As The Donald Turns will bring people of a certain age demographic back to time spent in their youth playing cool pinball machines. The ball would bounce around off various objects and change directions with no sense of purpose. You had your flippers at your disposal, but ultimately the ball just slammed itself into different objects until it sank. Remind you of a certain president? Thus, with all due deference to The Who, we bring you the new episode, “Pinball Wizard.”

Russia, intel, leaks and Donald’s staff continue to lead the list of topics, much to the dismay of his administration and certain news outlets. The House is looking to potentially re-start the hearings on Russian involvement in the election, even though committee chair Devin Nunes has the credibility of a school yard snitch. In the meantime, Donald’s world of Russia is evolving on a daily basis.

The latest is that Erik Prince met with a Russian emissary on the Seychelles Islands. So who is Erik Prince? He is the founder of Blackwater, the private contractor that takes on military operations around the world. The company ran afoul of federal law and military guidance repeatedly following the Iraq invasion and has since renamed itself numerous times and is now called Academi. Erik Prince is also a donor to the Trump campaign and worked as a national security consultant during the transition. There are now documents in the possession of the Washington Post that show Prince having a meeting, in January, during the transition period, when he consulted for Trump, with a Russian emissary, as arranged by the United Arab Emirates on the islands. The details of the conversation are still out there somewhere, but it put a pinball in motion. And, oh yeah….Prince’s sister is newly named Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

In response, Donald did what a pinball does and slammed into something else altogether.

@realDonaldTrump Apr 3

“Did Hillary Clinton ever apologize for receiving the answers to the debate? Just asking!”

Now your first reaction is probably, what the “heck” is he talking about? Rightfully, that would also be your second, third and fourth reactions. I thought Donald was tired of people trying to re-litigate the election. So what is he doing? Who knows why he does what he does? Why does a pinball slam into a bumper that gives no points? Donald tried to get back on point.

@realDonaldTrump Apr 3

“@FoxNews from multiple sources: “There was electronic surveillance of Trump, and people close to Trump. This is unprecedented.” @FBI”

Ok, I didn’t say he did a good job of getting back on message. Donald and his staff have generally been the inside source of information for Fox, so it was natural to quote Fox, since it is probably White House material anyway. The thing is, the FBI has already said there was no direct surveillance of Donald and his people, but that they were caught in the net of various operations. So Donald appears to be wrong, Fox appears to be wrong, and at the end of the day that is really the same thing anyway. I did like how he included the FBI twitter handle at the end….it also serves as the FBI tip line, because you know it’s not like the president has direct access to the FBI or the Justice Department or anything.

Donald was now 0-2 in taking on the Russia issue. So where else can the pinball go?

Donald J. Trump Retweeted

DRUDGE REPORT‏ @DRUDGE_REPORT 8h8 hours ago

“ RICE ORDERED SPY DOCS ON TRUMP?”

So yeah, Drudge……I always like it when folks say “Drudge reports…..” It is an aggregate site that does zero reporting. It just runs stories from other sites. Anyway, this one came from The Daily Caller, a site owned by Fox TV person Tucker Carlson, and it claimed that former NSA chief Susan Rice is behind all the current Trump troubles. It also has been completely refuted already. Rice admits to her part in “unmasking” names from intelligence reports. Guess what.? She was the NSA Director so it was 100% legal and her job. There is a process by which, when the NSA sees reports that are of concern, they can request that intelligence community reveal the hidden names. The intelligence community then sends a report back to the NSA for their eyes only. Has happened that way for decades. Happens now under Donald’s administration. The only thing that would make it illegal is if the NSA leaked the names. To this point, there is zero proof that happened. Carlson is alleging that Rice kept a spreadsheet with the names. He offered zero proof of it. And off goes the pinball, smashing into other shiny objects.

Pinball Donald careened way to the other side of the machine with a business leaders’ town hall today. He had almost as much staff there as the 24 business leaders in attendance. Donald said he is going to unleash American industry, and used how his wealthy friends cannot get bank loans for their businesses as an example of over regulation. Must be tough sledding for those multi-millionaires. He also said the 4.6% unemployment rate is false. Wait…..he said it was false with Obama but true with him….now it’s false again….and the ball is bounding off all over the machine again. He also said there are “100 million people unemployed in this country.” Wait, the total population is right around 318 million. That means nearly one out of every three persons is out of work. One out of every three….. retired people, babies, elementary school kids, those physically unable to work….they are all holding us down according to Donald because they are out of work. There is a baby born in this country every eight seconds, on average. Somewhere today a newborn is juking the employment stats. Pesky kids…..

Just for lights and sounds on the machine, I bring you Carter Page. He is an oil industry lobbyist and was an advisor for Trump during the primaries, although the extent of his roll is in question. Basically he is a goober who made a round of TV appearances about Russia, with nothing to say, but his agent got him booked any way. He apparently met with a Russian contact who turned out to be spy. Page apparently did not know he was a spy. There are legal documents concerning the spy and in them he discusses Page, referred to as Male #1. “I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am.”

Clearly he is no pinball wizard.

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