The TOP thing Biden could do to win trust and outmaneuver traitors

Joe, please limit your own powers!  

My biggest complaint about Joe Biden? Not once has he spoken to the long list of failure modes in our current system that Donald Trump exploited to grab unprecedented power and abuse his authority.  Jobee should say “Let’s systematically fix those failure modes, even if it means reducing MY power, as president."

Not only is it necessary. It is also something that would play very well for the midterms! It would make him and his party look truly sincere. From my longer list in Polemical Judo:

- Amend the absurdly broad War Powers Act so that 'emnergency wars" must be congressionally renewed every 90 days and penalizing lie-pretexts.

- Elimination of blanket Presidential power to declassify information, plus EXPIRATION DATES ON ALL LEVELS OF SECRECY. 

- Use definitions of crimes to hem in the President’s now-universal power of federal pardons.

- Drop the Justice Department's ‘finding’ that presidents cannot be sued or prosecuted. Replace this with a “slow prosecution” process that limits a president to ten hours a week dealing with outside legal matters. That would deal with the silly argument of the Office of Legal Counsel's ‘finding,’ while still saying no president is above the law. 

(And boy would that play well with the public! Despite guaranteeing Joe will be the first slammed with those ten hours, alas.)

- Require that financial statements and tax returns be public and create a commission to rule on conflicts of interest, like forcing the Secret Service to pay top rates at Trump hotels, or foreigners flocking to do the same. Likewise, pass a specific emoluments bill.

- Give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a commission, so it can never again become a travesty.

- Strengthen the 25th amendment without needing a new amendment! It was originally intended to deal with non-hostile transfers of power due to incapacity. And sure, a president with a fanatically loyal cabinet and/or VP is immune. But look at it closely! A VP (like Pence) who cannot persuade a majority of cabinet of fanatic loyalists could still appeal to an “other body” created by Congress! 

One incremental step: establish the amendment’s “other body” out of the nation’s most august retired judges, scientists and presidents. (See Chapter 16 of Polemical Judo, “Exit strategies: Surprising aspects of the 25th Amendment.”)

There are so many other things JoBee could do that would incrementally protect us, in case a monster ever returns to the White House. And each and every one would impress voters with his sincerity.

Can YOU think of a simple, easily understood power-reform that would hamper monsters but not a sincerely decent president very much? Speak up in the comments section. 

See more at Polemical Judo: Memes for Our Political Knife-fight, by David Brin.

== Related matters ==

Some congressional reforms are clearly needed. In fact, Polemical Judo begins with a discussion of New Gingrich's brilliant (if hypocritical) political gesture the "Contract with America," which made the GOP seem reformist and sincere. And no Democrat has ever learned from it.

Oh there are some efforts: 

Lawmakers have proposed bills to restrict their own stock trading. Some proposals would bar members of Congress and their spouses from buying stocks, a measure that majorities of voters support. Other legislation would force lawmakers and their spouses to put their investments into blind trusts.

On Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised a House vote on a congressional stock-trading bill this month. But neither that bill nor any other appears to have the bipartisan support needed to pass the Senate.

But I would go much farther. For example, by giving every House and Senate member one perogotive subpoena per year. Yes, including the minority party. Yes Marjorie "gaspacho" Greene and Lauren "won-ton violence" Boebert would abuse the privilege. So? Shrug off the hot air. It would guarantee that some light will flow, when next dems are in the minority.  There's more in Polemical Judo.

 

== Pointing fingers? ==

Of course we know why Marjorie Taylor Greene dissed then-nominated Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – and later Mitt Romney and Susan Collins -  as enablers of pedophiles…. Because Greene’s party is the one overflowing with turpitudes and perverts.  

This article (from Slate) gives a first-level view, though only of the top half-dozen examples. Such as the GOP in the 90s replacing serial philanderer Newt Gingrich with Dennis Hastert – convicted multiple child-rapist - as head of the GOP and Speaker of the US House of Representatives, just two heartbeats from the presidency. 

What this article lacks is a truly aggressive shift from “these examples show Republicans are no-cleaner than Democrats” to a far more bold assertion. 

“Today's GOP is a den of iniquity and perversion and turpitude, spanning the entire spectrum, down to dog catcher.”

At one end are legal things that may not be telling, in any one case. Like divorce, which was political suicide in the GOP of old, till Reagan. Now? Seven marriages across the last 4 Republican presidents. Twenty-two across the last ten heads of the party. (Care to wager me whether the trend continues, as we work our way down? Or that it’s not far, far, far lower among top Dems… some of them flawed people, whose spouses nonetheless deemed them worth salvaging.)

Or take the Republican Party’s close affiliation with non-native gambling casinos – (didn’t that used-to-be a sin?) – and floods of donations from mob-related casino moguls.

In fact, let’s compare every kind of turpitude in red states vs blue ones. (Setting aside outliers like Utah and Illinois.) From pedophilia and domestic violence to divorce rates, as well as STDs, gambling, and heck, yes, let’s include abortion, if you like. Red states still ranks worse.

This is the sort of thing you can demand wagers over, from MAGAs and then watch as they run!  Do it in front of witnesses.

Impeachment and other exit strategies. Twenty different chess moves! A sample chapter from POLEMICAL JUDO.

Here's a chapter-excerpt from the book you'll all be pre-ordering, by the time you get five paragraphs in! Chapter 1 is already posted as a free sample, along with half of Chapter 2.

This chapter is the most topical timely as everything might change at any minute! I attempt to do what no TV or online pundit seems inclined to do... look at the chessboard and think three moves ahead.

POLEMICAL JUDO

Memes for our political knife-fight

Chapter 16

Exit Strategies – Impeachment, Indictment,

the 25^th Amendment and all that[1]

You desperately want to envision a quick way out of this torment. Okay then, without any preamble or delay – and from the fast-changing perspective of mid-October 2019 – let’s ponder four general scenarios - and their many variants: 

Impeachment

Sorry, but as of October 2019, despite the frenzied urgings of sumo-fighters, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is right about investigating first and impeaching later. Even if the House indicts[2] Donald Trump, Senate conviction requires cooperation from eighteen GOP Senators. That is extremely unlikely till conditions are right. 

Those conditions may occur! Trump revelations may pass a certain (as yet unknown) threshold, especially if disclosures from Deutsche Bank[3] bear any resemblance to rumors, or in the event of a truly major national crisis. When President Trump becomes a terminal liability to his masters… if they perceive him dragging down their investment in a worldwide oligarchic putsch… they may seek a new formula to salvage a win-win. 

How? By letting the Democrats clean up the GOP's mess? By extorting or bribing just enough Republican Senator ‘defectors’ to help remove Donald Trump despite fury from the base, compensating those “defectors” with enough cash (or blackmailing them) to compensate for the end of their political careers. (And perhaps not even that, if the volunteers have four years till their own re-election campaigns.) 

There is a rub to this scenario, and we’ll get to it. Till then, you’ll never get the 18 Republican Senate votes needed for conviction and removal. And that’s why we don’t hurry, but look at this tactically, in phases.

         Phases. I am not an expert politician like Pelosi and Schiff, but here are my guesses at how they view timing, during the months ahead. 

         a) Hurrying to impeach before the 2020 primary season, there are risks at both the high and low end. 

Low end. Assume further revelations just keep perking along, piling ever-higher at a rate similar to the last 3 years, then RASRs and ostriches and professionals will keep leaking away from the Republican Party, but the Trump-rally core of Red America will be like the proverbial frog in a saucepan, never confronting a break-point they can’t rationalize.

Especially if none of the polemical methods in this book are used to corner them. 

Mountains of turpitudes will be shrugged off as ‘witch hunt’ stuff. Any premature House impeachment vote will be seen as just a sterile, partisan gesture – a tit-for-tat against Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the nineties. [4] That’s how they’ll spin it, as comparable events, despite one being a zit and the other a basketball-sized tumor. The Senate will vote “no,” and that will be that. 

At the high end, even supposing revelations accelerate to some breaking point (which they might, even as I am typing this, canceling out much of my book!), think about the consequences if impeachment and Senate removal come too soon. Republicans might just go ahead and replace Trump, then campaign for Paul Ryan (or Romney, or worst-case Pence), without breaking stride, pretending it all never happened! Remember, they did exactly that recently, when the 2016 GOP Convention omitted mention of every party leader between Reagan and Ryan, even two Republican presidents.[5]

And they got away with it. Because Democrats let that happen without mention or comment.

Either way, McConnell wants a rapid pace! The eagerness of liberals for a Thanksgiving season vote is dumb and plays into his hands. Rushing in is not judo.

         b) Impeach during primary season. Time it right and continuing revelations might help challengers like William Weld to become noticeable irritants. Not enough, probably, to deny Trump the nomination, but sufficient to drive him into ever greater hysteria. Again that depends on the magnitude of revelations. But short of that putative video of him shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, actual impeachment during this phase would be risky – Dems will be accused of doing it as an election ploy. Still, it’s a better time than before or after.

A sweet spot? Cornered by revelations and outrages, but terrified of home voters, GOP Senators don’t dare convict Trump - but they do collaborate on emergency bills limiting his powers.[6] He is lethally wounded for November. Republicans cry sauve qui peut! and scurry to the lifeboats, trying to save themselves while Romney (or some Russian front) tries to form a third party.

         c) Impeach during the general election season. Oy, what a mess. Howls of “Let the voters decide!” While voting machines go haywire.

         d) Final revenge. A deliciously awful opportunity might come after a major victory for America in November 2020 – during a brief window between the seating of a new, Dem-majority Senate and Inauguration Day, 2021.[7] With a little help from off-year GOP Senators, Trump might be removed from office, dragged out of the White House, and kept off the inaugural stage -- an indignity that would be mostly about vengeance. I mention it because, frankly, I expect revelations to mount that high.

All told, it’s a minefield. And liberals who play armchair general shouldn’t just assume they know what’s best. The way I’m behaving, for example.

    Chess-moves 

Now for a rub. The fact that must keep Vlad and Rupert up at night. Suppose Trump becomes an unbearable liability, dragging down everything they’ve built, but he refuses to go quietly? No buy-out offer or threat works and he sees the Republican Party trying to rally around a new, “fresh” standard bearer. Well, this would finally give Donald Trump the reality show role he was born for –

– as furious, livid-living martyr. Liberated from the prison of the White House. Free to stage rally after rally, howling about schemes and injustices 24/7, while riling the confed base to volcanic fury. And he turns it all against the GOP. 

There are two ways out for Rupert and Vlad. 

(i) make democrats do all the work and arm-twist just enough Republican Senators to go along, drawing Trump’s wrath mostly upon Democrats and just individual Republicans. Or else…

(ii) real martyrdom. The biggest win-win for Fox and Moscow. Eliminate their irritant the same way that cynical executives got rid of their liability, Howard Beale, in Network. Blame those cityfolk and liberals! Or an ethnic patsy. And it’s likely we'd tumble into hot civil war. Putin’s win-win.

Ponder these chess moves in advance and don't fall for them. If it comes to (i) then I’d ask a dozen Democratic Senators to play sick, so the GOP must pony up an equal number of their own, to reach two-thirds and removal. 

And if it ever comes down to possibility (ii) then it is vital that Democrats not pour into the streets, celebrating! Rather, react with rage at the blatant culprits -- an oligarchy that cruelly used-up and then disposed of a sick, addled old man, as soon as they were done with him.

Pity.[8]

It will work, at so many levels.

Does all of this sound like fantasy? 

No, what is stupid is not to work out possible chess moves, in advance. 

The Secret Santa Variant

Let's dig further down the rabbit hole of Mitch McConnell's possible ploys. All right, so imagine that he and his masters have deemed Donald Trump a liability. Mike Pence has agreed to follow orders. Ideally, Trump would resign or take a leave of absence and head off to have fun riling his base against Democrats... but he refuses, or he can’t be trusted not to blab the deal.

Moreover, thanks to the skill and professionalism of the Secret Service, any “Howard Beale” martyrdom option is off the table.

Well, there’s impeachment and removal, under the Constitution. But were McConnell to go along by providing 18 Republican votes for Senate conviction, Trump would go off the assigned rails, turning volcanic rage -- and his base -- against the Republican Party and possibly even the oligarchy that controls it! 

Are there ways that Mitch (with likely nods from John Roberts) might arrange this to happen without incurring Trumpian fury on the GOP?

Well, for starters, there is nothing preventing either the House or the Senate from holding a secret vote (with the tally put under seal until past the next election cycle). This would free people to vote their conscience. In fact, this is already being discussed re: the House impeachment decision, perhaps giving some protection to Democrats who represent reddish districts. (It won’t work, but it does help give Speaker Pelosi an excuse to follow her own tactical timetable.)

In the Senate, secret voting would almost certainly result in conviction, as at least two dozen Republicans eagerly cast folded ballots into a box to rid the nation of their party’s greatest embarrassment. There are two problems with this option though:

1. It would raise a fire storm in public and press, especially when every Republican Senator claims to have voted “nay.”.

2. It would not mollify Trump’s reflex to lash out at the GOP leaders who ‘betrayed’ him.

The Go-Limp Option

There is a sneaky – if barely plausible – way out of this trap. Who says the number of Republican defectors has to be 18? That's only required if every Senator attends the trial. Only now look at the Constitution:

Art. I, Sec. 3, Cl. 6 & 7: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no Person shall be convicted without Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.

“Two thirds of the Members present.” A quorum of at least 51 Senators is required, in order to be in session, hence it might theoretically take just 34 to convict and remove a sitting president! And if those voting 'yea' are 100% Democrats, then a deposed and enraged Trump wouldn't go after the GOP, would he? 

Let's assume all 47 Democrats (and partners) vote to convict. That will amount to the required two-thirds if no more than 70 Senators are present, 23 of them Republicans. That can happen if thirty GOP Senators somehow don't show up. Perhaps they call in sick. Or they declare a “boycott” of a "kangaroo proceeding." (Or, if you are writing a cheap thriller novel, you'd portray thirty of them blown up at a conference, blame Democrats and the "deep state," and trigger a truly hot war, leaving Putin on top of the world.[1]) However Mitch arranges such a mass absence, Democrats could then remove Trump all by themselves, on a party line vote.[2]

Would they be so stupid? So propelled by reflex hate that they fall into such a trap? 

Not if they reply “He's your problem, Mitch. Deal with it.” And especially not if they look at the alternative.

---

[1] A good reason for Republican Senators to avoid caucus meetings outside the Capitol?

[2] Or make it less obvious by letting just a few RINOS vote to convict. Few enough not to trigger Trump against the GOP.

Trump’s impeachment insurance.

Sure premature impeachment might be a trap that a hundred million liberals will eagerly charge into. But that’s not my biggest reason for siding with Pelosi’s go-slow approach. My worry is… the alternative. While Donald Trump is a dangerous/loony foreign agent, at least his Murdoch/Moscow masters don’t want the world to end. 

It is absolutely verified that Mike Pence does. We’re talking literally. So let me lay it out.

With only one exception, GOP presidents always appoint someone utterly unqualified as their Vice President. (Reagan did choose a qualified VP… who became the worst president of the 20^th Century.) Whether or not this is done as impeachment insurance, we need to consider all potential outcomes. 

Right now, Trump’s White House leaks like a sieve. The civil service and intel/military officers are wary and careful. Cauterized, he can do limited harm. In contrast, Mike Pence would fill the Executive Mansion with dedicated and utterly disciplined Dominionists who would strive - tight-lipped - toward the same goal. Each and every one prays daily for events described in the Book of Revelation to all come true. They are open about it, as is the president-in-waiting.

An end to all human ambition, democracy or science. An end to all generations of children. An end to the United States of America. And brutal endless torment for 90%+ of Americans.

President Pence will croon smoothly about ending our “national nightmare.” Hundreds of thousands of officers etc. will moan with relief and hurry to serve. Pence might even pull his name from consideration as a candidate. All that will mean is that the clock is ticking a rapid countdown.

The 25th Amendment  

I talk about this Constitutional quirk in detail, in the rest of CHAPTER 16. (See the book.) Alas, I see little chance it will work, unless the Republican masters forsake Don as a liability. And if that happens, they’ll prefer martyrdom over making VP Mike Pence the fall guy, which would happen under the 25^th.

Let’s suppose Pence corralled a majority of cabinet officers (do “acting” secretaries count?) into invoking the 25^th. Trump and Pence would then send "letters" back and forth at an ever-accelerating rate until the email servers melt. Congressional Republicans will dither, covering their ears to the blatant psychological meltdown of the man-with-nukes.  Till the Supreme Court has to step in with some kind of non-Constitutional arbiter. Insane amounts of damage. Which of course will make some parties giggle with glee. 

Yes, Congress could appoint that “other body” I described elsewhere, to bypass the Cabinet… a commission of sages that could have real power for good, under the 25th. If the right people were on it, our nation could ease out of civil war. And the chances that McConnell would go along, or that a Trump veto could be over-ridden, are nil.

I comment further on this, in the second half of Chapter 16. 

Donald Trump is pressured to resign

Um right. That would require something on the order of the Pee Tape. Nothing less and probably much more. You got hopes.

A hybrid seems possible.  DT takes a “stress break.” A vacation with no electronics of any kind. Or maybe blame his recent worsening hysteria on a brain tumor. (Ideally one induced by Democratic windmills.) Dems should insist on independent examinations and that they get to see him, daily.

Status quo

The circus goes on and on. We depend utterly on the sane adults of the civil service, intel community, law professionals and the U.S. military officer corps to keep us safe (though alas not the Kurds), while Donald Trump adds fuel to phase 8 of the Civil War, destroying the Republican brand and riling up the Union to truly take up the fight.... ending ideally with America – not the confederacy – winning overwhelming victory at the ballot box. (Though that will also require dems wising up on tactics.)[9]

Status Quo doesn't mean passivity! Congress must rescind the 2001 War Powers Act now! And set up a commission of sages that can (if unanimous) allow the military to pause a presidential command. That commission could be explicitly granted 25th Amendment “other body” powers giving it real muscle. (If it is partisan, then we're entering Venezuela territory.  So start with all the ex-presidents, ex-Vice Presidents and ex Supreme Court Justices. Throw in every U.S. Nobel laureate?) 

The unspeakable

Any “fifth option” I can think of is too horrific for words – though one of them starts with “M” and I’ve used it several times here in this chapter. A way for Trump’s masters to both eliminate a liability and rile up the base to hot-war violence. I denounce it, in advance. In fact I am on record asking that Trump be careful what he eats, especially with his foreign “friends.” And God bless the U.S. Secret Service.

My advice, especially to Democratic politicians, remains not to fall for traps. Calm down. 

We're supposed to be smart people, it’s what Putin/Murdoch fear about us, right? We have all of the fact-user professions. Use that. Think.

---------

That was half of Chapter 16 of POLEMICAL JUDO. 
Want more? Chapter One and half of Chapter Two are posted, as well as the Table of Contents, all for FREE.

POLEMICAL JUDO is now available for pre-order (cheap!) and purchase (Kindle format). 

I'll be coming back repeatedly to urge you to help spread the word!  Seriously, if you don't find dozens of concepts, tactics and needed chess moves you never saw elsewhere, I will eat a bug.

---

[1] Sources: Exit strategies – 25th Amendment  https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Brin20170903

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2017/08/gloom-and-doom-scenarios.html and https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Brin20170903

[2] Impeachment is like grand jury indictment. GOP complaints about prim witness confrontation due process are specious. (1) this is constitutional, not judicial; (2) it is more about a board of directors firing a corrupt employee; and (3) It is the Senate trial that should be primly like a courtroom.

[3] Rumored revelations from Deutsche Bank. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-banks/trump-urges-u-s-court-to-shield-deutsche-bank-records-from-house-democrats-idUSKCN1VD0Y2

[4] For fibbing about some 3rd base marital infidelity, which both his wife and a majority of female voters forgave? Do you want the tsunami of Trumpist horrors dismissed as equivalent? 

[5] Except Newt Gingrich.

[6] Limit presidential powers? At surface, they’ll cooperate to constrain a loose cannon Trump, but with an eye to weakening the coming Dem president. Do this carefully!

[7] Of course, that would be about revenge. 

[8] At last! On October 16, 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke of praying for the mental health of a clearly sick Donald Trump. It played out as I predicted, rousing effective responses in all directions.

[9] http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-time-for-colonels-part-two-working.html

The Stark Difference - make it count!

The news cycle moves so fast it may be intentional, giving us no time for thought about particular outrages. For example, do you recall how retired Adm. William McRaven, the man who oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, issued a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump's decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan? “McRaven, a former Navy SEAL who led US Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014, not only called Brennan "a man of unparalleled integrity," but volunteered to have his own security clearance revoked in an act of solidarity.”

The context for this all-out struggle — not between left-and-right but between America’s adult side and our raving toddler-men — could not be more clear. Between those who spew machismo through posturing and screeches…and those like McRaven who quietly and effectively performed the most decisively important and surgical and efficient elimination of a deadly national foe. And yes, those who appointed good people. 

And yes, Obama killed Osama. Live with it. 

== The Stark Difference: make your mad uncles listen ==

John Brennan and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon both issued dire, contradictory warnings. Brennan says Kremlin-led forces have interfered with the U.S. actively helping - and helped by - Trump. Bannon released a movie trailer screaming that “the media” is bent on bringing Trump down.  

This is not something we can soothe your mad uncle (MU) out of, by comparing facts - not when all fact-using professions are condemned as enemies, on Fox and Jones etc. converting good American reflexes like suspicion of authority into cancers. 

So, use bullets of logic. Read one page to your MU aloud. Because asking him to read is futile.

1. “There are roughly HALF A MILLION men and women working in the so-called “deep state”… members of the law (e.g. FBI), intelligence or military officer communities… folks who always leaned crewcut conservative, and who nearly all are gun-owners. Quietly skilled and effective, they led in winning the Cold War against the Soviet/Kremlin empire. They hunted down bin Laden.

“Now, a vast majority of these dedicated men and women are deeply worried about a new, growing Kremlin empire, led by many of the same KGB thugs, using skulking methods that our skilled protectors clearly see… Yet, suddenly you are hostile to these half a million loyal, dedicated folks? All in the same conspiracy? Why? 

"Because Rupert Murdoch’s pretty yammerheads tell you to.”

(This cogent essay compares Moscow's current cozy support of the U.S. radical right to their 1930s subversion via the American far-left. Read also about the 12 new Russian naval bases along the ice-free arctic, and dare your MU to find one senior naval officer who's still a Republican.) 

2.  “There are roughly HALF A MILLION American scientists or high tech entrepreneurs who did the R&D and invention that made America rich and gave YOU all the comforts and machines and toys you depend on daily, ensuring safe food and clean air, sending miracle space probes to distant planets, rapidly improving medicine, and creating spectacular atmospheric models that predict weather often ten days in advance.* They may not wear crewcuts and not all are gun-owners, but they are key to winning future prosperity.

“Now, a vast majority of these dedicated men and women are deeply worried about terrible dangers to our children’s future, that they can see clearly in the data and in every model and analysis. But suddenly you are hostile to these half a million brilliant, dedicated folks, who know a whole lot more than you do. Why? 

"Because Rupert Murdoch’s pretty yammerheads tell you to.”

3. "There are roughly a QUARTER OF A MILLION U.S. journalists at various levels, men and women who took up the profession because they are curious people who ask a lot of questions.  Yeah, yeah, almost none of them have crewcuts and many lean liberal, in part because they travel all over and see a lot of pain.  But suddenly you are hostile to these curious and thoughtful folks, en masse, dismissing a quarter of a million professionals as “the media.” Why? 

"Because Fox-yammerheads and Steve Bannon tell you they are engaged in a vast conspiracy aimed at destroying the country they love, every bit as much as you do? What all of them? A conspiracy that involves hundreds of thousands, yet doesn’t leak? 

Now add in the other “elites” that Sean Hannity gets you raging-at. A MILLION teachers! And then a MILLION doctors and health workers. Unions have been declining for 40 years, yet somehow they are demons! Yet we should trust Wall Street. No, no. Never look at oil lords or Wall Street.

Hey, uncle, name one fact-using profession that your cult isn't waging war against? One? Science, journalism, teaching, medicine, law, public service... name an exception! And now the "deep state" FBI, Intel Agencies and US military officer corps. The one thing they all have in common? Grownups who use facts.

Steve Bannon wants you to hate every skilled “elite” profession. But never doubt the good intentions of three dozen casino moguls and oil barons and slumlords all with mafia ties and debt entanglements with Saudi princes and Moscow oligarchs! 

In contrast, what is the dedicated pro, John Brennan, asking you to consider?  That the same Kremlin agents you hated, back when they wore hammer and sickle pins and conspired against America, might… still… be… doing it? In collusion with Rupert Murdoch and a few pals.

That seems a simpler hypothesis.

== A public servant strikes back? Or a self-serving coward? ==

Alas, the news cycle requires that I add yet more.

The secret “high official” who wrote the recent op-ed denouncing his own boss as immoral and un-moored, in the NY Times, also alluded that a large fraction of Trump’s cabinet had informally mulled whether to invoke the 25th amendment to the US Constitution, in order to protect the republic and its people from a jabbering, terror-stricken, bully-toddler. According to reports, those worried officials decided instead “to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.”

Woof, so many aspects to this:

1) I have long said there are grownups, in the civil service, along with the justice, intel and military professionals, etc., and even maybe a quarter of today’s billionaires, who are alerted to the danger, doing what they can to maintain a semblance of a strong and sane national government and economy, amid all this. It is this civil society of dedicated servants to the rule of law that Vladimir Putin will never understand.

2) In order for the 25th to be invoked, the Vice President must call an official cabinet meeting. And Mike Pence will only do this on his terms, at his own time, when it serves the interests of Mike Pence. That won’t happen while the MAGA Trumpists still seem a potent force, and while Murdoch’s shills are stoking that inferno..

…though it could be an unforeseen side effect if there truly is a huge “Blue Wave” in November. At which point the Casino and slumlords and mafia kingpins who help Murdoch run the GOP may decide to ditch the MAGAs as hard as they threw the Bushite neocons under the bus, in 2005. (Oh, this time there will be violence. But if DT is martyred in just the right way, they might figure they can turn it to advantage, like the death of Hindenburg, in 1933. God bless the Secret Service.)

3) Remember that this op-ed writer – whoever it is – was appointed by Two Scoops, whose bizarro “excellent judge of people” power has picked a higher proportion of “disloyal betrayers” than any national leader in the history of our species. Dig that well and use it in your arguments with confeds.

“No squirming rationalization gets you off the pure fact that Donald Trump is a wretchedly awful judge of character.” ("Donald Trump Jr. complains his father has few he can trust.") Whoever the anonymous “high official” is, we should

(a) be glad he/she is trying to reduce the damage and  (b) still know that it’s probably not a person qualified to strike a match with five tries. 
Oh, there are a few exceptions. 
But on the first order: anyone chosen by Donald Trump for high office should bear a presumption of utter disqualification for service or office. And yes, op-ed writer, this includes you. Look in a mirror. He… picked… you.

4) If the scenario reported by the anonymous official is true, then he just did us all a profound disservice by bragging! By alerting His Highness to the extent of the “resistance.” How is that helpful? This self-serving betrayal - plus the Woodward book - may have rendered untenable James Mattis’s strategy of defending us by flattering the toddler.

As for the 25th Amendment, consider my posting about it. Exit strategies Part II: Surprising aspects of the 25th Amendment.

5) Then there is the op-ed writer's hypocrisy assailing Trump while defending overall GOP policy – e.g. “Supply Side” voodoo “economics” that never across 40 years correctly predicted a single outcome, always achieving opposite results. This is your silver lining?

6) And finally: "There is no redemption... You think an op-ed ... is going to cut it? You cannot write an article admitting to the president’s “anti-democratic” impulses while also saying you want his administration “to succeed.” ...while omitting any and all references to his racism, bigotry, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and white nationalism." writes Mehdi Hasan in The Intercept.

Again, pass word about my posting about wagers!

== Speaking of all-out war ==

Apparently our diplomats were attacked in communist Cuba and communist China by a Russia-developed microwave weapon. And your MU thinks we’re not already at war? Read about the Kremlin-ordered malware attacks bringing down systems around the globe, turning millions of private laptops into ‘bots,’ (yours, maybe?), and preparing for worse.

Why do this now, so brazenly? (1) to cow the Ukrainians into coming back under Moscow control, (2) to help breakup the Western Alliance, (protected from consequence by their agent in the White House), and (3) because, facing demographic and economic collapse, they must act now to both raise oil prices and conquer enough surrounding territory to feel safe.

If the West stays strong another decade, all hope of rule by mafia-oligarchy will pass away like a bad fog. It must be now.

== A stunning prediction, out of a light SF flick ==

If you ever saw the film BLAST FROM THE PAST, recall Chistopher Walken's final words, when he asks:

"So I'm supposed to believe the Politburo just one day threw up their hands and surrendered?"

"Yeah, dad. That's pretty much it."

Pause.

"Oh, you've got to hand it to them."

We've been handing it to them. Hand over fist.