Trump confession tape leads to errie laughter in Yorba Linda

 

Photo of Nixon from Wiki Commons and of Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum from PresidentsUSA.net. I wanted to share the illustration with the photo that comes up on Wikimedia Commons if you search for "Nixon laughing".

Next blog is about Trump's preening narcissism.

Below are a few of the articles in the news today:

By Hal Brown

If you haven't heard the tape yet it is on Twitter here:

It was a major scoop for CNN to obtain this tape. You can watch the Anderson Cooper broadcast where the entire tape was played here. The discussion on the show about what the tape means for Trump is included in this.

Ironically Trump says "this totally wins my case" when, in fact this tape may totally lose his case.

Lest there's a rare reader who doesn't make the connection in my illustration:

February, 2021 was the 50th anniversary of the first use of the White House taping system installed by Richard Nixon. You can read about this here.

Knowing who Alexander Butterfield  was could score you a point in a trivia game. If you could identify him just by his photo you would deserve 10 points.

This is from Wikipedia (my emphasis):

Butterfield was questioned by Senate Watergate Committee staff Scott Armstrong, G. Eugene Boyce, Marianne Brazer, and Donald Sanders (deputy minority counsel) on Friday, July 13, 1973, in a background interview prior to his public testimony before the full committee. Butterfield was brought before the committee because he was Haldeman's top deputy and was the only person other than Haldeman who knew as much about the president's day-to-day behavior.

The critical line of questioning was conducted by Donald Sanders. Armstrong had given a copy of Buzhardt's report to Butterfield; now Sanders asked if the quotations in it might have come from notes. Butterfield said no, that the quotations were too detailed. In addition, Butterfield said that neither staff nor the president kept notes of one-on-one private meetings with Nixon. 

When asked where the quotations might have come from, Butterfield said he did not know. Then Sanders asked if there was any validity to John Dean's hypothesis that the White House had taped conversations in the Oval Office. Butterfield replied, "I was wondering if someone would ask that. There is tape in the Oval Office." Butterfield then told the investigators that, while he had hoped that no one would ask about the taping system, he had previously decided he would disclose its existence if asked a direct question. Butterfield then testified extensively about when the taping system was installed and how it worked, telling the staff members, "Everything was taped... as long as the President was in attendance. There was not so much as a hint that something should not be taped." Butterfield later said that he assumed the committee knew about the taping system, since they had already interviewed Haldeman and Higby.

It shouldn't surprise anyone with any sense that Trump is spinning this like a whirling dervrish on (paranoia inducing) meth. This is his Truth Social post:

The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and “spun” a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe. This continuing Witch Hunt is another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam. They are cheaters and thugs!

This all-caps rant followed about six hours later: "

COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO THE DERANGED, TRUMP HATING JACK SMITH, HIS FAMILY, AND HIS FRIENDS, THAT AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, I COME UNDER THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT, AS AFFIRMED BY THE CLINTON SOCKS CASE, NOT BY THIS PSYCHOS’ FANTASY OF THE NEVER USED BEFORE ESPIONAGE ACT OF 1917. “SMITH” SHOULD BE LOOKING AT CROOKED JOE BIDDEN AND ALL OF THE CRIMES THAT HE HAS PERPETRATED ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, INCLUDING THE MILLIONS & MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HE EXTORTED FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES!"

As if anyone needed anymore proof that Trump lives as an insane Superman in his delusional Bizaro World this should put the case to rest, that is unless he meant to write that the tape is actually an execution or exsanguination (if he knows the meaning of the later word) instead of an exoneration.

Related:

Political analysts wonder if classified documents recording was leaked from inside Trump's camp

BELOW:

Trump lying his ass off and serving it to members of his cult.

Update: 

“This is so bad for Trump”: Legal experts say leaked audio “even more damning” than indictment

"A picture is worth a thousand words. This audio could be worth a thousand days behind bars," ex-prosecutor says

Igor Derysh

I like the illustration Salon used.

Another article from Salon:

"Cataclysmic evidence against him": Espionage Act expert explains how Trump faces "historic" trouble

Quote from interview with expert. Michael Nacht, the Schneider Chair Emeritus and Professor at The Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Nacht served as a high-ranking defense policy official in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense (DOD) Distinguished Service Medal, the DOD's highest civilian honor..... "Trump has a type of charisma and set of beliefs that are appealing to lots of voters. Trump knows this about his power, he said as much with his observation that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, and he wouldn't be punished for it. It's Hitlerian. Such a person comes along once in a great while. Trump's power is shown by all the millions of Americans who continue to support him even to this day given all the horrible things he has done. Trump compiled all these secret documents in cardboard boxes, put them on shelves on stage, and put them in a bathroom and bathtub. Trump realized that this is unprecedented and that's what attracted him to do it. It is a type of pathological behavior that demands explanations by psychiatrists and other mental health experts." 

If you don't see the (preferred) Disquis comment section is is on the bottom of this page.

There's a great white shark in the water, but how bad is his bite?

 

Surreal as it is to rational people there are those who view Trump as a messianic figure.

By Hal Brown

Asked what it would take for Trump not to be the Republican nominee Michael Steele (below lower right on MSNBC) chuckled and said "what, an act of God."

NBC published:

Democrats warn party: The threat of Trump winning in 2024 is 'very real'

New NBC News polling shows President Joe Biden with a relatively narrow 49% to 45 % lead over Donald Trump — which is within the survey’s margin of error.

In the article Faiz Shakir, who ran Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, comments stood out to me, especially the lines I put in bold and in the second sentence below a big but:

(he) said the familiarity factor means it’s easier for Biden to remind voters of the reasons they rejected Trump three years ago than it is to build a new argument against DeSantis or another lesser-known candidate.

But, he said, Trump’s political agility should not be overlooked.

Shakir pointed specifically to Trump’s maneuvering on abortion rights after the GOP’s disappointing results in the 2022 midterm elections. Trump once said women should be punished for having abortions and appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn federal abortion protections. But now, Trump says Republicans should ensure abortion prohibitions include exemptions in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the pregnant person.

“Trump is so amoral that he’s able to reinvent himself on issue after issue and deceive enough people to feel like they might give him a second look, at least in some critical battleground states,” he said. “A lot of it hinges on, are there outside events that kind of prevent him from doing the reinvention?”

What mitigates against Trump actually winning the presidency is that there aren't enough voters who are gullible, warped, bigoted, delusional, or smitten by Trump's amazing (and inexplicable to us) star power to propel him into a second term.

If you can stand to spend 12 minutes watch this video of him speaking at a fundraiser for Jan. 6th defendants from his Bedminster club. He again claimed that “BLM” and “Antifa” were responsible for violence during the riots and of course insisted he won the election.

This 12 minute rant is a reprise of his greatest hits, his lies about winning the election and his grievances. 

It also demonstrates what I call the door hinge question: how loose do the hinges have to become until the door that is Trump and his mental instability have to become for the door to fall completely off and end up so far out there that only those who are as unmoored from reality as he is, those Jim Jones or Heaven's Gate level cult members, won't see he has floated into oblivion.

If you don't see the (preferred) Disquis comment section below click here and scroll down.

Bonus: Message to the Republican Party, if you're gonna get Trump you're gonna need a bigger boat.

 

Too soon to tell if Russian revolt was a nothing burger, an everything burger, or something in between

 

Photo of his delicious everything burger by author who is always seeking restaurants and pubs with mouthwatering burgers like the one above.

By Hal Brown

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog where I took off my shrink's hat and delved into an area where if I actually had degree in foreign policy it would be from Trump University. I titled that blog "Is the Wagner group waging an armed mutiny, a civil war in the making, uprising, a coup, the bringing of the self-destruction of Russia, or a a spurious threat, basically a nothing-burger" which really isn't worth reading today if you missed it.

I was struck by how the media jumped all over the missing Titanic sub with near constant coverage of four rich men and the unfortunate son (who didn't really want to go) facing death. I compared this to how the Baby Jessica in the well story and the Thai soccer team trapped in the cave stories captured worldwide attention.

This Russia story was both riveting and of major international significance. It received well-deserved extensive media coverage... except on Fox News online.

This morning pundits who actually have expertise in the subject are trying to explain what this all means. The chyron under the stories about this on MSNBC reads "Aftermath of Armed Revolt Inside Russia."

On that channel John Brennan, former CIA director, and retired admiral James Stavidis, and former ambassadors to Russia Michael McFaul and Jane Harmon, among others are explaining what this all may mean for the fate of Putin and Ukraine.

As someone whose expertise lies elsewhere I am ill equipped to pontificate on this, or predict what it may portend. I am fascinated by way two characters, both ruthless warlords who could be in a novel or TV series can hold sway over the outcome of a war. Game of Thrones, which I never watched has been mentioned, with a pundit saying that the
moral of this story is that if you try to kill the king you'd best succeed, or else.

Addendum:

So you don't have to look at Fox News online, this is what they think is important today:

Even Breitbart leads with the Russia story:

Here's the MSNBC website...

and The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN:

Adendum: By chance this was the ad that was on HUFFPOST when I looked at it (ON LOWER RIGHT)

I just had to do a little photo-manipulation:

Updates: It is worth noting a few points David Ignatius made in his Washington Post column (subscription): 

Putin looked into the abyss Saturday — and blinked

"This was a real coup, until it wasn’t."

• President Vladimir Putin looked into the abyss Saturday and blinked. After vowing revenge for what he called an “armed mutiny,” he settled for a compromise.
• The speed with which Putin backed down suggests that his sense of vulnerability might be higher even than analysts believed. Putin might have saved his regime Saturday, but this day will be remembered as part of the unraveling of Russia as a great power — which will be Putin’s true legacy.
• This was a real coup, until it wasn’t...
• Only madmen jump into the abyss in situations like this, and neither Putin nor Prigozhin is crazy. This was like a game of chicken where both cars swerve in the end, or a duel where both fighters shoot in the air, to fight another day.  

• It was a close shave, not a decapitation.

• What comes next, surely, is more trouble for Putin in Ukraine. Prigozhin told the truth flat out in the days before his march on Moscow. Ukraine didn’t threaten Russia, and Russia’s invasion was unnecessary — a mistake of epic proportions. Even Putin, the ice man, can’t freeze the burning truth of his Ukraine disaster.

MSNBC is covering the Russia story exclusively. I did what I hardly ever do and tuned into Fox News to see what they were broadcasting. They are covering a variety of other news:

If you don't see Disquis (the preferred comment feature) below, click here and scroll down.

Is the Wagner group waging an armed mutiny, a civil war in the making, uprising, a coup, the bringing of the self-destruction of Russia, or a a spurious threat, basically a nothing-burger?

 

Update:

With the invasion apparently stopped and the convoy which was headed towards Moscow turned around, and some unknown resolution reached between Prighozin and Putin, we still don't know whether this will turn out to have been a nothing burger, all roll and no burger.

By Hal Brown

Is this the most credible threat to Putin since the start of his regime?

Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin says that Ukraine never was a threat to Russia.

\

 

Scroll down for updates - compared to last night we know much more than we did then.

The following paragraph (with strike-throughs) has been updated from when I wrote this early this morning. 

We don't  didn't know much more about what's was happening in Russia this morning than we did last night even though the stories are were all over the news, for example on MSNBC and in HUFFPOST...

... and in the two newspapers of record in the United States which only occasionally have the same top of the page stories:

The BBC is covering the story live (here)

The words being used to try to make sense of this include whether this represents a civil war in the making, an uprising, a coup, the bringing of the self-destruction of Russia, or on the other hand a spurious threat which would make it basically a newsworthy nothing-burger, albeit a dramatic one.

One thing is for certain, not only is this making the news internationally, but it led Vladimir Putin to address the nation, and hence the world, in a 5 ½ minute speech.

Here's a time I wish could understand Russian and listen to him without the halting English dubbing in the video shared on Sky TV. You can see his facial expressions along with the words which he seems to be carefully reading off a teleprompter. 

I expect members of our and other intelligence agencies who are fluent in Russian have been intensively analyzing this video to attempt to discern just how worried Putin is behind the bravado of his words as he tries to convey confident seriousness as he says Russia is fighting for the life and security of its citizens and its territorial integrity, and for the millennial  history of the country.

A retired general on MSNBC, by far more of an expert than I am, is none-the-less trying to discern whether this is a coup in the making which could bring major changes to Russia. He noted that much would depend whether a significant number of the regular Russian military units remain loyal to Putin.

Of grave concern is what would happen to Russian's nuclear threat if the instability led to the nuclear unthinkable. Putin has been all bluster when it came to threatening to use tactical nukes against Ukraine. If his hold on power is tenuous, while I haven't heard experts express this concern, I wonder if he would take, or attempt to take, this drastic and highly risky step. I wonder whether if he attempted to do this his own generals would mount a coup of their own to stop him.

On MSNBC, Evelyn Farkas, American national security advisor, author, and foreign policy analyst, just said the Wagner situation was incredibly serious. She called it the biggest threat Putin has ever faced.

Also on MSNBC, Congressman Gerry Connelly (a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) said it could be the beginning of the unraveling of the Putin regime, that it could be a really serious threat to Putin's remaining in power. He did say there are no good guys in this, that Prigozhin is a  brutal murderous thug. He justified the killing of a recaptured deserter with a sledge hammer.

This is a "stay tuned and wait" story where the outcome will be decided in a matter of weeks if not days. In its significance it is about as far removed from the story which just played out about the Titanic OceanGate disaster which I wrote about on June 21st as any news story could be.

It may not be too soon to imagine Russia without Putin. Nobody knows whether Prigozhin has designs on becoming the new Russian leader. He began his adult life as a run-of-the-mill criminal, ended up in prison for nine years, but bounced back and ran a very successful catering business, became close to Putin, ran a troll farm to influence the US 2016 election, and finally developed a mercenary army which by all reports is better than the Russian army. (Read more about him on Wikipedia.)

Down the road is it possible to have major, or even minimal, positive changes in relations between Russia under new leadership with Putin out of the picture and democratic countries with another sociopathic leader running the country?

Prigozhin could end up as a more pragmatic Russian leader to deal with than Putin who seems to have descended into the realm of delusions. Perhaps in Prigozhin Russia could have a leader not obsessed with restoring the nationalist  glory of the former Soviet Union and make the country more like China with its dictator deciding to compete with the West economically.

Update:

Click above to read

Excerpt:

Prigozhin said his fighters would not surrender, as “we do not want the country to live on in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.”

“Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president was deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our homeland,” he said in an audio message on his Telegram channel.

If you don't see the Disquis comments below click here and scroll down.

Right's white might might make right fright: Serenity Now

 

I took the picture years ago at Little Harbor Beach in Wareham, Massachusetts.

By Hal Brown

I choose the above photo of a man fishing on the inlet to the salt marsh a short walk down from Little Harbor Beach in Wareham, MA as the screen saver on my laptop and iPhone, and for my Facebook page logo. When we lived in Massachusetts we went there almost every day in the warmer weather. Sometimes we kayaked from the beach to the Cape Cod Canal (see photo of me kayaking from Buzzard's Bay in 2010) which was about a half mile away. It was a place of serenity and fond memories. Under stress I often go there in my mind. 

Watch the classic Frank Constanza (played by the late Jerry Stiller) "serenity now" clip from Seinfeld here;

As a therapist I recommend against the version of achieving serenity the way George's father did.

My title may be confusing. I'll explain. The white might, i.e. the power, of the far MAGA white nationalist part of the population might, i.e. "could" manifest itself, that is, become right, and thus cause people like me to become frightened.

The title is based on the aphorism on the origin of morality. The are both descriptive and prescriptive senses in which this phase is used. Descriptively, it asserts that a society's view of right and wrong is determined by those in power, with a meaning similar to "History is written by the victors". Prescriptively or normatively the phrase is most often used pejoratively, to protest tyranny. 

Another term for the concept is Kratocracy, from the Greek: κρατερός krateros, meaning "strong".  Kratocracy is defined as government by those who are strong enough to seize power through force or cunning. It was coined by philosopher William Pepperill Montague (1883-1953). (Adapted from Wikipedia)

What led me to think of this was the pending case about affirmative action which is before the Supreme Court and the decision as is typical with controversial rulings could be handed down late on a Friday.

Prognosticators say that by the weekend there will be no more affirmative action. Saturday, you know if you've been paying attention to the news on MSNBC, is the first anniversary of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

More morning moronic idiocy is being reported from the goopy GOPers in the House what with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) introducing resolutions “expunging” Trump’s 2019 and 2021 impeachments, respectively.

Add to this everything I wrote about yesterday in "Take Westworld and Stepford Wives robots and add a generous helping of crazy and you get the programmed House GOP" and my need for serenity, now, should make sense.

If you don't see the Disquis comment section below click here and go to bottom of the page