They're Everywhere

 

In his “all about me” takeover of our national birthday, Trump proved me right yet again. In last week’s column, I predicted that from now till November, Republicans, of whom he is the leader of the pack of lies, will tell you Democrats are communists. “America will never be a communist country,” he vowed. True, uncharacteristically: there’s never been one, anywhere. The only examples of definitional communism have been collective farms in Russia and Israel, and a couple of failed ones in the US. Trump has no clue what communism means.

Same goes for MAGA. Nor, for that matter, do many – if any – of the fringe lefties who label themselves with the word. As national governance, it’s vapor. But when have lies stopped Trump and MAGA Republicans from pushing them?

The irony is that what Trump is actually making of America is what never-communist Russia is under Putin: a dictatorship facilitated by hyper-wealthy oligarchs. As to the Declaration of Independence, signed on the first of 250 American birthdays, who can point to any value enshrined within that Trump protects? Or believes? Or could name?

But enough about me. Graham Platner, the “common man” running against perpetually concerned Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), has been credibly accused of sexual assault. As opposed to Republicans, who voted for Trump after he bragged about committing it (“grab them ...”), and who are all in on Texas Ken Paxton, who’s approximately as amoral and corrupt as Trump, Democrats aren’t excusing Platner. Virtually all are calling for an end to his campaign, even if it threatens Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate.

It’s a consistent difference between what Republicans have become under Trump, and Democrats. MAGA can’t deny it, so they embrace it. Democrats opted for morality. Before Trump, both parties did. Mostly.

Which provides an excellent lead-in to the latest revelations of Trump’s astounding corruption. For he so loved us that he gave his begotten $400,000 salary. And cashed in on his “presidency” to the tune of $3 billion or so, to thunderous silence from Congressional Republicans, excepting a couple on their way out of office. The comparative corruption surrounding that “gifted” Qatari 747, which cost taxpayers $400 million in upgrades, wouldn’t feed a chicken.

Trump and his family made billions on their cryptocurrency scam, while credulous people who invested in it lost, in total, about the same amount. Stock in his company peaked at $79, when he pocketed the money. It’s now a buck seventy-five. Trump, his family, and his insider goons purchased stock in various corporations before Trump awarded federal contracts to them.

Just last week, Trump stood next to Michael Dell and told everyone to buy his “great” computers, which goosed Dell stock. Guess who’d purchased shares weeks before. And this: Trump is relaxing rules governing online purchase of guns. Need I tell you whose son has a big stake in an online seller? And how about the hundreds of stock trades he made before pausing tariffs? Nor shall we forget the gritfo di toti grifti, the corrupte qua non, his “Board of Peace”?

According to his financial disclosure statement for 2025, Trump absconded with over $2 billion. That included, in addition to his crypto crimes, grift from overpriced sneakers, Bibles, commemorative coins, and foreign-made Trump watches. What’s that saying? “You can fool all MAGAs all the time.”

Then there’s Trump turning the pardon process into a cash pig. “It is general knowledge in our practice that for $2 million, you can have a pardon,” a prominent defense attorney told anti-Trump, former Republican Charlie Sykes. He made $686 million from his eponymous cryptocurrency offering while suckered investors lost a total of $3.6 billion. Looking away, Congressional Republicans and America-loving MAGAs suffer torticollis.

There’s much more, but why bother? Even if Democrats retake the White House and Congress, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hall pass and Democrats’ faintheartedness, he’ll get away with it. That ought to matter to everyone, not just the ones he’s been playing for suckers for a decade as “president” and a lifetime before that. Their acquiescence is the avatar of Congressional Republicans’ hypocrisy. They chased non-existent corruption of President Joe Biden for years and perpetuated outrage over Hunter’s paintings, sold by a gallery, over a few years, for a total of $1.5 million; Trump probably keeps that much in his drawers.

Speaking of non-sequiturs, which nobody was, here’s another prediction: Supreme Court Justi and Constitutional literalists Alito and Thomas, who just ignored the literal wording of the Fourteenth Amendment, will retire before Trump’s term ends so he can replace them with yoots (Cousin Vinny reference) who’ll sit for decades. If Ds improbably take the Senate in November, they’ll do it before January, when the noobs are sworn in.

Finally: It’s a truism that everything Trump touches dies. Had he not meddled in the World Cup, giving Belgium super-incentive, might the US team have done better? We’ll never know. But about Alito and Thomas, we will.

It's Blatant

 

Today’s debate topic: “Resolved: Trump and his administration are the most corrupt in US history.”

Argument in favor: Duh.

Argument against: ...

Trump doesn’t hide it. Why should he? After receiving no pushback from his party in Congress, no outrage from his state media, and undying love from MAGAs, he flaunts it. His loathsome lawsuit against himself, asking ten billion taxpayer dollars to be delivered to himself, is corruption unbound. Sue yourself, settle with yourself to the tune of $1.776 billion (get it?), to be distributed to people shielded from disclosure, by appointees to a panel chosen by him, its rules kept secret. People claiming harm from “government weaponization” by President Biden; i.e., appropriately convicted of indisputable crimes by our American system of jurisprudence, following the letter of the law.

That, as opposed to Trump’s undisguised weaponization of his lackeyfied “government” against perceived enemies and truth-tellers. Give the money to Mark Kelly and James Comey, for two. Under Trump, it’s axiomatic: every accusation is an admission.

That’s not the worst of it. As executive head of the IRS and DOJ, sue-er and sooee, he agreed with himself not to investigate or prosecute himself for tax fraud, past and present, erasing potentially $100 million in penalties for cheating. That he sought and granted it to himself answers any question (which Congressional Republicans are too cowed to raise) about the legality of his tax filings and business dealings. Per Jeffrey Toobin in The New York Times, “The United States agrees that it is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” President Trump, his eldest sons or any of their businesses. The agreement covers matters “whether presently known or unknown” and cases that “have been or could have been asserted” by the government.” Other crimes are not excluded.

Knew nothing about it, he lied. Before bragging about it a day later. The art of the self-deal.

Why doesn’t the Constitution preclude a “president” from suing his own government and agreeing to whatever terms he might propose for himself? Probably because our founding fathers, more brilliant than not and skeptical of unbridled executive power, couldn’t imagine the Electoral College selecting a person already known to be as amoral and lawless as Trump or of a petrified Congress doing nothing about it.

There’s more, of course. Months after the State of the Union Address in which he urged Congress to ban insider stock trading by its members, we learned he’s been doing just that. A week before his government approved the sale of Nvidia chips to China, he bought $1 million in stock. He bought $5 million more right before Nvidia made a computing deal with Meta. In January, he bought stock in Palantir. Shortly thereafter, Palantir got a billion-dollar contract with DHS. Then he invested $5 million in Taser-maker Axon, two weeks before ICE announced $220 million in purchases.

Oh, the White House says, he had no hand in those trades. Right. Pure coincidence. Because when has he or his mouthpieces ever lied?

Every American should recoil in disgust from this wanton corruption, rejecting, till he’s gone, any politician remotely supportive of Trump. Proving how unlikely that is was the celebration of America’s alleged Christian roots, held a week ago on the National Mall, promoted by Trump, the fakest of fake Christians; a pander to the antidisestablishmentarians of his party as blatant as the aforementioned corruption; a show of Christian Nationalism as disturbing as it was un-American.

Trump’s faux Christianity was equally unhidden: to the adoring crowd, he beamed in, between rounds of golf in Florida, a recycled, prerecorded reading of a couple of Bible verses, originally aired in May. Imponderably, MAGAs continue to believe he and his corruption were sent by God. If they once had it, what happened to their ability to recognize a swindler? Trump, Fox, and red-state-style miseducation is what.

We’ve just returned from nearly a month in Türkiye. It’s a beautiful, geographically diverse country, a crossroad of cultures, one foot in Europe, the other in Asia, with picturesque mosques and churches, ancient Byzantine, Greek, Roman, and even older ruins. The parallels between its leader, Recep Erdogan, and Trump are obvious. Its constitution declares Türkiye a secular nation, but Erdogan is trying to make it overtly Muslim. Like Trump’s “Christianity,” it’s a naked political move, but, unlike Trump, it seems he’s actually a believer. Like Trump, he builds monuments to himself, jails political opponents (or calls for it), and throttles a formerly free press. Unlike Trump’s, his government actually helps average citizens: free healthcare (even for pets!) and education, good roads and efficient, clean, public transportation. Stuff MAGA Republicans reject as socialism.

While there, I scrolled through and deleted without reading most of my politics-related inbox. I couldn’t completely tune out our homely horrors, but my mind was mostly occupied by such wonders as the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, ancient cities like Ephesus, the Turquoise Coast, and the company of compatible fellow travelers of diverse backgrounds. Producing this column on return was less rewarding. Kebab for thought.

Bribocracy

 

                           ChatGPT

“Shall I compare thee to a President’s Day? Washington’s selfless leadership, Lincoln’s timeless eloquence? Thou art less lofty and more intemperate.” (Author unknown.)

America’s political divide is wider than at any time since the Civil War, but there’s one issue on which everyone should agree: Trump’s is the most corrupt and dishonest administration in our history. Rather than hiding it, they wave it like that huge American flag on I-5 north of Mount Vernon. Trump has openly regretted not enriching himself more in his first term. Unable to deny, MAGA's only options are to ignore or embrace. We see both. “At least he’s honest about his dishonesty,” they say, admiringly. Or, “ Everybody cheats.”

It’s not merely embarrassing that our great-until-Trump country twice elected an unscrupulous, bribofacient, self-promoting fraudster; the damage at home and abroad is incalculable. Perhaps MAGA-threatened future historians will elaborate. For now, all we can do is enumerate.

Following FIFA’s pandering “peace prize," Trump’s next briblical acceptance was the Washington Coal Club’s “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” prize. It’d be hilarious, had he not, a day later ended our government’s ability to regulate climate change emissions, to which coal is the greatest lump-for-lump contributor.

As literate Americans know, “clean coal” isn’t a thing, whereas climate change most definitely is. From his kingly throne, Trump is doing everything possible to boost fossil fuels and impede sustainable, actually clean energy. The money he gets from oil tycoons confirms his bribocratic corruption. With the fingers of others filling his pockets, he raises a middle one to us.

Bribery isn’t Trumpism’s only corruption. There’s cry-wolfery, gaslighting, and “accusation is admission.” Working to rig elections, for example, while lying that every election Trump or MAGAs lost was rigged. It’s as much a part of today’s Republican agenda as climate change denial, pardoning criminals, rewriting history, and lying to our faces. “Democrats rig elections,” they cry, against all evidence, while doing it. MAGAs wolf it down.

Here’s Homeland Insecurity’s Kristi Noem, promoting the restrictive voter ID requirements in the SAVE act, bragging, “ ... when it gets to Election Day ... we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.” Confirming the anti-democracy and anti-Democrats purposes of voter ID, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) added, “The American people did not give Republicans a mandate to make excuses. They gave us one to deliver wins, and the SAVE America Act is exactly that.” (Italics mine.) Okay, well, they’re not lying about that. Ms. Noem did lie about another ICE shooting, though.

 

If states requiring it made voter ID equally accessible across all demographics, it’d be okay. In red states, it’s the opposite. They just said so. And who trusts Trump’s DOJ to protect the Georgia ballots they commandeered with no legal justification? His desire to “nationalize” elections is, of course, unconstitutional. Would it matter to his agreeable Supreme Court?

Noem. Bondi. Who can say who’s worse? In a tight race, impudent, arrogant, toadying Pam pulled ahead last week, when she broadcast her and her boss’s contempt for the Constitution; yelling, deflecting, insulting, refusing to answer legitimate, Constitutionally required oversight of her handling of the Epstein files. Why are you asking about that when the DOW is over fifty thousand, she sneered, non-sequiturally. While she scanned her staff-prepared, scripted whataboutisms to gotchify Democrats, Republicans on the Committee, living and dead, like every MAGA, couldn’t hide their glee. In a Congress containing Republicans of old, as in the Nixon era, the hearing would have adjourned immediately, to begin impeachment proceedings. But that party is as dead as climate regulation.

There are rumblings. In deep red South Texas last week, in a district Trump won by seventeen points, a Democrat soundly beat a Republican for state senate despite being outspent by millions of dollars. The same happened in very red Louisiana. Texas Republicans’ unprecedented and cynical mid-cycle gerrymandering, along with growing revulsion at Trump’s ICE brutality and, maybe, his transparent lying, have created unanticipated blue districts, while spurring blue states like California, after Trump’s Constitution-rewriting SCOTUS greenlit Texas, to do the same.

Clear-eyed voters know to assume every word uttered by Trump and his collection of collaborators is a lie; that every action is to their benefit, not ours. As scales drop from pinkish eyes, there might still be hope. But November is far enough away for plenty of Republican meddling.

Now, a mea kinda culpa. Last week, I praised the “unmitigated joy” of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. Since then, enthusiastic critics have sent translations which, if accurately rendered, were vulgar. I was disappointed and promised to address it. Since then, though, I’ve seen sources indicating the crudités had been edited in compliance with broadcast standards.

Few words, if any, have single comparables between languages; by definition, translations are subjective. Unless those taking offense are fluent Spanish speakers and heard it directly, I’ll stick with joyful.

Corrupted Absolutely

 

It was inevitable. Once Trump realized he had our Republican-led Congress underthumbed, that six servile Supremes would give him a double-oh license to abuse power any way he chose, and that our helplessly MAGAfied co-citizens would weep with joy as he stuck it to the libs, he abandoned yet another campaign lie: namely, that he’d be a “Peace President.”

Why stop at impoverishing the poor and indicting truth-tellers? Or, based on lies, sending troops to American cities to create violence that hadn’t existed till then? For Trump, unchecked abuse at home evolved to threatening Venezuela, and to extra-judicial maritime murder, about which he said, in his uniquely presidential phrasing, “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be, like, dead. OK.”

Trump has provided no evidence that the people he’s killing were smuggling drugs or headed to America, and, since he knew where they were, he could have captured them. Yet, when two unexpectedly survived, they were sent home immediately. Why? Representative Sara Jacobs (D-CA) said she was told in a Pentagon briefing “that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes” and that was part of the reason why the administration has not sought to detain or prosecute survivors, “because they could not satisfy the evidentiary burden.” Meanwhile, corpses are washing up on Trinidad’s beaches. 

It’s unlikely that the Venezuelan boats were carrying fentanyl. What decent American can countenance their country becoming an outlaw nation, flouting our own and international laws? Or, in the case of MAGA, thrill to it?

Reviled in NYC in his younger years, for his corruption, amorality, and ostentatious preening, mocked by social elites into whose circles he so desperately wanted to be received, ridiculed in the tabloids, and, reportedly, having complicated relationships with his parents, the roots of his psychopathy are evident; assuming his kind is made, not born. Unrestrained by laws created to protect against it, cheered on by Republicans who know better and MAGAs who don’t, Trump’s autocratic “presidency” will only get more damaging.

Occupying the Oval Office, which, as of this writing, is defiled but not yet demolished, is a dangerous man behaving dangerously. And whereas it’s unsurprising that, among several billion humans, there are some such men, it’s incomprehensible that there are millions of Americans who are blind to the harm that's sure to affect them, too.

My Christian friends find it inexplicable that anyone who calls themself Christian can continue to support Trump. Likewise, anyone who considers themself a patriotic American, which, at minimum, ought to mean people who value our Constitution and the rule of law. Who think free and fair elections and democracy are worth protecting; who know lies when they see them.

And so it is that Trump, who knows nothing of history nor cares to learn, has ordered the resumption of nuclear testing, undoing decades of disaster-averting, diplomatic achievement. It will restart an expensive and dangerous arms race, a fact understood by everyone but Trump, who longs to be seen as the potential destroyer of worlds, before whom the world shudders in fear. 

Also the destroyer of truth. And decency. No president in our history has said anything about a predecessor comparable to what Trump has about President Joe Biden: “He is a CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL. A MAJOR LOWLIFE AND FAILURE. An ugly person, both inside and out! I beat him badly, and love watching him squirm now.” The first three sentences were spoken while looking into a mirror. The last is the lie he tells himself – a defining MAGA belief -- followed by the only truth he’s ever revealed.

The “president” of what was once the greatest and closest to honorable country on Earth, is a hateful, dishonest, rapacious man; a nascent dictator, embarrassing us in the eyes of the world; incapable of empathy for any but himself; a man who, while ignoring people out of work and a court order to fund SNAP benefits, flaunts an ostentatiously remodeled bathroom and hosts a gilded-age party for his wealthy pals at his “you’ll never belong” club. That’s who he is.

Consider this a plea to honorable people who voted for Trump thinking they’d be getting some sort of greatness and not just his promised retribution, to recall that, in a democracy, leadership requires far more than what they’re getting. Honesty, for one, and respectability, generosity, inclusion. A plea to demand more of their party – and of themselves – than defending the indefensible. Surely there are enough of them to vote America back to pre-Trump greatness.

In Tuesday’s elections, in which Democrats won up and down ballots everywhere, hope glimmers. Republican ventriloquist dummies with Trump’s hand up ... there, are claiming election fraud. Maybe, though, the less-dummied will sense that challenging him now requires less courage than before.

Because He Can

Maybe you’ve heard this joke, which, out of respect for readers, I’ll tidy up: Why do dogs lick their dangly parts? Answer: Because they can.

It perfectly describes Trump’s every action: He does what he does not only because he can, but, metaphorically, also that other thing. Paradoxically, there’s not a lick of forethought or coherence evident in any of it.

At last, in his attention-needy, approval-deficient life, he can do whatever he wants, to whomever and whatever he chooses. It’s nearly absolute power, granted not by voters, a majority of whom disagree with almost everything he’s done, and certainly not the Constitution, but by craven Republican Congress-dwellers and a cynically selected, ideologically predictable, Constitution-rewriting Supreme Court.

We’ve just returned from New York City, where our niece is a tenured professor of immunology at NYU. She runs an internationally recognized lab in which she’s made far-reaching, health-related discoveries. Back when our government recognized the value of science and the importance of the US leading the world, she had several post-doctoral fellows working with her. Now, due to Trump’s funding cuts and punitive immigration flexes, including charging outrageous prices for H-1 visas, because he can, she has only one. To another, whom she described as a “dream candidate,” she offered a job, only to have him choose a better future in China.

Another applicant she’d have loved to hire decided to stay in China. Trump’s no-sightedness harms America’s status in the world, which, if sanity ever returns to governance, will take years to restore. He doesn’t care. Because he can’t.

Because he could, this narcissistic man-child tore down a third of the White House, to be replaced with a grandiose monstrosity of a ballroom which will dwarf the People’s House, making permanent his embarrassing presence there. Because he lies, we should assume his promise not to name it after himself is false. The destruction, which he’d said wouldn’t happen, was completed before permits or final plans, much less authorization by the National Capital Planning Commission, members of which, along with members of the Commission on Fine Arts, he replaced with sycophantic allies. Why? To ensure approval of his ballroom and self-referential Triumphal Arch. And because he can.

Last week, Trump’s Department of Definitely-not-Peace awarded a huge contract to the drone manufacturer “Unusual Machines.” Heard of it? Don Junior has, because he’s an “adviser” to the company (cf: Burisma/Hunter/outrage/Congressional investigations/impeachment threats) and owns millions of dollars of stock in it, the value of which spiked after the deal was announced. It’s astounding, definitional conflict of interest and self-dealing, which Trump knows he needn’t hide. Likewise, his pardon of Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the crypto giant helping Trump, et spawn, enrich themselves while robbing vulnerable MAGAs with their bitcoin scams. He’ll get away with it. Because, between his prostrate hirelings and cowardly Congress, he can.

We’ve also learned that, so desperate was he to demonstrate unchallenged omnipotence, by sending people, illegally, to an inhumane El Salvadorian gulag, he sacrificed several MS-13 informants in return for its President Bukele agreeing to incarcerate his victims. Murdering claimed but unproven drug-runners on international waters is in the same category of illegality and inhumanity.

Commanding an unprincipled Attorney General, Trump got former Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted. Unlike the previously listed transgressions, this one could become amusing. Congressmen Gym Jordan and James Comey have demanded that Smith appear before their Overlooking-Trump Committees. Asking only that the hearings be public, Smith has agreed. Will they let voters see what he had on Trump?

Taking another lick at authoritarianism: Sending “election monitors” to blue states, homes of proven fraud-free elections. The clear purpose is to justify his perseverating, pathological election lies.

Because our Trump-owned Congress will do whatever he demands, they handed ICE more taxpayer money than the FBI and CIA combined, so Trump can have a personal, Constitution-ignoring army. So wanton is their resulting hiring spree, they’ve selected people with criminal histories, including drug use, robbery, and battery. Which, seeing ICE brutality, are probably attractive qualities. Additionally, they’ve been given tools banned from government by President Joe Biden, re-allowed by Trump, to spy on any and all citizens. He can do that, too, unimpeded.

There’s more, of course. It’s reported he’s demanding the DOJ pay him $230 million in taxpayer (your) money as restitution for the indignity of being properly tried and rightfully convicted of multiple felonies, including sexual assault. Ever the defender of Biblical virtue, Holy Mike Johnson, wholly pliant, doesn’t object. Trump’s personal lawyers and other embodiments of amorality in the DOJ are in charge of the decision to pay. If they won’t, he’s in position to order it. Because he can.

Trump’s lust for power and vengeance has been obvious for years. And now, revealing its claim on “law and order” and “family values” always to have been Trump-level lies, today’s Republican Party is handing it all to him. Because, thanks to SCOTUS-approved gerrymandering and vote suppression, they can.

China Syndrome

 

I had coffee this week with a friend who, after living in Everett for many years, moved, two years ago, to China. His wife is Chinese and wanted, following tradition, to be able to help her aging parents, back home. He had several interesting things to say about his adopted home, especially how foreigners are treated.

As a retired military lifer, he gets a decent government pension. For the first five years of living in China, that income is not taxed. After five years, he’ll qualify for what amounts to a permanent Green Card, allowing him pretty much all the benefits that citizens enjoy there, like owning a business. He and his wife live in a commodious apartment with an ocean view, for which he pays $400 per month.

But they’ve just bought a brand-new condo, in the process of finishing of which to make it livable they are. It’s in a “small” city, by Chinese standards: 450,000 people. In pictures he showed, the city bursts with development: high-rise buildings everywhere. Cars. Restaurants. Other stuff.

He plans to buy an electric car; the leading Chinese automaker, BYD, makes EVs now considered the best in the world. He intends to get their top model, which sells for $19,000. They’re pushing the envelope in battery technology, too, surpassing Elon’s by far. 

As a foreigner, my friend is allowed his own VPN, whatever that is, providing access to all of the internet that we have, here. Chinese citizens have no such freedom. I suppose his is because the government recognizes that most non-citizens are there doing mutually beneficial business.

My point is not to tout Chinese governance, but it’s apparent that its one-party autocracy is able to get things done there, and much faster than we do. Making efforts to combat climate change, for example, which Trump is deliberately undoing. My friend says his city has more EV charging stations than gas stations. When, if ever, might that happen here?

I have no desire to move to China, though I hear they have good Chinese food. I like living in a two-party, democratic republic. Especially when both parties have the greater good as central to their goals. Since Newt Gingrich and those of his time in power, that stopped being the case for the once-great Republican Party. It’s unpleasant.

As Trump steadily withdraws the US from the world stage, speeding the time when our country will no longer be seen as “indispensable” or a source of generosity and humanitarianism around the world, China acts to fill that void. Unlike Trump, they understand the value of “soft power;” not just for the recipients, but for their national standing, too. Trump’s America pulled its support for the World Health Organization, saver of countless lives. China just donated $500 million to it.

MAGA likes the idea of letting the needy, here and abroad, fend for themselves. Moochers. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...” Emma Lazarus. What a load of liberal crap, even if it’s exactly what Jesus taught. We’re MAGA. We make our own rules.

Our drastic reduction of support for USAID is already costing thousands of lives, according to people who know. Especially in Africa, especially children, from disease and starvation. It’s likely China will step in there, too. And the world will look to them, not us, for leadership. 

It’s depressing to see the US coddling dictators, insulting our allies, isolated, handing the future to other nations. RFK, Jr. just announced that scientists of the NIH will no longer be allowed to publish in such highly respected journals as Britain’s The Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association, The New England Journal of Medicine. Because, he said, without evidence, they’re “corrupt.” He should know: in Trump, he sees corruption up close.

But maybe it won’t matter: he’s cutting funding for medical and other scientific research to the point where it may become impossible for those important labs to continue, no matter where they might have shared their results. Happily for humanity, science is still valued in China, in Europe, in Israel. So research will continue, just not here. Unless Trump’s destructive tariffs make them too expensive, the scientific and technological advances in those countries will, presumably, be available to Americans. We’ll just have to wait for them; takers, not makers, dependent on countries with more outward-looking priorities.

As the economist Dani Rodrik wrote, “Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.” 

Meanwhile, Republican-controlled Congress ignores Trump’s increasingly blatant self-enrichment, while crafting a budget that represents the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy, cutting those things that might, you know, MAGA. 

Anyone for dim sum?

Corruption? What Corruption?

 

If people charged with oversight look away, does corruption exist? If deporting migrants is all MAGAs care about, is Trump selling his “presidency” to the highest bidder not happening? If a crime falls in Trump’s forest, does it make a sound?

So sure is Trump of the hypovertebral cowardice of Republican Congressfolk and the yes-boss, how-high sycophancy of his appointees that he’s not bothering to hide the corruption, greed, and grift that, were it anyone else, would have led to bipartisan impeachment and removal. What Trump is doing makes the alleged transgressions of the “Biden crime family” seem like kids selling lemonade without a license.

Nevertheless, Republicans conducted years of made-for-Fox “hearings” about it; all up with which they came were crimes to which Hunter Biden had already confessed. Now? With unprecedented corruption screaming for investigation? Butkis. (sp?)

Had Joe Biden, right before taking office, created eponymous cryptocurrencies for himself and his wife and encouraged foreign governments to purchase them, had offered White House tours and private dinners to individuals who purchased the most, Republican outrage would be at eleven and he’d be removed from office in the blink of an “aye.”

For comprehensive explication of the trail-blazing conflicts of interest in Trump’s crypto-kleptocracy, read this. And this. Then this. I could hotlink this Trumpery till the cowed come home and still not cover it all.

And that’s before mentioning the influence-peddling his sons are pushing around the world: Twenty Trump-branded building projects in nine countries, all of which will be in position to seek presidential favors. And, as history shows, receive them. But Hunter made bank because of his surname, causing Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) jugular-ballooning apoplexy. These potatoes, they are small.

According to MAGAs, proof that Trump “loves America” is that he donated his salary to the US Treasury last time around. That love now operates a government-underwritten cash machine. It’s estimated that his family members have increased their wealth by $3 billion since the election and his entry into the crypto game. Ever tried to wrap around how much a billion is? This should help.

Trump’s enforcers and acolytes don’t simply ignore it. They bend over backwards to justify it. Attorney General Pam Bondi, America’s bulwark against liberalism’s lawlessness, argues that accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar, a country that may have had a hand in 9/1, finances Hamas and the anti-US campus protestors that Trump arrests for speaking freely, isn’t a Constitution-defined emolument. Because he’ll only use it till he’s out of office, at which point he’ll keep using it. Or something. He’s gotta have it, though: it’s gold-plated. 

No matter that accepting a 250-foot-long, three-story plane from a shady government is risky. Other than disassembling everything, including its toilets, fold-flat seats, gilded staircase, and wiring, how could we be certain it doesn’t include spyware? Whether or not the gift-grift happens, Trump loves the idea and Republicans far and wide-bodied are all for it, too; falling in line like Boy Scouts for his every whim, even his Alcatrazific impossibility. 

None of this will make the tiniest crack in the enlightenment-proof wall surrounding Trump voters. The divide between those who live in that world and people inhabiting the one that exists is getting wider every day. Consider the “deals” Trump recently announced with the UK and, later, China. To MAGA, they confirm the brilliance of the artiste o’ the deal; the pendulumistic backs and forths, markets ricocheting like pinballs, ports, including Seattle’s, empty of cargo; all part of a grand plan working out perfectly. Which was to isolate and break China. Then not. Which was that tariffs would erase our national debt and eliminate taxes. Then canceled. Every U-turn, every message reversal accepted as if from Mount Sinai.

Reality-based observers have noted that when Trump’s tariffs on China were announced, it responded in kind, immediately stopped selling stuff to the US while opening new markets everywhere else. Their brilliance, as opposed to Trump’s dimness, meant that while shelves empty here and prices creep up, while Trump shamed Americans for wanting toys for their kids, China, selling elsewhere, flourished. Outflanked, Trump caved. His nonsensical tariffs on China were an ego trip over which, in full planetary view, he tripped.

It must be obvious to world leaders that, facing pushback, he backs down. Spin it his mouthers might, but spin ain’t spinach.

The fruits of Republicans’ attacks on critical thinking are seen as MAGAs are as happy over the flip as they were over the flop. Ensuring a steady supply of such easy marks, harbinger Oklahoma, already at the bottom rung of American education, will now teach their youth that Trump’s stolen election lies are truth, removing all the rungs above those unfortunate kids. Like the MAGAfied, they never had a chance. 

I'm Not Crazy. You're Crazy!

 

I’ve said it before, and will again: our democracy works best with two viable, opposing parties, assuming both are committed to problem-solving, understand cooperation, accept democracy in the form of election results even when they lose, are favorably inclined toward reality, place a modicum of value on truth-telling, and are disinclined to elect and cover for rude, brazen liars.

Until a few years ago, I included most Republican politicians in that description. At this point, though, I can’t understand how anyone – and not just politicians -- who considers themself conservative can continue to support Trump and Trumpism. If “MAGA Republican” isn’t an oxymoron, “MAGA conservative” most certainly is.

In the latest of many examples, we’ve learned that after the 2020 election but before January 6, Trump engaged The Berkeley Research Group, an atypically (for him) reputable firm, to investigate his theories of how the election was stolen from him: fraud, dead people voting, two thousand mules, hacked voting machines, suitcases, etc.: the Trumpian disloyal flush. After characteristically thorough work, BRG found nothing of significance. Some discrepancies, in fact, favored Trump. So he buried the report and continued to lie, planning ways to overthrow the election and encouraging an insurrection.

He knew he was lying; but, because he’s a damaged person who probably initially believed if he lost it had to be fraudulent because he’s Donald Trump, he kept on doing it. Loved watching deluded followers ransacking our Capitol at his behest. Even now, he insists he won by “a landslide.” How can anyone who loves America not be outraged? How can they not comprehend his dangerous unfitness?

And what to make of the latest information about the depth of collusion with Saudi Arabia, resulting in personal riches for him and Jared Kushner? Billions for Jared; millions for himself. The money rolled in after, as Trump put it to Bob Woodward, referring to Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, "I saved his ass.” Meaning supporting his regional corruption and letting him off the hook for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. "Tell Mohammed he owes us," he told his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Evidently, he got the message.

As House Republicans prioritize Hunter Biden’s laptop and pursue the prurient pixels of pudenda planted therein, will also they investigate Trump’s obvious jobbery? Is a polar bear black?

Now seems a good time to mention Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ “response” to President Biden’s State of the Union address. After admitting, last week, that I didn’t watch, I’ve since looked into it. Has anyone uttered more ironic, clueless, un-self-aware words, in the history of politics starting in ancient Athens, than “The choice is between normal and crazy”? Timed to perfection following Marjorie Taylor Greene behaving like a third-grader, and all of her party pretending that Biden lied when saying, truthfully, that some Republicans would cut Medicare and Social Security. It’s on tape, people. Rick “sunset” Scott, Ron “reauthorize yearly” Johnson, Mike “pull it out by its roots” Lee, and more.

And, oh, the ballooning hot-air conspiracies: aliens; false flag precursor to martial law; bowing to China... Such is the the party of Trump. And Tucker. Gosar. Boebert. Cruz. Gaetz. Normal? Ron DeSantis turning Florida into an education-killing, book-burning, Disney-ruling autocracy. CPAC honoring Kari Lake for “exposing” widespread voter fraud, if “exposing” means “insisting despite proof of the opposite.” Normal or crazy?

Ms. Sanders was right. Just got the parties backward. Avoiding meaningful policy like Alex Jones and vaccines, she railed mostly about “woke” without defining it, confirming that her party has nothing to offer except to embittered distractibles. When she bragged about killing CRT in her state without saying what the initials stand for, observers may be excused for assuming she meant “Clear Rational Thought.”

Normal versus crazy. When I heard of bumper stickers and T-shirts saying “Make America Florida,” I figured it was a joke. It’s not. There’s no doubt that there are plenty who love the idea; especially those who believe the election was stolen, that liberals groom children to become gay, trans, or mealtime blood donors, that teaching Black history harms white kids, and that education is elitist. People who couldn’t define communism or socialism or capitalism or liberalism (or conservatism) if you handed them a dictionary in a wet paper bag. Parents grateful to have their children grow up in a state where teachers are required to remove all books from classrooms, including one about baseball hero and devoted humanitarian Roberto Clemente because he wasn’t, you know, white. So the book might offend DeSantisoid sensibilities.

Florida: where an out-Trumping-Trump, autocratic governor threatens to end all AP courses and sex education, along with press freedom. Who hired as the state’s surgeon general a “doctor” who mysteriously made it through medical school without a kindergarten-level understanding of science. A snide, angry, bullying, self-important governor who was reelected in Florida by a landslide, which proves the point.

“Make America Florida” means electing a dictator, not a president, who’ll make sure citizens remain ignorant enough to keep voting for people like him. Unless he gets rid of voting altogether. MAGA: Make America Go Authoritarian. By all evidence, that’s what they want. And, unless unwoke citizens wake up and stop it, it’s exactly what they, and we, will get.

Prepping For The Final Exam

Pop Quiz. No time limit. Links to answers attached to each question. For purposes of self-assessment, don’t look before answering. Fair warning to Trumpic and/or Foxified Republicans: Have adult beverages handy, for you risk the shock of factuality by following the links. If none other, at least follow the first one. PLEASE. And may enlightenment shine upon you and bring you peace.

(Note for blog-readers only: you probably already know what's at the links, but click anyway. Some, you might find amusing. Also, the Herald version is moving to Fridays, I'm told.)

1. Intentionally creating distrust in elections by repeatedly lying about non-existent fraud, then forcing laws to “restore trust,” is an unprecedented, existentially dangerous attack on democracy. From within. Discuss. (Link)

2. Define Critical Race Theory. Explain its origins. Indicate where it’s being taught and where it’s not. Write a paragraph to refute its central tenets. (Link)(Link)

3. What is the 1619 Project? Explain its origins. Indicate where it’s being taught and where it’s not. Write a paragraph to refute its central tenets. (Link)(Link) 

4. Define communism. Give examples of where, in its pure form, it’s ever been implemented in a country. Have any countries referred to themselves as communist when, in fact, by strict definition, they weren’t? Do any official policies of the Democratic Party fit the definition? Which ones? Be specific. (Link)

5. Define pure socialism. Have any countries referred to themselves as socialist when, in fact, by strict definition, they weren’t? Do any policies of the Democratic Party fit the definition? Which ones? Be specific. (Link)

6. Define Democratic Socialism. (You may refer to it as Social Democracy.) Give examples of countries whose governance currently fits the definition. Is there a spectrum? If so, does the US belong somewhere along it? Compare happiness indexes and poverty levels. (Link)

7. In Social Democracies, government programs that provide education, health, and economic security for citizens, especially the workforce, enhance and strengthen capitalism. Refute. (Link)

8. True or false: In a fairly constituted democratic republic, the minority of voters should have a voice but the majority should prevail. Defend your answer. (Link)

9. Does gerrymandering, which allows a party to control state legislatures while receiving fewer votes than the opposition, lead to fair public policy? Is it consistent with the fundamentals of our democracy? Why or why not? (Link)

10. If an insurrection occurs in a democracy, successful or not, the intent of which is to overthrow a constitutionally certified, multiply-recounted and adjudicated election, and which results in deaths and destruction within the nation’s hallowed Capitol and which overtly threatens the lives of legislators of both parties, should the roots and carrying out of that insurrection be investigated? Why or why not? (Link)

11. If one party blocks a bipartisan investigatory commission, the composition of which included all the demands of that party and mirrors the framework of the 9/11 commission, is it fair to conclude they wish to hide self-incriminating facts from the American people? (Link)

12. If the Senate leader of that party demands his colleagues block it “as a personal favor,” what’s the “personal” part? What constituents does he fear? Do they reflect the opinion of most Americans regarding an investigation? Show your work. (Link) 

13. Discuss: The filibuster leads to bipartisanship. Give examples from recent years. If sixty to seventy percent of Americans favor certain legislation, should forty percent of senators, representing forty million fewer voters than senators of the other party, be able to block it? Why or why not? Does our Constitution mention filibuster? Does it square with original intent? (Link)

14. What is original intent? Would the founders agree that the mass murders occurring almost daily in the country they created are simply “the price of freedom”? In writing the Second Amendment, should they have specified, unambiguously, what they meant by a “well-regulated militia,” and what they intended as its purpose? Was slavery involved in any way? Support your answer. (Link)(Link)

15. The First Amendment was written when news spread on horseback. Would the founders have anticipated media sources with instant and worldwide reach, using lies and dishonest editing as a business plan? If not, are there arguments for updating the amendment? (Link)

16. Trump hired “only the best people,” and none were corrupt. Defend. (Link)

17. Reports say Trump believes he’ll be reinstated as “president” by August. Explain: (Link)

18. Who’s tougher, rugby players like your columnist once was, or soccer players? Provide examples. (Link)

19. MAGA Republicans prefer selecting leaders by coup or overturning elections. Refute. (Link)

Barr The Door

My next column in The Everett Herald:

When President Barack Obama addressed his US Attorneys, he told them, “I appointed you but you don’t serve me. You serve the American people. And I expect you to act with independence and integrity.” When Trump took office, he fired them all. “Independence and integrity” are anathema to the presidency he envisioned and which he’s so easily spawned. 

He misjudged his first Attorney General. There was reason to believe Jeff Sessions would kow to his tow; and, mostly, he did. But he retained enough of something approximating integrity to recuse himself from overseeing Robert Mueller’s investigation. Naturally, this angered Trump. 

Enter William Barr, who hung what had passed for integrity on the White House pegboard as he entered, where it dangles still, alongside many others’. A career-long advocate for the unbound “unitary executive,” he’s been an eager doer of Trump’s bidding ever since.  

History won’t forget Barr’s opening gambit: distortion and outright lying about the Mueller Report, pleasing the “president” and his media, rightly figuring his dissembling would Velcro to Trumpists’ prickly minds. It has. Subsequently, Mr. Barr has made clear his full-time, exclusive commitment to carrying water for Trump. 

Under Trump and Barr, independence of our Department of Justice, indispensable to a functioning democratic republic, suffered a painful but quick death. Barr’s interventions in cases about which Trump has expressed displeasure is exactly what Attorneys General should not be doing, for reasons so obvious they require no mention. 

Seeing nothing wrong with a “president” interfering, even when prosecutors followed DOJ sentencing guidelines, Trump’s defenders were quick to approve. Claiming it’s his right to do whatever he wants, they ardently defend using the DOJ as his personal vendetta and self-serving machinery, expecting “his” A.G. to follow orders in all matters. Nothing wrong with that, they argued, to Fox viewers. Take directions from Trump to investigate the investigators. Let the “president” decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t. 

Attacking judges and jurors is his prerogative, too; totally harmless to our system of justice.  

In fact, this is unrestrained autarchy, which shouldn’t be hard, even for Trumpists, to understand. Why don’t they care, and why have they renounced American jurisprudence?  

In response to Trump’s despotism by tweet, Barr spoke out: “It’s time to stop tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” he said. Trump’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job ...” Oh, look, enthused the media: Barr is calling out Trump in public! It’s a new beginning!! 

Bullwaste. The “job” to which he referred is defending Trump no matter the cost to our nation. What he meant was, “Cool it, Donald. You’re making it hard to hide the cahooting.” Playing along, rightwing media feigned outrage at Barr’s pushback, helpfully pretending there was space between the two. Lou Dobbs, who cheerleads when Trump claims a constitutional right to absolute power, called it “A damn shame." Unfazed and uncaring, Trump escalated his “impossible” tweets. If Barr meant what he said, he’d have resigned.  

It’s not only Trump’s vendettas against “enemies” and helping friends that Barr is facilitating. At Trump’s behest, he tried to help Recep Erdogan stop American prosecution of a Turkish bank. Yet another abuse to benefit Trump, whose business failures have left him in hock to foreign banks. 

We’ve come to expect unqualified defense, by today’s Republicans, of whatever dictatorial move Trump makes. But to defend presidential manipulations of the Department of Justice is monumental hypocrisy. Those defenders would be shattering eardrums with their screams for impeachment if a Democrat did what Trump is demanding and what Barr is doing. 

If defending and obeying our laws and prosecuting those who break them is subject to presidential whim, especially this vindictive, prevaricating, uninformed, strongman-emulating one, laws are meaningless. Yet Congressional Republicans applaud it. Which illustrates the obvious: if it benefits the right people, corruption is fine with them. 

King Donald’s pardons of corrupt Mar-al-Lago pals, and current and future big-dollar donors should outrage everyone. That it doesn’t confirms Trump’s normalization of lawlessness and fraud, and the moral collapse of today’s Republican leaders. 

Speaking of which, the steel contract for Trump’s saw-soft, easily-climbable, wind-blown-over wall went to a group whose ownership gave $1.75 million to a Trump super-PAC. And Trump just waived federal contracting rules, so there’ll be more. It’s the story of Trump: the con and the conned.  

Trump hasn’t yet killed President Obama’s economic recovery. For Republicans, evidently, that’s all it takes to justify abandoning integrity. 

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Foxification

My upcoming column in The Everett Herald:

“Foxification.” Noun. [fahks-ih-fuh-KAY-shun] The influence of rightwing media, especially Fox “news,” in creating indifference to facts; becoming blind to the obvious.  

“Foxified.” Adjective. [FAHKS-ih-fiyd] Made unable and unwilling to see what’s happening before one’s eyes. 

After Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony during the impeachment hearings, a tweet went viral: “I hired Trump to fire people like Yovanovitch.” And there it is. Foxification. Be afraid.  

The tweeters were being truthful, though: getting rid of incorruptible, impartial, gifted public servants is, indeed, why they “hired” Trump. Like Trumpists emailing me after the publication of every column, they’d insist Trump is “draining the swamp.” Asked to define the swamp or point to drainage, emailers provide none. 

To the extent that Trump has gotten rid of swamp-dwellers, it’s by hiring them, then seeing them forced out or sent to prison for crimes undertaken on his behalf. Well-known for dirty tricks and dishonesty, Roger Stone, the latest, was hired to keep at it. (In case you missed it, testimony in his trial suggests Trump lied to Robert Mueller. It’s of a piece.)  

Such is the power of Foxification that its sufferers watched Ambassador Yovanovitch and couldn’t see the exemplary avatar of America; were incapable of recognizing her dedication to implementing official policy in the interest of the US. Not hers. Not one person’s or one party’s. The same is true of those whose testimony preceded and followed hers. Most have served presidents of both parties, with honor. 

Not only are they protecting US interests (as opposed to those of a corrupt “president” and swampizens who anticipate bounty from enabling him), they are, given the ubiquity of death threats and unsubtle “presidential” incitement thereof, brave. In Trump’s America, truth-telling is a courageous act.  

Ambassador Yovanovitch’s sin was tackling Ukraine’s corruption; in particular, that of Prosecutors General Shokin and Lutsenko, sequential paragons of venality. Threatened, Lutsenko, Rudy Giuliani, and Rudy’s button-men launched smears against her, likely because she stood in the way of their kleptocratic plans for Ukraine’s natural gas. 

Trump, laughably called a corruption-fighter by worried Republicans, sold the smears like a bankrupt casino. Praising those racketeers, he ousted Yovanovitch to clear a path to extorting Ukraine for political gain. That’s corruption. Congressional Republicans pretend it’s normal. 

Now America has its own corrupt Prosecutor General. In concert with Trump, William Barr is dragging us toward the kind of governance against which Yovanovitch, Taylor, Kent, Vindman, and others have worked so diligently. Barr was a promoter of unchecked presidential power and lawbreaking (torture) long before Trump up-swamped him. In a hyper-partisan speech grossly inappropriate for an Attorney General, he just described impeachment as undoing the will of the people. We know, of course, the people chose Hillary Clinton. Trump was willed by the Electoral College, created explicitly to make the will of the people thrice-removed from choosing a president. 

Impeachment, Barr continued, undermines the rule of law; yet it’s specifically to maintain the rule of law that it was enshrined in the Constitution. Such deceptive dissembling from Trump’s Attorney General is chilling, harkening to not-so-distant history: as is his bemoaning Congress “drown[ing] the executive branch with oversight demands.” Right. Oversight. How quaintly constitutional.  

Descended from the zero-sum politics of Gingrich, Rove, and Atwater, Barr, protecting a self-admitted amoral “president,” added, without apparent irony, “… conservatives tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means.” Which is like insisting Trump only grabs women by the hand.  

Foxification purposefully blinds victims to obvious signs of nascent dictatorship: a power-hungry, hate-mongering, scapegoating “president;” a derelict Attorney General; Congressional Republicans standing mute; attacking journalists; stacking the judiciary with partisan lackeys; and the latest: against the wishes of “his” generals, pardoning soldiers convicted, in courts-martial, of war crimes. The message is clear: when the time comes, break the law for me, and I’ll pardon you, too. This isn’t “supporting our troops.” It’s insulting them to their core. It’s Trump’s final solution.  

If unrestrained by Constitutional requirements, Trump would become a dictator like those to whom he genuflects. With riches to be plundered and jobs to keep, elected Republicans look away. But what of regular-citizen Trumpists? By now they know what’s happening. So, what is it? Do they like what they see, ready to raise stiffened right arms, convinced they and their children will be protected? If so, their Foxification is so powerful it’s wiped human history from their minds.

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Rats, All The Way Down

My next newspaper column:

Everybody loves somebody someday. Domestic abusers get bailed out by the abused, escaped felons find shelter on the outside. Human nature being what it is, even serial killers get fan mail and marriage proposals. Let’s assume, however, that few saw attempts to bring such people to justice as nothing more than politically motivated hit-jobs. Or, even as the bodies piled up, witch hunts. (American Wiccans are protesting current usage of the term.) In societies that value the rule of law, it’s accepted that criminals should be punished, and people about whom there’s reason to suspect outlaw behavior should be subject to scrutiny.  

In the US, not long ago considered the world’s greatest democracy, on whose constitution other countries based their own, thirty-eight-percent of the population still believes any suggestion that the current “president” is the common denominator in a conflagration of crimes is merely the stuff of sore losers. How comforting to consider such criticism to be born of irrational hate, rather than reckoning with the implications for our country and the world in having a “president” who’s a constant, and possibly criminal, liar. 

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If a well-worn cliché, Californians can testify to the truth of it. By now, the smog of scandal in the center of which Trump lies requires medical-grade respirators. Yet hardcore Trumpists frolic outside, breathing deep, claiming, eyes tearing, that coughing is good for us all. 

Leaving much of our public lands ready for ruin, trailing the fumes of fifteen separate ethics investigations, Ryan Zinke is the latest of Trump’s “best people” to work the revolving door. Courts just smocked the EPA, ordering reversal of the damage Scott “Also the Best” Pruitt would have done to our environment and children by lifting restrictions on a poison banned by President Obama. 

There are plenty more liars, incompetents, and thieves Trump has gathered close, but they’re not even the prime evidence of his flagitious conduct. He, his family, and businesses, his campaign, inaugural committee, transition team, and his fake “foundation” (which he just agreed to shutter under court supervision) have attracted investigations; seventeen so far. That’s a lot of boil, boil, toil, and trouble to have been cooked up from nothing. 

There’s also smoke signaling Trump’s dalliances with crime networks, home-grown and foreign, for his whole career. It was, at least in part, because of his connections with criminals, laundering money, and phony, failed business deals, that when he was on the verge of personal bankruptcy, no US bank would bail him out. Forced to turn to Russians, Saudis, and Deutsch Bank, he left himself, and now us, vulnerable. Don’t believe it? Plug “Trump mafia ties” into your favorite search engine. And ask yourself: is a temporary tax break, or the deportation of immigrants, fourteen-thousand kids incarcerated at the border, or however else Trump is floating your boat, a fair return for de-facto complicity? 

Even a Fox “news” commentator suggested to Trump that he stop calling Michael Cohen a “rat,” because that’s what mobsters call a guy who sings to the cops. You can’t “rat” with lies, but rats do leave a sinking ship of state. Trump’s rodents see the rising water.  

Trumpists would have us believe it’s “entrapment” by Mueller, et al., that’s causing the exodus from S.S. Trump. Hardly. Even Mike Flynn’s lawyers admitted he wasn’t entrapped. It’s the writing on the walls: prison walls. Grifters and crooks who, seeing Trump’s own malfeasance and greed as protection, once believed themselves untouchable, are reading between the bars. This includes Trump’s ironically-named pal and fake-news-purveyor. Could it be a Pecker that brings down the p---- grabber?  

From a new report to the Senate, we’ve learned Russia’s 2016 disinformation efforts were even more extensive, sophisticated, and purposeful than was known. Also revealed is that a letter of Russian intent (cf: Steele dossier) which didn’t exist, actually did. But wasn’t signed. Was. Trump’s lies about Russian connections may be the least of his legal problems, but colluding with a foreign adversary is still kinda serious. If confirmed (smoke/fire), there’s a word for it. 

Even conservative news outlets like WSJ and Forbes are making his corruption undeniable. So Trump suggests criticizing him should be illegal. Baseless hate? Well, admittedly, it’s hard to love.  

As the winds of investigations blow the smokescreen from the rubble, Trumpists may have to look for their missing conscience and reconsider where they stand. Blaming messengers isn’t a forever firewall.

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