- Malcolm Nance is a former U.S. intelligence officer who specializes in cryptology. He’s also an author and a frequent panelist on non-Fox cable news shows. He dismisses those “Manchurian candidate” scenarios involving President Donald Trump.
Then he updates it.
“If anything, (Trump) is a product of the first successful global cyber propaganda campaign to seize control of an enemy’s leadership. He is a Cyberian candidate.”
- It speaks volumes, doesn’t it, that one of the big early markets for Bob Woodward’s “Fear” best seller has been foreign embassies. They know this author is no cash-in opportunist. His reputation is that credible. And they know his subject is that incredibly craven and impactful.
- And you know movie scripts and legal scenarios are already part of pitch meetings.
- The U.S., of course, has unilaterally withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, but that doesn’t mean individual states have to also ignore the obvious and do nothing. California, for example, will partner with Planet Labs, a geospatial imagery company, to build a satellite that will monitor pollution from orbit.
“We’re under attack by a lot of people, including Donald Trump,” explained California Gov. Jerry Brown. “But the climate threat still keeps growing. We’ve got to know what the hell’s going on all over the world, all the time. So, we’re going to launch our own satellite–our own damn satellite–to figure out where the problem is and how we’re going to end it.”
In any other Administration, this would be an unconscionable, embarrassing rebuke to the EPA. This is not any other Administration.
- The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office recently announced that the S. federal deficit for fiscal year 2018 had reached $895 billion, a $222 billion–or 32 percent– increase over the previous year. The CBO now estimates that the U.S. government’s budget deficit will reach $1 trillion per year by 2019. That’s sobering, and it begs the obvious questions. As in, how’s that GOP tax plan looking? It’s not just that it’s richly skewed; it also pads the deficit. And whatever happened to the GOP’s core principle of budget restraint, much less whatever happened to the hot-button, ideological agenda of the Republican Tea Party movement?
Perhaps Ron DeSantis can explain what happens to priorities when ostensibly principled ideology meets self-serving, cult-figure idiotology.
- One thing we know for sure about the Mueller investigation. No one knows more than Robert Mueller. He does what a federally-appointed special counsel should do. He doesn’t go public before he’s finished. He doesn’t tweet or spin to carry–or divert–a news cycle. And, yes, he’s still a Republican, as we will be reminded as this plays out.
- Paul Manafort’s deal with prosecutors has one aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to motivation to cooperate with the feds. Manafort is actually IN jail–and has been since June. It’s not some plea-deal abstraction for this 69-year-old. He had been living an over-the-top affluent, elite–albeit criminal–lifestyle, and he could be incarcerated for the rest of his life. Good bye, trappings of luxury, deference and insider status. Adios, Just for Men stash. The ego-crushing, jump-suited, new normal for him would be a life sentence–not a life worth living.
And what does he know that matters? He replaced Corey Lewandowski as presidential campaign manager to get Trump through to the GOP convention. It was a critical time frame with lots of moving parts, domestic and foreign. And, of course, he was in the infamous, “dirt-on-Hillary” Trump Tower meet-up with Jared Kushner, Don Trump Jr. and Russians. He likely knows useful stuff–and he knows that anything less than full cooperation and the un-hedged truth would be a deal-breaker. He also knows that the possibility of a blatantly, self-serving presidential pardon is problematic at best.
- Could Trump really pardon himself? Doesn’t it speak volumes that this even enters a democratic conversation? Wouldn’t self-pardoning power equate to absolute power? Isn’t that authoritarian? Shouldn’t that be, well, un-American?
- When has a U.S. president not been welcomed in Ireland? IRELAND!
- We now know that it wasn’t just the U.S. that was on the receiving end of Russian cyber meddling meant to influence elections and denigrate NATO and the European Union. So too were a number of our NATO allies, including England, France and Germany. So too was non-NATO Sweden. Indeed, Swedish authorities have called out the Russians for flooding their country with fake news, disinformation and forged documents meant to smear the government. The goal: Discredit NATO and keep Sweden from formally joining.
- It was obvious that Brett Kavanaugh paid more than lip service to his Senate confirmation-hearing playbook. Most notably: Don’t answer hypothetical questions, hide behind precedent, be careful of body language, show appropriate empathy, have a selectively-faulty memory and hope there are no last-minute, character-assaulting bombshells from back in the day.
- How committed are the Dems to a blue wave scenario? Well, somebody convinced country music icon Willie Nelson to give a first-ever campaign performance. Nelson, 85, will headline a rally later this month for Democratic Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who is running to unseat Ted Cruz from the U.S. Senate. Yeah, that “Lyin’ Ted’ Cruz. Vaya,
- It’s no secret that former Vice President Joe Biden is at least considering a 2020 presidential run. He might still want a mulligan from 2016. For sure, he will be, along with former President Barack Obama, on the campaign trail leading up to the midterms. He’ll be crisscrossing the country to help the blue-wave cause. But don’t look for him to speak at any rallies in Iowa or New Hampshire. Such appearances would only divert attention from local candidates and refocus it on Biden’s possible plans for 2020.