Putin Puts Head Up Own Arse

Bloomberg News’ John Mickelthwait traveled to Russia to interview President Putin this week. Their 2-hour conversation has been divided into separate articles and segmented video; the following are from the liar, liar pants on fire portion of the program.

“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” Putin said of the DNC breach. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.” – Bloomberg Politics, 2 September 2016

Pish Posh people! Why bother with trifles like foreign government sanctioned espionage?

“You know how many hackers there are today?” Putin said. “They act so delicately and precisely that they can leave their mark — or even the mark of others — at the necessary time and place, camouflaging their activities as that of other hackers from other territories or countries. It’s an extremely difficult thing to check, if it’s even possible to check. At any rate, we definitely don’t do this at a state level.”

Why does he keep saying that? We don’t do these things at “a state level?” Kremlin sanctioned? “Prove it!”

Trickster Trump and the FEC

Trump has repeatedly bragged since he donned that snazzy red bucket on his noggin about his infamous thrift. A consistent torrent of taunts were directed at his Republican competition over outspending him by yuge numbers.

Funny thing about Trump’s penny pinching, he’s been tardy getting paychecks to his top 10 advisers. Kelly-Anne Conway has not been paid for the month of July.

Those who have so far not been paid, the filings show, include recently departed campaign manager Paul Manafort, California state director Tim Clark, communications director Michael Caputo and a pair of senior aides who left the campaign in June to immediately go to work for a Trump Super PAC. – Reuters, 2 September 2016

Why would billionaire Donald J. Trump not pay senior staff members?

In another instance, two high-level former Trump campaign advisers, former Chris Christie campaign manager Ken McKay and Manafort lobbying associate Laurance Gay, departed the Trump campaign in June and went to work for the Trump-backed Super PAC, Rebuilding America Now. In June, the Super PAC paid each of them $60,000, the filings show.

A FEC law requires a former employee or independent contractor to officially separate from the campaign, meaning stop receiving paychecks, at least 120 days before they begin working with that candidate’s Super pac. Coordination between a candidate and it’s Super pac is prohibited and is generally considered unfair.

According to Reuters, low-level ground support, for instance, are often volunteers, but why would Trump not pay his highly engaged campaign team? Maybe so those staffers can shift to a Super pac or say CNN without that silly 120 day encumbrance or appearance of *tricksterism?

What is unusual, however, is for a campaign to have such a large group of people in top positions who are unpaid.

Food for thought.

*completely fabricated word; will not find in any dictionary.

Mother Teresa: Scrutinized and Sainted

This week the life of Mother Teresa was celebrated in anticipation of her long awaited canonization by Pope Francis Sunday in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.

“What is most important is for us to see that it’s not something from the medieval times or some distant saint that is sort of held up as holier than thou or a distant figure,” said Lucinda Vardey, a writer who was commissioned by one of Mother Teresa’s publishers to write a book, called “A Simple Path” about the candidate saint.

“It’s a real woman who took great risks, who had a real belief that Jesus called her to do this, and she went ahead and did it without any form of hesitation,” she wrote.

Nevertheless, even a saint has her hecklers, as NBC News hastens to report.

“I personally think that she did more harm than good,” said Chatterjee, who published a book-length critique of Mother Teresa in 2003 called “Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict.”

Among the most scalding [critics] was the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens, whose 1994 documentary “Hell’s Angel” excoriated the nun for glorifying suffering instead of providing adequate care.  – NBC News, 2 September 2016

Tough crowd. How good does one need to be, to be judged good by one’s peers or for the liberal media to give it a rest during a week of solemn reflection on a life lived beautifully?

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