blogules

Showing posts with label Robert Mueller. Show all posts

20190419

Mueller Time: Trump is guilty, but I was not allowed to prosecute him

If we have yet to see the full Mueller Report, we can already confirm many elements. I'll list them just like I did after the infamous Barr 'Summary' (see "Muellerxit before more Easter Eggs?"):

- this may be a final report, but certainly not a conclusion: Mueller invites the Congress to dig further, and mentions 14 cases stemming from it, 12 of which have been masked by A.G. William Barr
- collusion: the Trump campaign sought help from Russians, and Russians proposed help to the Trump campaign, but at a legal level, a crime from Trump and his mob can't be established- obstruction of justice: Donald Trump has constantly been trying to obstruct justice, but most of the time failed, because people around him managed to prevent that. This also means that occasionally, he succeeded. Which is equivalent to say that he his guilty.
- so why did Mueller decide not to do the logical thing, and to prosecute Trump? only because of a controversial Office of Legal Counsel position stating that a sitting president can't prosecuted by the DoJ. Mueller mentions the possibility for the Congress to seek impeachment, or for the DoJ to wait for the end of Trump's immunity.

In other words: I think Trump is guilty, but I'm not allowed to prosecute him myself, yet the Congress has the power and the constitutional duty to investigate and consider impeachment.

Expect Democrats to do just that, but in a highly explosive context:

- most people who prevented Trump from breaking the law have either been discarded or about to be purged, in the White House as well at the DoJ, with William Barr acting as Trump's personal attorney, instead of as the US Attorney General. Obstruction of justice has been beefed up by obstruction by justice!
- Trump propaganda and Barr's spin have already altered the public's perception of the whole investigation
- 2020 elections are tomorrow, and no GOP lawmaker seeking reelection is willing to fight Trump and thus certainly lose even their Republican primaries.

Bob Mueller's testimony in Congress will be the next big moment.

Beyond that, the following weeks and months will be crucial, particularly when and if we know more about the 12 cases Barr doesn't want us to see, but probably showed to his boss nonetheless.

blogules 2019
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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20190325

Muellerxit before more Easter Eggs?

Robert Mueller delivered his report to William Barr, who quickly released a 4-page letter to the Congress that sounds like a victory for Donald Trump, but not so much considering the fact that it confirms, between the lines, that:

- Russia did interfere with the 2016 elections, and in favor of Donald Trump
- Russia was in touch with the Trump campaign to help them win the elections
- conspiration or collaboration couldn't be 'established', meaning there were not enough evidence to prove such crimes beyond a shadow of a doubt from a legal point of view (a broader - including political - definition of 'collusion' could still apply)
- Mueller had evidence of obstruction of justice; not enough to legally prove the crime beyond a shadow of a doubt, but enough to say the president himself couldn't be exonerated.
- If at this stage, Mueller couldn't guarantee the cases to win in court, it doesn't mean that his report is harmless at the political level. And regardless of what the DOJ decides to do after this report, Mueller confirms that there are evidences against Trump and his campaign, material that could be used if some other case or new elements were to pop up, particularly since the Special Counsel didn't interview Trump about what happened after the elections, leaving that up to potential further investigation (starting from Democrat-led committees).

Robert Mueller already knew very well William Barr and his positions, and guessed what he would try to make of his report. If Mueller has a personal conviction that Trump and/or his campaign are guilty, he will have done the necessary to let open key entry points into the mass he piled up, and bet on other channels to bring more prosecutions, or political condemnations. We know he already transferred many Easter Eggs to collateral investigations.

As we wait for more details about the true content of the report, my only question is: did Rod Rosenstein collaborate with Barr and Trump, or with justice and Mueller? Did he clinch, months ago, a deal with Trump by trading Mueller's safety for some leniency regarding the White House's stonewalling strategy?

blogules 2019
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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20190101

Happy New Year 2020

It's that time of the year*, and I have no choice but to wish you a happy next year, considering what's going to happen in 2019:

January 2019
During their first week in charge, House Democrats issue a combined 3,320 subpoenas (over 500 each for Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings, Jerrold Nadler, Maxine Waters, and Richard Neal) for past and present members of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Robert Mueller starts investigating GOP lawmakers blackmailed with kompromat by Putin and Trump. Lindsey Graham, Devin Nunes, and other powerful figures abruptly flee for Brazil, where Jair Bolsonaro grants them political asylum.

February 2019
Facing prison charges, Benjamin Netanyahu takes the first plane for Brasilia.

March 2019
No blessing from lawmakers, no referendum, no deal, but no no Brexit either: the UK crashes out of the Union with the only consolation that Theresa May will no longer be in 10 Downing Street (the building being sold to pay part of the EUR 55 bn fine, the PM moves in 221B Baker Street). Boris Johnson parades at the 2019 Rio Carnival on the Monstrosity float:

April 2019
The day Akihito abdicates, Nippon Kaigi and Shinzo Abe have Naruhito, Akishino, and Hisahito murdered to install on the throne an obscure member of the Imperial Family compliant with their lifetime dream to restore fascism. At Japan's top military academy, the new Emperor welcomes his first Head of State with a vibrant homage: 'we do have a lot to learn from people like Jair Bolsonaro'.

May 2019
Vladimir Putin wins the European Elections in every single member state, the Gilets Jaunes Party claiming 41% of the ballot in France, and Marine Le Pen's movement 33%.

June 2019
In North Korea, Mount Paektu explodes, allowing KIM Jong-un to get six more unnoticed nuclear tests before going on a trek along the Amazon river, joined by Bashar al Assad the time for chemical weapons to dissipate across Kurdistan.

July 2019
Metoo: France wins the Women's FIFA World Cup at home just days after five players of the male team get jailed for domestic abuse.

August 2019
Coldest month of August on record: global warming takes a short pause thanks to Korea's nuclear winter.

September 2019
The day Mike Pence is forced to quit by Mueller Probe revelations, Donald Trump is impeached. Nancy Pelosi is sworn in, with Vice President Beto O'Rourke by her side. Jeff Flake declares his candidacy for 2020, then withdraws after being spotted in the same elevator as Brett Kavanaugh.

October 2019
At long last, Vladimir Putin wins the Nobel Peace Prize for restoring eternal peace in Syria.

November 2019
Only the third asset collapse of the year for China, but XI Jinping still believes he can, like the US, pull a fifth one by the end of the year.

December 2019
Carlos Ghosn is re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-arrested. Japan gives up all hope of getting a confession from him, and extradite the Brazilian back home, where Jair The First puts him in charge of the merger of Brazil with Hungary.

blogules 2019
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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20181113

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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20180430

Donald Trump: "I never lie, I just invent my own truth"

blogules: 'Thank you for accepting this interview in your Mar-a-Lago lair.'
Donald J. Trump: 'You know I'm getting tired of Fox News, and I can't accept interviews with fake news anymore. I totally trust your self-proclaimed Weapons of Mass Disinformation, and I liked your one-on-ones with KIM Jong-un* or Macron** for your Agence Fausse Presse.'
b: 'You spend between one quarter and one third of your time in this Florida White House. Don't you like the original?'
DJT: 'Problem is I don't own 1600 Penn Ave yet. What I can do is transform this place into a profitable landmark. Fees have already tripled, we overcharge taxpayers tens of millions for security detail, and people will pay fortunes to visit Mar-a-Lago after 2036.'
b: 'Why 2036? You expect to die when you're 90?'
DJT: 'Of course not, I'm in an amazing shape, and will live longer than 250 years, according to my physicians Ronnie Jackson and Harold Bornstein, who signed the diagnostics I dictated them. I simply plan to retire after my second series of two mandates but for that, Mike Pence will have to pull me a Medvedev between 2024 and 2028.'
b: 'Why not change the Constitution to pull us a XI Jinping instead, and become president for life? Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg may not even survive your first term.'
DJT: 'I like your way of thinking. Indeed, we're doing a tremendous job at destroying US institutions, and justice is where we've been the most efficient so far.'
b: 'If it weren't for that Russia Probe...'
DJT: 'Total witch hunt. There's no collusion, all the rumors are fake, the ties between Manafort and Russia, Flynn and Putin, my whole campaign team and Sergei Kislyak, me and the Russian mafia...'
b: 'First time I hear about that last one.'
DJT: 'Vladimir's mole at the New York Times thinks they'll publish a scoop pretty soon about it, but that's a complete fabrication. Something to do with real estate, which is impossible: I've never been into this business.'
b: 'Come on, that's an outrageous lie.'
DJT: 'I never lie, I just invent my own truth. You know, something I learned from Dr Norman Vincent Peale is that if you don't like facts, you just have to repeat to yourself what you want to hear, and you soon believe it completely. I would pass all lie detector tests with flying colors. I know I would, because I practice every day for the moment Robert Mueller calls me in.'
b: 'I noticed behind your desk this original Time Magazine cover, featuring you as Man Of The Year for winning the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. Isn't that a bit too much?'
DJT: 'Yuge, but I'm bigger than truth. And I deserve these awards, just like I deserved each and every one of my Academy Awards - by the way my favorite is for 'Titanic', an epic about the GOP. See what I've achieved with North Korea?'
b: 'Well you accepted the dictator's invitation, which all your predecessors refused, and by doing so, you helped KIM Jong-un save his own bacon, get a lifeline from XI.'
DJT: 'Maybe, but I scared him big time. Hell, I scare everybody. Believe me, I'd do anything to get this Nobel Peace Price - I'd nuke the hell out of Iran, Japan, you name it.'
b: 'Japan is a US ally...'
DJT: '... and Shinzo is a great guy. We have many Nazi friends in common, and he knows how to lose gracefully when we play golf. But Japan is cheating us bigly with trade. They don't buy as many US cars as we buy Japanese cars.'
b: 'But many of these Japanese cars are made in the US, and American cars are not competitive in quality and design.'
DJT: 'I know, that's why all my Trump cars are made in China. But Vlad asked me to demolish all international treaties. Plus my voters love to see me whack a mole everyday, and hear them scream.'
b: 'Do you think you can win again in 2020?'
DJT: 'Of course I will. Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica are still helping me, and I instructed my administration to do nothing to prevent Vladimir from further screwing our system. Even if they didn't need to be briefed, because they already receive monthly payments from Moscow, who as you can imagine has dirt on many members of Congress.'
b: 'So no collusion, right?'
DJT: 'No collusion whatsoever between me and American values. I'm here to destroy this nation, and Make Amerika Great Again, so sue me.'
b: 'If I do, who'll represent you, now that Michael Cohen is in trouble?'
DJT: 'Rudy Giuliani would take a bullet for me. Michael Cohen said he would, but now I'm not so sure. Anyway if Mike flips, I'll tweet him to death - that's what I call flipping the bird. And if tweets are not enough, our old mobster friends will carve nice concrete shoes for him to fertilize the Hudson River along with Jimmy Hoffa.'
b: 'Your friends are falling one by one around you, and most of the time you're the one pulling the trigger. How long can you keep that pace?'
DJT: 'You'd be surprised to see how many people are willing to experience their 15 minutes of shame. I already fished scores of them from the worst trashcans, and you haven't seen the bottom of it.'
b: 'So far, we've seen quite a few bottoms, but no swamp draining.'
DJT: 'Come on - crazy Stormy Daniels, phony Karen McDougal, that's ridiculous. Me having an affair with a porn star or a Playmate, can you imagine that?'
b: 'As much as it makes me nauseous, I can: you were a regular at Heffner's Playboy Mansion, and even made a cameo in a soft porn movie.'
DJT: 'That was long before I became Evangelical, and met Mike Pence. You know, this guy is such a religious fanatic that he already experienced a third coming.'
b: 'Actually, your Veep does have three kids.'
DJT: 'And they're smart kids. Of course not as smart as mine. My kids inherited my stable genius genes, and like me, went to nice schools because their father was smart enough to make nice gifts to nice schools.'
b: 'Your father made your own career possible with his money and connections. You couldn't have succeeded in New York real estate all by yourself.'
DJT: 'Everybody says I'm a genius in real estate, one like the world has never seen before.'
b: 'But five minutes ago, you said you'd never been in that business. And I noticed that you even tweeted it for good measure.'
DJT: 'That's a hoax. The only real estate project I'm interested in is The Wall.'
b: 'Will it ever be erected?'
DJT: 'Already done, look at these pictures.'
b: '... Impressive... Looks like a 3,000 mile long Mt Rushmore with your face reproduced a billion times on it. How come no one has ever seen it?'
DJT: 'There was a fantastic article about it in the National Enquirer, by the great John Barron.'
b: 'Isn't John Barron your alias when you call the media?'
DJT: 'John is not that great, but we get well together. Me, I never call the media. Frankly? I never watch the media, they're all fake news.'
b: 'And you don't attend White House Correspondents' Dinners.'
DJT: 'Did you see that nasty woman on stage? Michelle Wolf? I was watching her...'
b: 'Because you never watch the media.'
DJT: '... and I asked myself if Hillary were president - by the way she's not because I won the unwinnable election, remember how awesome that was? - if Crooked Hillary were president, would this Wolf bite that nastily?'
b: 'I think, for starters, that President Clinton would have had the guts to attend the meeting, and as usual, to face her critics. And that she would have laughed her best Kate McKinnon laughter while swallowing the bitter pill.'
DJT: 'She's a loser. She enjoys it. You know, the WHCD I went to? Barack Obama and Seth Meyers were so nasty to me, I promised never to get back. Obama can be very nasty. Did you know that he fired Comey?'
b: 'What? You fired James Comey!'
DJT: 'Wrong. I never fire anybody. I pretended to during 'The Apprentice', just like I pretended to be a businessman, but the fact is that in real life, I don't know much about business, and I can't tell anyone 'you're fired'. I always do it by proxy, or via tweet, or I bully the guy until he resigns.'
b: 'Deep down, you're a coward.'
DJT: 'If I'm a coward, what does that make of Republicans supposed to guarantee checks and balances in this country?'

'Regardless of how Kim Jong-un plays Moon Jae-in, MJI sure knows how to play Trump (sce CNN):' (20180429 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/990464140513689600)

blogules 2018
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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* "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un - Season III" (March 2018), "EXCLUSIVE-Second interview with KIM Jong-un" (February 2017), "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un" (December 2013)
** voir "Macron en mode G.I." (April 2018)

20180201

The nuclear option

Devin Nunes proves, once again with the help of Paul Ryan, that he would do anything to defend Donald Trump and torpedo the Russia Probe. And just like last year, his fellow GOP lawmakers seem ready to remain complicitly "speechless" (I seriously wonder how much kompromat Putin and his friends have on these guys).

This time, Nunes, who had to recuse himself from the case (a 'nothing burger' that already produced at least two guilty pleas from campaign members), wrote a dangerously misleading memo denounced by the very man Trump chose to replace James Comey: new FBI chief Christopher Wray warned the White House that this memo shouldn't be published. As if it weren't enough, Adam Schiff revealed that Nunes edited it without consulting the committee.

Like the POTUS he so desperately wants to protect, Devin Nunes acts guilty in a such blatant way it would be laughable if so much weren't at stake. US democracy is under attack, and Trump is seriously considering the mother of all diversions: preemptive strikes on North Korea.

Victor Cha toyed with the concept (see "Alert!") before refusing to be the Ambassador in charge of evacuating tens of thousands of US citizens from the peninsula.

Let's be clear: there is no guarantee preemptive strikes would incapacitate Kim Jong-un's nuclear program, and there is no scenario where they wouldn't lead to mass destruction in Seoul and South Korea. We're talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of victims.

Normally, there shouldn't be any scenario where Nunes and Trump avoided impeachment. We know that Republicans won't lift a finger before mid-term elections, but the gimchi is expected to hit the fan long before that - White House hawks seem willing to strike after the Pyeongchang olympics.

Brace for a funeral March.

blogules 2018
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)

20171217

Happy New Year 2019

It's that time of the year, and for the 21st time*, I have no choice but to wish you a happy next year, considering what's going to happen in 2018:

January 2018:
Full mailbox for Donald Trump on the morning of the 20th: 1 letter congratulating him for his first year in office (From Russia With Love, signed by The Former Spy Who Still Loves You), 457 letters of resignation from White House staffers who completed the full year required for their résumés, 3,580 letters of candidacy from child molesters with the required KKK kredentials.

February 2018:
As announced, the US wait until the end of the Pyeongchang Olympics to launch preemptive strikes against North Korea. The new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, 'apologizes' for not including the Paralympics: 'Our bad, but thanks to us, people with disabilities will have even more airtime'. If all targets are destroyed, they only represented a fraction of Kim Jong-un's arsenal, and Seoul is destroyed minutes after the first strike. By the end of the day, the whole peninsula is flattened. Hundreds of millions of Americans will only learn months later that, in retaliation, they've been poisoned by chemicals spread in their water systems by sleeping cells.

March 2018:

Science: the Russia Probe is successfully sent to Mars by the GOP Congress.

April 2018:
As asset bubbles keep popping, World Leaders convene in Moscow around a freshly reelected Vladimir Putin. Xi, Erdogan, Abe, Duterte, Modi, Trump, and their friends agree to focus on the reforms that should have remained their only priority: undermining their respective democracies.

May 2018:
Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle dressed as a Minion, the mildest set she could find in his collection of Nazi uniforms, Stormtrooper gears, and Britain First Party costumes.

June 2018:
Saudi women are allowed to drive, but only driverless cars that are fully covered with an opaque burqa.

July 2018:
Not a single goal scored during the whole FIFA World Cup in Russia... an unexpected consequence of net neutrality.

August 2018:
From al Qaeda to ISIS to Idiotheocracy: the latest terror franchise to rise from the ashes of the precedent one has further dumbed down the message of fundamentalism to the most basic grunts, facilitating the merger with extremists from other religions. Their propaganda videos soon go viral among hardcore Teletubbies fans.

September 2018:
The POTUS realizes that trying to cast away investigations against him didn't work: Robert Mueller (from Mars), and Trump's victims of sexual harassment (from Venus) manage to revive the threats of impeachment. Looking for new diversions, DJT reveals the plans of the future US Embassy in East Jerusalem, inaugurates statues of the Klan Founders in the Rose Garden, and starts WWIV against Iran.

October 2018:
As soon as Theresa May resigns, the British Pound spikes to 312,788 Bitcoin, that's to say one millionth of a zimbabwean dollar, or the equivalent of half a second of work in North Korean slave wages.

November 2018:
Landslide victory for Mainstream Republicans at the mid-term elections: 'Our top donors kindly rewarded us for the generous tax cuts we offered them', triumphes Mitch McConnell. 'We're also glad that the GOP managed to end in the third position - we need all the votes of the Gropers Offshore Party'. The former Democratic Party also failed to reunite, Progressives finishing a distant second, and the RNC fifth, far behind the Green Party, even after Hillary Clinton raised record funds for her Rhodam National Convention.

December 2018:
And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to... AlphaGo. The World's most powerful A.I. platform solved all conflicts, all famines, and all environmental and refugee crises by removing mankind.

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)

20170802

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)