Tag Archives: watergate

This Is Not Watergate! This Is Treason!!!

Today’s Trump Twitter Tirade

Emperor Trump sent out a series of deranged tweets this morning that not only upped the ante, but — IRONY ALERT! — just ensured never-ending investigations up his colon all the way to his lyin’ mouth.

First things first: Because Emperor Trump is always deflecting from the bad news he knows is coming, we need to ask, “What’s next?” If you’ve been paying attention, you know the answer. More Russian bombshells. However, while we’re waiting for that shoe to drop (how many shoes does this crazy MoFo have?), let’s examine the overarching, grand irony in this series of tweets, fresh this morning from the Trump Toilet.

[For greater context, read Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka? and Is Michael Flynn A Traitor? Is Trump? The GOP? Watergate Redux?, found elsewhere in the Not Now Silly Newsroom.]

Let’s take Trump’s Tweets one by one in chronological order followed by the Truth Trump Won’t Tell™:

IRONY #1: Strange that Emperor Trump would jump to McCarthyism because 1). McCarthyism is defined as the wild accusation against someone without a shred of proof; 2). Roy Cohn — Trump’s lawyer and mentor — taught him that a good defense is a nuclear offense, a trait we’ve seen from this tweeting man/boy over and over again. Additionally, Cohn was McCarthy’s chief counsel when that drunkard was destroying good people during the McCarthy hearings without a shred of evidence. See the parallel?

What else you got, you mendacious piece of horse manure?

IRONY #2: He was the fucking President, you idiot — a job you don’t seem to understand. It was his job to meet with the Russians. It was not the job of Jared Kushner, General Mike Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Casey Page, Paul Manafort, or Roger Stone. (Did I leave anyone out?)

What else you got, you soon-to-be-former Emperor?

IRONY #3: Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Not only did Emperor Trump just admit that a court gave law enforcement permission for “wire tapping”, which makes it legal, but this is hardly the first time.

In those stories linked above NNS tells the inside baseball story of how President Lyndon Baines Johnson tapped the campaign plane of candidate Richard Nixon to determine whether treason had been committed.

The short answer is yes. Treason was committed when Nixon used Anna Chennault to approach the South Vietnamese — where U.S. soldiers were dying — and tell them to hold out to get a better deal from Nixon after he was elected. The South Vietnamese walked away from the Paris Peace Talks and people on all sides of this war continued to die.

See the parallel? Was Trump using many people, not just a single Anna Chennault, to go around President Obama and tell them not to worry about the sanctions just imposed because Emperor Trump could make them all go away?

If so, this would be treason.

LBJ obtained audio evidence of Nixon’s treason, but decided it would be hard to explain why he had tapped Nixon’s plane, so he gave the information to Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey to use as an October Surprise. Humphrey was too honourable to do so and eventually lost to Nixon (who, in case you need reminding,  eventually quit rather than face impeachment).

See the parallel? We have already learned from previous leaks that President Obama’s administration had a ton of info on Trump/Russian connections. However, Obama was too honourable to use it against him and didn’t want to be seen meddling in the election (unlike the F.B.I., but that’s another story for another day).

Does Cheetos Jesus have anything else?

IRONY #4: Lawyers can make a good case out of anything. However, they need proof to win. Where’s the proof, you lying sumnabitch?

We already know your spelling is atrocious, but it’s “tap” not “tapp”.

IRONY #5: Spelling aside, for Trump to thumb the words “very sacred election process” is the height of hypocrisy. Trump did nothing but shit all over the “very sacred election process” from the minute he threw his toupee into the ring, through the rest of the campaign, and beyond his inauguration.

That during this “very sacred election process” he also got all that extra help from the Ruskies [allegedly, of course], is the ALMOST the biggest irony of all.

IRONY #6: The biggest irony is that Emperor Trump just guaranteed there will be Senate and Congressional hearings about all these issues until the cows come home, or the pigeons come home to roost, whichever comes first. Pass the popcorn.

BUT, WAIT! THERE’S MORE!!!

The Twitterer-in-Chief also had time for some serious business this morning:

IMPEACH TRUMP NOW!!!

Is Michael Flynn A Traitor? Is Trump? The GOP? Watergate Redux?

Three Amigos

Alleged traitor Michael Flynn, Emperor Trump‘s National Security Advisor (a position that does not need Senate approval) has been revealed as a modern day Anna Chennault. If true, this could actually lead to the impeachment of Agent Orange, if the dominoes fall the right way.

First, who is Anna Chennault? I previously wrote about her in my longer exposé Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka? Here’s a quick sketch for those who have forgotten their Watergate history:

Chennault helped Richard Nixon commit treason against the United States during the 1968 election. During the ’60s she was one of what was known as the China Lobby. In 1968, when Nixon was running for POTUS, he had Chennault carry a message to the South Vietnamese government. President Lyndon Johnson had been trying to broker a peace deal in Vietnam. Chennault told them to hold out and they would get a better deal after Nixon was elected. This scuttled the Paris Peace Talks and the war in Vietnam continued until 1973.

There is no longer any debate that these events happened, but it took decades for them to be confirmed. Now the only debate is whether it was treason, or just a contravention of the Logan Act.

Two Amigos

It’s taken only a few months to ferret out the new! improved! Anna Chennault. Step right up Michael Flynn. Just the headlines since late Thursday tell a story. Don’t drill down unless you want to be shocked. OH MY!!!

CIA freezes out top Flynn aide  • Michael Flynn’s DebacleThe scandal over Mike Flynn’s secret talks with the Russians, explainedJust how much trouble is Michael Flynn in?When it comes to his contacts with Russia, Michael Flynn has bigger problems than the Logan ActFlynn Is Said to Have Talked to Russians About Sanctions Before Trump Took OfficeNational Security Adviser Mike Flynn, Security Risk Reports: Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Discussed Sanctions With Russia in Potential Violation of Federal LawDemocrats call for Michael Flynn’s dismissal after reported Russia talks Nancy Pelosi Demands The Suspension Of Mike Flynn Over Russia Ties

Suspension? I’d be screaming for a House investigation.

Here’s why: Emperor Trump should be impeached if he knew Flynn was going behind President Obama’s back with Russia at the very same time Obama was applying sanctions for the hacking that helped elect Trump. It won’t take decades to confirm collusion. All the involved parties are STILL HERE.

What has convinced the entire Not Now Silly Newsroom that Emperor Trump knew all about this is how he pretended he didn’t know anything about this when asked about it on Hair Force Whine [jump to 1:12]:

We know that Emperor Trump watches — and tweets about — the latest news obsessively. It requires more than simple credulity to believe him when he says, “I don’t know about it. I haven’t seen it. What report is that?” When pressed he makes a promise. “I said I haven’t seen it. I’ll look into it.”

Right. But he can take shots at Saturday Night Live and Nordstrom’s.

Let’s see a show of hands. Who believes he will really look into it? It takes ignorance, willful or otherwise, to buy that pile of bullshit.

Let’s not forget how many times Emperor Trump has confounded conventional thinkers with his undisguised — and inexplicable — love for the Russian Prez.

The New York Times makes the point in Trump Will ‘Look Into’ Reports That Flynn Discussed Sanctions With Russia:

Even as Mr. Trump professed his lack of knowledge of the episode, administration officials were scrambling to contain the fallout of the latest revelations about the embattled former three-star general, who has been criticized internally for his judgment and for staffing the National Security Council with military officers instead of trained civilian personnel.

Perhaps a bigger concern for Mr. Flynn is his relationship with Vice President Mike Pence, who sometimes has had to defend him in public.

As much as we now know about Watergate, one of the unknowns is just exactly what Nixon’s plumbers were looking for that fateful night they were caught trying to bug the DNC in the Watergate hotel. There have long been suggestions they were looking for the Anna Chennault Treason Dossier (which was already in Herbert Humphrey’s possession. But, that’s another story).

Let’s also not forget that there’s a dossier in the slow-motion Emperor Trump-Russian scandal. While the most salacious allegations in that document have not been confirmed, it’s now generally acknowledged that the rest of it is pretty solid. The Russian government may indeed have blackmail material on Trump.

Nixon tried to pass Watergate off as a “third rate burglary,” but eventually it took down his presidency. How long before we learn the truth about Flynngate? Or, will Flynn fall on his sword to protect Pence and Trump?

More importantly: During the Watergate hearings, the GOP showed great courage during the bipartisan questioning of Nixon’s aides to determine whether the president had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Today’s GOP capitulated to Emperor Trump, proving it supports party over country. Is there anyone left in the GOP with enough courage to call for a bipartisan investigation?

Zappa, Elvis & Nixon ► Monday Musical Appreciation(s)

Frank Zappa before the mustache

There are two big events in today’s music history and I couldn’t decide between them. On this day in 1940 Frank Zappa was born. In unrelated news, 30 years later Elvis Presley bluffs his way into Nixon’s White House and is presented with a law enforcement badge so the drug-addled King of Rock and Roll can help fight the War on Drugs. No, really!

I can still remember the day I bought Zappa’s first LP, Freak Out. It was in the Kresge’s record department and the band was one of the ugliest I had ever seen. I was 14 years old and had never heard of The Mothers of Invention before, but there was something about the cover that made me buy it. The back cover has what purported to be a letter from what purported to be a Suzy Creamcheese:

These Mothers is crazy. You can tell by their clothes. One guy wears beads and they all smell bad. We were gonna get them for a dance after the basketball game but my best pal warned me you can never tell how many will show up…sometimes the guy in the fur coat doesn’t show up and sometimes he does show up only he brings a big bunch of crazy people with him and they dance all over the place. None of the kids at my school like these Mothers… specially since my teacher told us what the words to their songs meant. Sincerely forever, Suzy Creamcheese, Salt Lake City, Utah.

All of that added up to GOTTA HAVE IT!

I distinctly remember taking it home and being surprised by that it was a 2 LP set (apparently only the 2nd double album of the Rock era, following Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde by mere weeks). I also remember how utterly confused I was after I listened to the entire 4 sides. The first 2 sides consisted of what could only be described as Demented Doo Wop. It was hard to tell if Zappa was satirizing the genre or lovingly recreating it, especially after listening to the final 2 sides. I didn’t have the language then for what it was, but I was immediately hooked. I have been a life-long Frank Zappa fan ever since.

However, as I keep saying, it’s all about the music. Here’s Frank Zappa’s first official LP of a career that produced more records than anybody else in the Rock era:

The unanswered question is why my unformed, teenager mind so readily glommed onto Zappa, way ahead of the curve.

Animation created by author from public domain White House photos

The Elvis Presley incident is a bizarre footnote to the entire Watergate presidency of Richard Nixon and provided a strange capper to the long career of Elvis Presley.

To make a long story short: Nixon went on the lam from Graceland and the Memphis Mafia after an argument with his wife Priscilla and his father Vernon over the cost of Christmas gifts.

First he flew to Washington, but then took off to Los Angeles. There he concocted an incredible plan to meet President Nixon. According to the Smithsonian Institute, of all places:

Elvis was traveling with some guns and his collection of police badges, and he decided that what he really wanted was a badge from the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs back in Washington. “The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him,” Priscilla Presley would write in her memoir, Elvis and Me. “With the federal narcotics badge, he [believed he] could legally enter any country both wearing guns and carrying any drugs he wished.”

After just one day in Los Angeles, Elvis asked [Jerry] Schilling to fly with him back to the capital. “He didn’t say why,” Schilling recalls, “but I thought the badge might be part of the reason.”

On the red-eye to Washington, Elvis scribbled a letter to President Nixon. “Sir, I can and will be of any service that I can to help the country out,” he wrote. All he wanted in return was a federal agent’s badge. “I would love to meet you,” he added, informing Nixon that he’d be staying at the Washington Hotel under the alias Jon Burrows. “I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a federal agent.”

That’s all it took to get an Oval Office meeting with Nixon, who happily posed for pictures with the King of Rock and Roll. The National Archives has an entire online exhibit called When Nixon Met Elvis and there’s a hilarious movie, Elvis Meets Nixon, which takes some liberties with the truth and features my cyber-friend Curtis Armstrong as Farley Hall. Both are highly recommended by me.

Nixon went on to quit the presidency over Watergate, while Elvis died on the crapper.

Richard Nixon’s Synchronicity In Death

On the day Richard Nixon died, 21 years ago today, I happened to be visiting the United States from my home in Canada.

Coincidentally, I was wearing my blue jean jacket with my treasured Nixon pin on the collar. It was given to me by my dear friend Stephen, many decades ago, and I have treasured it ever since.

I was standing at the cash register in a K-Mart at Lincoln and Greenfield, in Oak Park, Michigan, waiting to pay for a cheap pair of sunglasses. I didn’t yet know Nixon had died; it happened the night before. Suddenly the cashier started screaming at me about how rude and offensive I was. I had no idea why I was suddenly singled out and, for a brief moment, thought I was in the middle of a racial argument, since the cashier was Black and incredibly angry at a slight I didn’t understand.

When I was finally informed that Nixon had died overnight, I apologized profusely for my accidental faux pas, removed the button, and have never worn it again.

Eight years later, to the very day, I was watching the news when it was blasted that Linda Lovelace, born Linda Susan Boreman, had died.

To me it seemed to be a cosmic joke. Linda Lovelace, famous for the movie Deep Throat, died on the same day as Richard Nixon, who was brought down by Deep Throat, the nom de guerre given by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to their secret Watergate tipster.

The book “All The President’s Men,” and later the movie of the same name starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, further publicized the connection between their whistle-blower and the movie that changed the erotic entertainment industry.

Three years after Linda Lovelace’s death, and 11 years after Nixon’s death, W. Mark Felt, former Deputy Director of the FBI, came out as Deep Throat on his deathbed.


Read: My exposé on Treason, Watergate, and Roger Ailes:
Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?


 

Animation by author from White House press photos

Playing Checkers or Chess?

Happy Anniversary!!! It was 62 years ago today that Richard Milhous Nixon cemented himself into the national consciousness with his Checkers speech.

Oh, sure, Nixon had been in the news before. He already had a reputation for dirty politics and anti-Communism, linking his opponent in the 1946 campaign to communists. As a Congressman he used his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, and access to secret FBI files, to push himself as Chair of the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) investigating the Alger Hiss spy ring. He was even allowed to accompany FBI agents to the Pumpkin Patch, where secret microfilm was discovered inside a hollowed pumpkin. No. Really!

He used this press to catapult himself into the Senate in 1950. And, even that election had its share of dirty mudslinging on Nixon’s part. Running against Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, he accused her of being “pink right down to her underwear.”

Just 14 years after entering national politics Richard Nixon was tapped as Dwight D. Eisenhower running mate in the 1950 election. However, there was a little wrinkle. The Backroom Boys back in California — the ones that had originally pushed for him to run for Congress and later Senator — were quietly supporting him on the QT by topping up his salary.

The press got wind of this slush fund. There was nothing illegal in it, of course, but it gave off a terrible stench. Was there any Quid Pro Quo? Conflict of interest? Nixon was about to be dumped from the ticket. In order to save his political life Nixon went on tee vee to deliver what became known as The Checkers Speech.

It was a cloying speech, watched by more than 60 million people, but it saved Nixon’s ass. The ‘Merkin public sent in telegram after telegram in support of Nixon for Veep. However, Eisenhower kept Nixon dangling on whether he still had the general’s support. Nixon came this close to withdrawing from the ticket, but was urged to hold on. Eventually Eisenhower felt the groundswell of public support and backed Nixon wholeheartedly.

I was only 3 months old when Nixon gave his Checkers speech, yet there are whole passages I can practically recite by heart. Why is it called The Checkers Speech? Because this:

Let me say this: I don’t believe that I ought to quit because I’m not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat’s not a quitter. After all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and you know the Irish never quit.


One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.


It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.

IRONY ALERT: Nixon also said, “Let me say this: I don’t believe that I ought to quit because I’m not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat’s not a quitter. After all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and you know the Irish never quit.” 

What amazes me is everything that came AFTER the Checkers speech. In point form:

• Nixon runs and loses against John Kennedy in 1960′
• Nixon runs for the governorship of California and loses, resulting in “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore speech to the press;
• Everyone counts him out as a political force;
• Wins the 1968 Republican nomination;
• Goes on to win the presidency
• Becomes the first, and so far only, president to resign in disgrace.

You have to admit Nixon’s entire story has the arc of a tragic opera. Yet, had it not been for his success on the Checkers speech, Nixon might have just been a footnote in the history books.

Video created by author from public domain photographs

Further reading: All my writing on Watergate and Nixon can be found HERE.

See how I memorialized the 60th Anniversary in Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech ► Another Magical Tee Vee

Headlines Du Jour ► Friday, April 11, 2014

Hello Headliners! It’s the birthday of Richard Berry, who wrote one of the most important songs — and depending on who you believe: the dirtiest song — in all of Rock and Roll. Let’s start with the Headlines Du Jour of yesteryear:

Said, me gotta go . . . right to today’s Headlines Du Jour:

IN LGBT NEWS:

TODAY IN RELIGION:

FREE THE WEED!!!

TEABAGGED ENOUGH ALREADY?

THE “O” IN GOP STANDS FOR OUTRAGEOUS:

A DISPATCH FROM DETROIT, ‘MERKA’S FIRST THROWAWAY CITY:

NATURE IS COMPLICATED:

WATERGATE WATCH:

Did Roger Ailes Dupe James
Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?

MORE EXCITING EPISODES OF COPS GONE WILD:

BULLY CORNER:

ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA:

RECTUM? DAMN NEAR KILLED ‘IM!

FOX “NEWS” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:

IN INNER SPACE:

VIDEO DU JOUR:

Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information
Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in
today’s open thread.

Looking Back ► Unpacking The Writer At The New Year

From time to time I peel back the curtains — AUNTY EM!!! AUNTY EM!!! — and reveal what goes on behind the scenes here at Not Now Silly. The first day of the new year seems an appropriate time to sum up the previous one, doncha think?

Since starting this blog I have published 420 posts, 207 of them in 2013. When I started this blog I swore I’d post something every day. Little did I know how hard that would be. This past year I took a few weeks off here and there to recharge my batteries, research some bigger articles, and go on a road trip for research.

A year ago I was still doing regular Fox “News” snark with my 3 weekly series, Fox “News” Spin Cycle, Judge Not, and Chow Mein and Bolling. However, I got bored of those. Not to mention that compiling and formatting them was very time consuming. Which is the biggest reason I dropped ’em. I found meatier things to research and write about.

Such as Trolleygate. My first post on that topic came on January 27, 2013, with An Introduction to Trolleygate. I first learned of this story through a secret source, my Coconut Grove Deep Throat, who has tipped me to several stories now. However, I would never have won their trust had it not been for all my previous writing on Coconut Grove, and more specifically West Grove. When I learned of Trolleygate I called it racism, straight up:


As much as Coconut Grove is used to being ignored by Miami City Hall — which ironically is in Coconut Grove — Black Coconut Grove is used to being ignored by everybody. […]

Meanwhile, Black Coconut Grove gets stuck with all the negatives of a diesel bus garage from a neighbouring city. Furthermore, while it gets the increased traffic and pollution, the residents will not even get what is normally a benefit of a bus garage: a bus stop. Having a bus stop might allow Black Grove to get on the bus and ride to Merrick Park, or Miracle Mile, or any of those other swank places, including any multimillion dollar project by developers named Astor. It reminds me of how Robert Moses, who built the Long Island Expressway, purposely built all the underpasses too low to allow for buses. That’s so the ‘great unwashed’ couldn’t go to his beaches at Fire Island and Jones Beach.

Skip ahead to November: None other than the U.S. Department of Transportation confirmed what I had been saying all along. According to the US DOT, the lack of public notice and input contravenes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It has ordered Coral Gables, the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County to come up with a plan for retroactive consultation with the affected communities. I don’t know how that’s going to work, but those three entities are going to submit a plan.

Meanwhile, just to wrap Trolleygate up in a nice bow: Coral Gables is currently suing Astor Development to get out of the deal it struck that resulted in Trolleygate in the first place. The residents of West Grove, who lost their first round in court, are planning to appeal. With the US DOT now involved it’s become one of the most confusing series of intertwined lawsuits that you can imagine.

Miami taxpayers owe it all to [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Mark D. Sarnoff. Sarnoff seems to have skated away from all responsibility [so far] for sticking the city, county, and Coral Gables with this White Elephant that will never be a “government operated vehicle maintenance facility.” There’s still the Smoking Gun email that was discovered and people continue to investigate who was responsible for telling Astor Development to remove the word maintenance from its 2nd application to build this garage. Speculation says it leads directly to Sarnoff.

Bring on the depositions!!!

Another brag: As 2014 closed, Not Now Silly had its best month ever. The blog had 13,719 clicks in December, which is an average of 442.5 a day. That beats my previous record of 12,067 from August, 2013. I don’t know where all those people come from, but I wish they’d leave some comments. As you can see on the graph above, the monthly numbers go up and down, but I’m happy with the steady progression of onwards and upwards.

This is also the year I broke the lid off a Watergate story hidden in plain sight all these years. It began with my post Aunty Em Ericann’s Bun Fight With James Rosen of Fox “News” and continued with a review of Rosen’s book in Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka? To be BOTH “fair and balanced,” I also told the other side of the story with James Rosen Responds To Me, Sort Of and with the follow-up Serial Liar James Rosen Responds To Me Again. Long story short: I have rejected his explanations until he produces some evidence. My theory is on the table. He has yet to disprove it.

Another media bun fight I kept alive was versus the Coconut Grove Grapevine. I’m finally willing to admit that some of my feelings is sheer jealousy. Tom Falco gets advertising dollars for producing his reviews, event listings, and promotional bumph. While I have some Google averts here — AND CLICKING ON THEM WILL BE A GOOD THING! GO AHEAD — they produce pennies per post and my storage fees for the pics are higher than that. However, the other part of my frustration with the Grapevine is that it has a very large readership. Falco could be writing and/or researching and/or publishing news of importance to the people of Coconut Grove instead.

Mark Koldys during happier times

Sadly, I’m still fighting The Johnny Dollar Wars, a feud I never started and only kept alive by The Flying Monkey Squad.

Believe me, I would have ended it with Johnny Dollar Has Proven Himself To Be A Very Dangerous Person, posted 20 months ago. However, for reasons that only a psychiatrist and powerful psychotropic drugs would be able to determine, Mark Koldys and Ashley Graham (@JohnnyDollar01 and @Grayhammy on Twitter) have continued to cyber-bully me long after it made any real sense.

Dr Keith Ablow, whose motto is NORMAL OR NUTS, would have a field day with these wackos because they are still carry on this crazy
cyber conflict more than 3 years after they began it.

They latched onto me merely because I was a writer at NewsHounds — the motto of which is WE WATCH FOX SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO — and I refused to slink away like all the others they’ve cyber-bullied over the years.

Johnny Dollar’s site has a motto, too: CABLE NEWS TRUTH. I’m strill trying to get someone to explain what part of my alternative lifestyle came under that bullshit rubric.

I have a motto as well: READ THE TRUTH ABOUT JOHNNY DOLLAR. My last three J$ posts are, I believe, the ones that best sum up these crazy MoFos. If you’re going to read them, read them in this order: The Smoking Gun ► UPDATED! followed by Does Fox “News” Support Johnny Dollar? with Anatomy of a Cyber-Feud bringing up the rear.

To make a long story somewhat shorter: Nearly every day Mark Koldys and Ashley Graham spend hours on Twitter smearing me with lies and half-truths or having cute little circle jerks all about me.  The time they devote to it is legendary. Meanwhile, once a month I dash off a post about their mendacity that makes me laugh and, hopefully, entertains my readers. It seems to be working.

A moment in time: The All Time Top Ten with J$ at #8
with a bullet, and another J$ post bubbling under at 307 hits.

I’m building my reputation off Johnny Dollar’s back, one click at a
time, and it feels great. The first Mark Koldys post has recently
entered my All Time Top Ten and is moving up fast. [Check the current
All Time Top Tell in the column on the right.] The next highest is
bubbling under at 307 clicks. I’m content to continue writing about
Johnny Dollar, especially if it keeps getting those kinds of numbers.
The more people who read about Johnny Dollar the better, as far as I am
concerned.

You might have thought that some logic would have penetrated. You’d think they would have figured out by now whose brand is being tarnished by this silly Cyber War they started. Not Now Silly, as a brand new Rest Stop on the Information Highway™, had nowhere to go but up. J$’s reputation had nowhere to go but down. You really would think they’d stop already.

Last but not least: When I launched the serialization of my book Farce au Pain, I never anticipated how much work it would be to format the chapters in a way that pleased the eye and my exacting standards, especially within the limitations of the Blogger platform.

I thought I’d manage to post a chapter every month, but now it’s looking like every 45-60 days for me to get it all right. Here’s the way I figure it, to look at the glass as half full: If you are willing to wait that long for the next exciting episode after the cliffhanger, then I’m doing my job as a writer. If not, then I’m not sure it would have mattered had I posed the whole thing at once. But, we’ll never know, will we?

So . . . as we end this exciting episode of Unpacking The Writer, we have a brand new year to look forward to. Here’s to all the political muckraking, fights, and feuds to come in 2014!!!

Serial Liar James Rosen Responds To Me Again

It looks like James Rosen, who wrote a book filled with words, has trouble understanding his own words.  Never fear. I’m here to help.

Rosen, for those smart enough to avoid watching Fox “News,” is the mendacious channel’s Chief Washington Correspondent. However, Rosen also wrote a doorstopper of a book about John Mitchell — Richard Nixon’s Attorney General and, later, head of the Committee to Re-elect the President (aptly shortened to CREeP). The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate can charitably be called Revisionist History, but more accurately it’s filled with lies, half-truths, and shaded language. To make a long story short, according to Rosen, John Mitchell was innocent of all Watergate crimes — even those for which he was convicted —  because he was out for a pack of cigarettes when they happened, or something.

My bun fight with James Rosen began in February of 2012, back when we were all so young and innocent. It flared into life when Rosen rudely jumped into a Twitter conversation I was having with Watergate whistle-blower John W. Dean. While I promised Rosen I would read his book, and did so almost immediately, it took me a year to finally review it for Not Now Silly because, quite frankly, it wasn’t much of a priority. That post, Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?, has risen to become the #5 All Time post at Not Now Silly. However, more importantly, in it I made the claim that Fox “News” Chief Roger Ailes was Rosen’s secret source quoted on Page 61.

Six months later, when Rosen found himself embroiled in a federal probe of Top Secret links and possible espionage, I returned to the topic of The Strong Man, Roger Ailes and Anna Channault in a post that asked the musical question: James Rosen: Blundering Biographer or Enemy of the State? Hilarity ensued.

Despite having blocked me blocked me a year and a half earlier, Rosen finally woke up and responded a mere 5 days later. He did so in a tweet that is a classic example of attacking the messenger because you don’t like the message:

Which prompted my next Watergate-related blog post, James Rosen Responds To Me, Sort Of, in which I call Rosen’s tweet a non-denial denial because I know a non-denial denial when I read one. To be charitable again: Maybe Rosen doesn’t know a non-denial denial when he writes one.

Then yesterday — totally out of the blue — I got a new tweet from James Rosen after I promoted all my Watergate posts in a tweet. (Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so “out of the blue.”)

The thing of it is this: Yes, Rosen’s tweet is finally a declarative denial. However, Rosen did not “told [me] before,” despite what he may think the words he used meant. With tweets limited to 140 characters, Rosen spent more than half of it making fun of my beard, which surely pleased Johnny Dollar and The Flying Monkey Squad. Better he should have used some of that Twitter real estate to have made an actual denial.

I called it a non-denial denial because it denied nothing. So, no. You didn’t done told me before, James.

This is how my copy of The Strong Man looked when I was done

The bigger thing of it is this, James: I didn’t believe your book while I was reading it. “I have told you before” how I dropped a sticky note on every question I wanted to ask you. When I was done my copy of The Strong Man was filled with enough sticky notes to supply an Office Depot, and all fall under the general rubric of “bullshit.” For that matter, James, I don’t believe your Fox “News” reports when I see them, nor are you the Beatles expert you hold yourself out to be.

So, I think it’s a legitimate question to ask: Why should I believe your little tweet, especially as it contradicts your previous tweet?

However, as we head in to the Holiday Season, I just want to get this contretemps behind us and go back to those halcyon days of yore, when you and I were happily exchanging Beatles’ trivia, without a dark cloud on our horizon. Consequently, help me understand how the lie on Page 61 of your book came to be printed. We can achieve détente if you answer the following questions:

1). Who is the secret source on Page 61, the source promised anonymity according to the book’s end notes? [While you may have promised anonymity, I don’t feel you need be bound to a deal that protects someone who fed you a falsehood.]
2). Did you, or did you not, not recognize that the quote was factually incorrect when you printed it?
3). Did you, or did you not, understand when you printed this false information that it went to the topic of whether Richard Nixon committed treason?
4). Why is Roger Ailes, your current boss and an intimate of Nixon and
Mitchell — and, more importantly, the re-election campaign’s behind-the-scenes media man — not mentioned or quoted in The Strong Man whatsoever?
5). What about all my other sticky notes? [See pic above.] Care to discuss them? The Anna Channault Affair is just one pile of bovine manure in a book filled with cow patties.

Just send a tweet, James. Otherwise, you’re as full of shit as your book.

James Rosen Responds To Me, Sort Of

James Rosen: brown hair, brown eyes, brown nose

The Resident Fox “News” Historical Revisionist™ has taken time out of his busy-making-up-shit-life to attack me.*

You may remember James Rosen, from such exciting Not Now Silly episodes as Aunty Em Ericann’s Bun Fight With James Rosen of Fox “News”, or the post Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka? not to mention the more recent James Rosen: Blundering Biographer or Enemy of the State? 

Rosen, in case you don’t know, is the Chief Washington Correspondent for the so-called news network. He wrote a laughable book on John Mitchell and Watergate called The Strong Man, in which it seems he exonerates Mitchell for just about everything he was ever accused of, including those things he went to jail for.

Ironically, I heard from James Rosen today. I say “ironically” because — in a wonderful bit of synchronicity — today is the 39th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard Nixon, which I’ve documented in my post Watergate ► The End of the End, a bookend to my earlier post Watergate ► The Beginning of the End.

And, what did Rosen have to say in defense of his magnum opus?

How’s about that?!?!?! It’s a non-denial denial, almost like it came directly from the Nixon White House. Note he doesn’t deny my theory, that Roger Ailes, his current boss and Nixon intimate, is the secret source for the disinformation on Page 61 of The Strong Man. Also note that he attacks my beard, a favourite target of Johnny Dollar’s Flying Monkey Squad. Why does it feel like they put him up to it?

Yes, it’s the rich, thin-skinned, circle of life.

All my previous posts on Watergate can be found here.

* TO BE FAIR: I attacked James Rosen and his joke of a book first.

James Rosen: Blundering Biographer or Enemy of the State?

My latest Watergate book

Lately the federal government has been having a bit of fun at the expense of James Rosen, the Fox “News” Channel’s Chief Washington Correspondent. Over the past fifteen months Not Now Silly has also been having a bit of fun at the expense of James Rosen. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. Rosen wrote, and stands behind, his historical revisionist doorstopper of a book about John Mitchell and Watergate, “The Strong Man.”

My first chapter, Aunty Em Ericann’s Bun Fight With James Rosen of Fox “News,” tells the HIGH-LARRY-US story of my earliest real life encounter with Rosen, who reached out to me first under the nom de tweet “cutebeatle.” cutebeatle was having a very public spat with someone who knows far more about Watergate than he does: John W. Dean. Hilarity ensues.

In the subsequent Twitter exchange with Rosen, I took up his challenge to read his book for myself and not be bullied by “ex-felon” John Dean. In point of fact, I kind of felt bullied by Rosen to read his book. He made me promise TWICE before he would finally agree to play Beatles Trivia with me. In addition to Watergate, Rosen also pretends to be an expert on The Beatles. Yet he failed my simple two-part question: Who did The Beatles say was their favourite ‘Merkin musician and who did they say was their favourite ‘Merkin band?*

Then I also proved I also know more Watergate trivia than he does because, when I started asking Rosen uncomfortable questions about his book, he blocked me. Later he claimed — through an intermediary, because that’s how he rolls — that he blocked me because I wrote about him for NewsHounds. That’s true. It’s still online and you can read how I tagged Rosen in a post called “Happening Now” Drops Pretense At Objectivity When James Rosen Reads Right Wing Tweets To Defend Limbaugh. However, if he blocked me over that, he needs to get a thicker skin. I was just doing my job.

Still, my many questions about his silly book The Strong Man have gone unanswered.

After I was finished reading James Rosen’s book I had a few questions. They are marked with yellow Post-It notes.

Eventually, after follow-up questions and phone messages were ignored, I decided to write the 2nd Chapter of this sad story. My more recent post asks the musical question Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka? Rosen’s big mistake was to challenge me to read his book. Watergate is a subject I know intimately, possibly second only to my Beatles knowledge.

While reading Rosen’s book I laughed and took notes. I flagged every
falsehood. I took notice of every example of loaded language I could find. I also marked every shading away from the truth. If you know little about the era, the Nixon White House, and/or Watergate you might feel that Rosen exonerated Mitchell of any possible connection to any possible crimes that may, or may not have, occurred before, during, and after Watergate, not limited to his stint as Attorney General, ‘Merka’s top law enforement officer.

When I
was done reading The Strong Man it looked like it does in the photo above. Out of the MANY questions I have for James Rosen, I summed up the book’s mendacity in that one blog post. It’s reason enough to have Rosen’s so-called book laughed out of the marketplace of ideas like David-Barton has been

While my beard has gotten longer, James Rosen’s
book has gotten falser, if that’s even possible

It’s still an important question to ask because its about treason committed by Richard Nixon before he was elected President. It’s also about whether James Rosen wittingly, or unwittingly, participated in a cover-up of Nixon’s treason when he wrote his book. Classified recordings released since Rosen wrote his book proves the assertions on page 61 of The Strong Man are false.

However, it’s not just recordings released since Rosen wrote his book that debunk page 61. The recently released recordings merely prove conclusively a fact that has been known for decades. That’s why the bullshit on page 61 of Rosen’s book is now the yardstick against which anyone can judge how terrible Rosen’s book really is. I call it the Chennault Challenge and it can be done with almost any Watergate-related book.

F’rinstance: I recently acquired a used copy of the hardcover pictured at the top left. “Perfectly Clear; Nixon From Whittier To Watergate” was written by Frank Mankiewicz in 1973. That’s a year before Nixon resigned the Presidency and, for the record, 35 years before James Rosen wrote his joke of a book.

Turning to the index of Perfectly Clear, on page 234, under the Cs, sandwiched between Checkers Speech [36, 61-63] and Chicago Seven [138] is the entry Chennault, Anna [14]. Flipping to page 14 reveals these two paragraphs filled with unintended irony:

Sticking with a good story even after it has been proven false is a habit with Nixon. He told every White House staffer who would listen, apparently, that he had been wiretapped by Lyndon Johnson in 1968, a story he ascribed to J. Edgar Hoover. But Johnson had never caused Nixon’s phone to be tapped. Theodore S. White and others had reported that Nixon had been overheard advising Anna Chennault, an old China (and Nixon) hand, to encourage President Theiu of South Vietnam not to go to the conference table before the 1968 election, but to wait for a better deal with Nixon. The tap was placed on Chennault’s phone, and as James McCord was to learn, it’s almost as good to be overheard on someone else’s tap as it is to be tapped yourself.

The tap on Chennault’s phone may have been illegal, since it is not clear whether the attorney general (Ramsay Clark at that time) ever signed an approval for it. But if any national security wiretappping is legal, that one was. After all, the lady was advising a foreign government to go back on the solemn agreement it had reached with her government. If that isn’t a matter of national security, then what is?

All of that info has since been proven, with a few caveats: LBJ had, in actuality, bugged Nixon’s campaign plane over national security concerns, which turned out to be true. Whether Chennault’s phone was tapped as well is unknown. However, the tape recording referenced above is of LBJ and his aides discussing Nixon’s treason. First they listen to a recording from the bug on Nixon’s campaign plane, where the treason with Anna Chennault was discussed. Then LBJ and his advisers turn to discussing whether to release the evidence of Nixon’s treason. In the end they decided not to because it would have been hard to explain why they had bugged Nixon’s campaign plane. They did, however, give all the info to Hubert Humphrey, who never used it because he thought he was going to win the election.

James Rosen has brown eyes because he’s full of shit

Yet 35 years after Mankiewicz blew the whistle on Nixon’s treason with Anna Chennault, this is the bullshit that James Rosen attempts to peddle to his brain-dead readers who will accept his historical revisionism at face-value:

A
source close to the [Anna Chennault] affair — who demanded anonymity — strongly
challenged the veracity of the prime witness. “Simply do not trust what
Anna Chennault says about this incident,” said the source, a senior
policy adviser to Nixon and other GOP politicians in later years. “She
manufactured the incident, then magnified her self-importance.”

She
caused untold problems with her perpetual self-promotion and, actually,
self-aggrandizement, because she was only interested in the money. I do
not put it in the realm of fantasy that she was paid by the SVs [South
Vietnamese]; she had them bamboozled, believing she was an authentic and
important “channel” to the campaign. John Mitchell . . . did not have
the bullocks to kiss her off, a tough and persistent woman who could
grind you down. . . . . Anna thought of herself as a puppet master. She
had no assignment, no tasks, and was an over-the-transom type that can
never be suppressed in a campaign.

Yet
the Chennault affair continued to haunt Nixon’s presidency. His
infamous orders to burglarize the Brookings Institution, issued in the
summer of 1971 following publication of the Pentagon Papers and never
carried out, stemmed from the president’s concern that the Washington
think tank possessed documents related to “the bombing halt” — a
euphemism for Nixon’s and Mitchell’s own back-channel machinations to
counter it.

Got that? An anonymous source tells Rosen a fact known by every Watergate buff for 35 years — everyone but James Rosen, apparently — is not true, and he prints it uncritically. The same anonymous source tells Rosen that Anna Chennault is a liar, despite the tapes that back up her story, not to mention the dozens of Watergate-related books that do the same, and Rosen doesn’t question it at all. Then the anonymous source has the audacity to suggest “the bombing halt” is merely a ephemism for Nixon’s and Mitchell’s attempt to combat a myth about Anna Chennault, even though every available piece of evidence released since Watergate says it’s fact, not myth, yet Rosen repeats it without comment.

It begs the question, “What did James Rosen know and when did he know it?”

As early as 1973 Mankiewicz debunked what Rosen would write 35 years later. If I knew it was a lie when I read it, why didn’t Rosen know when he wrote it? Not only did Rosen’s source lie to him — and I refuse to believe Rosen didn’t really know the truth — but Rosen gives his source anonymity, the only source in the entire book afforded that protection. We don’t know who to blame for this bullshit, but the ultimate responsibility is Rosen’s. Why would he be so reckless with the truth? 

Animation by author from public domain stills.

In my post Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka? I make the case that Rosen’s anonymous source is his current boss, Roger Ailes. Many years before Ailes headed up Fox “News,” he was the media consultant for Richard Nixon. Ailes worked under John Mitchell during the re-election campaign and his absence from a biography of Mitchell is conspicuous. Ask yourself this: Who is left from those olden days who still has a motive to cover up Nixon’s treason? Ask yourself this: For whom else other than Roger Ailes would Rosen throw out 35 years of Watergate scholarship to sell a known lie?

And, as I say, this is only one of the many questions I have about the veracity of Rosen’s book.

So, covering up for treason didn’t seem so far away from being an enemy of the state, or something. When Rosen made headlines for all the wrong reasons in May I could only shake my head thinking there had to be more to this little dealie from the Washington Post about a federal investigation into the leaking of top-secret information:

The court documents don’t name Rosen, but his identity was confirmed by several officials, and he is the author of the article at the center of the investigation. Rosen and a spokeswoman for Fox News did not return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment.

Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target.

Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a “covert communications plan” and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information.

[…]

He [Rosen] also wrote, according to the affidavit: “What I am interested in, as you might expect, is breaking news ahead of my competitors” including “what intelligence is picking up.” And: “I’d love to see some internal State Department analyses.”

Court documents show abundant evidence gathered from Kim’s office computer and phone records, but investigators said they needed to go a step further to build their case, seizing two days’ worth of Rosen’s personal e-mails — and all of his e-mail exchanges with Kim.

Privacy protections limit searching or seizing a reporter’s work, but not when there is evidence that the journalist broke the law against unauthorized leaks. A federal judge signed off on the search warrant — agreeing that there was probable cause that Rosen was a co-conspirator.

While Fox “News” played the victim card, ask yourself: Would a journalist who covers up for his boss’ participation in treason have any problem helping someone leak top-secret information? I report, you decide.

By the way: My favourite part of the story is when Rosen says in one of his emails, “What I am interested in, as you might expect, is breaking news ahead of my competitors . . .” Rosen doesn’t even bother to claim, as many journalists and whistle-blowers before him have done, that he is in service of the greater good. No, James Rosen just wants to trump the competition and he doesn’t care how he does it, even if it’s trolling for top-secret information:

“I’d like to see some internal State Department analyses.”

Well, gee! Who wouldn’t? Which begs another question.Is James Rosen a blundering biographer or an enemy of the state? I report, you decide.

* The correct answer to both parts of the question is Harry Nilsson and this song is the reason why: