Maverick's World

The Daily Donald 04/19/2017

We seem to be living in a world of mysteries.

First off - it seems that the CVN Vinson and its "armada" was never actually near Korea. And what is even more perplexing is that 38North can find no evidence of a missile launch from the ground at Sinpo. Now it could be that Trump's "armada" was a nuclear attack submarine in the Sea of Japan (that would certainly explain why a Bear, a May and a Fencer was loitering there on April 14th), and DPRK actually attempted a launch from a submersed platform instead of a land based launch platform... or it could be that given both KJU and DJT are profound bullshitters - all the stuff I was worried about was just political theater aimed at deflecting attention from new information emerging about Trump campaign ties to Russia.

Secondly, we are still waiting to hear details of the events at Tangi Asadkhel. No one besides the US has apparently been allowed on ground zero. There are no actual casualty numbers. A partial list of the Jihadis killed in the attack mostly includes members of the Okrazai tribe in Pakistan. The group affiliations are listed as TTP, LeT and some unknown Indian group. There is no mention of IS as a primary organization identifier. Now it could be that the strike was wildly successful and the US wants to keep the details secret and use the information to infiltrate IS, or it could be that the US wants to keep the true effectiveness of the MOAB against tunnel complexes a secret or it could be that the attack was unsuccessful altogether and keeping the Afghans and press from seeing the details is the only way to hide the miserable failure of the scheme. Again we have no idea what really happened in  Tangi Asadkhel.

Then there is the odd matter of the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District. As predicted by so many poll agencies, the election has gone into a runoff. In the last 5 months, the district moved from being 20 pts towards the GOP to splitting down the middle between GOP  and Democratic Party. This is similar to the kind of shift observed in the 4th district of Kansas. A massive swing away from the GOP. What should come as a shock to the system in the GOP is that the greater alignment with Donald Trump produced poorer electoral results. This is a pointer to an anti-correlation. If KS04 highlighted that the Trump brand could no longer draw voters into the GOP's ranks, GA06 suggests that  the Trump brand is actually driving large numbers of voters away from the GOP. There will be a run off - but before that happens, one needs to review carefully what exactly happened in Fulton county where a  mysterious "data error" prevented the votes from being transmitted electronically. I am not suggesting that something illegal occurred (though quite frankly I would be less than surprised if it did - there is really no way for GOP to win besides rigging at this point) - but that in this age of hacking - one needs to be extra careful. Perhaps if the theft of the machines was detected  properly, there would be less  cause for concern but as that crime remains unsolved at this time, one has to assume the worst. What I suspect is that the GOP threw the book at GA06 to prevent a  > 50% vote for Ossoff. Losing GA06 would have  looked bad on Donald Trump's "100 Days" report card.

In other news Preet Bharara has been appointed by NYAG to lead the investigation into Trump's illegal financial dealings. It is unclear if any of these crimes can be pardoned by Trump himself or  if he will be impeached before his pardon  power lapses. Once impeached he cannot pardon himself for other crimes that he has not been charged with.

In an indication of the stress levels surrounding his general existence, Donald Trump made several public mistakes where he got Congressman Paul Ryan's name wrong. He also forgot which country he bombed last week and mixed up Kim Jong Un with his father.

All the while the Trump kids appear to be lining their pockets will whatever  change they can find  lying around the oval office.

The people that  voted for Donald Trump need to ask themselves how we came to be in a situation where the  kind of rampant and brazen kleptocracy came  to reside in the  White House.

posted by maverick @ 6:03 AM