The Chiefs of the Tribe of Prevavicators: Trump and Bob Kraft and Putin

(2) russian bearThere’s hardly a man alive who knows that the big chief of the Prevavicators is Donald Trump. A man well experienced in living in an alternative reality. Some suggest he is delusional but that would be underestimating him. He is just a well versed liar. Latest examples that the terrorist attacks are not being reported and the murder rate in the United States is at its highest levels.

He’s piling lie upon lie as quickly as the members of that old tribe built the Tower of Babel. You know what happened to that. The most recent was a tweet on February 8 calling the use of the courts to review his banning of Muslims “Politics.” Somehow he thinks he is a tsar. Sometimes I think he is a reincarnation of Tsar Nicholas II and you know what happened to him.

I did not know another chief of the I received an email that read: “I am convinced Trump is trying to get Kraft’s ring back.” That was it but attached to it was an interview Kraft gave with Fox (as you would expect) the alternative news cable network. As you know Kraft supports Trump. If he didn’t he would not have been interviewed by Fox.

Unless they messed up the quotations then Kraft seems to talk as much gibberish as the Ruler Trump. He talked how Trump’s policies will be: “Catalyst litigation to creating new jobs, . . . “ Now I’m sort of at a loss. What is Catalyst litigation? Did he make that up? How will that create new jobs?

He makes the profound observation: “we have to do something about education.” I guess he means destroy the little we have by accepting Trump’s billionaire appointee to the education job.

Then we have his quote at the end of the article following the statement that “Putin stole his 2005 championship ring.” If we [win the Super Bowl] . . . maybe we make a ring for him [Vladimir Putin] with five and maybe we can do a trade…It has emotional value, we thought about making one with his name on it… I hope like Mexico, Russia and the U.S. can have better relations they have a lot of nuclear missiles pointed to the east coast, I think we got to chill…He can have any ring he wants, as long as he treats America well, . . . “ I was surprised that Mexico was a nuclear power. As for chilling I’d suggest that is not done by bribing Putin.

Kraft wants to trade for his 2005 Super Bowl ring . (Why doesn’t he make another one?) Kraft is dissembling because It wasn’t stolen. A June 30, 2005, article in the Boston Globe reads: Ending something of a diplomatic mystery, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said yesterday that he was so taken by President Vladimir Putin’s affection for his diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring that he decided to give it to the Russian leader as a token of “respect and admiration. . . . Upon seeing the ring, President Putin, a great and knowledgeable sports fan, was clearly taken with its uniqueness,” Kraft said in a statement. “At that point, I decided to give him the ring. . . .  I have ancestors from Russia, so it added significance for me to know that something so cherished would reside at the Kremlin along with other special gifts given to Russian presidents,” Kraft said. “It was truly an act of serendipity and one that I am honored to have experienced. It touched me to see President Putin’s reaction to the ring, and I felt, emotionally, that it was the right way to conclude an exceptional meeting.” (my emphasis)

A Patriot spokesperson said in 2003 about the ring being stolen that: “It’s a humorous, anecdotal story that Robert retells for laughs. He loves that his ring is at the Kremlin, and, as he stated back in 2005, he continues to have great respect for Russia and the leadership of President Putin. In particular, he credits President Putin for modernizing the Russian economy. “  (my emphasis)

Now I can figure out why Kraft is so enamored of Trump and Putin. They are from the same tribe. They are all chief of the Prevavicators. You show that you can teach your children how to rise to the top by being a liar.

No doubt Trump aims to help Kraft get the ring back. Putin will demand Ukraine. Maybe Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. What’s a few countries among tribesmen when it comes to easing Kraft’s emotional angst over his $25,000 ring.

47 Comments

  1. Abe, The Longest Silence : A Life In Fishing … Just picked up a good ZENBOOKS used copy off Amazon for seven and change, delivered. I like McGuane, and was not aware of it. You sparked the Eternal Driver, Curiosity! Another rough hewn American brilliant I like very much is Edward Abbey. I suggest, to you, his : Desert Solitaire : A Season In The Wilderness. It is one of my favorite books. It is a balm to the Heart of the Iconoclast . I believe you would find it so. Thankyou for the heads up on The Longest Silence. A good book may not necessarily be your best friend, but it is a Goddamn Great One! 🙂

    • You are correct, Sir. I have read much of Edward Abbey. Desert Solitaire was the first of his I was given and probably read it in one or two sittings.

      I have a long love of fishing and hunting, mostly in and around eastern Mass. I started hunting when I was 12 on Cape Cod with a good gang of quality Milton High grads. The Craig brothers and a few other hand picked gentlemen. We would head down to The Canal well before sunrise and park a car at the Sagamore Bridge and get to the Bourne Bridge in our other car as the sun came up. Then we would make an all day walk to the other end. We would hike on the Cape side of the canal. It was undeveloped and often we would see less than a half dozen people all day. I imagine if I tried that now we would need bail money. We would jump Mallards and Wood Ducks in the marshy areas and shoot pheasant and an occasional grouse or quail.

      I only fish now. Hunting became too easy.

      I take to McGuane’s essays, like those in The Longest Silence, and his short stories more than his novels. Having said that I have read a lot of his novels. His collection of shorts To Skin A Cat has a story called A Man In Louisiana that I have read a dozen times. Every time it is just as good.

  2. Jon, Words and the silences that can be created between them, it is those silences that command attention. Thankyou Jon, unspoken,and yet deeply understood is our apprehension of this Divine Power. Peace to you ! John 🙂

    • There are many things that can be defined more acutely by the silences between them. A certain kind of fishing comes to mind.

      The brilliant author Thomas McGuane wrote a great essay called The Longest Silence in which he speaks of how the time spent between catching fish defines the entire experience. The amazing clarity in his description of a search for a particular species of hard to catch fish, the Permit, and how he handles the long stretches of time between successes, is pure excellence in the art of writing.

      Write a book, John. I’ll buy it.

      • Folks: The “fishing expedition” I referred to was the F.B.I.’s so-called “investigation” of the Gardner Heist… I was recalling Matt’s promise to enlighten us humble readers on the subject… with or without “Permit”. Best, Maggie

        • I know, Maggie. Give Matt a little more time. I am sure he has his excavator running and is digging up a trench-load of stuff.

          I was talking to a real live G Man yesterday. I got a well cultured shrug when I asked him about it. I believe all roads taken so far have been cul-de-sacs. The last time I cared to check its status I read that the stolen cache was taken to the Philadelphia area. I take that to mean ‘the mid-Atlantic states’. The culprits were identified as “large crime organizations”. I really wish I knew exactly where it was. There is a 5 million dollar reward.

      • Abe, I like Thomas McGuane. Read NOBODY’S ANGEL years ago. It was dark. The protagonist’s sister committed suicide as I recall. It was set in Montana, where Mcguane lives, works, hunts and … fishes. He is known for having a knack for living well. Tell ya’ a funny story : about 3 years ago I biked a heavy knapsack of books from my obsessively large book trove over to Harvard Square Bookstore . In varied pinched times over a span of decades I have taken books over to the basement there and gotten a fair value. In this instance my go-to guy was present, but an imperious Wellesley College co-ed held sway. I have a soft spot for crazy, nutty broads , who think the World revolves around their pretty heads , so long as they are pretty. And she was. You know the type Abe. They can be forgiven for a lot of silly self-absorption. She rejected my offerings. I was, as ever, game for the play. I find it hard to believe that NINETY TWO IN THE SHADE ( McGuane) would be on your shelf for long, quoth I . She had the class to look somewhat stung by what she knew was a worthy rebuke, and with the genteel sense of affront that a Radcliffe gal would be more likely to summon up said … Well, Sir, We are trying to … curate … a collection here. ” You go girl! I sez’ to myself, Abe. ” Curate ” a collection down in the basement of Harvard Square Bookstore! Darlin’ I would not have your vapid, grandiose pomposity any other way.

        I Thank You for your kind words, Abe. It is a story worth telling. You too know what it is to swim with the sharks . Talk about fishin’ 🙂 John

  3. Dear John McDonald, The reason for my last statement – your command of the language.

  4. Dear John McDonald, You should write a book. It would be a bestseller!

  5. Dear Khalid, One day I might post my “Jail to Yale” “Bridgewater” chapter. The characters (eating feces, making love to sewers, trying to fly, etc.,) fit with your Elvis character. Good to learn more about you.

  6. Dear Honest Abe, I was being injected with 500 mg. of thorazine and almost immediately would be knocked out. After one injection, I put a blanket under my ass and stretched it over extended legs. The top of the blanket was held against the wall with my shoulders. In that awkward positioned, looking like an archer’s bow, I still went unconscious.
    Titicut Follies didn’t show inmate “punishment.” Bridgewater guards were the most brutal in the state. I got poked in the eyes. But luckily never got the “towel treatment.” Guards held an inmates arms and legs with towels. Then a towel was twisted around the inmate’s neck until knocking him out. Repeatedly being knocked out produced the fear of death.

  7. Strange news, today, about Snowden. There’s rumors circulating that the Russians are going to cough him up. Putin’s teasing Glorious Leader, again.

  8. Wa-llahi! The Sun, a British daily, reports a move is coming in Iraq within the next 72hrs.

  9. I know few if any will read this, but I post as a rebuttal to Matt’s post about Big Liars.
    CNN says Trump is correct:
    “The overall murder rate in the US’s 30-largest cities in 2016 climbed “by double digits,” Trump said, adding that the violent crime rate has ticked up in “many of our big cities.” The President added that “more than 4,000 were shot last year alone” in Chicago. All of those statistics are true, based on the FBI’s annual crime report and a report by the Brennan Center for Justice.”
    CNN continues: “Trump’s comments Wednesday came a day after he falsely claimed that the US murder rate is at a 47-year record-high — 2015 brought the largest increase in the national murder rate in about half-a-century, but the national murder rate is still lower than it was 47 years ago.”
    So, Matt calls Trump the greatest liar, because Trump first said the murder rate was at a 47 year high, then corrected himself and said “the rate of increase” in murders was at a 47 year high.
    Put another way, the annual increase in murders IS at a 47 year high.
    Here’s what Politico said, “However, there’s a difference between saying the country’s largest cities experienced their biggest annual increase in homicides in more than four decades (as Trump said during the debate) and saying that the country is experiencing its highest murder rate overall in more than four decades (as he told the sheriffs).” Politico didn’t mention that the day after the Sheriffs talk he corrected the slight error.
    So, because Trump said “murder rate” instead of “rate of increase in murders”, he’s the World’s Biggest Liar.
    The fact is violent crimes and murder are up in our major cities.
    There’s a national spike of about 10% in murders from 2014 and 2015 (Politico graph), and Politico says “preliminary data show another national spike of 5.6% from 2015-2016.” Major cities are faring worse.

    All Presidents misspeak, and all news sources have biases and make mistakes.

    2. Now the other alleged big lie: Media fails to report terrorist attacks! Did you recall the Media reporting on all those 78 attacks in two years? I didn’t. I recalled extensive reporting on the major ones. Maybe 10! So if Trump said “underreports” or “fails to adequately report”, would he still be lying?
    Before Trump’s speech, A Columbia University Professor Michael Jetter, who’d studied Media coverage of Terrorism, said the Media perhaps should underplay (underreport) terrorist attacks, so as not to give “a platform to terrorists” and not to stimulate “copycat” acts of terrorism.
    He goes on to state that the Media does, in fact, improperly “underreport”: “less attention was devoted to attacks in countries farther away from the US.” He concludes “the media improperly underreports terrorist attacks as a result of a distinct bias toward Western countries ― the United States and Europe.”

    I wouldn’t call someone a big liar because he said “the murder rate”, instead of “the rate of increase in murders” nor if he said the media fails to report instead of underreports. I’d hesitate throwing stones! Why not give folks the benefit of the doubt!

  10. Dear Khalid, My worst was being strapped to a table for 5 days and given (illegally) insulin shock while an inmate at Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

    • This is BIG. I have never met any of the cast of Titicut Follies. A guard once told me about the thorazine shuffle they would put inmates through. Once administered IV they would have a pool for the number of seconds the inmate took to crash into the floor. Who says medical research is a waste of money????

    • Jon : This is like Old Home Week. When 18 I overdosed on PCP and was in an eleven day coma. That coma was preceded by eight sleepless days and nights in a toxic psychosis in an apartment I lived in on Blue Hill Ave.no less. It was right across from Franklin Park where the Parkway debouches onto Blue Hill. That house is still there, up on the ridge with its three levels of a complete 42 concrete steps. My head bounced off each step as the EMT’s dragged me down them. I can still remember each thud. I have an extremely hard head and could have been more cooperative, but I was … out of my head …so they were real A-holes. Anyhoo, off to Faulkner where they decided I apparently was out of my mind and shipped me to Glenside Psychiatric in JP which had a Dr. Mengele rep for electro-shocking Vietnam Vets . I was still in toxic psychosis . Imagine all of Dante’s Circles Of Hell and you have an unending tour and you get the picture. I can still remember trying to bite through wrist restraints on bed arms and this evil little bastard in hospital whites coming over a numb of times to punch me in the face. Funny what you remember. Long / Short, they injected me with a poisonous dose of thorazine, which put me in the coma ; shipped back, dehydrated and dying, to Faulkner, ,and emerged from it eleven days later. Recovery was a bitch. Was convinced I had actually died and woken up in Hell. I often wonder still whether I was right. Like you, Jon, lived to tell about it. GOOD TIMES !!! 🙂

      • ” It was right across from Franklin Park where the Parkway debouches onto Blue Hill. That house is still there, up on the ridge with its three levels of a complete 42 concrete steps. ” Playing with google maps. One of the 3 house at McLellan St.? Which one? They all look to have a hard slog down.

    • FMC Rochester had a psych unit. They’d use mass amounts of psychotropic meds on inmate patients they found resistant to the G-psych mind-set. I used to sit in the library writing letters for guys who were too zoned out to defend themselves. Having all those pseudonyms to write under was fun. I perfected a style that would often get Congressmen, Fed judges, Senators, etc, calling FMC Rochestor, demanding, “Just what Hell was going on, there, Warden?”

      At Rochester, everything offered as activities to the inmates in the psych unit, had to be extended to the inmate cadre that worked the facility. That included the creative writing program. I met a lot of interesting people at the psych-unit.
      There was a Pakistani guy, named Rashid Ahmad, who lived at there. It was plush digs compared to cadre housing, air-conditioning, two-man occupancy, and, smiling, solicitous, nurses. Rashid ensured that he’d have no cellie by going on a prayer campaign. Should staff attempt to foist a room-mate on him. He would do continuous salaat (Muslim daily prayers) day, and, night, rakat, after, rakat. The cellie would drop a complaining kite, and, staff would show up to ask Rashid what he was doing, “Mr. Ahmad, why are you always praying?” He’d look up at them with this diabolical grin, and, say, “If I can pray seven hundred, and, fifty thousand, continuous rakat, within, the space of a day, I will be able to control the djinn!” So much for potential roomies. Amad had a single for keeps.

      Then, there was Elvis. He was a sawed-off, well-built, little ridge-runner with an elaborate pompadour. Elvis often carried a broken guitar. It only had three strings. He’d chain smoke camels lighting one, off ,the other, as he strummed on the guitar, reflectively, and, sang a medley of King’s tunes out the side of his mouth.
      Elvis had a P number. In the Feds that means the guy is too sick to try, but, to dangerous to let loose. An inmate with a P number was in Limbo. You could always tell when Elvis was coming out of a psychotropic drug haze. He loved his squares, and, would have one drooping off his lip, despite, the rules regarding designated smoking areas. Elvis was tougher than a pit-bull, and, a lot smarter. The hacks wouldn’t give him a ticket at the chow-hall, or, on the yard. They’d wait to grab him back at his room in the psych-unit. Elvis, savvy dude that he was, had been through this drill many times before. He’d go back to his house take his big micro-wave nacho-making plastic bowl, and, shit in it. Then, he’d mix the turds with a big bottle of baby-oil, strip himself naked, and, smear the concoction all over himself, head -to-toe. As Elvis waited for the cell extraction team, in their Darth Vader helmets, shields, mace, and, clubs, he’d be puffing, calmly, on a camel. The Hacks wouldn’t even give him the choice of giving up. They’d just come busting in. Elvis would take off like a raped ape. The hacks couldn’t get a grip on him. He never really fought back, or, threw any blows, he knew that would just lead to another charge. Elvis would just wriggle out of their clutches, leaving the hacks covered in oily human excrement. They’d finally get him, but, not without one hell of struggle. We wouldn’t see Elvis for a couple months, because, they’d drug him up good. i don’t think anyone who ever met Elvis will forget him.

      Jon: Lenin said, “There are no revolutionists worth their salt, who haven’t done a few years in prison.” Break those prison walls down! All power to the Dialectic!

      • I know some Fr. Pat fans read this blog. Pat knew both the guys I described above. Neither was Catholic, but, Pat didn’t care. He made them part of the flock, just the same. It was their indomitable spirit to resist, and, their inventiveness, that made them kindred spirits.

  11. Your Biblical exegesis is unique. The Tower of Babel story/allegory is usually taken to be an explanation of the origin of man’s language disparities or a chastisement for man’s overreaching pride by a tale similar in didactic purpose to the Greek myth of Icarus. My poor eyes read nothing in the narrative about lying.

  12. I wonder what Sessions will do when the FBI perp-walks Paul Manafort into Federal Court to face espionage, and, treason charges?

  13. What about news on Gardner Heist as “promised”?

    • I was stripping a roof in Milton one boiling hot summer day many decades ago. A guy was watching me. I descended to gulp down some Mountain Dew.

      He said, “That looks like the worst job on earth.”

      I said, “Its a living. Keeps me in shape. What do you do?”

      “I’m an art thief.”

      • The Rock and Roll Elvis karate chopping scourged of Jimmy McGettrick’s BEACHCOMBER ; Bill Delahunt’s darling correspondent who fled jurisdiction just before his NOT GUILTY landed, gives a working man a thumbnail sketch of his philosophy … for free and in good humor. Last time I heard of Myles Connor he was jammed up in R.I. for stealing a pair of sunglasses from a RiteAid Pharmacy, and not long thereafter , pilfering bales of hay at four in the morning from his neighbor’s modest farm.

        This does not detract from his panache. That boy is always working. 🙂

        • ★ Karate chopping * scourge …

        • Yes. Whether KO’ing undercover cops with a snap kick into the arm pit (in The Beachcomber, by the way) or milking one of his cobras, his hair was never messed and his grin was always slightly a’sneer.

          • It’s a book I would buy and read. Surprised Myles has not written it yet. He tangled with Statey Jack O’Donovan on a Back Bay rooftop and, I think, got shot. This when O’Donovan was still a Major and the scourge of the Underworld . He later became a Lieutenant Colonel and headed up Staties I believe. As you know , Myles’ father was a Milton cop. The boy had issues with authority. As to milking cobra’s with unmussed hair and a sardonic leer, Connor had emanations of evil. I knew the waitress at Vinnie Marino ‘s Casa in Rossie Square when in my teens. She lived a street over, Fairview St., from my grandparents on Conway. She was also dating a big Ohio boy, an ex-sniper, Vietnam, and survivalist who was my partner in crime at thar time. The girl was a simple and hearty gal as I recall, was witness to a murder outside the Casa involving Sperazza as recollect. Myles was accused of murdering her or suggesting the mode, twisting a screwdriver in her ear. What is undisputed is that he took his Dear Old Mum on a daylight picnic to Myles Standish State Park with the girl in the car trunk. And that he buried her there. She deserved better. He is a charmer !

          • Terrible story about the waitress. I was friends with a number of Milton cops. Older guys that wouldn’t talk about Office Connor. I knew Officer Leo Taylor well and when he finally fathered a son after a trio of daughters his wife always put an extra bill in the collection at St. Mary’s and prayed that her boy would not end up like Myles.

        • Stealing bales of hay??? Maybe he was going to make a forgery of Van Gogh’s “Wheatfield with Crows”.

          • Interesting about his Dad. Sounds like he was was probably a serious hardass, which would account for what was more than delinquency in Myles. He apparently put a little by as he lives in rustic digs that he owns down on the South Fork in the Island State. Would not be surprised if he could rap knowledgeable about Van Gogh, but I suspect he just really enjoys Stealin’! … He is the King Of The Rhode Island Gypsies. Refuses to
            retire! 🙂

  14. Matt: Love your stuff… but what of the “promised” Gardner heist news? Thanks, Maggie

  15. Hi Matt: As I understand this, Kraft now says President Bush asked him to pretend the ring was a gift as a means of helping to maintain good relations with the Kremlin. The Patriots owner says he still wants the ring back . I like to pretend Putin was seen in the Pats’ locker room minutes before Tom Brady’s jersey mysteriously disappeared. The sticky-fingered strongman is said to have to tossed the jersey into the same dresser drawer where he keeps Kraft’s Super Bowl ring. Seriously, some reporter is bound to ask Trump about the ring. Then we can all relax, sit back and enjoy the show.

  16. John King McDonald

    Yes, the ringleaders of the vast right
    conspiracy cannot escape your searchlight beam. Cannot wait for tomorrow’s post from you where we learn that Lady GaGa is a KGB mole in the heart of the entertainment industry. Let’s tie Putin in to the Berkeley anarchists …were those babuschka’s they were wearing as they razed that Starbucks? And Liz Warren being requested to shut her vicious and virulent yap as she slandered Jeff Sessions on the Senate Floor by quoting from, as she knew. a completely debunked Coretta Scott King letter. That suit was brought by Blacks against Blacks. What was Sessions to do. The Black son of the defendants , whom the opportunitist without moral compass, Warren …” championed ” …is on record that he believes Sessions is a great American, and emphatically, NOT A RASCIST! …. I smell sour cream, herring and onions! … Vladimir? LOL 🙂

  17. Kraft and Trump are wise businessmen; successful; trusted.

    Better relations with Russia is a goal all Americans should favor. Nixon and Mao mended fences. American tourists now flock to Vietnam.

    The only way to improve conditions in the Ukraine is to improve relations with Russia. The international community has helped bring peace to Ireland and Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley was a tough customer, but he too came to see peace and compromise as the way forward.

    As for alt-news, more Americans watch Fox News by 2-1 over either CNN or MSNBC. In fact, worldwide Fox News is second only to the BBC as a news channel.

    If you want soap operas, melodrama, “Jeopardy” or “America’s Got Talent” or “Queen for a Day” turn in to ABC, NBC or CBS. However, even there, with total programming, Fox plus Fox News rival ABC, CBS and NBC in total viewership, too.

    I like Animal Planet and National Geographic which has about 25% the viewership of Fox News.

    To repeat: CNN has 50% the viewership of Fox News. MSNBC has 50% of the viewership of Fox News. Fox News is second World Wide only to BBC.

    Want the facts, got to FOX. Want the Leftist’s spin, try MSNBC or CNN. I watch all of them. I also recommend C-SPAN, for Debates and Hearings!

    Of course, liberals and neocons don’t want the facts; they want constant welfare and constant warfare; bigger government, “no-fly zones”, more imperialism, more interventionism, Orwellianism: “no-boots on the ground”, only 600 special forces on the ground.

    Matt and Khalid continue their jihad against Trump and his supporters. But it’s good to hear opposing views, howsoever wrong. At least, they write well as do all others who contribute to this blog.