State Of The Union(s)

Emmanuel MACRON: 'Please don't go'
Angela MERKEL: 'You know I don't need translation when you talk to me that way'
Donald TRUMP: 'I should build a wall between these two. Maybe Russia will pay for it, I'll ask Vlad'
Melania TRUMP: 'Did I pick the right vert-de-gris color? The mustard of my pollution mask matched so well, but after the colonial helmet disaster in Kenya, my staff advised against keeping it on'
...

This great shot (by François MORI / AP) tells a lot about how differently close two couples can be, even when each member is only one chair apart from their partner.

But don't get fooled. Merkel is on the way out, Macron remains dangerously low in the polls, and both are likely to receive major blows at the upcoming European elections. If Donald Trump lost the House, he did increase his control where it mattered most over the past few weeks: the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Without any moral leadership in sight (R.I.P. McCain, Flake, Corker), GOP lawmakers remain totally under his spell. They didn't lift a finger when Trump fired Jeff Sessions to illegally elevate to acting A.G. an open critic of Robert Mueller's Russia probe (Matt Whitaker), when Rod Rosenstein was supposed to get the position.

Democracy is losing ground to nationalism, extremism, hatred. And in this world of strongmen, the free world doesn't have any strong leader in sight. 

But we do see and hear swarms of them. We do see inspiring new faces taking a stand for human rights or gun control, strengthening diversity in Congress. We do hear powerful voices, that resonate even more when they're silenced (Anna Politkovskaya and Jamal Khashoggi had Vladimir Putin and MBS expose themselves as murdering despots).

And sometimes, we do see a majority of citizens cast a ballot against the destructive tide.

blogules 2018
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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We will build a firewall, or America will pay for it

Everybody knows that Donald Trump, obstructing justice in plain sight and tweets, tries to get rid of Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation he brought upon himself.

Everybody knows that Trump could fire the special counsel, but would then face a backlash tenfold more damaging than the one following James Comey's eviction. He tried to sic his lawyers on Mueller, and to have AG Rod Rosenstein recuse himself, but can't wait to have a friendly, unrecusable, and unbeleaguered successor to Jeff Sessions to stop, torpedo, or at least hack into the investigation. 

Everybody knows that Trump doesn't want to own Session's departure, and bullies him into resigning. So far, he only succeeded in drawing more support for his AG, even from his fiercest enemies.

So here's Trump's latest not-so-subtle attempt: reviving Session's sulfurous past to make him despicable enough to everyone that counts, except of course to their common white supremacist base. Asking Jeff Sessions to solve racial discrimination is like asking Scott Pruitt to solve climate change - recipe for disaster of biblical proportions (BTW tighten your Bible belt on that one).

"Obviously, #Trump tries to use #JeffSessions' #WhiteSupremacy past to put him on an even hotter seat and discard him" (CNN: "NYT: Trump administration prepares to investigate 'race-based discrimination')" (20170802 - twitter.com/stephanemot/status/892624598654701568)

In the same nauseating breath, and as usual, Trump sparks outrage in a new direction to out-do the outrage surrounding his own persona. Huffington Post's Chris York went as far as to suggest that the Anthony Scaramucci comedia del arte was part of a plot to divert attention from Bill Browder's key testimony*.

ICYMI during his hearing at the Senate, Browder exposed the Putin system that killed Sergei Magnitsky, connecting many dots in the Russiagate: Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort attended a meeting that not only aimed at helping a foreign power influence the US elections, but also at serving the wealthiest man on Earth, the capo di tutti capi, and ultimate corruptor, Vladimir Putin. Repealing and replacing the Magnitsky act is not about improving adoption, but about saving Putin's business. And we're not talking about superrich emirates bribing their way into the West to gain influence, but about an autocrat determined to destroy Western democracies.

Everybody knows that Trump, his family, and friends, are almost openly corrupting the US democracy in ways that reach far beyond money (even if, right on cue, Mueller team announced that Greg Andres, an expert in foreign bribery**, would join the investigation).

Everybody knows that the GOP sold its soul to the devil, and can't kick the can down the road endlessly. 

At least, not all GOP lawmakers remain "Speechless": Jeff Flake delivered a courageous mea culpa for his party's - and his own - shameless denials and betrayals. 

I must digress here, because Flake waited until after the failed Trumpcare vote to take a stand, and I have to say something about someone who played a pivotal role in this vote. I was sad to learn about John McCain's health, and even sadder to see this old lion disgrace himself once more by voting for the House's s..t of paper (he sank much deeper in 2008 by pledging allegiance to the Discovery Institute, and later by picking Sarah Palin). McCain's (final?) thumb down showed that he cared, and not just about his legacy. 

McCain also happens to be the strongest voice around against Putin.

If the sanctions against Russia put some important issues on paper, they're just indirect measures against enemies of the State Trump and Putin. They cowardly expose how much trust GOP lawmakers have in Trump, who reluctantly signed it while declaring it unconstitutional (ironically, by signing, he was precisely, and for a change, preserving the constitution). Impicitely, the GOP recognized a man who doesn't want the buck to stop here, but in Moscow.

These sanctions are a timid start, but America must build a much stronger wall to save itself from Trump and Putin. Indeed, we must build a firewall, or America will pay for it.

blogules 2017
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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* "Bill Browder’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing Could Explain Anthony Scaramucci’s Bizarre Behaviour" (Huffington Post UK - 20170731) 
** "Greg Andres: Latest lawyer appointed to join Robert Mueller's Russia investigation team has background in foreign bribery" (Independent - 20170802)

Speechless

Imagine just for one second the reaction of GOP lawmakers if we replaced in the news Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and Devin Nunes with Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and Adam Schiff.

Everybody would chant 'lock'em up', and demand the immediate resignation / impeachment for agents of Putin and Russia who blatantly betray the nation. Instead, all Republicans but John McCain cower away, scared s..tless (beyond speechless) by The Bully In Chief, a Breitbart Attack, or the perspective of Alt-right Primaries.

Garry Kasparov nailed it best last week, mocking the way some fuel Trump's fake news on wiretapping instead of focusing on the outrageous case being investigated:

Garry Kasparov: 'The house is on fire, Trump is running around with a box of matches, and the GOP demands to know who called the fire department' (20170321)

With the help of Nunes, and the complicity of Paul Ryan and GOP representatives not ashamed one bit by their bruising Trumpcare fiasco, The Donald manages to survive yet another day.

Better: he keeps alienating moderates by pushing all the hardest buttons at the same time. What could you expect from a man who picked a racist for Justice (Jeff Sessions), a Russian agent for the NSA (Mike Flynn), or a climate change denier for the EPA (Scott Pruitt)?

Will the Senate intel committee fare any better? Richard Burr and Mark Warner seem a bit more serious about their investigation, and maybe GOP Senators want to send a message to their House friends: get your speech together if you want to make progress on any non hidden agenda.

In France, at least, things are getting a bit more transparent: on the nepotism side, Penelope Fillon has offically been charged, and on the mole side, Marine Le Pen has officially posed with Vladimir Putin himself.

blogules 2017
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)

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