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To get a better flavour for just how bizarrely stupid the latest blithering has become checkout The Atlantic’s annotated copy of the actual memorandum justifying the sacking.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/rosenstein-letter-annotated/526116/
First annotations links to two earlier articles complaining about the FBI head having broken rules to undermine Clinton campaign.
Side bars list numerous other current articles denouncing Trump for the sacking and suggesting it was to derail investigations of links to Russians,
Here’s editor David Frum (a speechwriter for George W Bush who came up with the “Axis of Evil”).
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/this-is-not-a-drill/526056/
Not only is Frum personally unable to imagine any reason for the FBI head to be sacked other than to thwart investigation of serious crimes, but he cannot imagine anyone else sincerely believing any such alternative.
Newt Gingrich offered a pretty plausible alternative explanation for sacking a while back:
““He has too much power to be as politically clever as he is.”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/03/21/gingrich-comey-has-too-much-power-to-be-as-politically-clever-as-he-is/
So it isn’t just Democrats and liberal media whose brains have melted. “Never Trump” Republicans like Frum have lost any capacity for rational analysis too.
Here’s Frum explaining that Trump’s getting an Obamacare repeal bill through the House of Representatives despite most Americans now supporting universal coverage will be a disaster for American healthcare, Republican electoral prospects and Trump personally – thus proving that Trump is irrational.
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/525522/how-the-obamacare-repeal-could-cost-republicans-the-house/
Even though Frum knows the bill cannot get through the Senate and there have been many comments from both sides explaining that Democrats supporting a Canadian/Australian style single payer system is the only viable outcome and even though Frump is a party apparatchik who must have learned to think tactically if not strategically — it just doesn’t occur to him to pause and wonder what he might have missed after proving that his own analysis relies on his opponent (who recently knocked off the entire establishment of his party), being irrational.
The effortlessness with which Trump gets his opponents galloping off in all directions does not require great genius or even subtlety and depth.
“The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”. (“Think like a billionaire”, 2004)
Its just that his opponents are so deeply, blitheringly shallow now that their heads have exploded that they cannot even grasp that much.
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Cannot keep up with the blithering enough to write another note yet.
But am stunned at how stupid the Democrats and media are being.
They are now fully and publicly committed to impeachment (despite efforts by Democrat leaders to slow that down). Democrat primaries will be dominated by candidates competing with each other on how much they hate Trump so it would be very hard for them not to impeach him when they get a majority in the House after 2018 midterms as is likely since Democrats are so riled up they will turn up to vote.
But they are still unlikely to get a majority in Senate (most of the one-third of seats that become vacant are already held by Democrats). No realistic chance of getting the 60% needed to pass legislation, let alone the two-thirds needed for impeachment to result in actual removal from office or to overide Presidential vetos.
Meanwhile there has been NO CHANGE in the complete absence of any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russians. Just an increase in Democrat hysteria.
So I have no plausible explanation other than stupidity for the joy with which they are greeting appointment of a special counsel to investigate.
Immediate effect would be to sideline the Congressional grandstanding and long term result could be turning attention to the crimes involved in the witchunt “leaks” and open promotion of an “intelligence community” coup d’etat.
I am reluctant to explain anything by sheer irrationality and stupidity but I currently see no other explanation and will have to keep studying before attempting to document that non-explanation.
My expectation is still that a Democrat majority in the House will give Trump a better chance than the present Republican majority of getting what he needs in order to win in 2020 – ie single payer health system replacing Obamacare, big infrastructure program and massive deficits.
Still looks like a large Trumpist party in House after 2018 with the Democrats competing with it by demanding more protectionism instead of just the rhetoric Trump has delivered so far.
Harder now for Republicans to avoid being primaried by Trumpists with or without Trump’s overt support.
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First report of US air support for Syrian revolutionaries fighting regime.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/US-Coalition-Jets/2017/05/18/id/790971/
Hopefully continuation along these lines will eventually end the remaining ambiguity of the cruise missile response to use of chemical weapons and confirm that the US is now at war with the Syrian regime.
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Some sane commentary:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/not-every-scandal-is-a-magic-bullet-and-the-hysteria-is-helping-trump/news-story/bcb491ddafc315dd8e30a05a8ce753b1
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First item of sane commentary I have seen from a Democrat analyst:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/24/democrats-fixated-on-trump-russia-scandal-commentary.html
Doesn’t actually spell out that Trump’s behaviour can be understood as intended to encourage the Democrats and their media to do exactly what they are doing – but close enough that this “young turk” probably does get that.
So I am relieved that I don’t have to assume that ALL Democrat analysts are stupid, Its still problematic that those who aren’t are stuck with the same problem I have – that we don’t have a more plausible explanation for their behaviour other than mind boggling stupidity, which is never a satisfactory “explanation”.
Still no interest displayed in the equally obvious likely impact on Republican primaries and consequent entirely different political situation from 1919 with a large Trumpist party in the House.
Points more strongly to Democrat split. Likely result would be that many of the Democrats that replace Republicans in 2018 will be from siilar views to the “young turk” since winning Republican held seats requires candidates who can appeal to Trump voters. On the other hand some of the Democrat establishment in “deep blue” seats will be primaried by anti-Trump hysterics.
That sets the scene for two wings of Democrats in 1919, bitterly hostile to each other and with one of them willing to join with Trumpist “Reoublicans” for programs they and their voters support such as single payer health care and big infrastructure programs and deficits.
As even David Frum understands, that could result in an economic climate conducive to a second term for Trump in 2020:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/
(Frum’s more recent stuff falls straight into the same trap as the Democrats in blithering insanely about Russia in the hope of an intelligence community led coup. But this early piece from a Republican “Never Trumper” has some of the sort of serious analysis one would expect from an experienced apparatchik, together with some of the hysteria that developed later along with the panic).
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