Lying Elites, Syria, and Donald Trump

Brazen, baldfaced lying: all states engage in it. Russia engages in it, China, the US, Britain, France, Iran. Each has propounded brazen lies at different times in the course of its history, and many of these lies were eventually documented as such, to no one’s surprise.

This time, regarding the April 7th chemical weapons attack at Douma in Syria, it’s the Russians and Syrians who are likely telling something nearer the truth, while the US and its allies are lying through their teeth.

If what looks like a carefully planned, cold-blooded murder occurs in an office building, if there are no witnesses or other incriminating evidence, police inspectors tasked with solving the murder immediately begin the work of establishing who may have had a motive. Did the dead woman have a jealous ex-lover? Does someone stand to gain a huge inheritance? Was she in some power struggle in the company?

This approach is just common sense. After all, people usually don’t plan murders for no reason. Having identified someone with a strong motive, police can continue their work by focusing on that person.

In the case of Syria, why is this basic approach, good enough for police, not tried? Why is it simply assumed that the Syrian government would order a chemical weapons attack that served no military purpose--and in fact, for obvious reasons, served quite the opposite? Why would the Syrian government order an attack that could only put them in the crosshairs of vastly superior enemies?

The chance that the Assad government ordered the attack in Douma is virtually nil. Everyone paying attention, from blowhard John McCain to our military brass to Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May--they all know this. The Trump Administration also knows Assad didn’t gas Douma. If the story had to go out that Assad was responsible, and if Western military action needed to follow, these had little to do with anything Assad or Russia did. Rather, our quick Western response arose from powerful forces in our own governments and corporate offices. People with vested interests in staying on the war path in the Middle East needed this story.

But if Assad didn’t commit the atrocity in Douma, you might ask, who did? Well, first of all, there is still some small doubt that there there even was a chemical weapons attack. It is possible the event was staged, a propaganda op. But let’s assume that the attack occurred. Following basic police procedure, let’s pose the question of who would benefit from such an attack. Who had a motive?

One answer is obvious. The Syrian rebels themselves. On the verge of losing the civil war, the rebels heard the US president just days earlier announce plans to withdraw America from the conflict. Given that this was the same America that had been backing them for years, the rebels had a huge motive for finding some pretext, any pretext, to keep America involved. The only feasible way they could do this, playing Trump off against those in the US who wanted the war to continue, was to stage a chemical attack that could be blamed on Assad. Note the amazingly opportune timing of the Douma attack. It occurred just a week after Trump’s mention of plans to withdraw.

This is called, of course, a false flag event. And this one, really, it maybe wins the prize as the most glaringly obvious false flag event in decades.

But: Assuming the attack did happen, did the Syrian rebels plan and pull it off by themselves? Or did they have outside help?

That’s a rather gruesome question to be asking, one many won’t even like to pose, as it points to possible Western involvement. But how can we know the answer? At this point we can't. But if we’re looking merely at motive, again, there’s much evidence out there that Western intelligence and military elites have sought for years to find means of overthrowing the Assad government.

In any case, we need to keep our heads about us. We need to be thinking clearly. These issues are matters of life and death. Given Russia’s stake in Syria, and how the events there fit into growing Western tensions with Russia, the circle of death could potentially widen to include all of us.

To assume that Assad ordered the Douma attack is to assume that he is not merely a despot, but that he is a despot with a 41 IQ. This Assad is the same leader who managed to hold the Syrian capital during seven years of a brutal civil war. Yet he’s also, to believe our media, enough of a moron to shoot himself in the foot, in broad daylight, with a double-barrel shotgun. Assad is on the verge of winning the war, and the biggest guns against him, those provided by the US, would soon have been gone. So he makes sure to do something that ensures the Americans won't actually pull out.

In short, at this point it would be utter lunacy for Assad to call for such an attack. It's a fact must be kept front and center, as it points to a larger truth many are missing, at least at the level of media discussion. Namely: Our rivals on the world stage may be treacherous, even evil, but they are not drooling morons. Russia is not ruled by morons, nor is Syria. Had either state been run by morons, it would have been defeated or overthrown by now.

The story of the Douma attack presented in our media is thus predicated upon a glaringly cartoonish notion of our rivals. We need to call out the cartoon villains our elites present to us. Hell, even cartoon villains are smarter than Assad was--if he ordered that attack.

Breathtaking in all this was the immediacy and unanimity of the Western call for reprisals. Our corporate media, our government officials, our Congress, both sides of the aisle--all were suddenly on the same page. Assad must be shown a lesson.

How can we explain this unanimity? In corporate media, as far as I know, only one voice dared to speak plain truth: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. Carlson’s healhty skepticism and sanity deserve a nationwide hats off. Watch:



The very speed to verdict, the very unanimity of our elites, only underlines the fishiness of the whole Douma story. The one organization that could have possibly provided evidence as to what happened in Douma, the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), was just yesterday preparing to visit the site. Isn’t it interesting that the US, Britain and France decided to quickly pull off their strikes against Assad before the OPCW had time to investigate? If I didn’t have such respect for our elites, I’d be tempted to say that it almost looks like they didn’t really want to know what the OPCW might find.

There’s been plenty of evidence of a recent and growing Deep State push to go to war with Russia and its allies. The Skripal poisoning in London on March 4th is almost certainly part of this concerted effort. Attempting to poison Skripal and his daughter served no purpose for Putin and made no sense in terms of timing and execution. The only thing it succeeded in doing was giving Britain and her allies an opportunity to demonize the Russian government and expel diplomats.

But if the official story on the Skripal poisoning is full of holes, our official narrative of Assad’s chemical attack is no more than one big hole. There’s no story there even to have holes. If I weren’t seeing it unfold before my eyes, I’d find it hard to believe our elites would dare pull off such a clumsy sleight of hand. How can they expect to get away with it?

Oh, wait, I know how. Our elites assume that most of the citizenry couldn’t find Syria on a map and are too busy in any case stuffing their faces with mounds of french fries and watching Dancing with the Stars to care one way or another. Sadly, in this our elites are probably right.

So why did President Trump go along with it, calling for the missile strikes? Hadn’t he just announced intentions to pull out of Syria? Hadn’t he indicated during the campaign that he wanted America involved in no more Middle-Eastern hell holes? Hadn’t he even said, bravely and I think rightly, that it would have been better if we’d allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power and not created the horrible mess that brought the world ISIS and so much else?

Problem is, Trump is between a rock and a hard place. This month’s chemical attack at Douma, though fishy as all hell, more or less forced his hand. Inside his own government are powerful interests that want war in the Middle East to continue. He knew his announcement of withdrawal plans would irk these people. At the same time, he's been hounded since before even the inauguration with the absurd accusation that he is somehow a Russian puppet, a man put in office by, uh, $70,000 of Russian-bought Facebook ads. It’s laughable, I know. But keep in mind the Dancing with the Stars factor. Trump knows there are tens of millions of American voters who actually believe in Russiagate, there’s a CNN/NYT/WaPo media axis daily treating the story as legit, and there’s the Mueller investigation to boot, dragging on endlessly. So Trump had to do something.

Leading a democratic country in the age of instant information is more often a kind of ongoing improv theater performance than it is a matter of forging rational policy meant to address real problems. If what we are hearing so far is correct, then Trump’s new rain of missiles on Syria will not be followed by pursuit of the insane policy of the neocons and the likes of Nancy Pelosi. America will not be seeking to actually remove the regime in Damascus. At least I pray that’s the case. But Trump needed to throw something out there to appease the ravening wolves all around him, to shut them up. I’m praying he leaves it at that.

Will Russia undertake some kind of response in retaliation? They have more or less announced that they will. What might it be? A quick seizure of the Baltic States on the North Sea that used to be part of the Soviet Union? That would lead to direct Russian conflict with NATO. In any case, we can be sure Putin is himself feeling obliged to respond. Not to do so is to lose credibility with his own people. Provided the West’s actions against Syria are limited to these strikes, however, Putin’s response may be muted.

In any case, these are not games we want to be playing. President Trump should stick to his guns on No more regime change in the Middle East. This is what he promised, and this is what the voters who put him in office demand. If Trump can't stand up to the Deep State and the neocon apologists that swarm Washington, his legacy as an outsider will be lost.

Check out my Idiocy, Ltd. and begin the long, hard reckoning.

LaVar Ball: Ass-Clown of the Year

The arrest of three UCLA basketball players in Hangzhou for shoplifting early this month was shameful enough. But it’s the reaction to the event by LaVar Ball, father of one of the players, that takes the cake for clueless. I nominate him Ass-Clown of 2017.

The debate over whether the man should thank the US president for getting his son out of ten years jail time in China is one thing. Of course he should thank him. He’s a moron for not doing so. But it’s not just that. What most people are forgetting in all this is what it means to be part of a nation, part of the United States.

China is our main global competitor at present. The shoplifting by these "students" (I’ll use the scare quotes because I don’t think athletic scholarships should even be a thing) was of course widely reported in the Chinese press. Think about that for a moment. Given China's population of 1.4 billion, that means hundreds of millions of Chinese, catching this event in the news, were confirmed in their prejudice that America people of color are troublemakers and losers. Good job for your son there, LaVar.

LaVar said he would have thanked President Trump if he’d flown his kid home on Air Force One. “There’s a lot of room on that plane,” he said on CNN. Uh-huh. Does the man really have no idea what it means for national leaders to visit another country? Imagine how it would have played in Chinese media if our president, after getting them bailed out for their criminal behavior, had actually then flown these entitled "student" morons home in the presidential jet. Imagine the message it would convey, how the Chinese media would use it to dis American common sense in general and America’s leader in particular.

Rather than being a smart ass on national TV, LaVar Ball should be hanging his head in shame. Ball's son, a youth representative of the US, disgraced tens of millions of Americans in front of literally hundreds of million Chinese. And yes, he and his two teammates disgraced people of color. Why aren't more black Americans calling out the father on his cluelessness? This “father” thinks his son stealing is no big deal; and the Chinese, reading American reports, will naturally assume this to be typical of how American blacks think.

That CNN treated LaVar Ball with anything but contempt tells you something about CNN. Not thanking your country’s president for saving your son’s future? Shoplifting “ain’t that big a deal"? It's true I myself have never given much of a damn about ball players. But as for this ex-ball player and his "father", they are trash role models and a disgrace to America.

My novel A Taipei Mutt is now in print. The Asian capital unmuzzled.

On Freddie Mercury, Scaramouche Scaramucci, and Not Getting Played by the Trump Administration

My friend the poet JP posted this colorful recap of Anthony Scararamucci’s talk with the New Yorker, and commented:

This is absolutely amazing. This administration is going down the toilet. Trumpism at its lowest. But no, it can go lower.

JP has a lot of friends, and a quick dozen or so people weighed in as follows:

VARIOUS COMMENTERS: “Horror!” “There should be a law to remove these people!” “Amazing! I can’t believe it.” “A new low.” “No, it’s only just begun.” “Vulgarians.” “What’s happened to our country?” Etc., etc.

To me all this handwringing was off-putting, and I did my best to explain why in the rest of the thread, starting with . . .

Eric Mader: Satire has become impossible in America.

JP: Almost. I first thought this was complete fiction. I looked it up to make sure before re-posting it.

Eric Mader: QED

COMMENTER:

COMMENTER:

COMMENTER: And some people actually prefer these vulgarians to the Democrats.

Eric Mader: I hate whataboutism, so that's not the point of what I’ll say, but of course vulgarity from our political elite is nothing new. Democrat Rahm Emanuel was pretty much in the Scaramucci mode under Obama. Were we equally horrified, or talking about End Times re: Emanuel's lexicon? Also, and this is key to the question of whether there is method in the Trump madness: 1) Scaramucci is FUNNIER than any Obama official could have been. He looks and talks like some of our favorite Scorsese characters. And this may partly explain Trump's choice. If the political calculus is bread and circuses, with Scaramucciface Trump is delivering the circuses. 2) Note also what has happened in the past few weeks. When the biggest story should be Trump's shabby treatment of Jeff Sessions, the blogosphere is suddenly screaming about "No trans folks in the military!?" then suddenly this Scaramucci “interview”. I.e.: Method. The same method of constant churning scandal that arguably put Trump in the White House. A fact that Trump knows if he knows anything. Thoughts?

JP: Whataboutism! Love it. But at least Rahm said it not directly to a reporter, immediately after being hired, and said so many ugly things at once. Lethal combo.

Eric Mader: The press hates Trump and hated Spicer. "So," Trump says, "why not replace Spicer, and give them someone even worse, a full-on clown, the Mooch?"

JP: What's to like? Clowns are fun, but decorum is fun, too.

Eric Mader: I get your point "What's to like?" but want to see you argue the thesis "Decorum is fun".

JP: I write sonnets.

Eric Mader: Okay, give us an “Ode to Decorum". But it has to be a FUN sonnet.

COMMENTER: Well, Eric Mader, putting the Mooch in there may be an intentional distraction, but what good does it do the country?

Eric Mader: Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asserting anything about helping the country. I'm analyzing a political practice. To me Trump is not so much a cause of our national dysfunction as he is a symptom of it. If the Dems had not been 8 years of corporate-friendly economics and PC identity politics, the Trump administration wouldn't exist. And that is not my opinion, it's a glaring fact.

COMMENTER:

COMMENTER:

COMMENTER:

COMMENTER:

COMMENTER:

Eric Mader: Alright, this thread is winding down, but listen JP, above you parry one of my points with the phrase "I write sonnets."

Fair enough. And you do write sonnets THAT WILL LAST. Still, consider the following: "This is absolutely amazing. This administration is going down the toilet. Trumpism at its lowest. But no, it can go lower."

You wrote that too, JP. And that's not a sonnet.

Most commenters above agree with you that "This is amazing", etc., etc. "A new low", etc., etc.

I’m not in this camp. I’d argue that it's "amazing" only in the sense of sparkling, attracting the eye; and that millions of good citizens, some of them here in this thread, are thus reacting to it as “newsworthy”. But I think these good citizens are being played, they're being successfully trolled, and their reactions are a MISTAKE.

My point is that this Scaramucci bit is precisely NOT "Trumpism at its lowest". Trumpism at its lowest is what the president is doing at present to the Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Which is vulgar. And cheap. And personal. And arguably insane. Not because Jeff Sessions is a great man (one could argue that one way or the other) but simply because he was nominated Attorney General. Trump's behavior toward Sessions these past weeks shows he literally doesn't think he needs to work in a government with separate branches. And if Trump now sends out this new communications director whose communications shock, if Trump gives us the Mooch--it only succeeds in distracting from what is REALLY low in this administration's present workings.

The key word is: succeeds.

In short: Stop being played, folks. Don't react to vulgar comments and tweets. Call them out as the INTENTIONAL diversion tactics they are meant to be.

Trump was under serious fire for his shameless bullying of Sessions, and suddenly with a few flicks of the Trump wrist he manages to get the whole country talking about “amazing” things: trans soldiers, a new Scorsese character, whatever.

Yes, I posted on the Mooch's "interview" too, so I'm guilty as well. But if I were a good citizen, I'd not be focusing on Mooching and tweets, but on how Trump's recent actions, especially toward Sessions, show deep contempt for basic process in how our government works.

That's what the focus should be, not vulgar language from a communications director.

JP: I think it's all of a piece. Par for the course.

Eric Mader: A fair point. But if you or others here intend to fight it, the focus must be kept on how it's working. As strategy. Because it is more or less working. Otherwise Trump wouldn't have gotten elected. This is a new American politics.

MS TERESE COE: Repugnican Family Values

COMMENTER: Scaramucci is not a Republican Ms. Terese Coe

JP: Well, in a little bit, I'm deleting this whole thread. The language in the headline is something my children might see, and call me old-fashioned, but I'd like them to not have to say, Daddy, what does that mean?

Eric Mader: A fine thread it's been. But your call. At least you give us fair warning. And if your kids actually scan the FB, understandable.

But I'm gonna expect that sonnet on the fun of decorum.

Oh, one more thing. I should close with Freddie Mercury, who saw this whole episode coming:

I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning,
Very, very frightening me.
(Galileo) Galileo.
(Galileo) Galileo,
Galileo Figaro
Magnifico-o-o-o-o.

Prophetic, don’t you think, JP?

NB: 1) Since JP cut the thread I didn’t have time to save it all, and besides I’ve left JP anonymous, as maybe he wouldn’t want his comments published on my blog. 2) Scaramouche, Scaramucci: from It. “the Skirmisher”, stock clown character from the Commedia dell’Arte and actual family name of our president’s new communications director. Yeah, that thing about fiction and life. Par for the course.

Satire with a bite. Check out my Taipei Mutt. The Asian capital unmuzzled.

PANIC: Washington Elites in Full Propaganda Mode

CNN before the election; CNN after the election.
by David Hammond

Well, I honestly thought we had dodged a bullet involving war with Russia by not electing Hillary Clinton, but it looks like I was wrong. Given Clinton's defeat in the presidency, her controllers are now simply attempting to advance the timeline. Never mind the absurdity of the CIA complaining about election meddling, when that's been their particular specialty, in foreign governments, for at least the past seventy years. Never mind that our government has the gall to lie to us about "fake news" when our own Supreme Court has ruled that the mainstream news media is under absolutely no obligation to tell the truth. Never mind that the CIA has a documented history of infiltrating our news media through Operation Mockingbird and who knows what else, and has been called out by the highest members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, decade after decade, for being inherently deceitful from the inside out. Never mind that Julian Assange, top US intelligence officers, and even former UK ambassador Craig Murray have all explicitly stated that the expose of corrupt DNC activity was a leak, not a hack.

I suppose it may also be relevant that exactly twenty years ago TIME magazine proudly reported on the feats of American political consultants who manipulated the Russian election to ensure a Boris Yeltsin win, using a covert plan that involved specialized polling (similar to the Clinton campaign’s weighted polling that split Independents in half, giving her at least a constant 10% bump nationally) a negative ad campaign, propaganda, and other tools of the political manipulation trade.

This latest media propaganda blitz isn't so shocking on its own because similar tactics have presaged every war of choice America has ever been in. But to see so many intelligent people hysterically lap it up while apparently salivating for war with Russia and decrying "fake news" is getting a little creepy.

And the craziest part is that nearly every cheerleader is on the so-called left (of which I have been a lifelong member) when aren't we the ones who are supposed to see through government BS and lies as they goad us into yet another war? Surely such hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance can't be simply because our president is a Democrat, can it? Not even sure if I want to know the answer to that.

America, you are being lied to, yet again. You are being herded into yet another war of choice by powers that will say absolutely anything to get you to believe whatever they want you to believe. As Rahm Emmanuel infamously put it: "Never let a good crisis go to waste." Unfortunately, the establishment candidate's loss is just such an opportunity and they are capitalizing on it fiercely. How can this even happen? They are basically eliminating alternative news media with HR 6393, which was just quietly passed in the House, a bill that is quite literally the beginning of government censorship, with all of social media onboard. And, of all organizations, they're using Snopes as one of their go-to judges of what is “fake”, a widely-discredited source that routinely serves up misinformation, disinformation, and flat-out lies. Germany is even following suit by threatening to sue Facebook for €500,000 for every "fake" post allowed to stay up for more than 24 hours. When this kind of law can pass muster, it really doesn't matter which side of the aisle you are on. It should send a chill down the spine of anybody who appreciates their First Amendment rights. And as always, who is watching the watchers? This is nothing short of a open gate straight to tyranny.

Yet their technique has always been to point frantically to a threat so big and so encompassing that people will be clamoring for whatever medicine they want to sell. Its called problem -> reaction -> solution, and it's been their modus operandi for as long as anyone on the planet has been alive. Of course, they create the problem, fake the reaction, and then enact their preplanned solution, but is anyone really paying attention?

Right now, our government and their pliant mainstream media are engaged in a full-on fake news blitz, telling a lie so big and so outrageous that you'll have no choice but to believe it, or risk thinking the whole world has gone insane. This is called gaslighting, by the way. Look into it because it's one of the newest forms of mass manipulation in the book, and it's being aimed directly at you. Essentially a spin-off of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' famous quip “Tell a lie big enough and loud enough, and people will eventually believe it,” contemporary gaslighting adds subtle techniques of psychological manipulation to disorient the populace into submission.

Of course if Hillary Clinton had won, and the Trump camp were making these same ludicrous accusations, based on the same dearth of evidence, the left would be howling and scowling and ridiculing them day and night. When are people going to realize that, left or right, we are being repeatedly played to acquiesce to the establishment agenda? Naturally, I did not vote for Trump and I do not support Trump. But I have a very big problem with glaring hypocrisy and selective outrage--especially when those playing such games dangerously throw all logic and common sense out the window while risking war with a nuclear power.

The same goes for the idea that we need to overturn this election. Caveat: Unless you are personally willing to fight in a civil war, then please stop immediately. Unless you are willing to throw this country into blind chaos and bloodshed, then please stop. And again, just think: if Trump supporters demanded overturning the election, the left would climb over themselves to use that as evidence of crazed depravity, leveling every possible insult imaginable, and very likely threatening violence. Don't expect that the same thing wouldn't happen if Clinton supporters get anywhere near actually overturning this election.

And isn't it ironic that an establishment complaining about "fake news" was all in for a candidate who openly stated to Goldman Sachs that “You have to have a public position, as well as a private position”? The message is quite clear: It's basically okay to lie to you, the public, as long as we're the ones doing it. But if somebody exposes our lies--Russia for instance, or some recently-murdered DNC staffer, namely Seth Rich, then it's clearly not okay.

And while the mainstream media implicates everybody not named Hillary Clinton for her loss, we're suddenly pretending it's the 1950s again and there's a Russky hiding under every bed and anybody who disagrees with the establishment's deceitful narrative is a Kremlin operative. The fact that our current Democratic Party's primary allies are the CIA, Internet censors, and McCarthyist hacks should strike the sane left observer as alarming, but then this is 2016 I suppose, so God only knows what's possible.

Who can be blind to the painful irony in the fact that the evidence for this supposed “election hacking” is nothing more than "a secret report, leaked by an anonymous insider, backed by no proof whatsoever, from an agency with a history of lying to the public." (Thank you, Estela Jordan, for that concise summary.)

And doesn't it seem a bit odd that the Orwellian NSA, which tracks every detail of our personal lives, somehow can't quite manage to trace this hack? “Of course they can't trace it,” sanity says, “because it's a leak, not a hack.” But plain sanity isn’t going to stop the government and its mainstream media lackeys from telling you otherwise.

According to CNN, our current president warned: "Mr. Putin can weaken us just like he is trying to weaken Europe if we buy into notions that it is okay to intimidate the press or lock up dissidents."

Oh really, you mean as in writing off all alternative and investigative news media as "fake news" while threatening to lock up true patriots like Edward Snowden, thus forcing them into exile? This from the same guy who promised to champion whistleblowers--then went on to prosecute more than all other presidents combined?

And isn't it getting a little hard to stomach that, even if Russia did hack the emails, their only crime was exposing the monumental lies and deceit that have become the hallmark of Clinton, Inc. and the DNC--yet never a single word about that is mentioned? So does this now mean that we shoot all messengers for delivering bad news? That exposing a lie fully implicates you in that lie or makes you a greater threat than the liar? What kind of upside-down, backwards, bizarro logic is that? Even if Russia did it, their only real "crime" would simply be exposing the truth about our so-called leaders.

There's no way the government can pull off this blitzkrieg of deception unless Americans abandon all logic and reason and allow the cognitive dissonance to fully take over. That again is part of the strategy of gaslighting. In insistent and logical tones, the manipulator repeats illogical things. And so our Washington elites continue screaming "Fake news from Russia!" over and over again, screaming it in the face of the universal recognition that the Wikileaks emails are entirely authentic, screaming it and waiting for us to grow uncertain of our mental footing and begin screaming along.

And as always, the final choice here is ours. No, we do not have a truly representative government, but we do still retain some influence. We can take their word for it and simply acquiesce, just like we did with the Iraq war, or we can stand firm and hold them to somewhat sane standards of accountability while boldly calling them out on their clearly illogical lies and propaganda. I pray that Americans make the right choice this time.

Russian Interference in Wisconsin Recount: Experts

Eric Mader, The Disassociated Press, Madison, December 13, 2016

Evidence of Russian interference in the recent Wisconsin recount is mounting, according to experts interviewed by the Disassociated Press.

Election and polling experts cite “abnormalities” in the outcome of the statewide recount, and point to Moscow as the likely source of organized meddling that occurred in several key counties across the state.

Final tallies announced Monday showed that Hillary Clinton still had not won the state, and that Donald Trump picked up an additional 131 votes. Final totals put Trump’s count at 1,405,284 votes, 22,748 more than Clinton.

“It is my firm belief that advanced mind-control techniques were employed by Russian-trained agents to throw off this count,” David Swishe, an election expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Agents of the Russian state were deployed outside county clerk’s offices as the recount unfolded," Swishe said. "They used telepathic mind-control to make election workers visualize Clinton ballots as Trump ballots."

“In Waukesha County, at a Starbucks just next to the clerk’s office, a very Russian-looking man was observed reading Dostoyevsky on more than one day during the recount,” he added. “It’s very suspicious.”

Lisa, a Women’s Studies student and self-described polling expert, agrees that the recount was hacked.

“I conducted exit polls on Facebook the day after the election,” she said. “Every single one of my friends voted for Hillary. Really there is no way Trump won. It's scientifically impossible.”

Both Swishe and Lisa conclude, based on their evidence, that Clinton won the state by at least a couple hundred thousand votes.

“We’re starting a petition to push for a redo of the recount,” Swishe said. “And we’ll be placing Mind Protectors around all the sites where the recount is happening.”

“I had to read Dostoyevsky myself in a lit class,” he added. “The Brothers Raskolnikov. Let me tell you first hand, that book sucks. And these Russians we have today suck even more.”

Check out my Idiocy, Ltd. at Amazon.com and begin the long, hard reckoning.