END OF AUGUST, THAT’S A WRAP…UP

Wrapping up this month that should be in summer doldrums, should be the dog days, is to realize how intense has been the action in the reality TV show that is the Trump Regime.

This month marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Police riots during the anti-war demonstrations around the 1968 Democratic Party Convention…it was there and then that the Dems nominated Hubert Humphrey, insuring the election of Richard Nixon.  Nixon, a veteran of the McCarthy Era red-baiting, was an excellent hater. His character enabled the Republican Party to attract all the angry white folks who hated the LBJ Civil Rights legislation and thus began the process of making the Republican Party ever-more white, anti-liberal, anti-progressive, anti-government, against any kind of protective legislation that might be good for ordinary citizens.  Nixon was the last Republican who could afford to sign into law any legislation to protect the environment.  By the Reagan Era racism and pentecostal religion and hatred of government were folded neatly into the Republican agenda…and half a century later we are still paying the price for the Democratic Party’s stubborn plunge into the dark hole of the Vietnam War in 1968.

THE FELONS LIST

The list of guilty parties grows.  This month alone we added Cohen, Manafort, W. Samuel Patten (guilty pleas today).  Rick Gates had admitted guilt back in February to several crimes, but this month jhe got to describe them in detail, in court testimony in the trial of his erstwhile boss, Paul Manafort.  Manafort, of course, faces one more trial in September.  Today’s plea came from Patten who admitted funnelling Ukrainian money into President Trump’s inauguration, click here for description.

We are now up to seven men guilty of crimes in this spreading scandal–Van Der Zwaan, Manafort, Cohen, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Patten. Rick Gates.  Now Carter Page is claiming he will be charged soon and he will NOT squeal on Trump.  
Do not expect this list to stop growing.  Remember forty guilty characters were finally harvested from the Nixon Administration.

And there are still numerous possible state charges against various and sundry members of the Trump Gang. Click for look at those possible charges and how they would evade all of Donald’s FEDERAL pardon power…dual sovereignty.  If this begins to happen you can bet the Republicans will suddenly want a constitutional amendment doing away with states rights…just as they love states rights when it comes to prayer in school, keeping some of “those” people from voting or negating civil rights… the same party truly hates states rights when those wild Californians decide to limit auto emissions.

One thing to watch: will New York state get rid of its law that protects any body with federal pardon from being prosecuted for the same crime in that state?

OTHER HAPPENINGS

Apparently Attorney General Jeff Sessions will survive until November 8 or 9. The same cannot be said for White House Counsel, Don McGahn, forgotten but not quite gone.  He leaves with his license to practice law intact.  Michael Cohen’s legal career is likely over.

Now, click here to read about what could happen if Sessions goes.  If Sessions resigns Trump can transfer any other Senate-approved official into the Attorney General’s position. Say Pompeo or DeVos or Perry.  If Trump fires Sessions it is an open question…and his ability to make a temporary appointment while Senate is adjourned…even a minority of Senate Democrats could prevent that with a filibuster.

WALLED NATION

Surely nobody rational believed that Mexico would pay for the wall.  But the Stephen Miller’s anti-immigration regime is erecting as many paper barriers as possible… and is now targeting some U.S. citizens who are Hispanic, challenging their birth certificates!  Stephen Miller means there will be no legislation approved on immigration that is not completely anti-immigrant…for now.  He is now being called “President of Immigration.”

LYING TO SELF-PROCLAIMED CHRISTIANS

The current President of the United States hates the nation he governs. He wants to recreate it to match an unrealistic image of a nation that never existed. Even under George III this nation was home to Quakers, Huguenots, Jews, Puritans, even secret deists like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. But this President ignores reality, is ignorant of history and fact, is bordering on an ignoramus. He may be ignorance personified.

Now he has blatantly lied to a bunch of church leaders, Christian one and all.  He told them he had done away with the law that prevents American religious organizations, with their tax exemptions, from openly endorsing or campaigning for political candidates.

In his mind he is the greatest President one could even imagine, and now he has the powers of a 15th Century monarch.  Of course, this is only in Trump’s fictional universe.  

The ignorance comes in because this President knows nothing of the separation of church and state and why and how and where it came into being.  Hint: in a bunch of British colonies that rebelled for independence and freedom. 

FAKE NEWS: TRUMP CANCELS BRENNAN SECURITY CLEARANCE 

This has not happened…will it?  Not even the President himself could tell us the truth.

WE ARE BECOMING GREAT AGAIN…SEXUAL DISEASES RISING

All the budget cuts, all the anti-sex education efforts, all the decrease in public health spending, have given us a renewed growth in sexually transmitted diseases.  Opioids, guns, cars, obesity, STDs–our health problems are self-inflicted.  We may not need climate change to make our lives unnecessarily difficult.

Any good American knows money is more important than public health, education or even treatment; good Repubs go for spending cuts every time…govt. over-reach is coming for your kids. Do you really want the govt. telling your college age offsprings to have safe sex, after all, isn’t it everybody’s right to get as sick as possible?  Besides Secty. DeVos wants sex education now to “Just say NO.”  We all know how well that works.  Look at our President’s maginificent self-control when it comes to matters sexual.

And for a good feeling of austerity, now that the wealthy and corporations got their tax cut, let’s not give federal civilian workers a pay raise.  Could this fuel the first hint of a general strike?

TRUMP ISN’T EVEN A SKILLED LIAR

 

The current President of the United States hates the nation he governs.  He wants to recreate it to match an unrealistic image of a nation that never existed.  Even under George III this nation was home to Quakers, Huguenots, Jews, Puritans, even secret deists like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. But this President ignores reality, is ignorant of history and fact, is bordering on an ignoramus.  He may be ignorance personified.

Now he has blatantly lied to a bunch of church leaders, Christian one and all.  He told them he had done away with the law that prevents American religious organizations, with their tax exemptions, from openly endorsing or campaigning for political candidates.

In his mind he is the greatest President one could even imagine, and now he has the powers of a 15th Century monarch.  Of course, only in Trump’s fictional universe.
The ignorance comes in because this President knows nothing of the separation of church and state, nor why and how and where it came into being.  Hint: in a bunch of British colonies that rebelled for independence and freedom.

PYLON OF SLEAZE UPON A CROOKED FOUNDATION

WEEKEND WROUND-UP

Such a strong stench, so many vapors from so many centers of rot and putrescence.
As is often the case in any structure under stress, the foundation is both base, and basic.  Looking at the Trump Foundation does not bode well for the Trump Regime.  The New York State Attorney General staff is, in fact, looking at the Trump Foundation, and what they find may be crucial in the political history of this nation.
New York is looking into potential tax violations as well, click here for that story. 

The President cannot fire the New York State Attorney General nor pardon anybody convicted of a state crime.
In describing the investigation, the New York A.G. office, which filed a lawsuit last spring, said there were possible illegal actions “including unlawful political coordination with Trump’s presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions to benefit personal and business interests, and violations of basic legal obligations for non-profit foundations.”

Trump needs to establish legal residence somewhere that will not extradite him to New York.  Seychelles, anyone?

FEDERAL INVESTIGATIONS

So far all charges, pleads, verdicts and immunities have been in federal cases.  Now some major figures can no longer take the Fifth Amendment and no longer face prosecution: these include the long-time accountant and Chief Financial Officer of various Trump organizations (May I say, for “organized” crime, it is all badly organized.); Michael Cohen, a  long-time personal lawyer and bag-man for Donald Trump; David Pecker who bought  a sleazy publication empire including the National Enquirer which both men used to legitimize and promote Trump’s public image; and even Pecker’s lead editorial manager.  None of this can be good news for the Trump Family.

Pecker and his paper became megaphones for The Donald.  Here’s a former employee there talking of Pecker’s penchant for promoting Trump and how they bought sordid stories about Trump and then locked them away in a safe.

Here is link to one of the possible exposes locked away in that safe for three years.

THE MONEY MAN ALWAYS KNOWS

CFO Allen Weisselberg whose relationship with Trump dates back decades, is also the treasurer of Trump’s charity, helped prepared Trump’s tax returns and is the only non-family member to serve as trustee of the trust that holds the President’s interest in his own companies. This sentence comes from this report on Allen. 

Tax returns!  Immunity!
Click here for analysis of why Weisselberg is such an important informant.

How much debt is beneath the Trump organizations?  More than, say, Manafort’s paltry millions…debts poor Paul could not re-pay, getting sued even by a Russian oligarch?  Does Trump really own any of the properties with his name on them?  Within Allen’s mind and the records he has access to lie many fine threads that could entwine the White House.  As far as we know no Trump Organization records have been seized.  Has Mueller reviewed Donald’s IRS records?  Donald, Junior’s?

TRUMP AND TAXES

Not paying taxes makes me smart said the Republican presidential candidate, and millions of white people must have agreed.  It doesn’t make you smart it makes you simply crooked and totally self-centered, but rational people knew that already.  Cohen and Manafort were also tax avoiders, looking smart…until they looked really stupid and guilty.  Now the sentient world can see that Trump could have remained a showboating self-promoter, liar extraordinaire and real estate con man until he died…but then he decided to run for President.  Now Rupert Murdoch, Faux News, Howard Stern and “National Enquirer” cannot save him.  Hey, Donald, not even Narcissus would want all this much attention.  Your attention deficit filled yet?  Got enough eyes watching?  Enough words dedicated to your evisceration? 

How grand a scale does the current regime reach with its corruption?  Here’s a scorecard, comparisons with previous corrupt gangs.  BTW, forty Nixonians ended up convicted of crimes…Trump now stands at only five.  Sad, sad….

Don’t laugh, Wilbur Ross, you could be next.

JUST ANOTHER WHITE COLLAR CRIME…using federal dollars for Republican campaigning. We taxpayers are paying for Trump campaign trips, isn’t that nice of us?
So where the hell is the lawsuit from the Democrats asking for an injunction against such trips?  Wimps!

SESSIONS’ FATE,  click here for one look.  
Could Trump get a new A.G. approved, could he appoint a temporary one to fire Rosenstein, Mueller and the entire New York district office?  We may find out if Donald, Jr. gets indicted…or if he decides to flip on his papa.

MOB MENTALITY

Click here to hear former prosecutor explain how mob mentality works…when one gangster turns state’s evidence, the others feel compelled to save their own skin…

We all need to go back and review the “Godfather” or “The Sopranos”.  It is time to once again acquaint ourselves with Mafia-speak.  Hush money…flip…immunity…tax evasion…henchmen…the con…fixer…snitch…mouthpiece…bag-man…enforcer…

IN SUMMARY

The self-proclaimed king of debt in the White House has lived a life of chicanery, sleaze, adultery, lies, unpaid bills, lawsuits and settlements, hush money, bankruptcy to avoid paying debts and likely tax fraud. Cohen has now added “campaign finance crime.” No American bank would lend Trump money so he borrowed from Russian Mafia.  We are now in the Age of Putin & Trump.  Even Putin was wise enough to know that another appearance with Trump would just hurt the Republicans.  Yet I cannot help but wonder if Putin has now realized that the best thing he can do to hamper American democracy is to help elect enough Democrats to cause an impeachment and then use social media to promulgate plenty of lies and conspiracy theories (turning the US government over to the hated UN, or inviting a Mullah to be our Secty. of State, shariah law in your town, blah, blah) to incite violence among the white supremacists who may still be worried about the black helicopters of the Trilateral Commission. Goad those militia types to occupy some Alabama court houses, or seize a Coast Guard base, or… Trump and his mouthpiece, Rudy, are already threatening mob violence if the President is impeached. Could they deliver?  How many of my fellow citizens are so deep into the cult that they think Trump is the one true American. We shall find out.

That could keep the U.S. government from reacting if Putin decides he wants Latvia or part of Bulgaria…where are those places anyway?

And next…

Things that no longer matter…Bob Woodward’s book on the White House coming out next month…the alleged video of Trump saying the n-word…Avenatti’s two more women who claim to have had sex with Trump…how many illegitimate kids Donald has…any Omarosa recordings or video that do not pertain to money shenanigans…

Things that matter more…the many on-going investigations, esp. in New York State, immune from Donald’s meddling…Manafort’s second trial next month… Sept. 10, on that day Avenatti goes to court in the Stormy Daniels case, to seek deposition of Cohen and Trump in the payoff…what’s in Weisselberg’s mind and Donald’s tax records? We see how desperate Manafort got as his finances crashed, how about the Trump Organization…

U.S. SUFFERS PAINFUL REGRESSION–WHEN WILL WE FINALLY GROW UP?

Juvenilia

I ask my male readers above the age of 12, when was the last time you called somebody a pecker?  Well, the word is now coming into wider, more general, even journalistic use.  A Pecker is now turning state’s evidence in the Trump pecker case.  This is the case involving two women—not his wife—who claim who have experienced the pre-presidential pecker long before it reached its political climax in the White House.  Thus the Mr. Pecker in the pecker case helped Michael Cohen convince these two women to keep their pecker memoirs to themselves.  In one case the Mr. Pecker, head of a major tabloid factory, bought exclusivity of the story of one of the women so he could keep it from being told.

How this was done violated various campaign laws. The White House and TOP (Trump Office of Propaganda, Fox News) are positioning the pecker case as nothing illegal.  Every rich person pays off women all the time.  As for Manafort, he is just doing what all lobbyists do, shouldn’t be a federal case.  We have the pecker President’s word for it.

The women and the pecker had been together long before 2016.  But it was the campaign for president that belatedly made their silence worth paying for….$130 K in one case, $150K in the other.  Nothing compared to the million-plus Cohen helped pay for a woman’s silence after her affair with a big-wig at the Republican National Committee.  But that pecker case apparently has nothing to do with the current would-be dick-tator in the White House.

The Donald today attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions via twitter.  Session fired back that his Justice Department will not be bullied over political [pecker] considerations.  Sessions must be wagering he can out-last the peckerial President.  V.P. Pence is silent in the shadows, his pecker at rest.  This is a man who will not even be seen in a restaurant with a woman, right?

Some questions aroused by the whole peckergate thing:

• Does Trump realize that these Cohenesque cases are being carried forward by the New York-based federal prosecutor’s office? That means a far less right-wing jury than the one Manafort faced where one woman alone admits handing Manafort a hung (sorry, the word just slipped in) jury.  A self-proclaimed MAGA woman.  Does she now know that stands for My Attorney Got Arrested?  Some people are slow to come…around.
• Does Trump realize he could fire Mueller and Sessions and the New York cases would go ahead? Talk about screwed. He would have to purge the office there in New York, firing them all as well as the man he picked to run the place.
• Trying to head off (sorry, these words just want to be in the story) political ramifications (ouch) the TOP and White House are claiming that campaign laws aren’t real or shouldn’t be or simply make normal everyday screwing the public illegal which is what being rich is supposed to be about. Rich white guys should be able to screw people whenever or however they please, right Donald?
• What happened to that old-fashioned Republican Party that claimed to be out-raged by a consensual blow-job in the White House where no campaign money or Russian loans were involved? Now a guy who borrowed millions (Manafort) from Russian oligarchs so he could work for FREE for a presidential campaign with an eye toward the main chance…oh well, Manafort is a brave man. That’s enough.  Manafort, he’s no snitching prick.

“Pecker, noun—dick, prick, cock; informal for penis. Now considered juvenile, archaic.  Perhaps derived from woodpecker for the way those birds attack a hole in a tree.”
–From Fuller’s Dictionary of 20^th Century Junior High* Slang
* now referred to as “middle school”

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Haven’t had enough?  Here are some links…click to find stories.

The same Pecker, David, who is not going to talk to investigators about peckergate owns a large media sleaze empire…and he is the same guy who tried to help Harvey Weinstein avoid public exposure in that particular series of peckergate scandals.  Seems pricks of a certain sort stick together.  Don’t think about that image.

Manafort’s terrible future outlook.

Trump says it should be illegal for crooks to admit their crime and provide evidence to the government to catch other criminals.  But, of course, The Donald is never self-serving. Makes sense, in Trumptopia you gotta get rich and that is best done by cheating, lying and being smart enough to not pay taxes, as he bragged when he was a mere candidate. Where are those income tax forms?  Mueller got ’em, I presume.

Rudy Giuliani has expanded the range of Giulianism: if Trump were impeached the people would revolt. Trump’s threat is that the stock market would collapse and everybody would be poor if he were impeached…hah, champagne sales would sky-rocket and brewpubs would have trouble meeting demand.  Dancin’ in the streets…

TRUMP’S PROBLEM IS NOT COLLUSION…IT IS COMPULSION

He has to be the center of every spotlight, of all TV shows, or every conspiracy theory among his followers. He has a compulsion to be the center of attention and will lie and self-destruct before our very ears, just so everybody is watching and listening to him.  So today he gave an interview to the Trump Office of Propaganda (TOP, otherwise known as Faux News), and he again claimed that though he knew about the payments to two women who claimed sex with Donald (that he still denies) he didn’t know about the payments until after they happened, though surely in the mountain of evidence the feds now have from Michael Cohen’s records, the feds can disprove Donald’s latest version…we’ve already heard one phone call where the Donald talked of pay-off with Cohen before it had happened.  Remember a few months back when this affair never happened and the payment was made by a lawyer for no apparent reason and without any Trumpian knowledge.  Comments from the White House about anything seem to be simply ways of underlining the Theory of Relativity in Politics.  Giuliani is right about one thing, in the White House, “truth is not truth.”  It’s simply the newest lie. We call it Giulianism.

Omarosa’s strongest claim so far is that lies are the currency of the White House.  And the current lie only lasts until it needs to be changed to maintain media attention.  If the story never changed, the cameras might go elsewhere for something new…

You gotta pity Bob Woodruff’s timing.  His White House books is due out next month and he will have to fight with Cohen’s latest recording or revelation…Omarosa’s hottest audio or video…Manafort’s second trial (unless he cops a plea and ceases being on Trump’s brave man list)…and all the shenanigans in the Trump Syndicate.   Unless Bob has proof that Donald did actually kill somebody on Fifth Avenue with video and a Facebook page, old Bob is gonna have to fight for a share of the media frenzy.

The Republican Party becomes ever closer allied with the fate of the Trump Crime Syndicate (five guilty so far) as it aims to overcome the numerical advantage still held by the Nixon Administration for criminal behavior.  Eventually forty people from that syndicate ended up in jail.  As with this current regime & Russiagate, many of those were not directly linked to Watergate, there was plenty of freelance criminality in the Nixon Gang.  It’s that special felonious scent only they can detect, that mutual attraction of like for like.

MAGA–my attorney got arrested.

Most Republicans now cling to the talking point: “no evidence of collusion by Trump.”  They are doing two things here: throwing Donald Jr. under the bus as he most clearly wanted to be involved in collusion, but NOT his dad.  And the Rs are absolutely ignoring any and all evidence of the conspiracy between Cohen and Trump to violate campaign laws which Cohen has admitted to. So these white collar crimes are on the books just in case they can get some social democrat thrown out of office, but old, rich white guys should be able to do whatever they want?  Is that now the policy preference of this erstwhile law and order party?  Guess what Republicans, collusion or no, a felony is a felony whether Putin approved it or Donald did it on his own. Trump is one of the most self-destructive people in public office at a high level in American politics.  Hoover, Andrew Johnson, Nixon, Gary Hart, John Edwards, Warren Harding–Trump is a sick combo of the worst of the lot.  But he is the best at getting attention.  All his failed businesses and bankruptcies and lawsuits over non-payment are an indication of just how he can run full speed into a wall.  This time he has a busload of faithful Republican politicians on board with him.  They will do nothing to stop the zig-zag runaway White House until or unless the Republicans get creamed in the November election. Otherwise power and money TRUMP all other concerns, like honesty or national interest.

Finally, the worst thing (for Trump) that is happening to Trump is not the line-up of felons forming around the perimeter of his defenses, it is the on-going investigation by New York State of the possible illegal maneuvers of the Trump Foundation.  Let’s see a show of hands of those are certain that Trump and his family never once violated any laws in using Trump Foundation money for themselves or their commercial operations…

Mueller could defect to the Seychelles tomorrow and take all evidence with him…but Trump can do NOTHING to stop a state investigation and he (nor President Pence if it comes to that) has no state level pardon power. Now both Trump’s CFO and former lawyer are being questioned…

Here’s one commentator looking forward to a resignation.  That would mean The Donald cuts a deal where he pleads guilty but gets parole, and a free ticket to the Seychelles.  Here’s one precise insight about the Trump Opera contained in the above-linked Guardian piece: “If only Trump had not run for president, his minions could have continued laundering Russian money, evading taxes and paying hush money until he tweeted off this mortal coil.”

More than wise person has now noted that if Trump had not run for President all the white collar crimes by Cohen, Manafort, Trump Foundation and whoever else…all would have been ignored, few million here or there, pshaw…but the compulsion drove him to be at the center.  That center turns out to look a lot like a bull’s eye from up here in the bleachers.

TELLTALE SIGNS

So Michael Cohen will not take a bullet for the President after all.  He will not take a stand and be convicted.  He has pleaded guilty, and in so doing, has said he conspired with the President, then candidate Trump, to commit felony election fraud. We may not ever get to full disclosure from anyone about Russia and Trump’s indebtedness to the Russian Mafia…or anything to do with Putin.  Election crimes may be enough to force an impeachment if Dems get a House majority.

Surely there is no brave Republican who will go to the White House and tell him to resign…as Howard Baker did with then-Pres. Nixon.  No, this self-serving bunch in the Congress will try to elide the whole thing.  The Republicans hope the electorate will somehow pretend it’s business as usual…happy stock market, high employment…and vote to keep a Republican party in power that empowers a crook.  Who cares about honesty or the Constitution?  It’s pathetic what a bunch of white men will do to the nation in order to retain their power and get richer. Obeisance to the cult leader must be maintained.  Yet right now the very first two Congressmen who endorsed Trump find themselves facing felony charges!!!  What is it about the criminal mind that is so drawn to the Trumpster? Might just be some scent of a special felonious pheromone. Fi ve Trump officials guilty of crimes in less than two years…starting to make Nixon look pretty good, his crime gang didn’t start to fall apart until the second term…Mitchell, Agnew, Haldemann, Erlichman, the plumbers…

You can be sure that this current Congress will not embark on any investigation of Trump Campaign crimes.   Nor will they stand up to protect Mueller.  Yet let us note that the conviction of Cohen happened in New York, with no direct involvement of the Mueller investigation, so further probes there have nothing directly to do with Mueller.  Mueller could end his investigation tomorrow and move to the Seychelles, but Trump’s woes would not end.  Trump gonna fire the whole federal attorney staff in New York’s Southern District?

He must be getting so fed up with all these limits to his greatness and power.  No wall.  No military parade.  Sessions still around.  The enemy networks still broadcasting.  The failing New York Times not failed enough to disappear. Brennan still walking around, and Comey, and Obama…Nobody has locked up Hillary or arrested Omarosa.  Where’s the damned loyalty?

LOYALTY

AUGUST 21, 2018–the single most important day in the Trump Presidency so far. Cohen and Manafort guilty.

Loyal (adjective ) True, faithful, to duty, love, or obligation; faithful in allegiance to sovereign, government, or mother country.  Loyalism, loyalist, loyalty (nouns)–Oxford Dictionary

Under the chaotic regime now trying to run the White House and incidentally the nation, loyalty is seen by Da Capo as a premiere value.  Not loyalty to country, not loyalty to the oath to uphold the U. S. Constitution, loyalty to him personally.

Today we have the latest example of disloyalty among those who have paid fealty to The Donald. Michael Cohen tries to keep from spending the rest of his life in prison. Now Cohen says he made those hush-money payments to woman at Donald’s direction.  Yet it is not illegal to pay women to keep quiet about sex, right?  What else does disloyal Cohen know, or have evidence of we do not yet…
ONe charge Cohen pleaded guilty to is a campaign financial violation and his plea admits he did this at behest of candidate for federal office.  This is getting close to the core of the Trump Corps…or is it Trump corpse?

We now have been told that Trump asked more than once for loyalty from FBI Director James Comey.  Didn’t get it.  Eventually fired Comey.
Trump’s words to Comey: I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

A brief primer on loyalty, Trump fashion.

Eric Trump: I truly hate disloyal people. 

Like any organized crime family from the original Mafia to Putin, the Trumps value loyalty and those disloyal are to be destroyed.

Loyalty is a one-way street for the Trumps.

Many former White House or campaign workers remain loyal; we don’t know how many are getting paid $15K per month…yet.

Did Manafort stay loyal to Trump out of self-interest?  We shall see now that he faces a long prison sentence following his eight convictions.  He will clearly appeal, and he will still have to face further serious felony charges over his actions as accused foreign agent. THE BIG LOYALTY TEST COMES NOW: DOES TRUMP STEP IN AND PARDON MANAFORT OR PRETEND HE HAS NEVER MET HIM?  IS TRUMP LOYAL TO ANYBODY BUT HIMSELF AND THOSE PROPERTIES BEARING HIS NAME?

To comment on the current condition of Trumptopia, a good friend sent me this in an email:

To quote James Monroe (First Inaugural Address):

“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.”

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Finally, far from the White House a Republican Congressman tries to blame his wife for campaign finance “mistakes.”

 

LONG-TIME REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST CONDEMNS THE P.O.T.–PARTY OF TRUMP

Some of the stark phrases are obligingly memorable, as this man talks about what used to be his political party: “It’s pretty much a Trump cult in the GOP primary electorate… But like all cults, it’ll end badly.”

“[Republican officials say] If I publicly criticize him he won’t change one bit, but I’ll lose my seat in a primary to a nut and the nut will give the seat to vile socialists on the other side, who are no better than Trump in many ways…it gives Trump a moral pass as he ethically urinates all over the institution of the presidency.”

“[Further, they say] We cannot let the liberal Republican-hating media ‘win.’ So I keep quiet while we rack up important ideological victories — judges, regulatory reform, taxes — and wait for this dark storm to pass.”

“What happens if we [GOP] lose the House — and more — in the 2018 midterms. If it does happen, such a meltdown will shake the party badly — no political party endures a major loss without repercussions — and Trump, the supreme magical winner of 2016, will become an epic party-killing loser.”

“One crazy prediction: if Trump does hang on, I predict he’ll start talking about dumping Mike Pence as VP. Such a story would create irresistible drama for the reality show producer POTUS.”

“His election was a dead-cat bounce and is extremely unlikely to be repeated. I’m not sure he’ll survive his first term, but if he does and can win re-nomination, he’ll find a re-elect very daunting. The demography is worse and getting even more difficult every day, the novelty is gone, incompetence is always punished in the fullness of time and the staff machine that exists to prop up an existing POTUS is a weak shambles of dregs and enablers. Ideologically, Trump has cashiered the Republican Party’s longstanding equity as a force for free trade, fiscal conservatism, tough foreign policy and hard-headed competence. Trump now provides political fuel and success only to those who would destroy the conservative movement. He’s driven the GOP into a moral and political ditch.”

Click here to read the whole exchange between CNN and Mike Murphy. Murphy has a long history of Republican campaign work, starting in the 1980s.  Among governors he helped elect: Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. He has fled politics for Hollywood where reality has a stronger presence than in today’s Washington D.C.

OMAROSA, THE MUSICAL

My friend, Tom Kuhn, sends me this email from the Bay Area:

Today’s Leah Garchik 🙂 [a newspaper column]

A musician I know, Jacob Garchik, tweeted last week that composers are starting to work on White House operas, “purely because of the melodic possibilities of setting the name ‘Omarosa.’”

 

Just after that, Noah Griffin, who writes and performs a song parody every Wednesday morning on Rick Wynn’s show on KSVY-Sonoma Radio, emailed his newest work, to the tune of Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa.” Sing along now:

“Omarosa, Omarosa, Omarosa/ You’re so like a lady with such caustic guile./ Since you’ve gone we’re lacking West Wing pigmentosa/ Searching high and low/ It’s fruitless honey chile./ Did you take us/ Write a book/ Then run for cover/ Or is that your way you planned it from the start?/ Many schemes are laid bare at your doorstep/ They’re denied there/ Classified there?/ Though you’re scorned, are you real Omarosa/ Or just the mole you played right from the very start?/ Omarosa, Omarosa.”

And just after that, Ben Bayol suggested, to the tune of “Oklahoma”: “Oooo-marosa, telling tales and making Trump insane/ She’s a tell-all gal/ Used to be his pal/ But now she’s turned into a pain …”

SELLING ADDICTION TO DOCTORS AND PATIENTS

Review of book that traces America’s opioid tragedy.  The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma are the stars of this on-going drama.  Your money and your life they say.  Sadly even doctors fell for the marketing.  Billions of dollars and billions of pills were made.