2017 Mar 27^th

In this morning’s paper, Patrick Buchanan writes about “The Obama plot to sabotage Trump.” You talk about “sending coals to Newcastle,” why would President Obama bother to sabotage Trump’s presidency, which is already deconstructing itself very nicely. Keep in mind that many of the administration’s problems were caused by some of the lower-level Trump flunkies. Steven Miller, a Trump advisor, was the author of that pathetic initial effort to ban Muslims from seven countries, an effort struck down by the courts almost immediately. But then, isn’t Trump responsible for the glitches produced by his incompetent appointments?

Buchanan is on a desperate search for a conspiracy so he’ll find one…or he’ll create one if that’s what it takes. Buchanan writes, “The US intelligence community, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump officials… “unmasked “ their identity and spread their names around virtually assuring they would be leaked.” He then says that Comey admits that there is no evidence to back up Trump’s tweet (about Obama wiretapping him) but would not comment on …electronic surveillance of Trump and his campaign.

The names of these Trump officials were always on the other end of calls to Russians. Buchanan doesn’t mention that, or find it the least peculiar that they are not on the other end of calls to India, Norway or Mexico. These Trump officials do seem to have an immoderate affinity for talking to Russians…all of it quite innocent of course.

Then there are the leaks of information about Clinton’s campaign traced to Russian hackers. They had hacked both campaign organizations but leaked only the stuff damaging to Clinton. Some of that hacked information had Russian language notes accompanying it. Didn’t the great Trump himself invite Russian hackers to get those 30 thousand emails lost by the Clinton campaign?

Russia also seems to be a fine money pump for the Trump people. Many Trump associates have been paid handsomely for speaking to assorted Russian groups, some, like General Flynn, were photographed seated right next to Putin himself. Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, billionaire Wilbur Ross, is the majority owner of the Bank of Cyprus. So, how is that connected to Russia? This bank is the primary launderer of Russian oligarch’s money; it is the way they get their cash out of the country. Who cares if a smidgen of that cash falls into other hands?

It was a Russian oligarch who paid Trump a handsome profit of close to 60 million dollars on a house Trump had owned for only about four years…and then the new Russian owner tore down the house. This looks like a way to hand Donald Trump a cool 50 + million dollars. You can see why Trump and company have a great affinity for Russians…I doubt that Norwegians would throw money around like that, so of course Trump’s people like to talk to Russians. Our spy catchers are checking this out and they are finding Trump types on the other end of these Russian phone calls. Buchanan naturally sees a conspiracy here and writes, “If true (about the poorly redacted names of Trump people chatting with Russians) this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to sabotage the Trump presidency before it began.”

There is more of course and all of it as silly as the previous stuff. Buchanan says that, “… Comey had no evidence to back up the Trump (surveillance) tweet. But when it came to electronic surveillance of Trump and his campaign, Comey, somehow, could not comment about that.” That was, obviously, because the investigation of Trump’s peccadilloes is a work in progress and Comey cannot comment about ongoing investigations.

Then Buchanan moves to support poor abused General Flynn. Has he anything to say about Flynn working as a Turkish agent while he is Trump’s National Security advisor? Of course not; why would he bring that up and spoil his poor abused General Flynn story.

OK, Buchanan has more paranoia to peddle but this blog is already long enough.