Russia, Chechnya and Ukraine.

I saw and browsed through a graphic novel at the town library yesterday. I wish it was just fiction I had flipped through. Instead it was a narration of eyewitness accounts of a tiny fraction of actual events of what went down in the Dirty War in Chechnya and the recent unpleasantness in Crimea and Ukraine. I wish I could now unsee it. It portrays the Russian military in a very bad light, acting as total brutes. But the Russian Military were the good guys in the previous Chechen War under Yeltsin and they got their hats handed back to them by the Chechens! I'll get the title up at the earliest opportunity.

A Damn Fool

By signing the Russian Sanctions bill into law all the while grousing about it, President Donald J. Trump has shown to all the world that he's a damn fool. I'm sure he thought he was on the "winning" side when he signed this thing, rather than to veto it and find himself on the "losing" side. Apparently it was lost on him that vetoing this bill would have given him some political capital, a higher standing amongst his base and grudging respect from others. Instead he signed it into law and became Congress's chump.

From James Howard Kunstler (emphasis original):

Russia hysteria has become a full-blown national psychosis at a moment in history when a separate array of troubles poses the real threat to America’s well-being. Most of these have to do with the country’s swan dive into bankruptcy, but meeting them honestly would force uncomfortable choices on the grifters and caitiffs in congress. Meanwhile, the Treasury Dept is burning through its dwindling cash reserves, and all government activities will face a shutdown at the end of the summer unless congress votes to raise the debt ceiling — which may be way harder than passing the stupid Russia sanctions bill. 

That bill, vaingloriously called The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, will only blow up in America’s face. This country’s actual trade with Russia is negligible, but the bill aims to interrupt and punish Europe’s trade, centering on oil and natural gas, which they need desperately. Mainly, the US bill seeks to interrupt a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea that would bypass several of the Baltic Nations currently being used by America — under the NATO banner — as staging areas for unnecessary and provocative war games on Russia’s borders. 

Germany is certain to not stand for it, and like it or not, they are the straw that stirs the European drink. The sanctions pretend to seek to isolate Russia, but the effect will only be to isolate the United States. Europe will laugh at the measure as impinging on their sovereign prerogatives to trade as they please. And Russia can turn around and sell all the natural gas it wants to customers in Asia. Left undiscussed in the moronic American media is the American gas industry’s hidden role in pushing the sanctions so it can sell liquefied gas overseas — which would only end up raising the price for American gas customers to heat their homes....

So what exactly was Mr. Trump thinking when he signed the “deeply flawed” (his words) Russian Sanctions bill coughed up like a hairball by congress? It’s a ridiculous piece of legislation from any angle. It limits the president’s own established prerogatives for negotiating with foreign nations (probably unconstitutionally), and will only provoke economic warfare (at least) against the US that can easily lead to shattering global trade relations entirely. Some observers say he had to sign it because the vote for it in congress was so overwhelming (419 to 3) that they would only override a Trump veto. But the veto would have had, at least, symbolic value in the Jacksonian spirit that Trump pretended to want to emulate at the outset of his term. Perhaps he sees the Deep State endgame and is tired of resisting.

From The Automatic Earth (Russian PM Medvedev via Zero Hedge) (emphasis mine):

The signing of new sanctions against Russia into law by the US president leads to several consequences. First, any hope of improving our relations with the new US administration is over. Second, the US just declared a full-scale trade war on Russia. Third, the Trump administration demonstrated it is utterly powerless, and in the most humiliating manner transferred executive powers to Congress. This shifts the alignment of forces in US political circles. 

What does this mean for the U.S.? The American establishment completely outplayed Trump. The president is not happy with the new sanctions, but he could not avoid signing the new law. The purpose of the new sanctions was to put Trump in his place. Their ultimate goal is to remove Trump from power. An incompetent player must be eliminated. At the same time, the interests of American businesses were almost ignored. Politics rose above the pragmatic approach. Anti-Russian hysteria has turned into a key part of not only foreign (as has been the case many times), but also domestic US policy (this is recent).

What is this President, fucking stupid?

UPDATE 8-8-2017: Because Congress adjourned for its 2017 recess last week, the Donald could have let the bill languish until it passed its expiry date, which would have been yesterday. This action is called a Pocket Veto, which US presidents can use anytime they want to dispose of bills they don't like, were passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses (but not always), and were passed close enough to their expiry dates so that they would become null and void without the executive signature. Instead he signed it anyway because he wanted to be seen as a winnah and not a loozah.

Like I said, what is this President, fucking stupid?

Russiagate no longer a big nothingburger.

The Deep State, the mainstream media, and the Democrats' charges of collusion with the Russky government are no longer just "Russia, Russia, Russia!"

Well Donald J Trump Jr's emails with Russian officials are out and the foreign policy bureaucrats and liberals are dancing on Donald Trump's grave while he's still alive and kicking! So here are two YouTube vids that illustrate how the Donald's problems have just increased hyperbolically. The decline of the United States is accelerating and Putin and his cronies apparently had given us a big push down the steepening slope.

Why Donald Trump Jr's emails change everything.

Ex KGB Spy Jack Barsky Is MIND-BOGGLED By Email Trump Jr Received Before Meeting W Russian Lawyer.

Now we get to see the disabling of the United States as a major power on the world stage, at least until the Christian Talibanner Mike Pence gets into the Oval Office. And it could be worse! We could have armed insurrections against the federal government here in the "homeland." Or Mike Pence's first act could be starting World War 3 with Russia. Yes, he despises Russia despite it being a homophobic Christian country now--go figure!

Well I'll tell you about the effects of a 14,000 nuclear warhead exchange on the atmosphrere, climate and biosphere of this blue and green planet, Earth.

ON EDIT 7-13-2017: It turns out to me, and I got this from the print media (USA Today and the New Orleans Times-Picayune) that the Trump people--DJT Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner--were expecting that the handful of Russians they were dealing with would just hand over the dirt they got on Hillary! And the Russians who met with them wanted them to do something about certain sanctions that Obama imposed in 2012, for which Moscow retaliated with a ban on adoption of Russian orphans by Americans, and refused to discuss anything else. So, no deal, these Russians kept the info they had on Hillary.

So all we have so far are the condiments.

ON EDIT: 7-14-2017: Now one of the persons at the meeting used to be a Soviet Counter-Intelligence officer. Curioser and curioser.

ON EDIT 7-18-2017: Now it turns out that the Christopher Steele dossier, commissioned and paid for by unidentified Democratic donors, has links to an unregistered Russian foreign operative and perhaps to Russian intelligence. How else could that alleged incident with Trump and the Russian Prostitutes have gotten on the record? Hmmm?

How else could it have happened?
Hmmmmm?

Read the Forbes article!

UPDATE 7-24-2017: Now Trump is mulling canning US Atty General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with Rudi Giuliani. And he's tweet-blasting the GOP Congressional Majority for not protecting him from the Russia investigation. This is not a man who is confident that this whole thing about Russia, Russia, Russia! is a big, fat nothingburger. And if it is nothing but condiments, why?

IMBECILE!

UPDATE 7-31-2017: And here's why I though and still think the "Russia hacked the election" meme is BOGUS! Why ask the Russians to hack the election when GOP-loyal, US-citizen operatives can do it themselves?

Onward and Downward!