The "Coffee Boy" Defense -- That's Their Strategy and They're Sticking With It . . .

The Gadfly thinks it is absolutely fucking hilarious as to how cavalierly that the Trump lackeys and apologists are willing to sacrifice what little credibility they have remaining on the altar of The Donald.

Apparently special counsel Robert Mueller copped a guilty plea back in July from a former Trump adviser named George Papadopolous for lying to the FBI.  And word has it, Mueller may have gotten Papadopolous to wear a wire while still roaming the halls of Trump's power center - which if so, means there are more indictments coming down the pike.

Anyhow, observe how one of those lackeys described Papadopolous today - knowing full well that Papadopolous was one of Trump's hand picked foreign policy "advisers.":

Former Donald Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo on Tuesday blamed simple youthful indiscretion for efforts by former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and Donald Trump Jr. to meet with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.

“He was the coffee boy,” Caputo told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, referring to Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to FBI, according to court records unsealed Monday, about his efforts to connect the Trump campaign to Russians claiming to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton, including “thousands of emails,” even before Wikileaks published anything stolen from Democrats.

Caputo continued: “You might have called him a foreign policy analyst, but, in fact, if he was going to wear a wire, all we would know now is whether he prefers a caramel macchiato over regular American coffee in conversations with his barista.”

“The kid was 27 years old,” Caputo said later of Papadopoulos. (The former foreign policy adviser, who Trump told the Washington Post in March was one of five members of the campaign’s foreign policy team, graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in 2009, according to his LinkedIn page.)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michael-caputo-papadopoulos-coffee-boy

That is some pretty funny shit if you ask The Gadfly.  First basic point of order here -- Papadopolous was 29 years old last year when he was tapped by Trump to be on his foreign policy board, not 27.  Keep that little white lie in mind as you read the article.

Notice though dear readers, how they try to pass Papadopolous off as just some junior, uninvolved staff aide --, a goofy, latte' sipping "kid" who was just some political groupie/flunky running around the The White House, trying to set up meetings with Russians to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton.  Just a foolish, meddling kid.  They even have a nick name for him - "Coffee Boy" - ain't that cute?

Here's their idea of "Coffee Boy's"meddling:

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Yeah -- that would be "Coffee Boy" there - third one down from the gray haired guy on the left side who just happens to be the Attorney General of the United States of America (you know - those folks who are in charge of enforcing the law?).  And of course, the orange moppet head at the top of the screen is dear leader himself.

That is a picture of President Trump's first foreign policy advisers board meeting.

Can any one of The Gadfly's conservative friends or family members coherently explain to The Gadfly what someone who is presently being described as just a hapless, itinerant "Coffee Boy" is doing sitting in on a sensitive, high level White House foreign affairs policy meeting.  Do any of you conservative Trump supporters not see the absurdity that they are asking you to invest your belief in with that nonsense?

This is who the people in Drumpf's regime are though.  Their boss comes from a shady business world of ill-gotten wealth and it only stands to reason that Drumpf would stock his inner circle with people of the same caliber of honesty and integrity as himself and from the same shady financial/business circles where he himself flourished.  Birds of a feather and all that - you know? . . .

These people deliberately and calculatingly do not operate in a reality-based world.  The lies that they tell aren't just your typical, run-of-the-mill politician lies that are always told - oh no - these are lies that are frequently and easily disprovable, and when they are confronted with truth that exposes their lies, they double down on those lies and compound more lies upon the already debunked foundational lies.  They've created their own bizarro world of "alternative facts" and they have frighteningly convinced a sizable portion of the American citizenry to invest their belief in those "alternative facts."  That does not bode well for the future of a healthy, functioning democracy.

And yet many wonder how we got to this moment.  Jeebus fuck.

The simple fact of the matter is that these Trump surrogates are the true fakes, the phonies and the whackos.  And the intricately tangled web of connections to Putin and the Russian oligarchs that is strung among way too many of them, sure as fuck should prompt anyone with a functional brain, and who gives a real shit about the United States of America's future, to ask questions - a lot of very serious questions.

But don't wait too long folks -- keep in mind that these psychos have control over the nation's nuclear arsenal at this time -- and now they are in the uncomfortable position of being cornered rats.




----TFG

Something Even More Wicked This Way Comes . . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

This is the real story from today's law enforcement festivities in Washington and has yet to be entirely fleshed out:

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, tasked with pursuing collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and foreign interests, just planted his first stake in the heart of the Russian matter.

Prosecutors on Mueller’s team revealed Monday that a foreign policy adviser on Trump’s campaign, George Papadopoulos, pursued Russia’s help in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and sought to open communication lines to the Kremlin. 

Even more than the indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the case -- showing how Russians attempted to influence key Trump aides -- lays out a blueprint for Mueller’s work as his prosecutors circle other campaign officials.

The case against Papadopoulos details repeated contact between Trump’s campaign team and agents working on behalf of Russian interests during the 2016 election campaign. Emails and testimony show that two high-level supervisors and other campaign officials involved in national security and foreign policy were aware of these communications.

The campaign also received information that the Russians had thousands of emails containing “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton months before hacked emails from the Democratic Party were made public.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-30/trump-foreign-policy-adviser-pleaded-guilty-in-mueller-probe

Manafort's principal motivation appears to be mostly good old fashioned American greed.

This guy Papadopolous on the other hand, and no doubt several others who are likely under investigation as The Gadfly types this post, was in it for the glory of being on a winning presidential team and by proxy a hero in some sort of warped political and ideological victory.  To achieve that end, Papadopolous and others did not blink twice when presented with an opportunity to help their candidate by playing hide the salami with actors from an enemy state. . . . Oh what tangled webs they've woven.

This is just the tip of the iceberg too.  Word has it that Papadopolous has plea bargained his way out of serious prison time by singing like a canary to Mueller's team and if you understand that the charges pertaining to Papadopolous revolve around the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia in order to influence the outcome an American presidential election -- well you just know then that there are some people in Drumpf world who aren't going to be sleeping well at night for some time to come, and quite frankly, The Gadfly couldn't be more content about that.




----TFG

The Time of Reckoning is Upon Us . . .

The funniest, and sadly the most telling, aspect of the anticipatory frenzy over the news of Robert Mueller indictments to be announced Monday, is that there are so many shady characters swirling around in Drumpf's swampy sphere and the corruption odds spread so evenly among them all, that trying to predict exactly who all will be doing the perp walk come tomorrow would be an exercise in sheer futility.

Regardless -- The Gadfly believes that it would probably be a good idea to spend a little extra time in the chips and candy aisle at the grocery store today and stock up on popcorn.

 . . . .

"The beginning of every inevitable end is generally breathtaking and sudden, but never surprising."

~~~ The Frolicking Gadfly (2017)

----TFG

The Symbol-Minded Conundrum . . . It's Going to Get Worse...

The Gadfly has been blogging on and off since 2004, having been inspired to do so by the personal outrage of watching President Dick Cheney and Vice President George W. Bush very clearly lie this country in to an unnecessary war in Iraq.

At the time, people like The Gadfly were being warned by some of the "patriots" that Bill Maher refers to in this video, to be careful what we say and just shut up and accept their version of "reality."  Suffice to say, The Gadfly didn't shut up -- and hasn't shut up to this day.

Anyhow - watch what Maher says about these people - it's not a very pleasant thing to say about someone because it gets right to the heart of personal character, but if it's true, then someone has to point it out:






Maher's harangue about the incestuous mixing of mindless symbolism, and what he failed to rightly call fascism, was basically an expanded thread of what George Carlin very seriously and astutely observed (in the vein of comedy) about this very subject a few years ago:





Comedy skits aside - these are dangerous times we live in --- and The Gadfly is unshakable in his view that not shutting up is the minimum contribution for which any one of us can offer forth in the defense of our democracy and freedoms.

“ THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated ”

― Thomas Paine, The Crisis

----TFG

Bang a Gong, Bang Some Heads (literally) . . . Whatever It Takes

Well - The Gadfly is back from his week long sabbatical from giving a shit about this country's future.

And nothing has changed has it?  I see we still have Colonel Blimp and his Flying Monkey Brigades gleefully raping and pillaging the nation's psyche and it's institutions, which is not surprising, but is a bit dispiriting The Gadfly must say.

Sigh . . . . . anyhow - guess it's back to blogging about the sordidness of it all.  Sure - it's a thankless job, but somebody has to talk about this shit.

Quite honestly though, The Gadfly is just happy that he lives in a country that, for present time anyway, values freedom of speech and permits us to direct all of the unflattering and wounding language that we care or dare to at our dear leader.  It could be worse right? -- we could be Russia (and just might be some day if our collective courage fails us during this perilous time in our history).

So let's get it on . . . . who's got the gong??








----TFG

Site Under Brain Maintenance! . . . Your Patience is Appreciated . . .

Heads up dear readers.

The Gadfly finds it necessary to take a short respite from the insanity and inanity that is Drumpf's America and so will be missing in action for a few days, or so, from the pages of this shitty little blog.

The pure amount of lying bullshit and treachery that are vomited forth from this administration and it's army of charlatans on a daily, no - hourly basis, is utterly staggering and exhausting.  Quite frankly, one needs to just take a deep breath and step completely away from it all periodically and tune it all out.  It's all enough to put a nervous prairie dog in to a catatonic state.

Anyhow, allow The Gadfly about a week to purge his brain stem of the current clog of Drumpf's imbecility and deceit, recharge his snark batteries and re-sharpen his rapier wit - and then it's back to the business of exposing the orange haired, Putin fluffer and his cretinous supporters for what truly he is and they are.

If something real important crops up in the interim (like some Robert Mueller indictments for example) that The Gadfly finds worthy of cutting his hiatus short for, rest assured The Gadfly will be promptly back on the job for it.

Anyhow dear readers -- The Gadfly will leave you with a very prescient H.L. Mencken quote and he will cya on the rebound.

❝No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.❞

~~ H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

----TFG

No Moochers Allowed in Right Wing Jesus's Emergency Room . . .

The Gadfly truly has no more fucks to give when it comes to the subject of civil discourse with these modern-day conservative sociopaths.  Not one, single, crappy fuck does The Gadfly have left to give.

And here's a prime example as to why that is:

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) proposed on Friday that hospital emergency rooms should be able to turn patients away to help keep health care costs down.

“I’m an emergency room nurse,” Black told MSNBC host Chuck Todd on Friday. “There are people that came into my emergency room that I, the nurse, was the first one to see them. I could have sent them to a walk-in clinic or their doctor the next day, but because of a law that Congress put into place to say, no, I have to treat everybody that walks into that emergency room.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/diane-black-emergency-rooms_us_59e674cce4b0d0e4fe6bd0ee?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

First they do everything in their power to strictly limit access to, or even completely eliminate affordable health care for millions of income-strapped Americans, meaning that a lot of people (prior to the ACA) were left with no economic choice other than their local hospital emergency rooms for their primary medical care.

And now they want to remove that already desperate option as well.

How about we just cut to the fucking chase here mkay?  The modern-day conservative movement is a goddamn sadistic death cult.  Money and unregulated capitalism are these conservative's gods, and they are determined to have no other gods before or beside those.

It's nauseating for The Gadfly to think that this conservative Republican congress critter woman from Tennessee was an actual "emergency room nurse" before dumping that, apparently unrewarding career, for that of a soulless politician suckling at the taxpayer teat.

Just the mere thought of this small-minded, prejudicial "nurse" with her incomplete medical training, mingled with her vindictive political dogma - and others who think like her - getting to decide who is worthy of receiving emergency room medical treatment and who is not in a hospital setting, just roils The Gadfly's gut.

But look at who it is that these people have chosen as their leader.  Drumpf is a callous bedlamite who has about as much capability of demonstrating empathy for another suffering human being, as The Gadfly has the capability for keeping his damn opinions to his self.  Conservatives are Drumpf.  Drumpf is them.

And, gallingly, they all actually dare to gather among themselves and publicly celebrate and gloat about their superior moral "values" - values that many of them will proudly tell you, are divinely inspired by their chosen god.

As such, it should be of no shock to any of you dear readers that The Gadfly feels that these modern-day conservative's idea of god and The Gadfly's idea of god reside in opposite galaxies.  To put it bluntly - The Gadfly is of the view that their world is a hell of a lot darker, more hopeless and infinitely more miserable place than The Gadfly cares to live out the remainder of his life in.

Thomas Paine once wrote:

“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”

― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

You can't get much more of an absolute definition of the word cruel, than the view which postulates that it should be permissible to deny people medical treatment who seek care at a hospital emergency room.  That is cruel deluxe and there ain't no amount of creative bible verse quoting that will mitigate that reality.

Ergo -- Diane Black's wiki page, aside from saying she has a net worth of around $30 million (yeah - she got that rich on a nurses salary), also says that she believes in a god.  The Gadfly is going to stipulate for the record here then that Diane Black's god is a cruel and heartless sonofabitch, and one sorry excuse for a deity.  The Gadfly will also stipulate that it is quite evident to any honest observer, that her god also appears to be the predominant one among her political crowd as well as with the Drumpf sycophants.  And that's all that needs to be said.




----TFG

Mueller, The 25th Amendment, or Impeachment -- The Choices for Trump's Waterloo . . .

Wow . . . .

WASHINGTON ― Facing heat for not publicly commenting on the deadly ambush of four U.S. soldiers in Niger on Oct. 4, President Donald Trump tried Monday to convince reporters that he is actually more caring and compassionate to the troops than any of his predecessors were.

In an afternoon press conference, Trump said that over the weekend, he wrote letters to the families of the four service members, who died in the deadliest U.S. combat operation of Trump’s term thus far. The letters, Trump said, either have been sent already or will be sent Monday night. He also said he intends to call the families.

Trump then took a moment to compare himself favorably to former presidents, saying he likes to call families “when I’m able to do it.”

“The traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents ― most of them didn’t make calls. A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it,” Trump said. “They have made the ultimate sacrifice, so generally I would say that I like to call. I’m going to be calling them. I want a little time to pass.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-call-service-members-families_us_59e4f6ace4b0ca9f4839b525?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

This guy has some very conspicuous, deeply seated, disturbing psychological anomalies ping-ponging between his ears and it's starting to scare the shit out of The Gadfly.

Btw - five days ago, The Gadfly blogged about this subject.  The Gadfly was curious as to the rationale for the Sgt. Schultz routine by Drumpf and his administration regarding the loss of the four Green Berets.  Five days ago!!  Some old hippie blogger posted on his shitty little blog about this subject and only now is Drumpf finally on the official record about it.

Sure - it's great that the ADD dog?/squirrel!! mainstream media has finally noticed this odd story, but they're a day late and a dollar short to the party in The Gadfly's humble judgment.

Nonetheless, true to nature, Drumpf ends up turning the whole already puzzling situation into a true Drumpfian shitstorm by trying to build up his own evidently negligent and sorry ass by resorting to his favorite time-tested weapon - outright lying and slander - in order to pick a random fight with one of his perceived enemies and deflect attention away from his own malfeasance in office.

Believe that this guy actually had the motherfucking gall to say this:

“The traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents ― most of them didn’t make calls. A lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it,”

If there were any pure form of justice in this world, the four living, previous U.S. presidents, would march together into the White House, right in to the oval office, and kick the ever-living shit out of Drumpf right there in view of his whole staff to see.

The Gadfly is going to keep repeating this declaration -- because it simply cannot be stated clearly or often enough -- THIS IS NOT NORMAL!



----TFG


**UPDATE:  Apparently our man-child president wasn't satisfied with his slanderous comments against pretty much all previous U.S. presidents, but today was issuing threats to a former Vietnam POW, elder Republican statesman and a man currently facing his own mortality in a fight with brain cancer.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL!



. . . . .

The Guns of Navarro . . . . Advice to Trump Apologists - Don't Fuck With this Lady . . .

Long time GOP strategist Ana Navarro used to frequently annoy The Gadfly with some of her right-leaning views on certain issues, but The Gadfly always thought that she had more intellectual heft than your average conservative mouthpiece.  Then came the era of Drumpf.  And while Navarro still identifies herself as a life-long Republican, she has shifted her ire off of the Democrats and liberals and refocused it like a laser beam directly on to Drumpf and his horror show administration.

Ana Navarro basically has become a one-woman debating army, and, who unlike most of the cable news bobble head hosts, does not hesitate to go right for the jugular whenever she's clashing with one of Drumpf's insufferable and duplicitous spokespeople.  Navarro is adept at quickly sniffing out bullshit and she's very good at either making them eat their words or leaves them looking like stuttering buffoons trying to defend the indefensible.

Watch as she slices and dices, then curb-stomps twerpy Drumpf hackolyte Ben Ferguson for his smarmy flim-flammery, and then goes in for the bloody kill:





That's how it's done folks.  No hemming and hawing and no indecision.  The moment Ferguson let's fly with the deception and inanities Navarro is sticking a razor sharp shiv in to his rib cage and slowly twisting it.  It's kind of beautiful to watch actually - and especially so considering it's a strong, intelligent Latina woman taking down a loud mouth, white-privileged male who thinks his and his boss's shit doesn't stink and that they can dissemble with impunity.

Navarro is the best thing on CNN right now, which admittedly isn't saying a whole lot, but her guts and her fearlessness in taking street fight tactics to these Drumpf assholes does provide some measure of hope, slim as it may be, that the mainstream media isn't quite ready to knuckle under to the dictator wannabe in the White House just yet.




----TFG

Apparently If It's Not Tweeted About, It's Nothing Important . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

The Gadfly as well has been curious about this incident and is gobsmacked as to why there has been absolutely no mention of it from Drumpfdolf Tweetler -- going on a week now:

WASHINGTON — When a team of Green Berets in unarmored pickup trucks came under fire in Niger last week, they quickly found themselves in the middle of a nightmare battlefield scenario: outgunned, taking casualties and far from friendly support.

The operation, which left four American soldiers dead and two wounded, is now under investigation, Pentagon officials said. That inquiry, senior military officials said, will likely reveal that the American troops had deployed to a hostile area without adequately assessing the risk, and lacked ready access to medical support.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/world/africa/niger-attack-american-military-medical-evacuations.html

Almost 7 days have passed since this occurred.

Drumpf very clearly seems to have had plenty of free Tweeting time this past week - what with keeping up his fight with the NFL players, smearing Puerto Rico's mayor, threatening the media, and getting in an insult pissing match with the one of the GOP's most powerful senators.

But so strange -- not so much as a peep about these lost - actually they were murdered - Green Berets.

Not one twingle tweet.

But he loves our troops - or claims to anyway - just doesn't have the time to mention them - at all - during any of his around-the-clock Tweetstorms.

Almost 7 days have passed since four United States Green Berets were murdered on foreign soil - and not one public word about it from their commander-in-chief.  Tell The Gadfly that there is nothing wrong with this picture.  Go ahead -- tell him.

. . .

IS NOT NORMAL.

What's going on in this White House IS NOT NORMAL! . . . and The Gadfly hates being repetitious about this NOT NORMAL stuff, but someone needs to be pointing it out to those who care.

. . . and don't even get The Gadfly started on the Benghazi parallels here . . . . nope . . . we'll revisit that fraudulent pile of multiple investigations horseshit at some future post.





----TFG

The Day Old Blue Eyes Put Young Blue Eyes In His Inferior Place . . .

The Gadfly's long-time admiration for Frank Sinatra the singer, and Frank Sinatra the actor, has in an instant, grown exponentially for Frank Sinatra the man.

Observe:

Frank Sinatra told Donald Trump to “go f*** himself” after the now-President took issue with the singer’s financial demands, a new book has claimed.

Old Blue Eyes was due to perform at the opening of Mr Trump’s Atlantic City casino in 1990 when the magnate was said to have told him his costs were “a little rich”. On hearing the news, Sinatra gave his manager Elliot Weisman - who has written the new book - two options, either to pass his message to Mr Trump or give him his number and he would do it himself.

According to Weisman’s book, Mr Trump also cut the support acts including Sinatra’s dying friend Sammy Davis Jr.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/frank-sinatra-donald-trump-new-book-f-himself-revealed-casino-a7988666.html

The Gadfly has seen a few Sinatra interviews and seen a few documentaries about Sinatra's life.  Basically, anyone who ever knew Old Blue Eyes would swear to you that Frank Sinatra was a straight shooter, a class-act, and actually quite a decent and honorable guy.

Sinatra was also a very astute judge of character.  He grew up with Italian immigrant parents in working class Hoboken, New Jersey during the 1920's and 1930's - a pretty rough early life compared to Drumpf's gold-plated diaper upbringing.  Growing up and surviving in that environment, one had to learn to know whose company was good for you and whose was bad.

The fact that such an upright, regular guy like Sinatra, who at that point in time was a legend in the industry, disrespected a young, arrogant, elitist prick like Donald Trump so thoroughly that he told him to go and fuck himself, and then took his show to a rival casino - that should speak volumes to those who really and sincerely care to know what kind of person Drumpf is -- "should" being the operative word here of course.

Anyhow, the revelation of how Frank Sinatra viewed Donald Trump is, to The Gadfly, simply more evidence, high atop an already quite high pile of evidence, that Drumpf is conclusively unworthy of the esteem that he so boastfully sees in himself.




----TFG

Day Care Nightmare . . . . Day 263...And Counting...

Looks like Drumpf made a conscious, albeit deranged, decision to prolong his juvenile "I know you are, but what am I" Twitter pissing contest with GOP Senator Bob Corker today:

President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Sen. Bob Corker, a powerful Tennessee Republican, on Tuesday, calling him "Liddle," apparently mocking the senator's physical size.

The president has reportedly remarked on Corker's size before, telling aides that the 5-foot-7 lawmaker was too short to be his secretary of state, a position that Corker was reportedly in the running for.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-mocks-republican-corker-size-liddle-2017-10

The Gadfly is going to say this to you Trump supporters directly - mkay?

The man you chose to be your president is an immature, callous little boob and demonstrably unfit for the office he holds.  This man's behavior, in his capacity as the leader of the world's greatest democracy, IS NOT NORMAL, and especially so for a supposed adult who literally holds the fate of a nation and millions of human lives in his hands.  IS NOT NORMAL!  Are you fucking listening??

Drumpf is a psychological basket-case masquerading as "leader" of the free world, and if he is allowed to continue behaving the way that he is, which is basically treating the handling of national and world affairs like they're just another episode of his "reality" tv show 'The Apprentice' - then he is going to bring a world of hurtful shit on this country and quite possibly even get an ungodly number of people killed - Americans included.

For god sake - even some of his own top cabinet members have been disturbed enough to form a "political" suicide pact wherein if Drumpf were to oust any one of them, the others would summarily resign as well.  Why?  C'mon!  They know what's going on!  They interface with Drumpf frequently and they see what The Gadfly sees and worries about - that there is indeed an impetuous, psychologically unstable individual, with an unconcerned penchant for bullying braggadocio and crude behavior - who it just so happens - has control of the nation's military and the nuclear codes.

This isn't rocket science folks.  This is a crisis that is about to explode out in the open here.  Which way that explosion breaks cannot be foretold at this point, but from a black and white, reality-based viewpoint, there is only one good outcome here, or one bad outcome.  One of the two.  Either/or.  And both are ugly.

Something has to give here dear readers.  This can't go on.

However, suffice to say, that if the American people truly want to find out just how bad that the bad outcome could possibly be, then just everyone sit back, do nothing, say nothing and allow his man-baby Royal Highness to go and play with his tanks and his missiles and his army men in his worldly playpen without adult supervision.  What could possibly go wrong - right?




----TFG

The Always Inevitable unCorking Process Begins . . .

Yikes!

Tennessee conservative (not the modern-day kind) Republican Senator Bob Corker has no more fucks to give when it comes to the coddling of Donald J. Trump.

The Day after Corker responded to a tirade of Drumpf Twitter snideness by saying the White House was a daycare center and Drumpf was the colicky infant constantly in need of attention, he triple-dog-dares Drumpf.

Observe:

WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”

In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/us/politics/trump-corker.html

It's slowly starting to dawn on the remaining few sane Republicans that something is horribly, horribly wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Horribly as in Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining' horrible . . . and you all know what The Gadfly is referring to . . .

Oh yeah . . .

“He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart.” 

― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

The Gadfly is officially upgrading his 'Go Team Mueller!' rallying cry to 'Please Hurry Team Mueller!!'





----TFG

Bats Like Fruit - Don't They? . . .

Oh look!   Someone rolled back the giant boulder covering the entrance to the cave where they've been keeping Kellyanne Conway cooped up and she escaped . . . .

Trump's chief apologist, Kellyanne Conway attacked President Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Hillary and blamed CNN for only reporting on Russia and not talking enough about gun violence before a mass murder occurs. early this morning.

I kid you not.

Conway literally blamed the mass murder in Nevada on CNN and the entire Democratic party instead of those worthy of ridicule like the NRA funded GOP and all their enablers because Russia has been in the news so much.

Chris Cuomo's interview turned nasty almost immediately.

http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/after-las-vegas-kellyanne-conway-blames

Poor Chris Cuomo ... you could just see the nauseated disdain in his face for having to even deal with this delusional, bullshitting Medusa on national television.  That look that he gave Conway just before admonishing her not to cheapen the debate reminded The Gadfly of the look that James Cagney gave Mae Clark in the old 1931 gangster movie 'The Public Enemy' when he smashed a grapefruit in to Clark's face at the breakfast table for getting on his nerves:

If only there had been some grapefruit handy for Cuomo during that interview -- he could have tossed a couple at the monitor while Conway was blathering her sneering inanities.

Jeebus these fucking people . . .

Sigh . . . . .





----TFG

Ambassador Lisa Douglas . . . And Aide-de-Camp -- Arnold Ziffel . . .

The Gadfly was looking for something a little less depressing -- anything actually -- to get his mind and his rage unfocused from the Las Vegas massacre - and lo and behold . . . the gods of acid humor took the bait.  Observe:

CBS NEWS October 5, 2017, 11:01 AM

Ivana Trump, the first wife of President Donald Trump, says he offered her the ambassadorship to the Czech Republic and that she advised him to tweet, in an interview with Jim Axelrod for CBS' "Sunday Morning," to be broadcast October 8.

. . . 

"I was just offered to be the American ambassador to Czech Republic," she noted. "Donald told me. He said, 'Ivana, if you want it, I give it to you. But I like my freedom. I like to do what I want to do, go wherever I want to go with whomever I want to go. And I can afford my lifestyle. Okay, why would I go and say bye-bye to Miami in the winter, bye-bye to Saint-Tropez in the summer, and bye-by to spring and fall in New York? I have a perfect life."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ivana-trump-president-asks-my-advice-on-tweeting/

The Gadfly swears - when he saw and listened to that CBS video interview of Ivana cheering on Donnie's tweeting and waxing poetically about how it would be just too hard - darling - to give up the a lifestyle of luxury and torpid affluence for that of a lowly public servant, it instantly reminded The Gadfly of this:





Tell The Gadfly he's wrong? . . ? . . .




----TFG

Three Men and a Baby -- The Story of America's Present Leadership Structure . . .

This is pretty astonishing -- not astonishing as in surprising -- more like astonishing as in HOLY FUCK!

Some of you dear readers may have heard news that Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is purported to have called Trump a "moron" after a recent Pentagon (military!) meeting with the president.  And Tillerson has't made any real effort to go out of his way and flat-out deny it.

But The Gadfly found this view by GOP Senator Bob Corker kind of bone-chilling.  You need to watch it, then read the transcript below.

.@SenBobCorker: "I think Sec. Tillerson, Sec. Mattis and Chief of Staff Kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos." pic.twitter.com/NjuRX59s6A

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 4, 2017

CORKER: I don’t talk about private conversations with anyone. Inappropriately I don’t, anyway. I think Secretary Tillerson, [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis and [White House] Chief of Staff [John] Kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos, and I support them very much. And I don't know what he may have said after the briefing. I watch from — I mean, look, I see what's happening here. I deal with people throughout the administration, and [it] from my perspective is an incredibly frustrating place where, as I watch, okay — and I can watch very closely on many occasions — I mean, you know, he ends up not being supported in the way that I would hope a secretary of state would be supported. And that’s just from my vantage point. But I've never — you know, I have no knowledge of the comments or anything else. I think he's in a very trying situation, trying to solve many of the world's problems a lot of times without the kind of support and help that I'd like to see him have.

Q: Did he ever think about resigning at any point?

CORKER: I can’t get into that.

Q: When you say that Tillerson, Mattis and Kelly are separating this country from chaos, do you mean from the president’s chaos?

CORKER: Well, it’s just they act in a very — they work very well together to make sure that the policies we put forth around the world are sound and coherent. There are other people within the administration, in my belief, that don’t. Okay? I’m sorry. You know, I hope they stay because they’re valuable to the national security of our nation, they’re valuable to us putting forth good policies, they’re very valuable as it relates to our citizens feeling safe and secure, and I hope he’s here for a very long time.

Tillerson, Mattis and Kelly "separate this country from chaos."

Pssssst! dear readers . . . if you haven't figured it out yet, "chaos" is their codename for this clown:

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Basically what Corker was saying there in defense of Tillerson was that yeah, we all know Trump is a fucking moron and dangerously incompetent.  But as long as more serious adults like Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis and John Kelly are there to take turns changing Little Donnie's diaper, as well as expertly handling the nation's affairs with the rest of the world with some semblance of sanity, then we'll probably -- mostly -- hopefully? all come out of this alive.

Comforting thoughts huh? . . . . . .




----TFG

The Gadfly Presents to Thee . . . . Ebony Nugent... Egads! . . .

The Gadfly truly has to give Fox "News" credit where due.

For years Uncle Rupert has been fielding some of the most hideous and dumbest on-air, right wing personalities to spoon feed the rubes their daily dose of cockamamie bullshit and lies.

But you just know that ol' Uncle Rupert is really going the extra mile with this one . . observe:






Now that is some serious fucking dedication to propaganda stagecraft right there dear readers.

They actually managed to dig up a black, NRA supporting female, with a Mooslim/Kenyan sounding last name, and gifted in the ways of  beer-bellied, conservative white male rubespeak, to regurgitate the gun fondler's most vapid talking points on the subject of gun violence.  It's breathtakingly brilliant and it goes without saying that The Gadfly would have killed to have been a fly on the wall watching some young, energetic, up and coming alt-right "news" programmer pitch this one to old man Murdoch.

But Fox's newfound dusky, gun goddess, "expert" analyst herself truly put the icing on the cynicism cake with this stupendous quote:

"One thing I love about -- unfortunately -- these tragedies that happen, the reaction from the American people coming together.  And one thing I think we're very good at is problem solving. And so I believe if we're willing to change the direction that we've been in before... you know, we voted for President Trump because we wanted a difference."

The Gadfly couldn't even bring himself to do a standard facepalm after watching that.  Instead, The Gadfly just grabbed a ball-peen hammer from his household tool box and smashed it as hard as he could against his suspecting forehead.  And even after that, The Gadfly's head still didn't hurt as much as it did when he was watching that video.

These fucking people are just frighteningly unreal and every day of having to live in the societal nightmare that they have created for this country becomes ever more Kafkaesque . . . . . . . .



----TFG

Getting Small and The High Art of Bullet Dodging . . .

Jeebus . . . fucking . . . kripes ....

South Dakota Senator John Thune told an interviewer today that the Las Vegas shooting victims, and for that matter anyone at any future date who happens to find themselves in a similar mass shooting nightmare, needs to step up and accept more responsibility for learning to protect their lives in those situations -- to, as he said, "take steps in their own lives to take precautions," to "get small.":

 

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Tuesday responded to calls for increased gun control after the massacre in Las Vegas by telling reporters that shooting victims had a responsibility to protect themselves from gunfire.

"It sounds like [the shooter] used conversion kits and other things, you know, to make the weapons more lethal," Thune reportedly told MSNBC's Hallie Jackson. "We'll look at the facts when we get them all in here. I think a lot of us want to do everything we can to prevent tragedies like that from happening again."

But Thune shied away from the topic of gun control, arguing, "[I]t's an open society and it's hard to prevent anything."

Instead, the Republican senator offered advice to potential victims.

"I think people are going to have to take steps in their own lives to take precautions," he opined. "To protect themselves. And in situations like that, you know, try to stay safe. As somebody said -- get small."

http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/john-thune-suggests-shooting-victims-died

No really -- he said that.  He said that if you are caught in a warlike situation under massive and sustained assault from military grade weaponry you need to "get small" . . . and "take precautions" and everything will be just hunky-dory and it'll be a great learning experience.

And btw, is that asshole so out-of-touch that he doesn't know that the slang meaning (thank you Steve Martin) of "get small" is getting high?  Oy . . . . .

via GIPHY

Yeah -- that was The Gadfly's initial reaction as well.

But then the The Gadfly's disbelief turned to furiousness.

How dare this motherfucker?  The fucking out-and-out gall of this piece of shit to smugly lecture these victims in public like that.  Holy shit!

The Gadfly swears that if he had a Star Trek transporter (that really worked), he'd transport himself right square in front of John Thune, and ask Thune to say that cruel bullshit to The Gadfly's face, and when the shit-head started to say it (cuz you know he would) The Gadfly would then summarily kick the everloving shit out of his gutless ass right on there on the spot.

And, then, while standing over him, looking at his dumb ass, sprawled on the floor, nose bloodied, looking up at the Gadfly with that "but why?" look on his stupid face, The Gadfly would calmly say to him, "why Senator Thune - why didn't you "take precautions" from those fisted blows sir?  Perhaps if you had learned how to "get small" you might have anticipated those slow (compared to an assault rifle round) punches and successfully evaded their damage.  There's a lesson to be learned here sir."

No -- really -- that's what The Gadfly would do if he had access to a working Star Trek transporter.

But also! . .  just curious -- what about the many children who were present on that killing field in Las Vegas last Sunday night?  Should they have gotten small too?  Oh wait!  They already are small ... duhh! ... just need to get the little shits trained on that whole "take precautions" thing - right Senator?

It' really, really difficult right now for The Gadfly to hold off serious thoughts about believing that the entire Republican party is nothing more than a Borg cult of death, and as a peopled movement, is utterly bereft of anything remotely resembling a soul.

But The Gadfly will hold those thoughts back . . . . for now.  But just know that it's a tenuous prospect whether those thoughts remain held at bay for very much longer.




----TFG

If You Are Not Infuriated By This - Then You Are a Contributor To The Problem...

[ click pic to enlarge ]

First off, before The Gadfly gets to what he wants to say in this post about the Las Vegas shooting massacre, The Gadfly will state for the bazillionth fucking time that he is not anti-gun (although with this latest horror, that is now a very tenuous position).  No - what The Gadfly has consistently stated after every one of these mass shootings is that he is more anti-assholes (especial violent prone and mentally, emotionally and intellectually unstable ones) with guns than anything.  Scroll/search through The Gadfly's archives -- should you require evidence to back up that claim.

But this Las Vegas slaughter is as about as near the straw breaking the proverbial camel's back for The Gadfly as it gets on the subject of our free-market gun society dear readers.

If you listened to some of the early videos of last night's Las Vegas shooting, what you heard on the audio of those videos was a war going on - you know the kind - the kind of war with that sadly too familiar bone-chilling sound -- that rat-a-tat-tat-tat . . . . on-and-on-and-on-and-on - seemingly endlessly.  Only this war was completely one-sided in nature and the outcome leaves no doubt about that fact.

The side that "won" this war on the infamous Vegas Strip last night was made up of a single individual.  This individual had a ready, locked and loaded arsenal of (latest reports put up to 20 guns, most long rifles - aka military style assault - in his possession) of extremely efficient weaponry -- the kind of weaponry that is manufactured with the principal purpose to kill and maim as many human being targets with the least amount of trigger pulls and in the greatest numbers possible.  They quite simply are weapons of war.  On the other side of this war you had tens of thousands of humans, out for a night in a glitzy, glamorous tourist hot spot, Las Vegas, just breezily enjoying life, soaking in their favorite music at an outdoor concert venue, dancing and laughing and enjoying time with friends and family and other humans.

And then the war started.  And the lives of those people who were just living their lives care free were changed forever.  Many of those lives were snuffed out in an instant - the instant that a randomly sprayed bullet from one of the other side's war machines blasted through someone's brain or tore a hole the size of a softball through someone else's chest or back.

Sigh . . . .

This IS NOT NORMAL folks.  This country has had 273 mass shootings this year.  Just this fucking year!!  No other modern democracy on the face of the planet comes close to the gun carnage this country sees on almost a daily basis.  The Gadfly will repeat his self -- This IS NOT NORMAL.

And for you NRA toadies and you gun fetish freaks who are trying to convince us all that this is normal and that it is simply the price that we all must be willing to pay, apparently at any random moment in time, for your stupid goddamn tree of liberty to be watered --- well The Gadfly is going to look every one of you in the eyeball and tell you straight up -- FUCK YOU!  Fuck your warped views of the 2nd amendment, fuck your glib dismissal of everyone else's right to live in a society where we aren't incessantly terrorized by a bunch of steroid, caffeine and nicotine hyped up, violence worshiping nut jobs who fancy themselves the modern day equivalent of the Minutemen holding off the British army at Lexington & Concord.

By the way -- do you know how many Americans were killed in that seminal Revolutionary war battle?  A grand total of 49.  That's right.  The British Army was able to kill only 49 Americans and injured another 39 in a military confrontation with a ragged colonial army that set the stage for America's breakaway independence from Great Britain.  Get that?  A whole fucking army was only able to kill 49 Americans in a day long, military battle on multiple fronts!  In Las Vegas, Nevada last night, one guy, in the span of about 5 minutes, from the comfort of a luxury hotel suite, is able to kill almost 60 people and injure more than 500.  Let that juxtaposition sink in for a minute or two.

This IS NOT NORMAL.

So that The Gadfly avoids mincing words any further here -- anyone who is telling you that this perpetual cycle of firearms inflicted human wreckage is normal -- and that it is something that you just need to learn to accept as being a red, white & blue byproduct of your exceptional American heritage -- well that individual is someone that is afflicted with a very seriously fucked up mind and an even more seriously fucked up soul.  And if you are a friend or a family member of The Gadfly and you are of that view, please don't ever share that viewpoint in direct conversation with The Gadfly, because The Gadfly will tell you quite unmistakably that you have a fucked up mind and a fucked up soul - he'll tell you that right to your face - even at the expense of irreparable harm to the personal relationship.  This is a non-negotiable issue with The Gadfly - period.

But The Gadfly is also, if anything, a realist.  Hell -- if the horrific and gruesomely bloody deaths of a 20 toddlers and 6 teachers in an elementary school room wasn't enough to motivate this country to do some serious soul searching and atone for it's societal negligence, then what's 12 dead in a movie theater, or 24 dead in a restaurant, or 32 dead in a college, or 49 dead in a nightclub -- or even 59 dead at a music concert going to do?  As long as it isn't the dearly loved one of Wayne LaPierre, or some NRA bought politician, or some firearms manufacturer CEO lying in a bullet-riddled, blood-soaked heap at one of these massacres right?  Out of sight, out of mind . . .

Unfortunately -- that's exactly where The Gadfly sees this nation's collective mental health state right now on this subject -- out of our fucking minds.  Out of our minds to allow a small, albeit loudmouth political organization like the NRA to tell all the rest of us, a clear majority incidentally, that we just need to accept their vision of a nightmare society where our communities have become hostages to fear from the prospect that some disgruntled or mentally disturbed psychopath, suddenly and without warning, decides he's going to pick that day, place and time to expertly exercise his 2nd amendment "right" to rid his immediate surroundings from humans that displease or annoy him.

It is long past time for we the people to demand that something tangible and lasting be done about this assault weapons insanity from our "leaders."  For if we continue with the apathy and the neglect and let's face it -- cowardice -- to allow the continued proliferation of these weapons of mass destruction in our society, then who is to say that the next public massacre, maybe it will be 80 dead, or 100 dead, is not our society reaping what we've sown, or in layman's terms - deserving of it?

And if you're one of these fence-sitters who just can't seem to take a side in this debate and you feel a bit squeamish about listening to the harangue of a dirty old liberal hippie like The Gadfly, then how about listening to what a highly decorated, United States Army General has to say on the subject:





The choice as to what kind of society your kids and grandkids grow up in dear readers is entirely your own at this point.  Get involved and make your voices heard -- and if should you consciously choose not to -- the next time that one of these massacres happens, just shut up and go about your business as usual - your opinion would pretty much be worth dirt at that point.





----TFG