kanesrealm

It was the second century Roman scholar Maximus Deficatus who first plunged the depths of this subject. Something of a humorist in his day, his public lectures were legendary for leaving many a Roman Senator with long brown streaks on the back of their togas. Today during a meeting with numerous officials on the subject of immigration, President Trump asked why we get so many people coming from "shithole" countries, refererencing Haiti and Africa. It's not clear the President is aware Africa is a continent containing many countries. He said if Nigerians saw America they wouldn't want to go back to their huts. He doesn't seem to know that Nigeria is a nation of 186 million people with many beautiful cities as well as impoverished areas. He wondered why we can't get more Norwegians. Well Mr. President there isn't a line of Norwegians waiting to come, because they don't want to. Poor people living in hellish depravation do want to come, to pursue the fa...

At least for now. Stephen K. Bannon, Republican party destroyer, self identified Leninist and arch nemesis of the razor is out as Chairman of Breitbart News. The Mercer family which owns Breitbart dumped Bannon this afternoon. He has been on thin ice with the billionaire family for many months and his comments in the Michael Wolff book, "Fire and Fury" was a bridge too far. The Mercers are major behind the scenes supporters of Donald Trump and they have had enough of his arrogance and self delusion as a master of the universe and kingmaker of Trump, which he never was. Now Bannon is unemployed and has no platform from which to launch his daily assaults on his enemies. More importantly he's now cut off from the Mercer's money. Bannon is not a poor man but he's not in the megabucks ballpark of those he's served. So what does he do now? Will he use his savings to go out on the campaign trail to hurl fire bombs at the Republican establishment? Not likely....

I smell confusion, a confusion spread by the media and politicians who either need a Constitutional refresher or are deliberately pretending the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is easy to trigger. Section 4 is what matters in the case of removing Donald J. Trump for alleged mental deficiencies. It reads exactly as follows: "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office of Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall r...

"Sloppy Steve Bannon" is on a mission to clean up his gaffes in the book "Fire and Fury". In Trump World a gaffe is when you tell the truth about the Trump family. Self proclaimed Leninist and all round destroyer Bannon is softening his statements about Trump, particularly Don Jr., whom he previously accused of being treasonous. Now Don Jr. is a great American and swell guy. Bannon's delusion that he is a Kingmaker is beginning to cause him his own problems, the most important of which is the strain between himself and billionaire family the Mercers, it is they who financed the late Andrew Breitbart and kept Breitbart News going. They have publicly distanced themselves from Bannon and one wanders if Bannon may again exit Breitbart, this time forever. The Ivy League educated Bannon who was a Goldman Sachs executive and wannabe Hollywood producer continues to go out on the campaign trail and talks to blue collar workers like he's one of them, shades ...

The marijuana laws of the United States are extremely complicated jurisdictionally and by categorization. It's time to put an end to that. The Trump Administration's Justice Department under the leadership of Jeff Sessions has just rolled back the Obama Administration's policy of essentially not prosecuting marijuana growers and sellers in states where recreational use is legal and those businesses are in compliance with their state laws and not suspected of involvement with criminal enterprises triggering federal investigation. Neither Trump or Sessions have said they are in fact going after those legal merchants for violating federal law and no directives to do so have been issued to U.S. Attorneys. Sessions is a longtime opponent of marijuana legalization and Trump is a wild card who will do anything to divert attention away from his own whackiness and potential meltdown. Do not succumb to the belief that the Obama Administration was pro marijuana because of th...

There's a new book out by Michael Wolff called "Fire and Fury", chronicling the dysfunction of the Trump Campaign and inside the Whitehouse. Explosive would be a mild word to describe it. Among the headline grabbing excerpts are the statements made for the book by Stephen Bannon, including his belief that Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer in the summer of 2016 was "treasonous and unpatriotic." Bannon asserts that Special Prosecutor Mueller will get President Trump through Mannefort, Trump Jr. and Kushner and it's all about "money laundering". A close billionaire friend of the President is quoted as saying Trump is not only crazy, he's stupid. According to Wolff when the late Roger Ailes, who was a campaign advisor, recommended to Trump that he consider asking John Boehner to be his Chief of Staff, he didn't know who that was. Other insiders in the Whitehouse believe the President is barely semi-literate. It should be ...

Donald Trump wants to change the tax code and accomplish something that so far has eluded him, a legislative victory. Our tax code absolutely needs serious reform but preliminary indicators suggest that's not what this is. Trump insists that the rich, including himself, will not benefit from the changes he and the Republicans are proposing. So we begin with a lie, how then do we trust anything else in the legislation? The old drum is once again beating it's favorite tune, the elimination of the estate tax. Currently for an individual the first 5.49 million dollars is exempted from this tax which means for most people this is never a factor. The argument for repeal of the estate tax has always been about the family farm and small business owners, it is a false argument. There are no real small businesses or family farms worth more than the exempted amount. Let's, just for the hell of it, act like it's true. The tax, which is 40%, doesn't kick in until after the exem...

When Colin Kaepernick first chose to kneel during the singing of the National Anthem, as opposed to standing, many lost their minds. He began this now wider NFL player supported gesture to protest police brutality of African-Americans and an imbalance in our criminal justice system. A peaceful protest and silent statement. So, what's the problem? President Trump has decided to go to war with the NFL and more specifically the players who are participating in this, calling them S.O.B.s and saying they should be fired. His outrage is very easy to understand, he's doing what he does best, changing the subject from major issues while keeping himself at the center of attention. In the movie, "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" the governor is portrayed by the talented Charles Durning, who epitomizes the politician that loves attention but hates to do his job and tackle tough issues. In one scene Durning sings a delightful tune that goes, "oooh I love to dance a little s...

Well isn't this sweeter than Grandma's peach pie! At least six Whitehouse advisors, Federal government employees all, including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Steve Bannon used their private emails to conduct official business. Do you suppose the Trump supporters at his rallies will start chanting LOCK THEM UP? They sure loved saying it about Hillary Clinton throughout his campaign and are continuing to do so, all at the urging and to the delight of Donald Trump. Will he silence that rhetoric now? Of course not, he wouldn't dare interrupt the mad rantings of his loyalists, he can't afford to. Like Victor Frankenstein, he cannot control his creation. So what to do? Trump will simply ignore it, call it fake news, say there's no comparison and tell his fans to just trust him, he and he alone is their saviour and can do no wrong and since he can do no wrong, neither can his minions. Rience Priebus, the now fallen Chief of Staff, knew this was going on and tried to ...

Puerto Ricans are American citizens, got it? They have been since 1898 and if you don't know that, shame on you. Now to you Mr. President, you are not doing a good job on the human catastrophe unfolding on the island of Puerto Rico, stop patting yourself on the back and mobilize the military. Stop saying ignorant things like, "you know Puerto Rico's an island, it's in the ocean a big ocean you can't drive your truck there". No kidding. That's what ships, planes and helicopters are for. You offered not a word of sympathy to the 3.4 million Americans facing death on that island. Only after you were hounded did you tweet out an attack on Puerto Rico's infrastructure and debt problems. Do you even know Puerto Rico is a part of the United States? You should, you've done business there. Seven days in to this horrific situation and we are still not taking the actions necessary. There are FEMA workers there who have been held up by red tape waiting for t...

I am returning to blogging. No, you're right, an explanation isn't required but I'm going to give you one. I tried, I really tried, but engaging in political dialogue on Facebook is pointless. When I reactivated my account I chose not to launch political statements from my homepage but I did try participating in other threads. In written dialogue, one person puts down their thoughts, the next person reads that person's thoughts, digests them and then responds directly on point, right? Not on Facebook. With only a few exceptions, I have found that what I write isn't being read, based upon the responses I often received which have nothing to do with what I said. My problem appears to be that I actually read what people write and respond to their words and that's not how it works. It's just random thoughts and in the case of active thread presenters, their main interest seems to be basking only in their own glory, which is fine but don't invite commenting ...

President Trump says his Administration is running like a finely tuned machine, not at all chaotic like the evil minions of the media are reporting. Trump is right, if your definition of a finely tuned machine is one that is spewing oil, springs popping off, gears locking up and billows of smoke filling the air. We learned this evening that Trump's pick to replace Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser, Vice-Admiral Harwood, turned down the offer. The lying media cites Harwood as being conflicted between the call of duty and the chaos surrounding National Security matters in the Trump Administration. Trump and company have of course cited other reasons, namely financial and personal. I'm sure that's it. We have also learned, through the evil minions, that apparently Flynn lied to the F.B.I. on January 24, 2017 about speaking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. Lying to the F.B.I. is a felony and if prosecuted and found guilty serious jail time can follow. Today ...

I am really sick of politics...so here's some more. President Trump held a news conference today which lasted seventy-seven minutes. That length is somewhat rare for Presidents. It was scheduled to announce the new nominee for Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta. Acosta himself was not present but it's a safe bet that he should easily make it through the nomination process based on a cursory examination of his record and the fact that he has been approved by the Senate on three other occasions. Trump made that brief announcement and then began the press conference with an opening statement about how great he is and how horrible the mess is that he has inherited. If you didn't see it, please watch it in it's entirety. Don't just catch a snippet or two and listen to your favorite media outlets discuss it. I know it's hard but you need to do it. Whether or not you like him or not you must admire his consistency as one of our greatest illusionists on the scene t...

If you blog, you're familiar with that phrase. It's a part of the behind the scenes information all bloggers track. I learned from my first blog to not allow any comment to automatically post without my prior approval, not to stop opposing views, but to filter out inappropriate drive by hits and babbling about things unrelated to the specific post. There are rarely comments left on this blog so it hasn't been a hectic reviewing process. But something strange has occurred in the stats section which tells me how many people have visited the blog. Today a very large number of people supposedly read my little plop. Here's the rub, this happened about a week and half ago with a day of large numbers of views, exciting, except when I checked back a day later, those numbers were gone and it showed zero for that day. I will of course be checking on today's abnormally high number. Exactly what is occurring I don't know. Is it a glitch or something else? Frequently the po...

Last weekend President Trump issued an Executive Order banning travel to the United States from seven majority Muslim nations. The media and opponents have called it a Muslim ban. It's easy to understand why that is. Trump's own campaign rhetoric calling for a Muslim ban and his use of the word "ban" last weekend in his usual word salad speaking style have fed the notion. However, the order itself doesn't say this. It is a pause on refugees and citizens of those countries entering the United States until "we" evaluate the vetting process for those visitors. As a democratic Republic it was handled sloppily and incompetently, as an authoritarian state it would be considered business as usual and there is the problem, well, one of them. Note carefully that because of the backlash in our country, the Trump Administration and key Republicans have gone out of their way to point out that the seven countries in question are the ones that were identified by the ...

President Donald Trump is a pompous ass and represents a grave threat to the Republic, accept that truth and keep alert. That said, under my own code of ethics even a pompous ass deserves defense when merited. The firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was justified. I would have done the same thing, though I would have handled it far more diplomatically. The reason it's justified and not a Nixonian moment is because the Office of Legal Counsel in the A.G.'s office had reviewed the travel ban and stated it was legal. Whether or not they are correct is for the Courts to decide. Yates made a decision that she did not agree with the policy and issued an order to her subordinates that the Justice Department would not defend the order in court. She did not issue a legal brief outlining why the O.L.C. was wrong in their assessment and present it to the President. She simply issued her order, after the Justice Department had already appeared in court over the weekend defending ...

Kellyanne Conway nay Goebbels, Trump's pollster, third campaign manager and now Presidential Senior Advisor has made it crystal clear that the chronic lying of her boss throughout his entire campaign and her smiling facilitation of said lies is now the official stance of the Office of the Presidency. Ms. Conway appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday where she defended the irrational screeching statements made by Press Secretary Sean Spicer about how YUGE the crowds were at Trump's inauguration. Conway was called out for the lies and she casually tossed it aside saying he used alternative facts. Alternative facts are lies, but not so according to Conway. Kellyanne Conway nay Goebbels has been smiling and lying to the American people from the moment she joined Team Trump as a surrogate and she gets away with it because she's a charming monotone woman that never stops smiling while spewing the propaganda of her master. All of these believers in God, predominantly Christ...

Donald J. Trump is now the 45th President of the United States and make no mistake in your thought process, his Presidency is legitimate. True, he won because our electoral system failed but that does not change the facts. The Russians did not steal our election, Americans are responsible for the outcome. No evidence of any kind has been suggested or proved that a foreign power directly placed their hands on our voting machines and changed votes to guarantee Trump a victory in the Electoral College. If you feel the need to assign blame, put it on F.B.I. Director James Comey, who went out of his way, in contradiction of Bureau protocols, to smear Hillary Clinton with false innuendo. First in the early summer of 2016 and again two weeks prior to the General Election. Blame the Democratic Party as a whole for believing, like the Republicans, that Donald Trump was not a serious threat to them. Blame the hundreds of millions of Facebook users who love to share lies over and over again. Blam...

Some of you may think my previous post was a bit harsh, not so. In fact I pulled my punch out of regard for my more sensitive readers. Let's go deeper, shall we. I never drank the Obama Kool-aid, in reality I drink no politicians Kool-aid. I view them all with a healthy skepticism and then hope that they might live up to their rhetoric and rise to statesman like decorum. They rarely do and Barack Obama is no exception. When Obama originally announced he was running for the Democratic nomination for President I wrote that maybe in the future when he had seasoning and an established national record but not now. No sooner had he been elected to the U.S. Senate then bam, he's running for President. He had no record of substance and his brief time in the Senate was less than stellar. I was not impressed by him. Throughout the campaign and debates, the one candidate who stood out and distinguished himself was Joe Biden but the media wasn't interested in old Joe, nice guy but th...

Here's one to piss everybody off. Enjoy! Last night Barack Obama delivered his farewell address in Trump style with a big venue in Chicago with 20,000 people in attendance. I was moved only by my need to adjust my chair. I have struggled for years to figure out what it is about Barack Obama I find so uninspiring and now I know. He is like the promise of a great song. The first few bars are catchy and the last note tricks you into believing it was good but everything in between is shit. Last night it was breaking news that a two page unsubstantiated addendum was added to the classified hacking briefing given to the President and President Elect that Russia had compromising information on Donald Trump. By this morning holes the size of the moon had been shot in this story and many news organizations had refused to run with it because it was questionable. What does this so called document show? That Trump fucked a goat? Even if he did, who cares, it gets cold in Russia. Trump is ...