Fox-Mercer-GOP good guys also includes nearly everyone in the FBI and intel agencies and most of the senior and middle U.S. military officer corps, as well an nearly all scientists, teachers, journalists, diplomats, law professionals, civil servants... essentially ten million American - the smartest ones - are all united against...

== Treason at all levels and in all ways, down the line. ==

 “Trump once again requests deep cuts in U.S. science spending.”  Note: Fully HALF of all economic growth across the last 70 years was rooted in government stimulated R&D.  

Speaking of government supported “research…” Jessikka Aro, an investigative journalist in Finland, some years ago uncovered an unusual company in St. Petersburg, the Internet Research Agency, now known as the top Russian online troll factory. After she reported her findings on the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, she was mercilessly attacked by the same Russian trolls.  And the Trump administration has rescinded an award she was due to receive.

But it goes deeper. The War on Science isn’t just about climate change, or Trump’s slashing of the federally supported R&D that boosted half our wealth. The “deep state” treason incantation aims to suppress the millions of men and women who stand in the way of a return to feudal oligarchy, but there are also a million smaller cuts, described by Michael Lewis in his book, “The Fifth Risk:”

"In The Fifth Risk (the risk posed by incompetent government leaders), Lewis turns his attention to government data collection, including weather information and the census (which, as we rapidly approach the 2020 decennial census, also lacks a permanent director).

“Smart government scientists and techs have been mining this data to protect Americans. But Lewis reports (as have others), a lot of government data is now disappearing from government websites, data on climate change at the EPA, on animal abuse at the Department of Agriculture, on violent crime at the Department of Justice. "Under each act of data suppression," Lewis writes, "usually lay a narrow commercial motive: a gun lobbyist, a coal company, a poultry company."" - review by Brian Naylor.

In order to get away with this, the confederate cabal must rile up tens of millions of dullard ingrates to resent all the nerds who at-least partly understand this new world… and alas, this includes not just the men and women who saved us from Hitler and Stalin and bin Laden, but those who ended plagues like polio and smallpox, got us to the moon and Mars and designed safe-cheap-luxurious cars than can last half a million miles. And who might, perhaps, if listened-to, yet save the world.

The Greatest Generation - who ‘made America great’ - respected expertise. They knew the danger posed by aristocrats and cheater-lords. Too bad a majority of their children are such saps.

== Why so much cowardice? ==

“The View' co-host Joy Behar says Lindsey Graham 'needs to find his testicularity,'” implying he needs to finally gird himself to help against Trumpism.

This is truly unfair. 

True, but unfair, since the only conceivable explanation for Lindsey Graham's behavior... and that of countless DC residents like "retired" justice Anthony Kennedy... is blackmail. 

The blackmailer counts on the victim's sense of isolation and loneliness. After Jeff Bezos defied a blackmail attempt, I had hoped that some others would step up - out of patriotism, and knowing that the first few to do so will be seen as heroes - beginning an avalanche that could take out the world's most evil men. Alas, we'll have to wait. 

These guys need to realize that someday it all will leak... all of it. Some other guy in town will reap the rewards - forgiveness and adulation - for breaking this criminal ring. Their only way out is to bite the bullet and use the one weapon at their disposal. The Truth.

== There’s method to the monster ==

Breitbart published an interview with President Donald Trump on Wednesday in which he suggested that his supporters in the military and police would rally to his side in a way that would be “very bad, very bad” if things get “to a certain point.”

There is more to this than just hateful threat and dystopian bluster. Trump knows that traditionally conservative military and police officers are fleeing the Republican Party in droves… along with every other fact or accountability profession. When this stream becomes a river, the GOP will be finished, because the saner and more decent half of U.S. conservatives will turn away from Fox-Putinist treason-propaganda and this phase of the Civil War will end in a rout.

One thing could save them… if idiotic FAR-lefties poison the waters, hurling contempt at men and women who share more values in common with us (love of facts and a healthy nation and saving the planet) than disagreements (over crewcuts and responsible gun ownership.) 

THAT is what Trump’s hateful message aims at. Egging Democrats to reflexively reject crewcut refugees from the confederate madness, making our tent narrower, at the very moment when we need it to be broad. To save the nation and the world.

And it gets specific, in the open. “Rep. Steve King posts meme warning that red states have ‘8 trillion bullets’ in event of civil war.” Um, hey Steve. Just how long does that advantage last, when you've made it be all about smart people vs. Idiocracy?

== Short takes ==

Are tech billionaires less-bad? At least they create value.

Libertarians have long pointed at Houston as a major city without zoning laws or land use regulations. And while I deem myself to be one kind (Smithian) of libertarian and speak (impudently & provocatively) at some of their events events, and yes, I do believe government can cloy and over-reach, I hold the heretical view – supported by 6000 years - that venality is a worse enemy. 

So? See what’s happening to Houston is a series of explosions and fires rock the area. 

Oh!  My life partner made this graphic in case Elizabeth Warren runs on a ticket with Kamala Harris!  And the WH stands for White House?  Arr, Arr? 

Pirate Party running mates? Or maybe First mates? Wen Is? Wen His?

== Miscellany ==

Trump’s travel to Mar-a-Lago alone probably cost taxpayers more than $64 million.   An honorable billionaire would reimburse us.  (Or even pay for the damn Wall and then bill us when it 'works.')  But then, someone honorable would not rake in hundreds of millions in coerced overpriced bookings by foreign governments for empty suites at his hotels. And honorable Republicans would shun a liar who promised he’d work hard for them and “never golf like Obama.” (He golfs 4x as much and spends half of every day at the White House in “Executive Time, shouting at the TV. Look up the $50,000 VR golf room he set up, in the White House!)  

But then the issue isn’t Trump or even McConnell; your mad neighbors know they’re monsters and all the rest, too. They hug the TV shouting “Give me anecdotes about bad liberals! Please! More anecdotes‼”

An achilles heel for your Trump supporter. He can rail against Cohen and Sessions and Omarosa and all the rest. But Trump has been "betrayed" by more trusted factotums and "great guys!" than all of the history of 19th, 20th and 21st Century presidents, combined. 

Whatever the merits/demerits in each case, it proves that he is an terrible judge of character.  Take home lesson: Even if you like him, at least admit Trump hires only the worst people.

== Final note about the oligarchs ==

Oh, you oligarchs who think you can escape sharing our fate, in your bolt-hole ranchos in Patagonia, consider (1) climate change is hitting all these places, hard; (2) how do you guarantee the post apocalypse loyalty of your guards? (3) Is it wise to enrage all the middle class egghead who know virology, genetics, cyber and nuclear science? And (4) You seriously think we don’t know where every one of your Holnist bolt holes is located?

BTW, I have answers for all four. But it'll cost ya.

=========================
=========================================================  Lagniappe! ========

     
 == Culture can nail it ==

Our comment community here at Contrary Brin is one of the oldest and smartest on the Web. Here’s a cogent contribution from A. F. Rey:
“I heard a song the other day driving home from work. Christopher Cross' "I'm Too Old for This" from his 2011 album Doctor Faith. The tune is so-so, but the lyrics caught my attention.”

The willful ignorance across the nation
The screaming yahoos that rage on every station
It makes me crazy and I'm too old for this

Folks in this country used to strive to be better
Work to be smarter so they could understand
Now we idolize the clueless and the mean
It's hip to be stupid, just wear the right brand
I sound like a geezer but it's a disgrace
Try to discuss it and they get all in your face
It's raining morons and I'm too old for this

Too old to see the lack of compassion
Too old to watch it go out of fashion...

Too old to watch the men we elected
Sit on their hands when it's change we expected
So hard to keep the bigotry out of my head
So hard not to wish some people dead
I got to keep a hold on myself

Don't want this anger; I got to stay clear
Too much to do before I get out of here
I still believe in peace but I'm too old for this

Full lyrics here.  And the music here.

Let me add that we can no longer judge a song by its “tune.” 

Back in the 20^th Century I predicted – and so did Spider & Jeanne Robinson in their Hugo-winning story “Melancholy Elephants” – that the rapacious rate at which we were getting great new melodies across the 60s through 80s would taper off, as all the useful, compelling melodies get used up. 

Alas, though long delayed, it clearly happened at least a decade ago. There are terrific musicians nowadays! They should be proud, not ashamed of doing wonderful variations on earlier melodic themes, or experimenting with rhythm and or aggressive poetics. But when was the last time you heard a truly original melody?