The Republicans have been raving about how long it has taken Bob Mueller to conclude his investigation, an investigation that is still only in its second year.
Really? Less than two years and already those who don’t like it are raving about how long it’s taking? I find it laughable that these same empty barrels are the ones who backed Whitewater, which took four years and produced no indictments, or Benghazi, four years with no indictments, while Mueller has produced some 33 indictments and a number of guilty pleas in an ultra short period of time. Of course that’s because there is a real basis for his investigation and there was none for the others.
Maybe all the idiots bellowing for Mueller to end it should be more worried about how, as opposed to when, it will end. That’s because unlike Whitewater or Benghazi this is an investigation in which every day brings about another accusation aimed at the President, one of his family, or one of his sidekicks.
Right now hundreds of high-end government jobs are going begging because those who are fit to fill them don’t want to have to shell out the legal fees that accompany a handshake from Trump. What the Trump base doesn’t know and really doesn’t want to know is that the completion of Mueller’s investigation will signal the functional end of the Trump administration. Once Mueller starts laying down the important indictments that implicate Trump and his criminal family, all government business by the White House will cease until it has a new occupant.
Trump’s only interest in the Presidency was about how much he could make from it and how much it would swell his ego to have won it. As soon as the seat in the oval office gets too hot he will drop it like a burning coal and concentrate all his minimal intellectual resources on keeping his criminal ass out of prison. Hew is a rat that will not spend one second or one cent looking after the nation he swore to preserve. This rat will be the first one down the rope to the pier. At first it will cost us but in the end it will be the best thing for the nation, especially if he takes Pence down with him.
********
The latest reorganization of the administration, led by the resignations/firings of Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley and John Kelly is really an example of Donald Trump’s incompetence in picking his original group. It has come out recently that Trump hired his first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson without ever having met him, a blazing example of Trump’s laziness and dereliction of duty, especially when discussing the fourth man in succession to the Presidency. True, we couldn’t possibly do any worse than Trump himself or Mike Pence or even Paul Ryan but that has nothing to do with the slipshod way Trump went about it.
During a discussion of this topic on This Week, Terry Moran of ABC News stated ingenuously that with a new Chief of Staff, Trump was ready to fight to the finish. Yeah, until he changes his mind tomorrow and pulls some new fish out of the pond.
Then Alex Castellanos, a blatantly GOP apologist tried to tell us that Trump’s greatest strength was his penchant for firing people like Tillerson, a real businessman who understood that Trump was a moron and actually called him one. Admittedly, Tillerson didn’t do a very good job but a President who lied in every sentence and had no knowledge of or interest in how a government actually functioned didn’t help him. For some reason Castellanos seems to think this embrace of ignorance is a virtue.
When Tillerson stated that Trump didn’t read, didn’t listen to briefs and had no idea what was legal or illegal, he was describing Trump’s entire life.
Before he got into the White House, Trump had no need to know about what was legal or illegal. He just hired a bunch of high priced lawyers and let them deal with those problems, any problem they couldn’t solve was turned over to Michael Cohen, the distributor of the bribe money.
Shawna Thomas, an editor at Vice, stated in the same discussion that the White House was now getting into hardcore political mode. What the hell did she think had been going on for the last two years? Then she went on to say that Tillerson was not Trump’s idea of what he wanted visually on TV. So why the hell had he hired him? Any failure of Tillerson goes back to Trump being lazy, stupid and uninformed. Thomas thinks that Nick Ayers, Trump’s nominee for Chief of Staff looks the part better than Kelly did and that Heather Nauert looks like a UN Ambassador. What the hell has this clown been watching? Ayers looks like a teen ager whereas Kelly looked like the sternest of authority figures, exactly what was needed to corral Trump. Ayers, who by his decision to pass on the job just might prove to be the smartest person in the White House, has none of the gravitas needed to deal with the problems of keeping Trump from cutting his own throat and Nauert presents an impression of anything but someone who can deal with the problems caused by our idiot President blundering around in the UN. Despite some impressive earlier credentials she gave up a serious career in media journalism to become a Fox News Barbie Doll.
The capper of the discussion came about when Terry Moran was asked about the tension, which was apparent between Trump and the four other Presidents who attended George HW Bush’s funeral and he said factiously, that it was just tough. With that statement Moran was saying that basically, he didn’t know his ass from his elbow. American Presidents have always, whether or not they liked their predecessors or followers, kept up a civilized facade of respectful communication. That has disappeared with the advent of Trump and his gutter manners and gangster tactics. And make no mistake about it; all the problems are Trump generated.
******
Michael Lewis’, The Fifth Riskis a book that every American must read. Why? Because most of us have not read or studied enough information about the structure of our country’s government leaving us, like our President, ignorant of how this country actually runs and who is responsible for running it. Lewis explains what the various government agencies do and why each is essential to maintaining our way of life. He also explains how Trump, through his gross ignorance and dismissive behavior is bordering on destroying these agencies and that’s why he is the greatest threat to America’s leadership, in the history of the country.
For some reason sometime in the last seventy years we have stopped teaching civics in our schools. I don’t know what moron is responsible for that decision but it is one of the great mistakes in our history. We now live in a country in which almost no one has a clear and functioning knowledge of how the government actually works and what the various agencies of that government like, Agriculture, Energy, EPA, etc. actually do. You will be astonished and enlightened if you read Lewis’ book and you will have a completely new understanding of what our government does and how it does it.
******
As the noose continues to tighten around Trump’s flabby neck he wants us to believe that he had no contact, or knowledge of direct contact by his subordinates, with the Russians regarding help they gave him in the 2016 elections. Gentlemen, it’s time to call bullshit!
This is a guy who takes advice from no man. Who is already on his third Chief of Staff because they keep getting in the way of him doing any foolish thing he desires and making every uninformed decision that appeals to him, regardless of factual information that dictates against them. This is an asshole whose ego won’t allow anything to happen, anywhere around him, without his personal stamp.
Trump ran a small family business with almost no staff. Everyone involved in that business was directly responsible to him. Everyone in the Trump Corp. offices knew everything that was going on all the time. They reported everything to Trump and then did exactly as he told them in every situation. Now they all, Trump included, want us to believe that with something as important as collusion with the Russians on how to screw Hillary Clinton and steal the election, all these meetings and all this communication was done without his knowledge. WHERE’S THE BRIDGE? I WANT TO BUY THE BRIDGE!
It has now been proven tat no less than sixteen Trump aides have had some contact with various Russians. Still they want us to believe that Trump knew nothing about any of this. This is a buffoon who insists on giving his personal okay before anyone on his staff sneezes but his protectors want us to believe he knew nothing abut any of their contacts with Russians. This is a know nothing who has run through White House and congressional staffs simply because he has to make every decision and still, the GOP wants us to believe that he knew nothing about all the collusion with the Russians by his family and staff. Are they kidding? I know their base is brute stupid and will probably believe anything he feeds them but the rest of us are nowhere near that gullible.
And then Rand Paul had to get into the discussion, trying to tell us that the action of going after a felon for committing campaign fraud is making us appear to be a Banana Republic. Obviously Paul hasn’t kept up with his Banana Republics. Screwing around with elections, any aspect of elections, is the worst crime a potential politician can commit. That’s because it puts the lie to the result, which is the basis of our whole Democracy and for that reason alone we must pursue and prosecute all campaign fraud or we will actually become the Banana Republic that Paul is so afraid of us emulating. Paul isn’t a complete idiot. Actually he’s an incomplete one and that’s why no one should listen to him. It’s probably why his neighbor felt obligated to kick the crap out of him.
*******
Donald Trump ran afoul of reality when he sat down with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in a discussion of funding for his idiot wall. Up to now Trump has had both Houses of Congress on his side and still hasn’t gotten much of anything done. With all the GOP sycophants kissing his ass Trump has only gotten one badly flawed tax bill passed, a bill that is now starting to turn toxic. But now he is facing the reality of a House that isn’t going to put up with his bullshit.
Pelosi and Schumer let him know, in no uncertain terms, that they were not about to give him his way. They also shot down Trumps lies about a large part of the wall that is supposedly already built, about how it would make a significant difference in border security and about how Mexico would pay for it. Basically they both called bullshit to everything Trump said.
Even as this was going down, Mike Pence gave us a great look at the other side of the coin as he sat mute while Trump lied and flailed about like a boated carp. This is a fool who wants so badly to become President that he will mimic the President’s deplorable table manners just so as not to offend him.
The name of the game has changed and Trump doesn’t like it. He now has a real opponent who won’t let him walk onto a stage; claim that the dog ate his copy of the constitution and then lie about whatever he was going to say. This will be the best part of what Trump is facing, all due to his self-serving rejection of all the guidelines set up to maintain a democratic republic.
Trump has always thought that his desire for something to happen was enough to make it happen, even if it was against the law. The GOP was too cowardly or too self-serving themselves to stand against him. That is over! For the next two years or for as much of that time that he manages to stay out of jail, Trump will have to deal with Democratic leaders who owe him nothing and want to see him fail.