Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

President Bill Clinton denies affair; first European settlers in Australia ; General Douglas MacArthur is born ; Wayne Gretzky born; musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ opens

Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it’s ever been.

Angela Davis

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Look, you never lie to the FBI. If you’re Archie Goodwin crafty you tell them the truth in a misleading way (The Doorbell Rang).

Donald John Trump is no Archie Goodwin.

Other than that you shut up. As in Fifth Amendment shut up. Bill Clinton (who is no Donald John Trump) thought he could get away with it with a parsing of what “is” is (and frankly I agree with him, however much I despise his position on other issues) and you can see how that ended.

FBI Agents are never your friends, they are trained talented liars. Just like Actors only they have badges and guns and can send you to prison for the rest of your life.

Even Ty Cobb (Trump’s lead attorney and relative of that racist Baseball Player) may just be a middling country lawyer (I personally know at least 4 lawyers smarter than he is and I haven’t had much occasion to use any of them but it’s not non-existent) and even he’s starting to walk back The Donald’s braggadocio.

The only question is whether Trump is sooo egotistical he thinks he can win against the House.

The man bankrupted Casinos. Prognosis is not good.

Doesn’t matter much anyway. Mueller is already peeling Bannon like a grape and Junior and Jared will crack like eggs. Obstruction is self admitted ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. Money Laundering is in the Deutsche Bank records and other public documents already gathered.

Really the remainder of the investigation is all counter-intelligence.

The problem is that the corrupt Republican Party seems determined to protect him from impeachment. Otherwise Junior, Jered, Sessions, and maybe Pence (he’s in over his head, I’m just not sure about his liability) convicted and imprisoned.

Scheduling is tricky. You want Republicans committing themselves to a doomed defense in the Spring. A steady drip, drip, drip of hearings in the Summer. Finally a crescendo of pleas, trials, and convictions in the Fall right before elections.

As I’ve mentioned I’m a member of the Illuminati, a bona fide Freemason, A.F. & A.M., Past Master of my Lodge.

Outsiders call us a “Secret Society”. There’s not much secret about it. We’re a bunch of old cranky Guys. Not necessarily White, I had something to do with that, and not necessarily Christian. Catholics for instance shun us because we’re dangerously liberal though we’re perfectly happy to accept them or Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus… You get the picture. Still we continue to be relentlessly Male which I have stuggled against to no avail because we are a “brotherhood” and a “fraternity”.

Kind of the reason I’m not active much anymore but once in always in (unless you don’t pay your dues which I stopped a long time ago) and it always made my Grandfather very proud I was a member as he was. We’ll get back to that “brotherhood” part in a bit.

But the meeting itself starts with a little ritual play which you can find accurately described in detail all over the Intertubz so I won’t bother you with it. Then the Secretary gives a report and the Treasurer gives a report (which everyone bitches and moans about), there are final results of all the events that have happened since the last meeting and updates on the progress of upcoming events, and finally a quick section of New Business before there’s another little play (We meet upon the Level and part along the Square). Then you move out to the Lounge where there are refreshments (we have an Officer in charge of that, The Steward, and he has a budget) and people sit around and socialize. Some play games and others chat about their medical condition which is uniformly deteriorating.

Sounds like fun, huh? It’s just like every other Club, nothing “secret” about it.

Nor is there much “secret” about our rituals (the little plays) which (again) you can find depicted in detail anywhere if you care to look. Some people make a big deal about the obviously symbolic penalties for revealing them (because people die in gruesome ways though none as bad as those used by the Inquisition or the notorious Scandinavian Blood Eagle) and in fact they have been used as metaphors and inspiration for serious crimes, but that’s like blaming Dungeons and Dragons or Video Games.

Back to the “Brotherhood” part. As a Mason you take an oath to keep the secrets of a fellow Mason, imparted to you as such, murder and treason excepted and those left to your own discretion. You should also consider that mere membership in a Masonic Lodge has been considered treasonous at many times in many places because we believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Folks, it’s not Omertà or even “snitches get stitches”, but I won’t give up the silly walks and gibberish (gang signs, I know) because “Brotherhood” is about trust. If you can’t be trusted to keep the silliest things secret, what exactly can I trust you with?

I would trust my activist biological Brother not just to help me dispose of a body, no questions asked, I regularly delegate him to perform tasks I find boring or inconvenient which he fulfills not only without complaint, but as well as I could have done them myself.

That’s “Brotherhood”. Keeping secrets is the least of it.

So that’s the great hidden mystery of Masonry. Instead of “Secret Society” we prefer “a society that has secrets” and we have them for a reason, it’s a test of fidelity. The secrets are unimportant.

How is this relevant?

Glad you asked. Currently Conservatives (of the Trump type) contend there is a “Secret Society”, a treasonous “Conspiratorial Cabal” of “Deep State” operatives in the heart of the FBI working 24/7 to sabotage the current Misadministration based entirely on this–

Are you even going to give out your calendars? Seems kind of depressing. Maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society.

The only thing that makes this the least bit significant is that it was a single text among 50,000 sent by FBI lawyer Lisa Page who was never part of any investigation of Trump or his campaign to FBI agent Peter Strzok who was part of both James Comey’s anti-Espionage investigation of the Trump campaign and (for a short time) Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel Team.

It’s not even connected to any particular text thread (not even the missing ones because the metadata would show that). It’s totally random.

I invite you to join me and my fellow Illuminati in LMFAO.

About those missing texts-

Where are the 50,000 important text messages between FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok? Blaming Samsung!

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2018

Well first of all, 50,000 texts is a thumb exercise regime, not a relationship. Newsweek reports–

Trump wrote in his tweet early Wednesday that there are 50,000 missing messages between the two officials. According to the DOJ, however, the 50,000 figure represents the total number of messages the FBI has that were exchanged by the two officials.

Second, this supposedly Rose Mary Woods-style “glitch” actually wasn’t all that uncommon.

Thousands of FBI phones hit by glitch resulting in loss of texts: report
By Morgan Chalfant, The Hill
01/24/18

Thousands of mobile phones used by the FBI were impacted by a glitch that resulted in the loss of text exchanges between bureau employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Fox News reported on Wednesday.
…
The bureau recently told the inspector general that the messages were not preserved as a result of misconfiguration issues related to software upgrades of FBI-provided Samsung 5 mobile phones that conflicted with the bureau’s archiving efforts.

Fox News, citing anonymous law enforcement officials, is now reporting that the glitch affected close to 10 percent of cellphones used by bureau employees.

The FBI has a workforce of more than 35,000 agents, analysts and other employees.

So there you have it. Ten percent of 35,000 is 3500.

I’ll also note just for giggles that the original sourcing is Fox News, hardly a bastion of Liberal “Deep State” apologia.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Iran-held hostages released, Charles Manson and followers convicted, Jackson settles molestation claims, Alicia Keys is born.

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.

Virginia Woolf

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I mean funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?

Big News

A Day Of Revelations

I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

James Marshall finds a gold nugget; Winston Churchill dies; Ted Bundy is executed; Thurgood Marshall dies; John Belushi born.

To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

Ursula K. Le Guin October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018

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Any responsible estimate of total participation starts at 2 Million. Just off the top of my head there were at least 6 cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, D.C., New York, and Las Vegas where participation was 200,000 or more.

That’s 1.2 Million right there. Some reports add 400,000 between Los Angeles and Chicago alone. That’s 1.6 Million. Over 250 demonstrations in all 50 States.

Yet it was virtually ignored by the Corporate Media and these sorry segments (well, except for Seth Meyers, he did a pretty good job) are the best our Late Night News came up with.

Worse, after saving their asses in Virginia and Alabama, the Democratic Party ignored all this energy and stabbed these people in the back by caving on #TrumpShutdown to the Racist Republicans who think any countries whose people are Black or Brown are “shithole countries”.

Crooks and Liars

They are women’s marches. We know last year single biggest one-day demonstration in this country’s history, we heard how afterwards, it was okay but just a march, it’s performance, fun, people get together and wear their cute hats, whatever. No one seems to have connected, still, a year later when there is a spontaneous demonstration almost the same size in some places like Chicago, bigger, without a centralized organization drawing everybody.

I didn’t know about the marches. I write about women and politics. I didn’t know there would be women’s marches until January and they were massive. They don’t just have cute marches with the hats with the fact it’s women clogging congressional phone lines and doing town halls, who have been organizing on the grassroots activist level around state and local office races around the country who have been winning in New Jersey, in Virginia and who are running in unprecedented numbers for the House, for the Senate and primarying Democrats from the left.

And apparently, the media’s failure to take this seriously as a political movement and not as some social weekend thing that women do once a year, has led Senate Democrats to think it’s not a serious political movement.

The classical Greek definition of Irony, Tragic Irony, is an ultimately fatal flaw the Protagonist possesses that the Audience knows about but the Character fails to recognize before their inevitable Doom.

What Even Matters Anymore?

Robert Mueller?

No! But thank you for playing our game. What’s the consolation prize Johnny?

A copy of our Home Edition!

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Accord reached in Vietnam; North Korea seizes the U.S.S. Pueblo; Roots airs; Bob Keeshan dies; Johnny Carson dies.

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.

Frank Lautenberg

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Oh, and the answer to the question is- Yes.