Trump to Call in the E-4 Mafia (and the Mercs)

During a tense mid-July meeting with his national-security team, President Donald Trump dismissed the counsel of high-ranking military commanders, saying he leaned toward the advice of rank-and-file soldiers over that of his generals.

Maybe every flag/general officer ought to submit their retirement papers. Hell, everyone who has their twenty in might as well do the same. And then we'll see how well that goes for Trump.

History has not been terribly kind to national leaders who go with their gut and ignore the advice of the professionals. They tend to lose, bigly.

What the hell does that ignorant putz expect will happen in Afghanistan? Anyone with a passing familiarity of history has a better understanding of the score than Trump.

Boy Scouts Accuse Trump of Lying

Trump claims that the head of the Boy Scouts called him to say that his speech was the greatest one ever made to the Scouts.

The Boy Scouts are tacitly saying that Trump is lying.

Pro tip: Assume that every word that Donald Trump says is a lie, including the words "me", "I", and "Ivanka", until proven otherwise.

USS Ford

First jet ops.

The first "Ford" in the Navy was the Douglas Skyray, the F4D. The nickname was obvious.

NJT has a video abut the Ford. Too bad there is not one still flyable. That might be fun to see a Ford land on the Ford.

New Trump Staff Pick

The fledgling Trump Presidency appears to finally be finding its groove after what was arguably one of its rockiest weeks.

Calm was first restored with the appointment of retired General John Kelly as a Chief of Staff properly empowered to assert the authority that the role requires.

This was quickly followed by the announcement that Beaker would take over the role vacated by Anthony Scaramucci, leading critics to breathe a huge sigh of relief.

They could hardly do much worse.

The Lie About Adoption

Remember that statement that Donny, Jr. issued that claimed that his meeting with representatives about the Russian government was about adoption; the statement that was proven to be a lie from his own emails?

Seems that his dad dictated the statement. So Donny, Jr. just read his dad's words out. Which makes Donny, Jr. nothing more than his daddy's sock-puppet.

Update: Stephen Colbert had a funny line: "Don, Jr. gets in trouble and he literally gets his daddy to write a note for him- 'Please excuse Don, Jr. from prison, he's a good 39-year-old kid.' "

So now we have Trump continuing to try to obfuscate, if not outright cover up, contacts between his campaign and the Russian government (and their spooks).

More and more smoke.

Trump keeps digging his hole deeper and deeper.

wonder if Trump discussed w/ putin how to characterize the don jr meeting with the Russians. since Trump was working on statement that wknd

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) August 1, 2017

Meanwhile, the Husband of the Spawn of Trump is going with the Stupidity Defense. The Mooch is dead to Harvard. And apparently Trump's latest pick for communications director is a guy who was fired to sexual harassment. So he'll fit right in Trump, who admitted that he got a kick out of ogling naked teenaged girls and grabbing women by the crotch.

64 Years

The Korean War sputtered to a temporary halt sixty four years ago today.

It's not officially over, as no peace treaty was signed.

This Clown Had Better Hope That He Dies Within Twelve Years

After weeks of negotiations with the International Olympic Committee, Los Angeles officials have reached a deal to host the 2028 Summer Games under terms they hope will generate hundreds of millions in savings and additional revenues.

The agreement will bring the Olympics back to Southern California for a third time, after Los Angeles hosted in 1984 and 1932. It also opens the door for the 2024 Games to be held in Paris.

“It has been certainly a roller coaster,” L.A. bid chairman Casey Wasserman told The Times, adding that IOC officials “showed a real willingness to be thoughtful and creative.”

Mayor Garcetti might also consider dying or emigrating. The Olympic movement is a festering cesspit of venality and corruption. And that's before you even get to state-sanctioned doping.

A locality would have to be completely chuckleheaded to even think of putting on an Olympics. It's expensive, it brings nothing but chaos for the locals and the benefits of hosting the Olympics are illusionary at best.

The residents of Boston were smarter.

The only thing LA has going for it is that they might have enough stadiums and shit to be able to hosty the Olympics without building anything new. For cities that do build shit for the Olympics tend to get stuck with facilities that just rot away.

White House Staff Uniforms

Muwhahaha- Fly the Fiendish Skies

I'll bet that the airline industry is going to despise this show:

I'm guessing this will be "ten shows and out" series, because I don't know how much humor can be mined from an immoral pilot, a slutty flight attendant and a bunch of drunken and surly passengers.

But we shall see. After all, I thought Brooklyn 99 was meh and it's going into its fifth season.

(For new readers, this is how it works: If I like a show, it's probably going to be canceled. If I don't like a show, it's probably going to be a hit.)

Why The Mooch is Gone

First, even the Weather Channel chimed in. Jim Cantore said this morning that Tropical Storm Emily, which was rather short-lived as a tropical storm, lasted longer than the Mooch, who apparently was frog-marched out of the White House yesterday.

I think Scaramucci was fired because he took on Steve Bannon. Bannon is the architect of Trump's moves to subvert American democracy. Bannon is Trump's Rasputin. Bannon is the guy whose job is to keep the other haters of democracy and freedom in line behind Trump.

The firing of Prebius may have effects that Trump either doesn't foresee or doesn't care about. There is nobody in the White House, now, who has any real ties to the GOP as a party. Sooner or later, it's going to sink in to the congressional majority that their president doesn't give a shit about their party or any of them. Trump never has. it's all been about amassing power in order to make more money for his family and his cronies.

Trump's role model, if there is one, is Putin. Putin both demolished what democracy existed in Russia and, in the process, has made both himself and his circle incredibly wealthy. Allegedly, Putin is the richest man in the world. And it's probably a good bet that business acumen had nothing to do with it.

So Trump looks at Putin, sees how rich Putin has made himself, then looks at the relative size of the two national economies. Trump may think that if Putin could amass a $200 billion fortune, Trump could do much better. If there is a single motivating force in Trump's head, it's greed. So if he has to destroy American democracy in order to be the first trillionaire, Trump will make the decision to do that in a picosecond.

Bannon is a necessary player for that to happen.

The Republicans int he congress could stop Trump, of course. But Trump's cooking them like if he was slowly boiling a frog. By the time they figure out what is happening, it'll be too late for them.

And for us.