A team of doctors has been rushed to Capitol Hill to analyze House Speaker Mike Johnson's curious absence of a spine. They were called after Johnson refused to install a plaque honoring the police officers injured during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"It was just the latest in a series of spineless acts," explained one doctor. "It appears he has no spine, but some cartilage like a shark. Curiously, that cartilage only hardens when it hears Donald Trump's voice."

The speeches by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth before a compelled in-person meeting with all our nation’s admirals and generals properly have been criticized on many grounds: improperly shifting the military mission to internal threats, explicitly declaring our cities as dangers to be met with military tactics, and rambling political diatribes irrelevant to our non-partisan military. One other item, however, deserves mention—the wholesale misuse of merit as the rationale for some of Trump’s most egregious policies.

The battle of Trump v. Musk is a bit like Godzilla v. Mothra. Cheer for Tokyo, and hope the monsters take it out on each other.

It also can be compared to Alien v. (Sexual) Predator, but who is which?

Songs start with a familiar tune. In this case it's One Night in Bangkok. Then you start seeing how it should change.

Thigh-land, Oriental setting

And the Prez don't know that the Prez is saying

The creme de la creme of political worlds 

In a show with everything, and this loser
Time flies. Doesn't seem a minute

Since Yo Semite was how he stepped in it
(edit here)
One night in Thigh-land makes an orange man stumble

Not much D'Souza can try to save

One night in Thigh-land and the fake guys tumble

Can't be too careful with the words you say
I can feel covfefe walking next to me
Siam's gonna be the witness

To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness
.
(edit here)
Get thai'd, he's a presidential tourist

Whose every move's is hardly purest

I get my kicks below the waistline, sunshine
(edit here)
One night in Bangkok makes fake tough guys grumble

Get the British Open for his company

I can feel corruption walking next to me.
(gong)

(AP) Axios reported today that President Donald Trump confessed to being the thought-to-be-dead comedian Andy Kaufman.

Trump/Kaufman confessed the charade when confronted by a reporter at a rally in the Wheeling, West Virginia, sports arena.

"It was backstage here in early 1984 when the opportunity presented itself," he recalled. "Donald Trump has just done some wrestling cameos for the McMahons. I came to the dressing rooms to see Freddie Blassie, and found Trump preparing to disappear to South America with his porn star girlfriend."

"A circus had been here and left behind some orange clown make-up, a bad wig, some long red ties. Before you knew it, I had a character," said Kaufman.

"I'd already been planning my own fake death, so I just incorporated it into my plans. I've always had short fingers so people never noticed the change."

"The more I gave clues in 2016 that it was all a mindless game, the more my, or his, vote total grew. It went from being the best hoax in America to the best hoax in the history of the world."

Kaufman/Trump then slipped into his Latka Gravas voice and said "Thank you very much, America, covfefe. That's the news this April first."

Like many of you, I’m terribly disturbed by what’s happening to Latin American refugees at our southern border. In doing a little research, I was shocked to find out that there are numerous companies that have sprung up, and which are each making many tens of millions of dollars a year based on a business model that literally requires immigrant family breakups. These companies are being given massive incentives by the Trump administration to delay and deny immigrant parents’ reunification with their children. I have a new blog post up about what I found HERE.

Also, FYI, I’m back on Twitter after a prolonged absence and would love to connect there with any and all other KnoxViews-ers. You’ll find me @thekatieallison

@realDonaldTrump 12/2/17 12:14pm

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

Add common sense to things endangered by Trump

Common sense joins democracy, decency, humanity and elephants as being threatened by our current administration.

Sen. Bob Corker (865) 637-4180
Sen. Lamar Alexander (865) 545-4253

The bill hideously redistributes upwards and is wildly unpopular.

From ITEP below -

The tax bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee on Nov. 16 would raise taxes on at least 29 percent of Americans and cause the populations of 19 states to pay more in federal taxes in 2027 than they do today. The lowest-earning three-fifths of Americans would pay more on average in federal taxes, while the top 40 percent on average would receive a tax cut. The bill would increase the deficit because of the substantial tax breaks it would provide to the wealthy and to foreign investors who own stocks in American corporations and who would therefore benefit from the bill’s corporate tax cuts.

In 2027, the richest 1 percent of Americans would receive an average tax cut of more than $9,000 while the bottom three-fifths of income earners would face an average tax hike of $160. In some states, low- and middle-income earners would have larger average tax increases.

From CBO below -

The Congressional Budget Office and JCT’s staff have analyzed the distributional effects of those changes in spending using income categories consistent with JCT’s analysis. In calendar year 2021, for example, those excluded amounts would total about $19 billion:
$18 billion less spending for Medicaid,
$4 billion less spending for cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments,
$1 billion less spending for the Basic Health Program (BHP), and
$4 billion more spending for Medicare because of changes in payments to hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients.

Mark Harmon: Watergate-style plain speaking needed now

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross benefits from business ties to Putin’s inner circle

One offshore web leads to Trump’s commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.

The new files come from two offshore services firms as well as from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in jurisdictions that serve as waystations in the global shadow economy. The leaks were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries.
...
In the United States, the files reveal personal or corporate offshore ties of key Trump associates who are charged with helping to put “America First.”

The Appleby files show how Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, has used a chain of Cayman Islands entities to maintain a financial stake in Navigator Holdings, a shipping company whose top clients include the Kremlin-linked energy firm Sibur. Among Sibur’s key owners are Kirill Shamalov, Putin’s son-in-law, and Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire the U.S. government sanctioned in 2014 because of his links to Putin. Sibur is a major customer of Navigator, paying the company more than $23 million in 2016.

When he joined Trump’s Cabinet, Ross divested his interests in 80 companies. But he kept stakes in nine companies, including the four that connect him to Navigator and its Russian clients.

There isn't a planet B. Or perhaps there is and it is shaking in its asthenosphere that we will find it...
It binds us all regardless of ethnicity, wealth, creed and religion doesn't it?

Further Reading
Bill McKibben in the Rolling Stone - Terrifying New Math

Old scars, new wounds via SELC - Coal Mining in the Cumberlands

Tatiana Schlossberg in the NYT - 2 Tennessee Cases Bring Coal’s Hidden Hazard to Light

Brian Resnick at Vox - The March for Science on Earth Day, explained

Steve Horn at Desmog - Thousands of Emails from Oklahoma Office of Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt Published

Jonathan Mattise, AP
Private Prison Firm Sees Trump Immigration Push Opportunity

The United States' largest private prison operator said it can provide the additional detention facilities that will likely be needed under President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration. In an earnings call this week, CoreCivic President/CEO Damon Hininger identified the possible opportunity to grow its detention business with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
------
Nashville-based CoreCivic, formerly named Corrections Corporation of America, saw its stock price plummet when the Obama administration announced in August that the Justice Department would wind down private prison use. A Justice Department audit at the time said there were more safety and security problems at privately run prison operations.

ICE contracts with private prison groups were unaffected by the policy shift.

The day after Trump's election, CoreCivic saw its shares on the New York Stock Exchange climb 43 percent. Shares of another private prison firm, Geo Group, also increased 21 percent.

Flynn was busted by own force monitoring. WaPo story citing nine sources. NYT citing transcripts of calls. Does Jimmy Duncan consider Flynn a kook? If not, why not?

By Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima in the WaPo
National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say

“They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Pence said in an interview with CBS News last month, noting that he had spoken with Flynn about the matter. Pence also made a more sweeping assertion, saying there had been no contact between members of Trump’s team and Russia during the campaign. To suggest otherwise, he said, “is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

Neither of those assertions is consistent with the fuller account of Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak provided by officials who had access to reports from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies that routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats. Nine current and former officials, who were in senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Greg Miller adding comment from admin late last night -

Just adding admin comment on Pence/Flynn: "An administration official stressed that VP Pence based his comments on his convo with Gen Flynn"

Matthew Rosenberg and Matt Apuzzo in the NYT
Flynn Is Said to Have Talked to Russians About Sanctions Before Trump Took Office

Trump has downgraded Gen. Dunford's role as Joint Chiefs Chair and upgraded Steven Bannon, a white ethno-nationalist who calls himself a Leninist who wants to destroy the state, to a regular seat on the NSC principals committee.

Meanwhile procedural and legal norms are breaking down. The Muslim ban EO written by Bannon was issued without consultation with the government's operational side. When the operational side had comment it was ignored. An EO by the way that no one in counterterrorism pushed for.
Congressional silence on the immigration EO fiasco is deafening. It is complicity in a constitutional crisis.

For stark contrast recall when BHO was elected and the preppping industry exploded because some believed he was going to take all their guns, send people to re-education camps etc. during the mayhem of the "Barackalypse".

By Philip Rucker, David Filipov in the WaPo -
Trump orders ISIS plan, talks with Putin and gives Bannon national security role

Counseling Trump in the effort will be Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist whose influence inside the administration is expanding far beyond politics. In a separate presidential memo, Trump reorganized the National Security Council to, along with other changes, give Bannon a regular seat on the principals committee — the meetings of the most senior national security officials, including the secretaries of defense and state.

That memo also states that the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will sit on the principals committee only when the issues to be discussed pertain to their “responsibilities and expertise.” In the previous two administrations, both were included as regular attendees.

See also - J. Weston Phippen in the Atlantic -
Trump Gives Stephen Bannon Access to the National Security Council

The WaPo ran a story last Friday 12/9 that reported on a closed door briefing in September for Congressional leaders in which CIA officials stated the agency had a high confidence that Russia worked to help Trump become president by interfering in the presidential election.
Lede graph

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter

Links below to papers of record, various writers and links to German press reporting on potential Russian involvement in German elections.

Further reading
Kurt Eichenwald in Newsweek - Why Vladimir Putin's Russia is backing Donald Trump

ABC News Benjamin Siegel - Bipartisan Senate Group Calls for Probe of Russian Hacking in US

WaPo by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller
Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

David Sanger and Scott Shane in the NYT - Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says

Emptywheel - The Evidence to Prove the Russian Hack

Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept - Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence

Michael Tomasky in the Daily Beast - World War III: Democrats and America vs. Trump and Russia

Frankfurter Allgemeine (translator needed) - Security crisis - Russia hacked secret Parlimentary files

How can ANYBODY vote for this guy?

Or this one?