This could have gone badly. As much as I adore and respect Sinéad O’Connor for her music, her socio-political stands, her commitment to her art and her causes, both real and imagined, she has been anything but a focused voice on any of them. Having battled mental and emotional illness most of her life while also displaying in her public persona a head-spinning level of mercurial behavior, when I heard she was penning a memoir I was as dubious as when Bob Dylan released what turned out to be a mostly fantasy-addled effort. However, my trepidations were happily proved unfounded. Unlike Dylan’s 2004 uneven Chronicles Vol 1,Rememberings is a brutally honest, and most importantly, consistent work. It reads like the imprint of a cruel world on the soul of a sensitive artist with just enough self-examination and personal epiphanies to induce awe.
Firstly, O’Connor is no writer, per sé. (To be fair, many of these rock and roll memoirs are hardly nods to literary devotion.) Still, there is a writer’s alacrity in the way O’Connor tells her story, bridging the gap between having spent decades burying the horrors of her childhood and her exploitation as a young singer-songwriter, and later MTV superstar in an age of shifting genres and interests, and her artistic integrity. All this transpired in a male-dominated industry that kicked her around for nothing more than its own willful ignorance and insecure self-preservation. O’Connor faces her demons and bravely shares the experience.
Parts of Rememberings is as poetic as its un-grammatical title. O’Connor uses her words and phrases to dig deeper into her psyche, allowing the reader a ringside seat. This is a frightening but rewarding endeavor that helps us understand that a portrait of a true artist is no walk in the park. Much of the myths and well-worn stories of her time under the looming control of her mentally ill mother or the nunnery for which she learned to use music to connect spiritually and psychologically with the world all the way to her weirdly framed wars with the Catholic Church, the U.S. government, and the music business are busted wide open.
AMERICA ALONE Welcome to the New Age of Isolation, Apathy & Defeat
I’m not sure what you would call this Trump Doctrine. Is it foreign policy? Not sure it would make the cut of any “policy” per se. Seems like most of this presidency’s maneuvers are knee-jerk, ad-hoc, half-ass what-the-fuck kinds of things that end up in ranting tweets and Nuremburg type rallies of bloviating mendacities and bumper sticker logic. Does it show a consistent measure, say, like the Bush Doctrine’s War on Terror or Reagan’s Geo-Political chess games or even Clinton’s piecemeal effect? I would argue no. Fact is, it appears that Donald Trump doesn’t know either, and more to the point neither does his drooling attack dog Mike Pompeo, a former CIA Director and cheap hood from Kansas whose only understanding about international affairs is assassination. It was the current Secretary of State who convinced the easily swayed Trump to illegally assassinate the top general of a sovereign state in a battle zone that was not specifically waged against the nation for which he toiled. Ensuing press conferences seemed to indicate that he was bad. And that is a very tenuous reason to conduct international murder.
It appears even to the mentally challenged that the erratic short-range planning on how to deal with international affairs falls mainly to a man whose woefully short attention span and fantastic inability to learn anything has been on dangerous display for three years. Some call this a method. In other words, the lack of planning or doctrine is kind of a doctrine, and I would grant them this misnomer, if not for the imbalance of enemy vs. ally that comes with who might “like” or “ego pet” or “placate” a single human being as opposed to the safety and advantage of an entire nation.
This is especially appalling because nearly two-thirds of the American people do no support this president. He has zero mandate, in the traditional sense. For whatever that is worth these days. And these kind of zig-zag irrational one-off decisions – like tweeting to pull U.S. troops from Syria last year without alerting those who are running the war, or worse still, the allies on the ground – tend to alienate America from the international community. This has happened with annoying regularity during Trump’s first term and while this gets the current 41-percent that support him the giddies it does leave America isolated globally. And this latest Iran goofiness has only exacerbated the problem. And although I couldn’t give nary a shit whether we have any kind of powerplay in the Middle East, I would guess that Iraq (“welcomed as liberators”) after eighteen years voting last week to kick the most powerful nation out of its country has to be a bad look to the rest of the world. Not to mention without a presence in the country we broke, a vacuum – already partially filled by ISIS and soon to be consumed with Iran, the very nation killing its lead commander was supposed to impede – will most certainly not be completed by anything approaching U.S. friendly.
That is not foreign policy, it’s the script of a horror movie.
This is why I took to Twitter – which I rarely do – to implore congress to cobble together a veto-proof halt to what will likely be an ongoing clusterfuck in the Middle East with Iran. The House, with mostly Democratic votes, predictably came with a feckless attempt to limit Trump’s war powers a few days later – I am not suggesting this was because of my tweet, but hey… – it was a show vote and not a binding resolution. At some point, I will argue until the face turns a bluish hue that the actual branch of government that has the constitutional powers to declare war needs to get their shit together and end what has amounted to over seven decades of abject stupidity from the executive branch, the Pentagon and the military. We suck at war. We have not won one since 1945 and that’s because congress was kept out of it since; in most cases illegally. This appears to have happened with Pompeo’s fancy assassination.
But I digress.
If I may, let’s take a look at non-binding, shadowy “agreements” that lunatics have entered into with this president in the past three years: More pertinently, Russian President Vladmir Putin, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bind Salman Al Saud. All of these leaders – Trump favorites – are despots, dictators and tyrants. All of them Trump has “trusted” over American intelligence agencies – the same agencies the administration and Pompeo ran to use as cover for murdering the Iranian general. Trump said, on foreign soil during the first year of his term with Putin standing beside him, that Russia probably had nothing to do with hacking our 2016 election, before his private meetings with him that did not include an American translator. He has had two meetings with Jong-un that resulted in no signed treaty, just a couple of what he described as “love notes.” Meanwhile North Korea continues to fire off missiles and thumb its nose at the U.S. Then there was the little nastiness of the Saudis murdering an American journalist that Trump excused after some shady rationale from the Prince.
Now, Trump, who tore up an actual Nuclear Pact that had assurances in writing agreed by a large part of the international community, is telling us “All is well” and that he’s got Iran’s assurance that this whole thing is a misunderstanding and whatever other nonsense he can garble in a pinch. No treaty. No negotiation. No international coalition. Just “I got this” from a guy who has trouble telling the truth about everything.
No question that what happened this past week in Iraq could have gone far worse. If anything, Iran acted as an international power with some restraint. But that’s if it is to be believed and that’s another story, because we have nothing in writing. There is no safety net. There is no “trust but verify”. Only trust, and oh, a crazy man taunting another crazy man on social media. Makes me sleep well at night.
One thing is certain, there has to be some stable direction with America’s foreign policy, because this kind of silliness is not sustainable. If this is a new era of isolationism, then let’s go with that. Anything would suffice over what is currently transpiring. Pulling out of treaties, reneging on promises, scuttling agreements and random assassinations with no explanation is wearing thin.
What the result of all this looks like is anyone’s guess. And that is not foreign policy, it’s the script of a horror movie.
In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals. The President’s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General Barr appears to be involved as well. – Opening statement in National Security Whistleblower Complaint, delivered 8/19/19 to Director of National Intelligence and reviewed by the U/S Congress, 9/26/19
Well, of course. How else could this possibly end? It was only a matter of time that this abomination of a presidency would finally sink us into a constitutional crisis and wind up in the embarrassment of impeachment. Because most likely Donald Trump isn’t going anywhere, unless we send him packing in November of 2020. The Senate Republicans are not going to convict a president with an intra-party popularity around 90 percent even if he “shoots someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.” It is political suicide and that is the game they are playing here – not any hokey bullshit patriotic sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. That is a line you learn in middle school that pertains to none of what actually happens or has happened in Washington DC since they elevated a mosquito infested Southern swamp into the nation’s capital in 1790. Nah, Trump will stay with his shame and his historical marker as a hack criminal whose best work was saved for B-level television and the inside straight he pulled on November 6, 2016 that we now know occurred with ample assistance from the Russian government. You could see this coming from the start of this mess, as I wrote to friends within minutes of his Election Day victory, it was merely a “Countdown to Impeachment”. He would do something stupid and wrong, I reasoned, and he has done many things stupid and wrong since, but this latest Ukrainian shit will finally get that scarlet letter “I” painted on his bloated visage forevermore.
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint news conference with Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 20, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
History is a bitch and it has come calling for Donald J. Trump. His unimpeded lunacy has a shelf life and it has reached its apex. Our national crisis of one; this bleating troll of a man whose check has bounced and the bank, well, the bank needs the money, bub. And El Douche knows all about that. His phalanx of failures resulting in a spectacular number of bankruptcies and sad-sack ventures has led to these secret tax returns he still uses an army of lawyers to prevent us from seeing. Oh, the tales they would tell: More embarrassments that will likely come crashing in once he set in motion the congress’s legal might to impeach. Oof, it has become a civic lesson for Donnie, who chose to run the United States like a casino and went belly up. Because belly up is the default position for him. Self destruction is his raison d’être. His art is masochism.
Ahhh, but The Donald thinks the dogshit in his fist is a sweet-smelling rose. This, and myopic racism is what his father gave him with a preternatural gift of denial and an unrivaled level of self-unawareness. And that’s probably best. It’s always a boon for the victim to not see it coming. My cats know that deal, but the president, well, he needs some education on how this whole system works when it has been cracked in pieces as he’s been stumbling through his Mr. Magoo governing style, careening into crime after crime and then telling us all about it on Twitter and national television. Remember when he admitted to NBC News that he fired the head of the FBI because of “the Russian thing”, which brought the weight of a two-year investigation that he tried to thwart at every turn? This, of course, and a mid-term thrashing handed congress over to his political enemies on a silver platter. That should have been enough to impeach, as the ten blatant instances of obstruction of justice that continues with this latest Ukrainian clusterfuck.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to pull this shit and then evoke the Justice Department, the puppet attorney general, the vice president, and drag your mentally ill private attorney, who then fingered the entire state department, into this nonsense? There are so many fuck-ups in Trump’s attempt to mob-threaten a foreign country to investigate a totally ginned up bullshit story about the son of his likely political opponent, whom he is losing to in every poll since Joe Biden shuffled meekly into this race. Not the least of which is to put the whole affair into “a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature” according to the fancy whistleblower complaint released on 9/26 to congress, and “not the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials.” Only because…wait for it…this is the crap Hillary Clinton rightfully got for having a separate email server. Every time you hear Trumpites mention “Hilary’s emails” this is why. And well… duh.
Hey, you wanted a game show host to give this a try.
The most damning excerpt in the whistleblower complaint is the White House directing the “lock down of all records of the phone call”, which, (clearing my throat for effect) is an all-star super-duper topper most of the poppermost Cover Up. And it will end in the disbarment and perhaps jailing of Steven Engel, director of the Office of Legal Counsel, who blocked the whistleblower complaint from being handed over to congress, which is dictated by law, Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski, head of the criminal division, who brazenly passed on investigating the president’s crime, Attorney General Bill Barr, who not only denies having heard about any such call to pursue a conspiracy theory probably pitched by FOX News talk show host Sean Hannity that it was Ukraine not Russia that helped Trump win in 2016 despite the intelligence community and the Mueller Report conclusions, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who according to Joseph Maguire, acting director of national intelligence, put him in the “untenable position of denying the material to congress over a claim that it did not fall within his jurisdiction as leader of the intelligence community,” which is literally his job description, and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolf Giuliani, whose erratic criminal behavior for months enthusiastically headed up this fiasco.
So, in very Nixonian fashion, this whole “getting dirt on the opponent” that took on national security alerts in 2016 with the Russian government basically entrenched in what would be the future president’s campaign, was taken to yet another country with the same crime and then, well covered up. Trump, descending into a state of complete doddering madness, had the bright idea to declassify a private conversation with the Ukrainian president that… wait for this one… totally incriminated him. This is what the president of the United States released to the public and an impeachment inquiry the day before the damning whistleblower complaint dropped: Trump to newly sworn-in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…it sounds horrible to me.”
I think I’ve written this here before, but for the purposes of people who are still stunningly defending this recidivist criminal behavior: Game. Set. Match.
The president of the United States withheld funds appropriated for the defense of an American ally to gain dirt on a political opponent, got a half dozen White House lawyers to lie and cover it up and then proudly shared the evidence to bury him. Or a typical Tuesday afternoon in the Trump Administration.
Hey, you wanted a game show host to give this a try.
Really, I mean, given everything that has transpired up to this, is impeachment that much of a stretch?
HOW LONG FOOTBALL? The Decline in American Youth Football is Real and Increasing
The short answer to the above question is probably forever. But the long answer is not in any form you can recognize, and that part has already begun.
It is because of this march towards whatever the game is now and what it eventually will become that prompted me to stop watching football with any interest four seasons ago. And this is no small feat. Pro Football, really any football, was my favorite sport. I played when I was a kid. Absolutely fell in love with the gorgeous artistic propaganda of NFL Films, so much so that the iconic music they used on those stuck in my brain as deeply as any pop song from my childhood. I even applied to work for NFL Films right out of college. I did not get the gig. Bummer.
Giving up football fandom was tough at first, but it made no sense to watch something called pro football that was fast becoming… I don’t know how to describe watching a sport in which you have no idea what it happening: What’s a catch? What’s a touchdown? What’s a tackle? What is cheating? Man, I loved football, especially pro football, and it went somewhere else and I did not follow.
The main reason the sport has changed into something I no longer find the least bit interesting – beyond the rise in fantasy sports craze, video games that effected how the game is played and covered, and technology (replay stuff is intolerable nonsense) – is valid. Playing football causes brain damage. It is simple as that. This is something we should have known forty years ago as we watched behemoths (many of them jacked on amphetamines and later a phalanx of human growth hormones and anabolic steroids) smash their skulls into each other. Sure, they wore helmets and we thought that was fine. It turned out not to be fine. Many of the players went insane or died of brain-related diseases. Some got violent with spouses, their children and the general public. Some committed suicide. Then came the inevitable lawsuits and the National Football Leagues’ shameless but understandable denials. Gotta keep those bucks flowing.
This “deny the science” for self-interest thing is very big with business types. You know the deal: Coal poured into poison and then into your water is fine. American Jobs! The NFL is a microcosm of this. But eventually the cat scan was out of the bag and now the rules include not being able to lay a hand on anyone, much less tackle them, and because the great unwashed love scoring and not anything resembling the original concept of the game – defense and ball control – they just let it fly. The game is a joke.
Oh, we should point out that the question in the headline above is proffered merely because late this summer statistics were released that illustrated a serious decline in competitive group sports among high schoolers across the country. The main culprit is football. Parents, especially moms, want no part of their children’s brains scrambled as teenagers. Science has also discovered that while the head (with the brain in it – kind of an important organ) should not be used as a battering ram, it is really bad mojo for developing brains. And since .00001 percent of those kids ever go to college for free or make a living smashing their brains into mush and then committing suicide, why risk it?
If youth football factories are fading then so is the treadmill of talent that will fill rosters that fill schedules and thus fill stadiums to make money for colleges and the NFL.
From Forbes magazine last month: “According to the National Federation of High School Association’s (NFHS) latest participation survey, released in late August, eleven-player tackle football, numerically speaking, is solely responsible for the first decline in boys’ high school sports participation since 1988-89, and mostly responsible for the first decline in overall high school participation since that same school year.”
Let that read a three-percent decline, which is not astronomical, but it’s a decline in a sport that has been on a steady, unhealthy incline for a century. In fact, according to the same report, 26 percent of boys participated in HS football prior to the early ought’s, but since it is down to one in five. And those numbers have steadily declined over the past 15 years, even when considering Texas that has some fifty thousand people show up to HS football games. The numbers are more or less stagnant there, but no increase. Almost everywhere else in America football is waning.
What am I getting at? Well, if youth football factories are fading then so is the treadmill of talent that will fill rosters that fill schedules and thus fill stadiums to make money for colleges and the NFL. Of course, this could take generations, but then again, with every retiree dying young from brain disease or with every violent act or anti-social behavior exhibited by current HS, college and pro players of the game, and man it is an alarming number, the public relations gets darker and more and more people will became aware and want to protect their children from any of it.
A few years ago a friend of a friend and now someone I know, author, Steve Almond wrote an eye-opening book on all of this from a similar perspective, obsessive fan to serious skeptic,Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto in which he asks why do inner city kids or low-income country youth have to choose football as a route to a better life? Why couldn’t the 2009 film The Blind Side, which tells the true story of a poor Memphis black kid who uses football to rise above his daunting circumstances, be about a kid excelling in math or science or becoming (gulp!) a writer?
As a result of all of this, football may go the way of the aforementioned steroids. Congressional investigation, more lawsuits, you name it. But as long as there is gambling and beer to be sold and huge network contracts and every sports media outlet sucks up to the mighty NFL, then let’s face it, football ain’t going anywhere soon.
But it may be going at some point. And to write that is quite remarkable. But, hell, if I can bag it, so can America. I doubt there was a more obsessive fan than me. Four years of no football and counting. Try it.
THE MORAL LOW GROUND Conditions at Our Southern Border & What It Says About Our Country
Admittedly, the person who pens this column every week is either an asshole or a genius. Or both. The mantle I have chosen to drape myself in does not come with gray areas. I sometimes point out that hypocrites fail to see those in their black and white existence, but mostly I tend to work on the margins between beauty and disgust. Predominantly disgust. This is due primarily to my insistence on commenting on politics, but that is merely a subtext for the great human experiment, America. We’ll be celebrating its two-hundred and forty-third birthday this week, so this is where the asshole comes in: Sure, remind us of our shitty side when we’re about to merrily force-feed hot dogs at an alarming, get our dime-store mini flags out of mothballs and blow stuff up. But consider the genius of this. It is not unlike Dickens getting all up in your self-absorbed misery when you just want to get some eggnog and a new tie. Humanity is a tricky subject.
And it is of our humanity of which I write this week. Forget politics and countries and religion and the rest of that John Lennon song. Let’s concentrate on humans. For the purposes of the true grit here, children.
Theimages and news emanating from what amounts to concentration camps, or if you are Laura Ingram – a comedy show host from a cable network – “essentially summer camps”, has really struck me hard. From the very beginning when we became aware of what our government was doing with our money I tweeted daily, “There are children locked away in cages and we’re paying for it.” I thought this might cut through the usually self-absorbed hate-fest that is Twitter. After a time, even I thought it silly to keep bringing it up. Apparently, like perpetual war (Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan for eighteen years now and Iraq for sixteen), we have more or less come to accept this as our national normal.
Now, I am not here to cast blame. We know who is to blame, if you choose to blame anyone. Our president, who likes to say he runs everything, so get out of his way and get sick of winning, blames congress. Congress blames the game show host. Some people blame Mexico. Some blame past administrations. But I blame humanity. And if you’re reading this, you’re human, so yeah, us. Our government, that means us in this fancy American experiment, is putting fellow human beings in hot, clammy, lice-infected flu-cages in stifling heat under inhumane conditions. And that cannot sit right with anyone. Can it?
This always gets me to think about the moral high ground that America is supposed to, theoretically, or for some, theologically, stand for. In other words, if this were happening in the Middle East or Central America there would be debates on when the bombing should start. Yet, we’re paying for it. When I am done with this piece, I will send it to press, and then at the end of a period, I will get money. Then, at some point, I will pay taxes on that money. Those taxes will go to what doctors have recently described as “torture facilities”. Now, I have written extensively in the past about the kind of torture or “enhanced interrogation” methods our government used on apprehended terrorists at the beginning of this century. I believe for terrorists, anything goes. Once you choose terrorism, you’re essentially saying “no thanks” to society and its norms. If you wish to see those norms eradicated, then you kind of hand in your human card. However, not sure people escaping poverty and violence and sneaking into the country equals the same thing. Some argue it is. Those people have wildly exaggerated what they feel is an open attack on our nation and for them, this nightmare of caged children is justified. No tolerance. Stay home or get this kind of treatment.
Makes sense. But is it good? Or even moral? Or something we represent as a nation or as fellow members of humanity?
I blame humanity. And if you’re reading this, you’re human, so yeah, us.
What has always made me ill about the concept of morality is its vacillating institutional tool, religion, and especially its most bizarre creatures, evangelists. Mostly it is their sadly quixotic ways in which they flub the very idea of it. All religions are filled with this craziness, but Christians, when considering the source, do and say the most hateful and judgmental things. We can argue whether Jesus was an egalitarian and hated capitalism and money and property and welcomed the inclusion of all peoples against the ruling religious class or not. We can even assume him God. But I am not entirely sure how you balance what is happening to the children at the border with any level of comprehension about a Christ figure. Never mind Yeshua the Nazarene. Yet, there are a whole lotta Christians who support this policy and this administration, and I don’t get that. Never will.
I only bring this up because the No Tolerance Policy that led to these horrors was sold, predictably, by quoting Biblical scripture. Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions said “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.” Ignoring that the former Saul of Tarsus, a man known for torturing Christians as a weekend hobby before some shit happened to him on the road across the border, using the Bible to sell oppression and systemic criminal activity is as old as the damn thing. But that brings us back to our national morality, even a secular compassion for our fellow humans.
How do we, a nation so full of itself, so prideful of our accomplishments to assist the less fortunate and protecting the weak and needy, stand by and watch this happen?
I have no answer and that is not a rhetorical question. I want to know.
BOB MUELLER’S PRIMER IN PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE TRUTH-TELLING How the Speech of the Century Tells Us Everything We Need to Know & More
As I requested on May 5, Special Counsel Robert Mueller took to a podium and tried like hell to qualify what is already in his comprehensive 448-page report, which has been severely mangled by spin-doctored interpretation, botched by our finger-puppet attorney general, and turned into treason by FOX News. Clearly not comfortable in a public forum, he was nevertheless intelligently respectful and stuck to the facts of his findings. However, because he is a man of integrity and believes in crazy things like the U.S. Constitution (imagine that?) he was quite subliminal in his phrasing. There was much subtext to his dexterous wordplay simply because his position does not allow him to come out and say what he actually means. This might be considered lawyer-speak to some, but I heard it with writer-ears. For me, Mueller provided a subliminal plethora of metaphor and symbolism the likes of which is often found in the misty realm of poetry.
We begin with the core of Mueller’s address: He is tired of hearing the president, his media cronies, and a plethora of Republican lackies whine about Donald Trump being the victim of his investigation, which they have repeatedly dubbed a “witch hunt” or “a hoax” that was launched by “deep state” Democrats attempting a coup de tat. No less than eight times did Mueller make clear that not only did Russia fuck with our election, having every intention to do so and do it again in 2020, it did so to the detriment of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, and thus consequently helped the president win the 2016 election.
Mueller: “The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cybertechniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks. The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. And at the same time, as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation, where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to influence an election.”
For the truly dense or Sean Hannity, who that evening went back on FOX and said Mueller was a tool of the deep state, Mueller reiterated, “They needed to be investigated and understood. And that is among the reasons why the Department of Justice established our office.” This was also a direct hit on the Trump/Barr witch hunt/hoax boondoggle that’s recently moved into a doomstruck DOJ counter-investigation on the origins of the investigation much like the short-lived and sadly funny “Voter Fraud” team launched and then predictably skunked by a winning candidate after the election.
Of course, all of the “helped Clinton’s opponent” stuff drives Trump nuts because it taints his victory, which if you’ve followed along, we ascertained long ago that was his initial motivation to fire the FBI director and get him stuck with a special counsel in the first place. And Mueller knows it, because if you listen to the way he presented his case, he doesn’t care a lick about the president’s insecurities. In fact, if the tone of this speech was any indication, Mueller sees Trump as a thin-skinned loon with a Twitter account who has less respect for American values than the man who perpetuated these crimes, Vladimir Putin, for whom the Trump has defended and naively believed when the Russian dictator told him he had nothing to do with it.
“These indictments contain allegations,” Mueller wryly continued, distinctly referencing previous and existing indictments about yet unnamed individuals that he felt compelled not to “comment on the guilt or the innocence of” and that “every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.” This was another cleverly worded sting at the president, who immediately went fourth grade again on Twitter after the address telling everyone Mueller cleared him with a hearty “Case Closed”. Mueller reminded us there is still much to learn about this whole mess and that the learning part should involve Congress.
When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.”
Mueller was also precise in his secret messaging to AG William Barr, who “made the report on our investigation largely public” using the telling adverb “largely” as a hint that it was not “completely public”, serving as an addendum to the letter Mueller sent to the AG after his ham-fisted summation farce and Barr’s shameless lying to Congress on how the special counsel viewed obstruction of justice. Barr told Congress Mueller saw none, when the report cited ten incidents of possible obstruction of his investigation, something he would restate later in this speech.
To wit: “That is also the reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. The matters we investigated were of paramount importance. It was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.”
Ouch.
Mueller then took time to break the report down in two parts for the still-confused or Tucker Carlson. The first being “a broader conspiracy” with Russia to fuck with our election. While stating there was not enough evidence for broader (a key adjective here) conspiracy – unlike collusion, conspiracy is an actual legal term – it immediately conjures up a “kind of conspiracy”, making it likely that there was some form of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. He later will also conspicuously cite “evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now” to further this idea. Mueller did not twice use a blockbuster term like “conspiracy” in this speech without note. Moreover, this is an important distinction from the two-dimensional report. Mueller reiterated that although there was not a sweeping overall conspiracy, there indeed may have been one.
Hmmmmm.
The second part, stated Mueller, is “the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president.” Here is where, again, things get hairy for Trump, and where Congress is instructed by the report and this speech to act. Mueller wrapped with the damning sentence; “And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”
Mueller made a point to end each paragraph of this address with a major statement about Russian interference and conspiracies, but this is the dooziest of all doozies. In essence, Mueller obliterates the continued lunacy of “exoneration” repeated by the president and his zealots with a we tried to exonerate this guy, but let’s face it he is at best shady and worst a criminal, and there are plenty examples of both in this baby.
With one last salvo, Mueller looked up from his rostrum more than once and cited that “under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional.” In other words, this ain’t my gig, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have the evidence, just did not have the authority to charge someone under the overwhelming evidence for crimes and misdemeanors, and let’s face it none of this even approaches the most rudimentary definition of “exoneration”, so the president should probably stop saying this. “A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy,” he concluded. “Bound to policy” means; I am busting with stuff that could impeach any president, but you know, the whole constitution thing. If I were Senior Twitter, I could just trample on it, but once again, I am a pro and not a game show host, so I was at the behest of an AG that is in the bag for the president and all of this is very, very bad and someone needs to do something about this and fast.
To wit: “The opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.” This again refers directly to Congress, as Mueller does in several places in the report. It also reminded Barr that the DOJ is not the final word on this, as the AG has tried with everything he has to perpetuate in Trump’s defense. In the subtlest of ways Mueller flat-out accused Barr of obstructing justice if he continues this shit. This sentence leaves the matter up to Congress to adjudicate. You know, the equal branch of government Trump is treating like some NYC real estate regulatory department he can threaten, stonewall and bribe. This was Mueller’s job to hand them enough to consider impeachment, which is a political, not a legal tool.
Here is another kick in the teeth sentence to conclude: “Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.” Concentrate here on the word “could”, which throbs like a rotten tooth. Then reflect on a subsequent verb, “would”, which immediately lands on the table when someone says “could”. Mueller expounded by saying the special counsel was “guided by principles of fairness.” Only “fairness” kept Mueller from shouting from the rooftops that a criminal is running the free world. He would have if he could have charged the president with something, but that is up to…Congress.
Mueller rode off into the sunset hoping aloud that Congress would not make him repeat all this again in a media-crazed atmosphere of self-aggrandized political piss-fighting, but really that ain’t up to him. And he did take one last dig on Trump’s F.B.I. attacks by stating in conclusion they were a “professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner” with “the highest integrity.”
“And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election,” said Mueller, putting his foot on the neck of witch hunt/hoax. “And that allegation deserves the attention of every American.”
That includes Congress, the president and the attorney general, assuming they are part of the “every American” thing, which I will conceded for the purposes of this speech; a speech that had all the elements of great theater and an even greater theatrical libretto.
FINAL WORD ON MUELLER REPORT & OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
As stated time and again in this space, this whole Russian obsession the Trump campaign and its administration’s first two years of governance has displayed had nothing to do with collusion. The undisputed proof that the President of the United States plotted with a foreign government to help push the election in his favor seems crazy when considering this guy can’t keep two thoughts in his head for five consecutive minutes, much less oversee a Machiavellian scheme of this magnitude. Donald Trump doesn’t possess the mental capacity or the sense of survival techniques inherent in someone who would do anything like this. However, what I have been commenting on now for over two years was this dumbfounding collage of self-incriminating acts that made it look as if the president were guilty of something. He is so delusional to the consequences of his actions and certainly his comments that he keeps making things worse for himself. To his credit, Special Counsel Robert Mueller shut the Trump noise out and actually saved the president from himself by coming to the conclusion that despite the mounting idiocy coming from the White House to make him continuously appear as guilty as sin – weird tweets, incessant haranguing of the special counsel and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a dozen or so colleagues and alleged co-conspirators lying to congress and the FBI, 34 indictments, Trump was not guilty of at least an ill-conceived strategy with a paper trail.
We’ll get to more of Trump’s rampant stupidity that caused all these investigations in the first place, but let’s get to the crux of the issue for which this space has indeed repeatedly stated: Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice.
First off, we know nothing about what is in the Mueller Report because right now Attorney General William Barr (the third one in two years under Trump and handpicked by him for his anti-Mueller rhetoric) has not released it. After a few hours over a day and a half of perusing over 300 pages of the thing, Barr summarized Mueller’s findings on collusion and stated quite cryptically that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” This is because Mueller believed he had enough evidence to conclude that Trump had obstructed justice. This has been bared out by Barr’s original statement and more recently in a detailed NY Times report that has Team Mueller bitching that this is starting to smell like a cover-up. But unless motivated (and of course Barr is not) there is no precedence in implicating a sitting president on obstruction of justice if there is nothing to obstruct justice from. In other words, in Barr’s reasoning, if there is no collusion then what is Trump exactly trying to protect himself from?
And this is where Trump’s stupidity comes stumbling in.
Trump of course came roaring out of the gate (or in this case the golf course) to proclaim himself exonerated on all counts – which ran counter to his hand-picked attorney general’s specific comment about the report not exonerating him. In his usual bumble-fuck manner the president shouted about how much this whole thing was a waste of taxpayer money and time and put undue pressure on the first two years of his presidency. Startlingly, this is all true, but then this buffoon says it was all some kind of plot against him, as if he were a political martyr in the vaunted guise of a Clintonian “vast right-wing conspiracy” defense.
But, you see, no matter how you slice it, Donald Trump caused this whole thing by, again, doing and saying things that implicated him.
First, against the dire protestations of the man who actually helped him get elected, Steve Bannon, then the president’s chief strategist, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the man who was essentially investigating his possible involvement in an ongoing criminal review of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Not to mention at that time Trump bent over backwards to make up stories (counter to the overwhelming evidence gathered by the entirety of the U.S. intelligence community) that it was anyone but Russia who had hacked into his opponent Hillary Clinton’s emails among other illegal and hostile maneuvers.
This single act would have been enough to force Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel to investigate the president, but then Trump did something even more incriminating, he admitted guilt. On national television.
Rosenstein, another Trump appointee by the way, was thrown into this steaming pile of shit because his boss, the then acting attorney general, Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the case after being one of a hundred people around Trump that lied to congress about absolutely never having spoken to any Russians during the campaign. In fact, for the record, Trump repeated for fourteen months – from the time this came up during the campaign and well into his presidency – that no one near him had ever spoken to a single Russian, when, it turns out, all of them did – his family, his campaign manager, his associates (both business and political) and many members of his presidential staff.
When Trump told the anchor of NBC News that he fired Comey (already a controversial and suspicious move) because of “the Russia thing”, even after his beleaguered staff had gone crazy concocting some bizarre fiction and subsequent written statement claiming Comey was an FBI pariah that needed to be sacked by recommendation of, if you can believe it, Rod Rosenstein, he made it impossible for anyone to ignore it. Trump: “He made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.”
Bingo! Obstruction of Justice 101.
Also, for the record, Trump said this past August that he never said such a thing and that NBC “spliced” his answer to incriminate him, just like he eventually claimed it was never his voice on the Access Hollywood tape, even though he immediately apologized for bragging about assaulting women three weeks before he was elected the leader of the free world.
Donald Trump caused this whole thing by doing and saying things that implicated him.
Thus, Bob Mueller recommended that the DOJ consider Trump’s actions as possible obstruction of justice, (this is apparently what is riling them up enough to reach out to the media to berate Bob Barr), but among other things we have yet to see the entire report, which right now is being held up in the (ahem) Department of Justice. Why? If it “exonerates” Trump and he wins and the media and the Democrats and the FBI eat shit, then release it. No redactions. The whole report. That we paid for. Yet, thus far, and a preponderance of Republican legislators have worked as this guy’s echo chamber, the DOJ does not want us to see the whole report, which further raises suspicion on what’s in it. Apparently, no one supporting Trump wants this thing to see the light.
Again, all of this makes Trump look incredibly guilty of something. And if that’s the case then maybe the media didn’t go all that nuts, the Democrats may have a damn good reason to hold this maniac accountable, and the FBI was and is doing its job quite nicely.
Refusing to release this report is again another asinine move by Trump and his zealots, pretty much presuming there is ugly stuff in there. Maybe there isn’t, like there wasn’t collusion. But then why were all those people around the president lying? And going to jail for it? And what’s with all the meetings with Russians? And what about these private nobody-is-allowed-to-be-in-the-room-and there-are-no-transcripts meetings the POTA has with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin?
If I may offer my humble explanation: Beyond the president’s business dealings with Moscow, which hopefully will be revealed when we finally see his tax returns, Donald Trump’s insecurity and childish knee-jerk reaction about everything from Spike Lee to Saturday Night Live to a dead John McCain reared its ugly head once it became obvious that the Russians had aided and abetted his barely over the finish line election in 2016. He was pissed because Clinton won the popular vote and that his inauguration was far smaller than Barack Obama’s and all the other facts that run counter to his delusions of grandeur. Therefore, Trump tried to squash it, never realizing it made him look like he was involved all the time. Then when it came down to actual accountability he did what he has been doing since the 1980s; attack the messenger (the media) and the source of his headache, (Robert Mueller), before finding an alternate culprit (Democrats).
The comedic tragedy of Trump/Mueller comes down to this; over 1,100 times (a count roughly put together this week by the NY Times) the president of the United States framed the special counsel’s attempt to get to the bottom of our nation being attacked by a foreign adversary as a “hoax” or a “witch hunt”, but now uses it’s a questionable summary of his detailed report to defend his sad-sack actions that caused it all in the first place.
No more spot-on event could better describe the first two dismal years of this abortion of a presidency.
TO THE BALLOT Time for the People of NJ and Not Our Feckless Politicians to Legalize Recreational Marijuana
Eventually barriers do fall to those who are committed to breaking them down. – NJ Governor Phil Murphy
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. – Mark Twain
Predictably, do-nothing NJ lawmakers have sunk the legalization of recreational marijuana this week, and not by striking it down, but by NEVER GETTING TO A VOTE! And so, in the interest of actual democracy (remember that kids?) I propose we do it the democratic way and have a vote. What a concept. Let the ballot box decide if we’re going to drop this delusory, over-officious, money-grubbing, half-assed nonsense about a plant and get down to the business of business. I will stand by the tally. I only ask that we have one.
Governor Phil Murphy and the Democratic-led legislature have failed, miserably. Republicans are, as always, useless. I will spend the next two years campaigning against all of them, but this is not about repercussions for abject failure, this is about moving forward and taking matters into our own hands. The will of the people, as our founders framed it.
No sense going over why this gutless body didn’t even put the matter to a vote – a myriad of the same crap you hear all the time, whether it is to keep minorities or women from voting, recognizing same-sex marriage – religious, taxation, antiquated, bigoted, irrational fears for the moral destruction of society. Stupidly, I have put my faith (is that even the right word?) in the self-serving myopic machinations of politicians, and they fucked up. Again.
Thus far I have made it a point that unlike the zombie Trump zealots who continue to somehow support him despite a spate of broken promises he used to narrowly win the presidency throughout the Rust Belt, not the least of which his constant ranting on repealing and replacing the ACA with a cheaper, better alternative health system, and my favorite boondoggle; bringing manufacturing jobs back and (chuckle) expanding the coal industry, I will hold Mr. Murphy accountable for his only campaign promise I cared two licks about – legalizing recreational marijuana.
Of course, the sensible commentator side of me realizes that the governor was motivated and had plenty of state senate support, control of most of the legislature, and even pushed hard these last months to get a vote, but let’s be honest, there are no medals for trying. This is not about wanting to do something. I would guess that Trump, beyond his infantile tweeting and defending himself against forty investigations, may wish to bring jobs back, he just can’t, and has not, and for this he should be held accountable. Same goes for Murphy. Whether he is a showbiz clown or a progressive Democrat. Results matter. Not talk and tweeting and posturing and desire. Everyone wants something. Politics and governance are about getting it done.
Why should drug dealers and drug lords profit? Why not firefighters or teachers or funds coming in to fix roads and bridges?
This is why it is imperative now that this state put the matter on the ballot this November. I believe it would have a far better chance to pass and thus no one has to feel like they’re damning children (God forbid people actually parent their miserable offspring) or pissing off God or doing whatever frightens politicians. Take it off their desks and lay it on ours. Let us decide. Once that part of it is done, they can bitch and fight over how to tax, regulate or enforce laws dealing with it. Apparently passing controversial bills has become an anathema to lawmakers. With elections looming, they wilt in the bright light of actually doing their jobs. Not even a vote? No public debate or forum? Just a bunch of suits in rooms deciding what’s legal so they can divvy up the tax revenues? Well that revenue comes from us, so let’s decide how we wish to use it.
Truth is money is what this all about for me. I barely smoke weed. I don’t care if its legal or not beyond cashing in. If and when I want contraband, I get it, like my former insane consumption of pure French absinthe. However, why should drug dealers and drug lords profit? Why not firefighters or teachers or funds coming in to fix roads and bridges? Hence, I do not subscribe to the civil rights concept of this. It is not a right to be feed your head. Ask the poor bastards that passed the Volstead Act. Marriage equality was indeed a civil rights issue. This is a commonsense issue.
This is not like say, climate change, which is real, and it is embarrassing I have to state this, but since an entire political party chooses to ignore scientific fact for economic posturing, I guess I do. People are going to believe what they believe. I assume humans are doomed and no matter what we do about the environment, it will come to pass. Thank goodness. We’re a virus and we need to go. No, this is direct line to simply monetize or if you will, exploit a thriving industry. This is how we built this country – free land grabs and slave labor. All I’m asking is we get down to the nitty gritty here, and to – what part of the proposed bill proffered – get those people out of jail doing serious time for smoking a particular plant. We spend enough money with jailing the poor in this country, drugs should not be part of it.
Commonsense needs to be on the ballot. And I am far from saying I think this will solve anything. Holy shit, a moron is president. Regardless of that electoral abortion, I will, as stated, stand by the decisions of the citizens of NJ, because what else do we have left?
The frightened and weak members of our legislature have had their day.
Most columns that begin with “I never do this” and then the columnist goes on to do it is total bullshit. And yet, here I go: I hardly ever comment on other news outlets or media in general in this space. I think over the nearly 23 years of penning Reality Check I may have dedicated an entire column on matters of media once or twice, and mostly it was in a mocking capacity and scarcely worth noting. When I do make passing critiques on the silliness of cable news or morning shows or the way-too-easy-target talk radio crap-fest, it is merely in the service of a larger point – however rambling or meaningless said point. But today I am forced to comment on FOX News merely because it is suddenly embroiled in a first amendment issue, the likes of which I have spent a lifetime interpreting, and in most cases, defending to its most precious core.
Recently, the Democratic Party has refused FOX News’ request to host any of its presidential candidate debates. This is, of course, the privilege of the party, as it can find any outlet to do so, but the reasoning has gone beyond the right-leaning channel’s penchant to be overly critical and sometimes rancorous towards the party and its liberal platform as a matter of principle over coverage. Party chairman, Tom Perez, issued a statement this week that the cable news outlet “is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates.”
Now, normally, I would take issue with this. Mainly because words like “fair” are quite subjective and downright arbitrary and don’t belong in a serious political discussion and the very idea of “neutral” is at worst nebulous and at best in the eye of the beholder. Hate speech, liberal or conservative ideas, broad mayhem set beside intellectual exchanges all fall under the right to free speech and a free press. However, it has become increasingly disturbing how much FOX News has acted as a state-run propaganda wing of the White House in the past two years, specifically in the past 14 months. So much so that it must be finally stated that what has become of the already marred FOX News brand over the past decades has reached an untenable level of subjective glad-handing and worse still a direct link to governance. Therefore, it can no longer be looked upon as anything resembling a news source. It is for intents and purposes the kind of bizarro shit you see on YouTube or read on Facebook or listen to at the end of the bar around 3:15 am, and once again (yikes!) working as an unelected branch of the federal government.
A recent study by New Yorker magazinehas fully revealed the length and breadth of the damage FOX News has done to what was already loosely being sold as journalism. The exposé brilliantly researched and written by respected investigative reporter, Jane Mayer, with a myriad of inside sources, is beyond damning. It lays out a systemic pattern of back-and-forth sharing between Donald Trump and its public employees of information, suggested policy and agenda formats for U.S. public and international policy, and a measure of cover-ups on legitimate stories of executive branch crimes and misleading and/or alternate reality concepts peddled as facts.
It appears when the public elects a product of television – and its shortcuts to reasoning and immediate gratification of response, extrapolated in the concussive mendacity of Twitter and most of the Internet – there are consequences. It appears the choice of this president to use one singular communication tool posing as “news” to both figure governing techniques and ideologies, and to have those echoed back to him as if a cheerleading squad, and then promote fiction as a narrative to have it reported as fact, thus creating new fictions, is both stupid and dangerous.
You have to go back to early 20thcentury Randolph Hearst level of journalistic corruption to equal the well-organized presidential publicity machine FOX has become
Now, to be fair (fair?), there is – and the New Yorker is as guilty of this as any – an alternate argument that much of what comes from commentary or coverage on the liberal side has also been queer and icky and at times downright lunacy. I used to watch FOX as my role here dictates to digest all the areas of coverage until I started to experience a dramatic shift in merely defending this president or stretching the credulity of an argument into pretzels as an insult to my intelligence. But I also watch MSNBC and can report that while it is the oft-times overly enthusiastic opposition wing of this edict, and it goes beyond the pale in setting up scenarios (much like FOX during the Obama administration) giving hope to the resistance that soon there will be impeachments and all the stuff that riles up the bases on both sides, it has never directly influenced presidential policy. You have to go back to early 20thcentury Randolph Hearst level of journalistic corruption to equal the well-organized presidential publicity machine FOX has become wherein hosts of shows, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and FOX & Friends, which even those within the Donald Trump orbit have admitted the president is both obsessed with and educated by, have crossed the barrier normally set up for purported news organizations.
The most egregious example of this is the recent furor over an emergency at the nation’s southern border, which has been roundly refuted by those actually controlling the border and every other news organization. Again, there are many in the Republican Party and even the White House staff who see the entire episode as classic Trump hyperbole, but by in large has received legitimate “coverage” on FOX News, including the election-period nonsense about invading caravans of illegal alien criminals, and the completely made up figures of drug trafficking, et al. Whether the argument about border security is lacking or is fine or whatever is up for debate, but a crisis? No. Yet it is covered as such by FOX, which is regurgitating the paranoid musings of a lunatic as a legitimate story. Either way it is not news and therefore cannot be considered a source of news. In the end, it cannot be allowed to do newsy things like moderate debates.
Bill Sammon, managing editor of Fox News’s Washington bureau, recently referenced poor Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, Shepard Smith and Martha MacCallum as those who “embody the ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism.” This is true in the sense that those are sincere reporters who find themselves besmirched by their affiliation with this clown show. Problem is if they are truly pros they would not only quit FOX but go on a pilgrimage to stop these embarrassingly pro-Trump-or bust tactics. They can stay if they wish. I shall not. And apparently those not named Donald Trump, who have a choice to be covered by legitimate news outlets, will not either. And who can blame them?
NATIONAL EMERGENCY FALLOUT Or The Political Price For Betting On Fantasies
Let me reiterate what I wrote here one month ago nearly to the day: President Donald Trump has every legal right to declare a national emergency to procure funds (doing an end around of congress) to build a border wall for any reason he deems necessary. There is no constitutional dispute that can oppose this and any such attempt to stop it should not stand up in court. Presidents have the power to do some crazy shit. The issue is with the system, not Trump. However, supporters of the president who think this is bad precedent might be correct, since once it is in place a future Democratic president can and now most likely will (especially this leftist bunch gearing up to run in 2020) call for a national emergency on guns or climate change in 2021 should they defeat Trump in his re-election bid, assuming he makes it that far. Who knows with this nut? But the question once he does needs to be: What of the political fallout?
The 88 percent of Republicans – all that is left of Trump’s core support – who have stood strong for the president, more or less anywhere from 39 to 44 percent of the national electorate – may see this battle at the border, wholly made up by Trump, as an imperative that supersedes political consideration. In other words, if this costs him a second term, so be it. It’s that important. That is admirable. Truly. Even if there is no crisis or emergency at the border nor any of the sketchy arguments for this wall, which won’t even work for what these people want anyway, and yada yada yada, Trump ran on this nonsense and the nation (or at least a minority of them bailed out by the Electoral College) voted him in and this is what we get.
Still, the idea of building a wall along the southern border of the United States is unpopular. According to an average from PollingReport.com, somewhere in the ballpark of 67 to 70 percent of Americans oppose using their tax dollars to pay for this boondoggle. Once again, Mexico was going to pay for this. When you’re done laughing at that move along to the paltry polling average of Americans who support this national emergency maneuver; 31 percent. That is abysmal, even considering Trump’s sad polling standards.
Again, not that it matters legally or morally or whatever crap people like to argue, this move, while wholly constitutional if not wacky, will bring consequences. And assuming Trump wants to run again, then these numbers are scary. Of course, since we all thought him doomed in 2016, his side will rightly argue we don’t know what we’re talking about. But consider this; at the current rate of popularity, no president has ever seen a second term, and some were bloodied in a primary challenge or…well, quit.
I brought up a presidential emergency thing when citing the Viet Nam conflict/police action/advisory mission/war last month. It was lunacy and a made-up crisis that was by far the worst event that was cast upon this nation since I began breathing. How did that work out for Lyndon Johnson? He quit. And well he should have. The fallout from this horrible mess was severe and rapid and it destroyed his presidency.
This move, while wholly constitutional if not wacky, will bring consequences. And assuming Trump wants to run again, then these numbers are scary.
Right now, Trump, whose national approval rating is averaged out at around 40 percent is hanging by a thread among independents – the voting block that he carried by four-percent in the autumn of 2016 and to which he has not only lost but flat-out hemorrhaged, at least for now. This was brought to bear last autumn when Republicans lost 40 seats in the House of Representatives with a whopping 12-percent of Independents abandoning the president.
No matter how you slice this – even with the mysterious non-voter/non-polled electorate that came out of the woodwork in the Rust Belt to put Trump over the top in 2016 – if these numbers hold, or, as many Republicans have predicted – go further south (no pun intended) for Trump there is virtually no way he can be re-elected. Unless, of course, he can get Hillary Clinton to run again. And I am not sure that even works out for him.
Thus, this is a bold political move for a president that has not displayed a scintilla of evidence he has a fucking clue what he is doing.
To wit: If this was a national emergency, which Trump all but announced when he threw his hat in the ring in the summer of 2015, then once he was sworn in with an overwhelming Republican majority in both houses of congress, he would have pursued the money more vigorously. He did not. Next, he could have just studied the election results from November 2018 and surmised that his enemy had just stormed the gates and been given a mandate from the American voting public to curtail him. This was duly verified by the abject failure of the Trump strategy to paint the border as a sieve and the siege evil caravan instead of trying to taut a solid economy and stem the tide of the Blue Wave.
Now here he is months later stumbling into another political landmine for something even he, until last fall, didn’t consider that dire.
Trump can call for all the national emergencies he wants. He’s president. But assuming he’s not impeached, does this finally and completely doom him for 2020?
