HOW AN OUT-DATED POWER STRUCTURE BEHAVES WHEN THREATENED? VIOLENCE

We white males and our progenitors have held most the money and controlled nearly all the wealth in this nation since our forefather began killing and displacing Native Americans 400 years ago.  Modern information systems, demographics, economics and reality all say that old patriarchal structure cannot continue unchanged.  Let us recall that the 1960s civil rights laws got passed so LBJ and his cohort could forget urban rioting and concentrate on violence against Vietnamese in their own land.  Since then the white power structure has done everything it can devise to thwart the possible changes under those laws.  The Republican Party right now is working hard to limit voting by anybody but their elderly white party members.

So the old white-man-rules system is threatened and it’s compelled to strike back to preserve its presumed and assumed god-given superiority.   No power structures changes without struggle.  We have seen this so many times.   Monarchies (or tsardoms) killing revolutionaries and suppressing feudal revolts.  The Catholic Church’s Inquisition killing non-Catholics AFTER the Reformation took hold in Europe.  France fighting against Algerians who wanted independence.  Decades of violence by the British against the residents in India and Pakistan.   The current fundamentalist jihadists in Muslim countries trying to stop westernization and rights for women to show their faces in public, or drive a car.

The men with guns are employed by and encouraged by the powerful to suppress change that might cost the rich some money or make employees think they have rights.   We should expect more violence–cops against dark-skinned protesters–as our police have now been trained to see everybody they don’t like or trust as possible terrorists–the legacy of the George Bush Presidency.

Today’s police behavior harkens back to what blacks and anti-war protesters felt in the late 1960s.  Now you hear “terrorist” where once you would have “communist”.

Click here for opinion piece looking at now as it compares to 1968 protests.

When racism from the White House encourages violence against the non-white it is a message gladly received by many who are scared or angry or bitter over the obvious change in America where now there are people on TV, on stages, in stadia, all over the Internet who are not white males.  The horrid under-current of those who wish for race war and those who simply suck up to that mania now have a maniacal twitter champion.  We should all be ashamed that we have spent our recent years shopping, watching videos and pretending that things will work out.

AN NFL quarterback went to his knee four years ago to warn us of police violence against blacks.  He was informally, cowardly banned from his sport.   The real cowards, in the White House and without, are those who didn’t want to hear his warning.  To make real change takes courage, to fight change takes greed and inertia.  A dose of racism certainly makes change into a threat.

Now a brilliant, famous NBA star has written an elegant warning–things must change.  Can those who profit by today’s system find a way to give some respect and perhaps some crumbs of money to those who aren’t owners?  Aren’t members of Mara Lago?

The mantras of “enemy of the people” to describe non-Trumpian media may not make sense to most Americans.  It rings true to police who want freedom to behave off camera, unseen, any time, any way…like in Atlanta last night where two students were pulled from their cars and brutalized. The mayor fired some of those cops. So the police in some cases have turned on the media.  Again, we saw this in the Sixties.

Through all this covid lurks, and kills.  One of the worst countries is one of the poorest in Latin America.  Peru.  Isolation without a refrigerator, plumbing, paycheck and a laptop can be rather impossible.  The US is about to start starving, more and more, as food banks cannot keep up.

Meanwhile, even before the urban violence, the economy is staggering with over forty  million admitted jobless…not counting children who are dependent on those who are no longer working, or business owners who are shut down or broke or both, or landlords who cannot collect rent on their duplex…on and on.  Now the violence has led Target to close over 100 stores.  Clerks checked out, for how long?

Many economists say any recovery will take years.  Not even a stable genius can dictate how the nation shops and hires and invests and profits…or not.

Meanwhile, one observer says the stable genius is actually politically self-isolating, essentially ending the current presidency and leaving it all to the states.  Just what the beloved old Confederacy always wanted, a do-nothing national government.

Yeah, it’s really ugly.  Yeah, it could get so much uglier.  Cities and counties bankrupt.  Police departments and fire departments shut down or run only by volunteers.  No public schools for those who can’t afford home computers.  Ugly.

But Flint, Michigan, gives us hope.  I kid you not.  Despite lead-toxic water, loss of population over decades until it is a mere ghost of its former self, destruction of hundreds of derelict homes to prevent what derelict homes invite.  Yes, Flint has long been the poster-child for the brutal de-industrialization of America, the globalization of work and wages and all the self-respect that comes with having a real job. It is a front row observer of what capitalism does when it decides to off-load a place or class of people. But this week FLINT! has given us one example of how we can actually behave like humane, wise critters, not post-cavern savages.  Click here to be encouraged, even if your fingers are, wisely, still crossed.

CORONA PERFECT

Our Stable Genius (SG) in the White House, the Chosen One, the king of bankruptcy, continues to amaze.  As one could predict from his business record, SG has cowed the Federal Reserve into cutting interest rates to ZERO to great effect.  That, of course, is capitulation prior to retreat. On the surface a macho move of the sort SG prefers, but underneath an admission of panic.  Wall Street decimated stock prices in response to the Fed’s move.  Remember, most trading on Wall Street these days is done by computers using algorithms (algos).   Such algos are built by techies to reflect the inclinations of their MBA bros, those testosterone-rich guys from Stanford, Chicago and Ivy League business schools.  Bullish aggression and victory at all cost are the driving values. Keep in mind that “bullish” is just a shortened version of “bullshit” on which much of the current American regime and financial pyramid is built.

In these times the short-sellers are gigantic leaches on the market.  Of course, the SG knows all this and is deliberately trying to drive the market to its bottom so it can rebound before November, thus proving, once again, how he has everything under control (uc).  That is now one of his stock phrases, uc, goes well with “hoax” and “do-nothing Democrats”.  Not only is everything uc, but the SG has assured all who listen (I can’t force myself to take in those sound-bites, let alone an entire rant or press attack) that we will all be great, or remain great, or become great again, whichever suits your politics of the moment. And if the market doesn’t rise to his command, SG can always try to fire Powell over at the Federal Reserve, even blame him for the snafus having to do with testing and the US refusing to use WHO developed tests that were offered weeks ago.  Surely SG was “Not Responsible” (NR) for that decision.   Expect NR to become another one of his top tweet and rant phrases as this thing spirals into worse and worse appearance.  At least the SG will not have to fly around to funerals and comfort grieving families because in-person memorials will become illegal soon.

Meanwhile, crude oil dropped below $30 per barrel.  That will eventually decimate the American fracking and shale oil industries if it lasts too long.  They start profiting up around $70/barrel I’ve read.  Off camera Putin is licking his chops.  He wants to see the US knocked out of #1 position in global oil production. Back to the Seventies is his secret mantra.  I recall that oil crisis; we were totally in thrall to Saudi Arabia.

Does SG know:

• Texas is letting spring break students party and drink en masse in places like Padre Island?
• The Mara Lago Club, though it is undergoing a one-day deep cleaning, has zero information on its website about corona precautions? Even though people who’ve partied there recently have tested positive?  Has he even thought of testing the staff?  Surely SG knows somebody who could get him access to corona tests…maybe?  He must have more access than you or I.
• Americans are being blocked from traveling to Africa? That those so-called S-H countries don’t want us infecting their people?   Can you blame them?
• That beleaguered Mexico can’t afford to block American tourists? “Come on down, bring virus at your own risk…and ours.”
• That this virus is particularly harmful to SG’s core voters—old white people. Has nobody in his campaign done the math?  What happens if a couple percentage points of my generation (yes, Boomers) dies before they vote in November?
• That today he reversed direction entirely, not just an emergency declaration which made him look macho, at least in a mirror. Not just threatening to fire Powell at the Fed or calling the governor of Washington State a snake. Not just promises of uc from the SG.  No, now he says no country, including the United States, has corona under control,  though SG also suggested America could limit its death toll “if we do a really good job” responding now.  Wow, did SG send a warning memo to the faces on Fix News?
• How pathetic SG himself looked telling state governors it’s their job to find respirators for hospitals in their states? This takes Republican states’ rights theory to new depths.  A perfect use, I must say, of NR (see above).  Brilliant, great, perfect, make governors responsible again.  Even snakey governors.
• That the US now has over 4400 known positive tests, putting us in eighth place in the global virus championship, with only four European  and three Asian countries still ahead of us?

GOT UKRAINE ON THE BRAIN?

The tweeter-in-chief has been calling each corruption probe of his gangland administration a “witch hunt.”  Well, this week the witch hunt has uncovered a whole coven, working in and for the White House.

Rudy Giuliani working as private lawyer and diplomat without portfolio in Ukraine.  Attorney General Barr who took a serious whistleblower report under advisement and tried to hide it from Congress, violating federal law.  Acting security chief Joseph Maguire who may have threatened to quit if he was ordered to duck Congressional testimony but who also hid the whistleblower report for weeks. White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone who apparently told Maguire not to give the whistleblower report to Congress. Various other lawyers in White House and at NSC who helped cover up the phone call and the resulting whistleblower report.   The White House Chief of Staff who apparently held up Ukraine’s foreign aid for weeks without any clear legal power to do so. Trumpster himself, gang leader in this conspiracy, overtly trying to extort political assistance from Ukrainian government to discredit the hated and feared Biden clan.  U. S. Special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who simultaneously worked for a consulting firm working for Ukraine while Volker was officially working for U. S.  Suddenly Volker resigns after he is exposed to daylight.  Nexus of greed and politics—which witch is in most trouble?

The players can be found described here.

Let us recall that the Ukraine craziness began with Paul Manafort who worked for the pro-Russian regime there.  Clearly if you want dirty money, solicit business from Ukrainians.  Apparently the crooked gas company there hired Biden’s son to give themselves a patina of respectability, didn’t work out too well, it seems.

Pence’s positioning in all this: he has leaked that he advised Trump against release of phone call “transcript” (shows loyalty)  but he was outside this crooked loop….he’s playing to the loyal Repubs, yet keeping distance so he can proclaim innocence should it be necessary.  Will this earn him a kiss from Mrs. Pence?  Meanwhile the churchy private school where she teaches has been the scene of alleged racial attack on sixth grade black girl by three white boys there.  Sadly, none of this is a surprise. Above allegation turns out to be a lie.

The reverberations may be extensive.  We now hear that two years ago Trump told Russian officials on an earlier phone call that he was not bothered by Russia interfering in American elections, apparently confident that he and Putin are best buddies.  It took two years for that story to make it to public.  David Frum shrewdly picks through the coming months and coming clashes.  He points out that much more may leak now that some inside the government feel something may be done to stop Trump …maybe from trading California to Denmark in exchange for Greenland…or some other ill-conceived madness from the Oval Office. Frum is certainly correct in pointing out that Mitch McConnell is the key person in the coming collision.

It was sad to see that former Senator Flake claims there are thirty Republican senators who would vote for impeachment…if it were a secret vote.  Their cowardice and selfishness would not allow them to vote in public, might hurt their career or fortune-building.  Far better to sink the republic, let it wallow in a criminal slough than take any personal risk.  Another pathetic sign that our culture now values personal gain over almost everything.  These are the same people who will do nothing to preserve a habitable planet for future generations.

This whole pathetic situation and the crude rapacity and the prone position of elected Republicans speaks to the downward spiral of an American nation and culture that has given up hope, trust and honesty for the sake of a possible short term gains of power or money.  Has the market economy so drained our nation of fairness, truth and future hope that we now accept any level of public malfeasance as long as we can still stream sports and entertainment shows?  If you read America: The Farewell Tour (by David Hedges) the author proclaims us having moved into national suicide mode because the system is so rigged, especially against the sectors of our nation where industry is gone and most jobs pay subsistence wages at best (how many decades since the federal minimum wage was raised?). The nihilism abroad in the land includes self-destruction to go with the periodic mass shootings for which we hold the world record.  Are we Americans now simply listening to our own demise play out on late night TV?  If all this goes to the packed Supreme Court, can we depend on Chief Justice Roberts to save us?  Do we hang on until next November wishing the out-dated Electoral College was not so warped as to over-rule the will of the popular vote which Trump has no hope of winning?

Meanwhile our nation pushes the planet deeper into the sun plus carbon cataclysm.  Whoopee, we be living the curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

WHITE HOUSE ADDICT?

Is there an Adderall addict in the White House?  In the Oval Office?  The second most powerful person on earth, behind his hero, Vladimir Putin?

Is it time for a House oversight committee to subpoena the President’s prescriptions to see if he is really snorting masses of Adderall?  Is it even legally possible to unveil personal prescriptions?  Could Congress demand a physical exam by a team of physicians not employed by the U. S. government?

The entire world has a right to know.

So far, we have unverifiable claims:  first Tom Arnold claimed Trump SNORTED Adderall on the set of “The Apprentice.”  It is a drug meant to be taken orally, of course.

Then an anti-Trump Republican said Trump is “hoovering” [snorting] rails of crushed Adderall.  

The above claim was made ive on CNN.  So far no White House counter-claim or denial.

We already know that Adderall is a widely abused drug.  College students incorrectly think it makes their brains work better.  It simply keeps them from sleeping.  It is an amphetamine.  And IT IS ADDICTIVE!!!!!!!!!!

Adderall: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug.
Here is what it can do when properly prescribed and used: [from webmd] It can help increase your ability to pay attention, stay focused on an activity, and control behavior problems. It may also help you to organize your tasks and improve listening skills.

But here folks is the kicker to all this, it is more than loss of sleep.  Again, from Webmd:

Common side effects:

• Easily Angered Or Annoyed
• False Sense Of Well-Being
• Feel Like Throwing Up
• Feeling Anxious
• Loss Of Appetite
• Nervous
• Throwing Up
• Upper Abdominal Pain
• Chronic trouble sleeping
  I added the all caps and underline to symptoms that seem all too pertinent to the case in White House.  Now I am beginning to abandon all my suspicions about the on-set of Alzheimer’s.

If we ever find out the truth this may explain why Pres. T occasionally attacks the drug companies over high prescription prices.  We can already presume his anger at the Federal Reserve raising interest rates is because his millions in dollars of loans from Russian oligarchs have adjustable interest rates and thus his payments have been increasing.  With Trump always follow the money.  The shutdown could be nothing more than a way to slow down the Justice Department and IRS investigations and bolux up the federal court system.

Today’s score: Pelosi 1, Trump -1.

 

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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.

TODAY IS NATIONAL NDA-DAY

UPDATE AUGUST 19.  Now donors seem to be realizing that Trump & Co. use their political organizations like they did the Trump “Foundation” as a way to funnel outside money into covering for Donald and his operations.  Oops.  Omarosa has really done it now…she hit ’em in the bank account(s).

UPDATE, AUGUST 17.  The news media is now catching up to the crucial Omarosa-related story…not the n-word tape which will have no more meaning than the pussy-grabber tape…but instead the NDAs and their accompanying payments.  Click here for words from some lawyers saying this is clearly felony bribery.

And click here for good analysis of how Omarosa is so adept at this reality TV scandal she is revealing one audio escapade at a time…elsewhere I read in “NYTimes” she may have TWO HUNDRED recordings (not “tapes”)  This piece ends with a fine final graph: “Trump does poorly against women who don’t have much interest in pretending to be something they’re not. Using slightly different methods, Stormy Daniels and Omarosa have both shown themselves to be effectively immune to the Trump attack machine, which uses NDAs as the carrot and public vilification as the stick. They both seem to understand his thinking and predict his reactions better than his advisers do.”

And you can read here that one federal judge  thinks the White House NDA programme of the Trumpistas does not insure the end of the First Amendment for all NDA-signers.  This could mean they will have to start paying a lot more than $15K per month.  If you work for Trump Properties you may not get paid, but if sign an NDA and don’t work you can get a pretty nice salary…Just be sure to record all your on-the-job conversations. And turn to Hammacher Schlemmer for all kinds of fine, tiny digital recording devices.

April 14:  Non-disclosure agreements.  NDA. Notso democratic America.  The Trump Age has us by the throat. We are now being forced to watch and participate in a reality TV show that is 50% farce, 60% crime caper, and 99.2% tragedy.  A nation once so proud…so best swallow hard, take that pride with a heavy dose of cough syrup and perhaps some adulterated opioids. This is gonna be painful for the foreseeable future.

Originally NDAs were supposed to help private businesses protect trade secrets.  The Trumpistas and their ilk soon realized it could be used to hide lies, crimes, cheats, racism and swindles.  Does Putin use NDAs? One must ask.  Or does he simply turn to executions?  Is Omarosa protected by good security?  Has she left copies of her tapes with her lawyers?

So now we know that Spicer, and Hope Hicks, and Donald’s former security guard, and all the other former White House Trumpers, and maybe even Manafort, likely are all being paid to comply with their NDAs.  Paid $15K per month if the stories are to be believed.  If anything is to be believed these days. Presumably that doesn’t prevent the NDAers from testifying before federal grand juries and it certainly does not protect them from being indicted for crimes committed or conspired to.

Now apparently some of these NDAers are on the Republican National Committee or Trump Campaign Committee payroll, allegedly at $15K per month.  One newsman pointed out that’s more than a U.S. Senator makes, but if you know something Trump wants kept secret you could cut a deal, as U.S. Senator, not to spill the lentils, and get your own $15K per month. Yeah, what a lucrative swamp is Washington these days.

Don’t you wish you could peer inside the mind of the big Republican donors and see how they pretend they don’t mind paying for silence of folks who are helping Trump hide truths about Trumptopia? Is this why the Koch Bros. are keeping their money to themselves?  Is this why Ryan is exiting…so he can come back in some future role as Republican savior with his purported integrity intact.

Unless there is a Democratic majority in one or both houses of Congress next year we may not know the extent of the NDA use and the $15K/month pay-offs until there’s a Democratic President if the Russians ever allow that.  Or until some public interest group sues to get the documents.  Can campaign donations be used for hush money?  Really?  If so, let’s just appoint Putin CEO of America, Inc. and stop all these charades.

White House and Trump campaign using NDAs: https://www.thedailybeast.com/report-trump-tried-to-block-aides-tell-all-books-with-ndas

Trumpistas are trying to use Omarosa’s NDA signed during campaign against her now, claiming the NDA never expired, even though she was working for federal government after the campaign, which they claim has never ended.   https://www.thedailybeast.com/report-trump-campaign-files-arbitration-action-against-omarosa

Some legal observers say NDAs are not legal for government employees even though West Wing employees have signed them.  http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/401799-white-house-calls-it-common-for-government-employees-to-sign-ndas

NDA defense: everybody does it.  NDA reflection; “unconstitutional.”   https://abovethelaw.com/2018/08/kellyanne-says-white-house-staff-sign-ndas-lawyer-point-outs-thats-probably-unconstitutional/

An analysis of how previous presidents used NDA solely to protect classified info, not to protect their family from criticism. Click here.

None of this is new, of course, Omarosa has just cleverly brought it into the center of the reality tv show plot line, and the White House underlined it by suing her.  Here’s the ACLU statement on White House NDAs, dated last MARCH:

MARCH 18, 2018

NEW YORK — President Trump reportedly had senior White House staff members sign nondisclosure agreements at the start of his administration, according [to] The Washington Post.

Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, had this reaction:

“Public employees can’t be gagged by private agreements. These so-called NDAs are unconstitutional and unenforceable.”

Clearly Oliver North and Richard Nixon were just stupid for not using NDAs.

NOW WHAT?

Manafort, the Manhattan madame, media bashing, mucho meddling…it’s all muddled.  Even Brexit begins to seem like a simple mess compared to the many threads of lies, skullduggery and financial shenanigans that now surround the White House and its various profiteers from the campaign to the EPA to the Interior Department to Ukraine and that money-losing golf course in Scotland.  If Trump has been no more clever and careful than Manafort, it is no wonder he kept his tax records secret.

Manafort’s trial on tax evasion, money laundering, bank fraud, et al. seems to be going well for the prosecutors…but we do not know what the defense can or will say.  If Manafort is convicted will a Presidential pardon follow, as the night the day?  Remember, no charge has been filed yet in connection with the infamous Trump Tower meeting between campaign and T-family bigwigs and various Russians.  Faced with a heavy sentence could Manafort decide to cut a deal and speak verbatim about what actually happened in the meeting that has been: 1) denied, 2) later, admitted to, but supposed to be about adoption (sic!), 3) looked forward to with excitement  by Donald, Jr. 4) later described as other than collusion, 5) still later, collusion described as not a crime…and all of this by many of the same people or shills over the past few months. Anything Trump does must prevent anybody’s open testimony about the Trump Tower meeting, but also not put Trump in the way of obstructing justice.  Such a rock, such a hard place …poor Donald. And then there is the fact that Manafort likely violated state laws…like when he lied about his financial condition in getting a loan from a bank based in Chicago.  Even a corrupt state like Illinois would have laws against knowingly lying about money in getting a loan.  Head of said Chicago bank is yet to testify in Manafort trial.

Will Mueller release a series of new indictments right after he gets conviction in this trial, should one be forthcoming?  A loss in the Manafort trial will hurt Mueller’s public standing and we all must understand now that Trump will only be tried in the court of public opinion…no indictment on federal charges and likely no impeachment.  For Mueller and the republic for which he stands, this is a must-win case.

Will there be charges against Jared and Donald, Jr.?  Likely Mueller will save those until after the November elections.  Should the Dems not blunder again, at that point T has ten weeks of a Republican majority in Congress to get his wall paid for by Americans and not Mexico, lower taxes more for himself and his ilk, get Sessions to quit (Sessions sees himself as Pence’s Veep, I imagine), try to destroy Obamacare completely and maybe stir up some military excitement to take voters’ minds off Russia-gate.  What actually happens in the elections in terms of winning, losing and tampering will be the single most important event in America since the 2016 election.  We will all be edging off the sofa on election night…

If Jared gets indicted, will he cop a plea and lose Ivanka?  He has his own money to think about and doesn’t want to serve time like his crooked father did before him….  Donald, Jr. can’t afford to cop a plea or he comes out of prison a pauper and no conscience is worth that, is it?

The strongest chance that T will not serve out the full term depends on either his physical health…or the New York State investigation of the shady dealings at the state-controlled Trump Foundation.  There are going to be many false documents and tax records in connection with the T Syndicate’s use of the foundation for all sorts of personal aggrandizement and illegal expenses.

One interesting side issue in the Trump soap opera, though a central issue to the future of the U.S. as some sort of republic run by our oligarchs and corporations—why are all these department heads now pronouncing against Russian tampering while their titular boss, the President, pretends there is and was no meddling?  Is this to prepare for a Republican defeat so they can turn and sue the Democrats in their jammed Supreme Court? Have all these department heads calculated their position if Pence were to become President when Donald takes his 9-iron and goes golfing in Scotland, never to return?  Clearly this is some short-sighted gamespersonship…there is no true strategy or even understanding in this administration, just one unpremeditated twitch after another. I see the hand of General Kelly in the orchestrated statements against Russia.  Meantime, Congress will provide no more money for election security.  Maybe the top bureaucrats just don’t want to be indicted when the public learns that Trump not only verbally invited Russia to hack Hillary’s emails [while on live TV], he cut a deal with Putinesque minions to be their cuddly pal if the emails were hacked and released.  That, BTW Rudy Guiliani, is not “collusion,” it’s conspiracy and illegal even for a crooked real estate developer from New York, and you know who I mean. No bankruptcy court gets you out of that, this is moral bankruptcy.

So many tangled webs, so much bankruptcy of so many kinds. Poor Manafort had to stop buying fancy clothes and then donated his time to Trump Campaign, hoping he could use the juice to sell favors…perhaps to a new tranche of oligarchs. Poor Cohen owes New York State thousands of dollars in taxi license taxes…and now he has to pay for his own lawyers, forsooth.  And if it weren’t for the Secret Service, Trump properties would be hurting big-time.