The CIA ain't got nothin' on a woman with a plan

In the movie "Two Can Play That Game", Anthony Anderson tells his friend, Morris Chestnut, that "The CIA ain't got nothin' on a woman with a plan." As I was watching this movie last night, I wondered how Anderson and Chestnut ended up leading broadcast network shows and Fox ended up with cheap strippers on reality TV--but I digress--it put our current situation with the Russia Scandal and Donald into perspective.

I'm noticing an upswing in chatter from Republicans and Donald supporters trying to make this Obama wiretap thing happen. I think many people are repeating rhetoric and political spin they hear on FOX News or Mark Levine's radio show but they don't really understand it. So I'm going to break it down to you. One way will use spy jargon and specific technical terms and the second way will be in easy to understand Shanté Smith, Vivica Fox's character from the movie,
 terms.

If you don't want the long-winded explanation skip right to Number 2.

Number 1: What really happened

The US, as with all countries, gathers intelligence on foreign actors in their country. This means if you are a diplomat, world leader, spy, banker, high ranking official--be you from a friendly state or hostile state--your communication is going to be monitored when you are in the US. This has been done for decades. It's a matter of course. When high ranking US officials go abroad they too are monitored or surveilled. It's the secret no one tells you about.

Once that data is collected and compiled it is given to the NSA, CIA, FBI, DNI or some other "Deep State" agency. Those reports, transcripts and other media are then given to the designated stakeholders, like department heads, cabinet members, congress members, the president, et al. In those reports if an American is "incidentally" (accidentally) monitored their names are redacted from the final reports. Apparently in the case of Mike Flynn, former NSA director and others, those names have now been "unamsked" or revealed. Members of Donald's campaign and transition team came into contact with Russian officials/ diplomats/ spies, etc. Those communications were monitored--because ALL communications with Russians are monitored--and some one inside the intelligence apparatus has leaked those names to member of the press. Republicans are trying to make a case that Pres Obama purposely, and by their inference, sinisterly listened in on a political enemy. The fact that all of this was done routinely without the president's consent or knowledge means nothing to them.

Number 2: The Shanté Smith Breakdown

Your cousin KeKe works at T-Mobile in their internal audit department. She has access to all T-Mobile customer's records. She's always suspected your boyfriend wasn't faithful. One day on her lunch break she saw your boyfriend out cheating on you. When she got back to work she pulled his text messages and voicemails and called you up and told you your man was cheating and she showed you the truth. Yes, she broke the law by revealing his personal information. And yes your boyfriend got mad and tried to convince you that KeKe was wrong and that his was the victim. But at the end of the day, he was cheating on you.

So in this scenario, you are America, Donald has been cheating of you with the Russians and the intelligence community is KeKe.

Mexican students attack Americans over Boarder Wall

Daryl T Sturgis
21 MAR 2017 AT 16:45 ET

Lake Winnebago, WI

Each year hundreds of thousands of Mexican college spring breakers head north of the boarder for fun in the dim light and cold lakes of America's Rust Belt. But this year things got ugly when locals slammed the Mexican tourists for their bad behaviour and down right bigoted attitude toward their host country.

As the town's newspaper, the Lake Winnebago Cruiser, reported, the rowdy kids had just finished a tour on a boat in the shape of a giant bratwurst. The captain of the fun boat, who spoke anonymously, said, "The Mexican kids come up here every year and do the same thing. They overrun the town. We only tolerate it because it keeps us afloat during the office season."

This particular day his boat was packed with kids. Witnesses said that once the tour was over it was "pretty clear" the kids were drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon and cheese curds. It seemed the incident started when a few Americans riding the boat waved American flags. Soon the Mexicans teens were jeering and chanting "Build your wall we don't want your douchey kids anyway!"

A local woman who works as a housekeeper at the inn, who also refused to giver her name said, "These are some bad hombres. They've been coming here for years." She also commented that her husband who works in a neighboring town said the kids love to eat their steaks well-done with lots of ketchup on them. Some Americans riding the giant bratwurst tried to to express their annoyance but the lushed-up kids just chanted "E.U.M.! E.U.M.! E.U.M.!" Then one student shouted "Get them outta here!"

A couple who had moved from Colorado Springs, CO years ago, Scottette and Tony Walker, told reporters they usually travel to Ontario this time of year to avoid the obnoxious tourist but found they had to return home because they were not allowed to cross the Canadian border. They said they just found out P.M. Justin Trudeau was building a wall between the US and Canada to make Canada great again. They did say it was a great wall and that they didn't mind that America was paying for it.

The Allies of Evil

The Allies of Evil

When Steve Bannon, chief white house strategist, spoke at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) earlier this year, he said he wanted the "...deconstruction of the administrative state."Most listeners, both liberal and conservative, interpreted that statement in different ways. For conservatives who have longed for the smaller government Ronald Reagan promised them, these words were the revelation they had been waiting for since Ronnie and Nancy flew off into sunset in 1989. Smaller government is the GOP Holy Grail the Bushes (I and II) couldn't give them. Liberals assumed Bannon, through his cipher, Donald Trump, meant he lusted for the destruction of the U.S. government for no other reason than to see it burn. But the truth is neither that rudimentary or cloistered; and once you realize what is at stake, all other answers seem naive.

Steven Bannon doesn't want to deconstruct all of the administrative state. He just wants to get rid of the parts he doesn't like and strengthen the parts that give him, and his ethno-nationalistic cronies, ultimate and complete power. Every since the South fell after the Civil War, many southern states have been pushing for States Rights—and make no mistake it may be centered in the south but many other states use it. The concept of States Rights has traditionally been used as a stand-in for state sanctioned discrimination. States Rights were used to keep the African slave in bondage. States Rights were used to keep Black Americans whipped under the lash of Jim Crow. States Rights are now being used to officially discriminate against trans-Americans. States Rights was a favorite of segregationist Democrats before it became the tool of modern Republicans. Since the late 1960s, the GOP has championed States Rights on everything from school integration, to voting rights, to marriage equality. Think of Ronald Reagan's thinly veiled racist speech he made during his 1980 presidential campaign where he introduced the Welfare Queen into modern political nomenclature. So it is not surprising that Bannon is also a champion of States Rights.

Put in simple terms, Bannon wants to ensure that groups he has deemed enemies of the state have no way of fighting the oppression he plans to bring to bear on them. The way he accomplishes this is two-fold:

First he must get rid of the regulatory agencies that help oppressed groups. So he crops budgets of Departments like Education and HHS (Health and Human Services). He gets rid of programs like Headstart, pre- and after-school, school lunch, et al. He guts NIH (National Institute of Health) funding for programs that are designed to help wellness is diverse communities. He wants to get rid of the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). His minions in the OBM (Office of Budget Management) advertises the party-line of cutting spending to save taxpayer's money, but the greater effect is to end helping Black, Brown, Muslim, LGBTQ and immigrants get a fair shot.

Second he must transform the judiciary. No other branch of government has been used to right the wrongs of racism, sexism, homophobia than the courts. Think of all the landmark decisions over school desegregation, abortion, equal marriage, voting rights that have been made in the last 60 years. Bannon knows if left up to the congress or state legislatures, very few of those governing bodies would have desegregated schools or given gays the right to marriage on their own. In actually, many of those governing bodies would have doubled-down on the discrimination without outside intervention. She North Carolina's ongoing fight over HB2 as an example of this. This judicial transformation starts at the the top. Trump's pick for Supreme Court justice is not just a conservative, he's a conservative who believes in State's Rights and has ruled in many cases, while simultaneously writing concurring rulings stating that laws should be changed so that police officers/ police forces can not be sued amongst other widely-derided decision. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has a 70-page exhaustive record of his over 900-decisions and they have concluded that his should not be on the Supreme Court. Now keep in mind there are over 100 empty federal judge positions open right now. Trump and Bannon can dramatically transform the judicial system to tilt away from rulings like the ones that have found Texas and North Carolina guilty of race-based gerrymandering and voter intimidation; or that found Stop & Frisk, a raced-based NYPD street tactic that Trump wants to export nationwide, unconstitutional.

So think about the world Steve Bannon wants to create. A world where groups he deems unAmerican or even criminal—like Mexican immigrants, Muslims, members of the Queer community and by extension Black Americans—are treated poorly. Are oppressed by their state governments with no recourse to fight that bad treatment using regulation or the court system. A country where white, Christian, cis-gender men rule everything and women and people of color shut up and do as they are told. If that idea seems far off and dystopian don't delude yourself, the framework is already in place. The indolent Republicans in congress are ready to green-light Bannon's master vision by repealing ObamaCare, placing all of his judge picks on the bench and slashing the power of the federal government giving more power to the states. This all under the cloak and dagger of the most unqualified president we've ever elected.

Catastrophe is closing that you think.