Notes After Mueller

 

Well, the Mueller report is out and finally out of the hands of our scurrilous AG Bill Barr. According to all reports it says anything but what Barr and the administration would like us to think. It’s obvious that Mueller found that Trump has done things that would absolutely justify an indictment if he weren’t President. But he is! And having laid out the evidence of obstruction of justice and a host of other crimes, Mueller has left it to congress to indict or impeach.

Does that mean congress will impeach? I kind of lean toward Nancy Pelosi on this one.  Trump absolutely deserves to be impeached but considering our castrated Senate, it would seem to be an exercise in futility. We impeached Clinton for telling a lie about a blowjob, an act that had nothing to do with his presidential duties. Here we have an egomaniac that lies about everything but his name and even that’s a phony (Real name Drumph). Up to now, Trump hasn’t been impeached for lying about his role, duties and responsibilities as President, or about his obvious violations of the constitution, so why fool around with it now, especially considering the condition of the Senate?

Barr, who most of his colleagues mistakenly conceded was a good man, flipped into a lying sleaze who is even worse than the President who appointed him to do exactly what he is doing.

Sure it would be satisfying to see the Fat Liar in the White House suffer for his sins but we also have to consider the greater good.  We also have to consider Mike Pence, waiting in the wings, salivating over how much he can do for the deranged religious right. This is a non-functional idiot who won’t have lunch with a woman to whom he isn’t married. Why? Is he so lacking in personal discipline that he fears he will leap across the table and accost her? Look, there’s a great deal positive that can be said about those who have true faith, but those who espouse the kind of faith Pence aspires to are just noisy empty barrels containing nothing that can help the world.

So, for the next two years we’re pretty much stuck with Trump. I think it’s the duty of the House to impede everything that Trump wants to do until he leaves office. I say that with full understanding of the fact that I have excoriated congress for not getting anything significant done since the end of Obama’s second year in office. But nothing that Trump wants to do is really good for the country. He wants to screw up trade, end healthcare with no substitute available, destroy all our associations with our allies, completely screw up our immigration policies and make money for himself.

Trump’s destructive agenda, in all the above-mentioned areas, must be stopped. If moving ahead with the prequel to impeachment will accomplish that, so be it.  The reality of actual impeachment, considering the dregs we have in the Senate, is futile and non-productive. Despite that, the House committee should forge ahead with its investigations if only so that more and more visible evidence is accumulated to illustrate Trump’s malfeasance for the next election. What’s really imperative is that Trump gets thrown out of office in 2020, leaving him powerless to do further damage to the country and vulnerable to prosecution for the crimes he has committed against the American people.

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According to the Mueller Report the President was frustrated so he:

A-Launched public attacks on the investigation and persons involved.

B-Engaged in efforts to control the investigation.

C-Attempted to remove the Special Council.

D-Sought to have Attorney General Sessions un-recuse himself and limit the investigation.

E-Sought to prevent public disclosure of information about the meeting between Russians and campaign officials

F-Used public forums to attack potential witnesses.

G-Praised witnesses who declined to cooperate with the government.

 

Is this the kind of scurrilous dog we want running our country?

*****

Martha Raddatz and KellyAnne Conway went at each other this Sunday morning and it was beautiful. Conway is a brilliant obfuscator, a wily liar and clever shield for whoever she has been paid to protect. Unfortunately, she’s never met a lie she wouldn’t embrace. Ask Conway a question and sit back while she does, at minimum, twenty minutes of bullshit.

To her credit Raddatz went after her like a tiger after a deer but Conway is no deer. Rather she is a hyena, lying, cheating, doing anything, no matter how ugly or foul to attain her goal. That goal is unfortunately to exonerate the worst President in the history of the nation, a man who simply does not recognize the existence of truth, a man of criminal nature who shies away from nothing that will reward him with gain, no matter how small or insignificant.

I am astounded by the writings of Conway’s husband who is as vociferous in his condemnations of Trump as she is in her lies to protect him. They put me in mind of a supercharged James Carville & Mary Matalin. The difference being that I always suspected the Carville/Matalin competition was constructed for TV and the Conway’s both seem to mean what they are saying even when she is lying. Dinner at their house must be the best show in town.

Conway was followed on This Weekby Adam Schiff, who viewed next to her gives us an image of unparalleled honesty and clear sightedness. He explains away her lies and clearly lays out the crimes of Trump and his administration including the horrific appointment of Bill Barr as AG, a disaster who regards himself as the President’s lawyer, rather then the peoples legal representative.

Schiff pointed out that Barr should never have been appointed and never been approved by congress, but that once he was, he should have recused himself from anything to do with the Mueller report, about which he had already made partisan statements.

The Democrats are now faced with a decision. Do they proceed with impeachment, knowing full well that it will never get past the Retrumplican Senate, or do they avoid it, despite the fact that constitutionally, they owe the American public at least the appearance of justice?

Impeaching without condemnation might be bad for the Dems election chances in 2020 but it would make the statement that they are willing to take that chance, just so they can make the attempt to do their jobs as outlined in the constitution. It would also show that Trump was completely unwilling to admit what the Russians were obviously doing simply because he thought it might put his election in a bad light.

If the Democrats want to impeach there is plenty to impeach on. What they can’t do is just drop the whole thing and go to the Democratic platform of what they will do if elected. Trump is a criminal and the Democrats can’t let the independent voters forget that. If they throw up their hands and retreat from the field they will only be conceding Trump’s innocence. That’s why the most functional strategy for the Democrats is to push heavily for House investigations to go on until the next election but never actually impeach. That way they will be able to show, every day until we vote, what a cheap crook the President actually is. This will also give the Dems time to allow Trump to do something else so egregious that the Independents will never be able to follow him.

I keep harping on the Independents because right now this nation is divided into Left and Right; two rock hard camps with a third, the Independents, vacillating  in the center. It is imperative that the Dems get the Independents on their side, at least for the days leading up to the 2020 election.

There is one other group to be considered. Those are the people who voted for Trump because they were disgusted with everything that had gone on before and who now see that they made a mistake. This is a very important group because if it goes against Trump in 20202 it will significantly cut into his base. If these voters can find someone in the Democratic maze of candidates that pleases them it will be the destruction of Trump’s re-election dream. Therefore, it’s up to the Democrats to present a candidate that can express goals that are clearly in line with moderate pathways but progressive enough to use those pathways to move the country forward in an upwardly mobile direction.

*****

All the Retrumplicans were on the tube this weekend babbling about “no obstruction no collusion,” which just goes to prove that none of these idiots are bright enough to read. That is just not what the Mueller report says. The only reason Trump was not indicted was that his aides wouldn’t do as he instructed.  McGann wouldn’t fire Mueller. Not a pretty picture.

Among the many absurdities that come from the fat Liar is hearing him tell us that he never heard of WikkiLeaks and then watching scads of TV footage in which he tells us repeatedly, how much he loves WikkiLeaks. Maybe he can’t be indicted for being a liar but he certainly can be impeached.  We already shot that pooch once.