Recovering….
I hope that there are Constitutional and political legacy watchdogs who can take measures to reconstruct, restore and repair all the damaged legislation and socio-cultural innovations of the Obama administrations, the Clinton administrations and the Carter and Kennedy legacies before that, once this presidency is adjudicated to have been, and continued, unlawful. Not to mention all the consumer protection regulations that that have been summarily scrapped, like the banking regulations the Republican Reprobates eliminated today, the Environmental Protection Agency destruction, foreign relations desecration, etc., etc., before the United States itself is relegated to the scrap heap of history and the sad roster of failed republics. There is no doubt whatsoever that, in failing to adapt, evolve, improve and grow, the nation is undergoing a world-changing fall from the stature it has enjoyed since the Industrial Revolution.
The Idiot, and most Republicans these days, have no idea of their own history, legacy or lineage. They actually LIKE the way the kleptocratic Russian oligarchy rolls. They think it’s a great idea. They think that if they eliminate the regulations that keep graft and opportunism in check in America, like the banking regulations they eliminated today, they can fly above, below and right round the consumer and voter protection laws they’ve just discarded. But when the entire charade is found to have been and continued unlawful, and progressive democratic legislation and regulatory agencies are restored, and their profits and gains are found to be, once again, illegal, they’ll all be in the dock along with their front man, the ‘useful idiot,’ who — being clueless and mentally ill — has gone off script so many times now that there’s no shelter from the piles of shit his comments in private sessions, to reporters on camera, and in late night Tweetstorms, have landed them in.
The Republican beneficiaries of the Koch brothers’ and other military-industrial ‘contributions’ obviously hoped to stage a bloodless coup to protect their graft from legal reprisals. You stage a bloodless coup by eliminating the institutions that exert the checks and balances in place against tyranny, and by eroding the democratic process infrastructure, as Bannon has been set about since before the inauguration by appointing as heads of those agencies individuals who are admittedly adversarial to those offices, agencies and functions, to destroy them from within and from above. Not enough people notice and the only party with enough judiciary or administrative power to act, the Republicans, refuse to do anything because they care less about the country, their constituents, or democracy itself, than they do about their own lucrative power niches.
Trump granted exemptions to his senior staff from his own ethics rules, letting them work with political and advocacy groups, The Daily Beast reported in late May. In light of these changes, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is allowed to work with, “political, advocacy, trade, or non-profit organizations” that were former clients of her consulting firm. Chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, will have no restrictions on his contact with Breitbart News, despite chairing the website, its unethical White House access, and its factually challenged style of jingoistic, Alt-Right ‘news.’ Both Bannon and Conway can work with advocacy groups and outlets, like Breitbart, that are funded by the multi-billionaire Mercer family, which largely put Trump in the White House. According to the Daily Beast exposé, current energy policy adviser and former energy lobbyist Michael Catanzaro, “may participate in broad policy matters and particular matters of general applicability relating to the Clean Power Plan.” White House economist and former lobbyist for Fidelity, Shahira Knight, can, “participate in broad policy matters and particular matters of general applicability relating to tax, retirement and financial services issues.”
The problem with the cunning Republican coup plot is that an individual like Trump can’t fail to sink their collective, stupid (as in, very not cool) pirate ship. Most of them are starting to realize that. When Conway’s Alt-Right asshole husband starts publicly throwing shade on the Main Asshole, Tweeting him about his Tweets calling the Ban a “Ban” harming the chances for the successful passage of the hopelessly bigotted, Stephen Miller and Bannon-penned Muslim Ban through the Supreme Court, you know there’s a coordinated defection underway. The rats are definitively jumping ship when the Mercer-appointed White House plants (Conway/Bannon Right-Wing ideological sleeper cell) and their shills start putting out public warnings to the Idiot to get back on script.
Also, he can’t get proper legal representation. Due to not paying lawyers hired to defend him in cases of non-payment of bills, Trump can’t now get reputable lawyers to take his case in the Russia scandal. Five top law firms that specialize in foreign policy and espionage cases have declined to accept the brief. Instead, he has hired his old divorce lawyer , Marc Kasowitz— who’s lost at least as many cases as he’s won for the Grifter-in-Chief — and who’s currently representing the self-same Russian bank in question in the Russia scandal in U.S. court against money-laundering charges. So it doesn’t look good in terms of him being able to mount any kind of adequate defence and preventing prosecution lawyers from establishing intent — or anything else with a sound legal precedent — like felony treason or espionage. Kasowitz has already totally screwed up his counters to James Comey’s first public testimony to Congress on the obstruction question. Michael Schmidt, the New York Times reporter whose work was central to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, told Rachel Maddow about how Donald Trump’s lawyer got the Comey memo timeline wrong in his accusation against Comey and the New York Times, during his first public statement on behalf of the president in this case.
It certainly doesn’t look good for the president, certainly no better than his chances in the Trump University fraud suit or many others this lawyer has ineptly attempted to defend him from. Trump met with the Russian officials in closed meeting, with no American press present, the day after firing Comey; he discussed the firing in derogatory terms toward both Comey personally, the FBI, and the investigation itself. The Shakespearian subtext of that meeting, those circumstances, and his abysmal choices in (mis)representing and defaming Comey and the investigation: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome official”?
Comey and his entire family are currently under 24 hour guard. For context: So far, nine of the operators in the Russian Scandal on the Russian side, to whom Putin’s Intelligence had access, have been murdered — poisoned, blown up, tossed out of windows, etc.. There were numerous questions that Comey refused to answer in open session but reserved for the closed Intelligence Committee hearings — questions about a range of investigations that are obviously still wide open and ongoing. James Comey’s testimony in the Senate raised more questions than it could publicly answer about A.G. Jeff Sessions, Flynn, and others, and created a serious obstruction of justice evidence problem for Donald Trump.
On the still brighter side, a felon (or felony treason candidate) could conceivably get impeached at the accession of Republicans who finally throw in the towel as regards his propensity to sink their collective kleptocratic ship — like Conway’s husband, George, just did with his public chastisement of Trump over his late night Tweets harming their chances to effect the Muslim Ban. While it’s hard to believe that the President of the United States of America is embroiled in an embarrassing public debate with foreign leaders, career Republicans, members of his own administration and Congress about his obsessive-compulsive Tweeting addiction, there is a certain, if tarnished, silver lining to all of this. If they jump ship, and they will when the shit gets too deep to float over, they’ll no longer impede impeachment. Not to mix metaphors too grossly, they’ll happily amputate the ruptured, hemorrhaging limb so as to try to avoid the blood splatter.
After Trump returned from his first state visit to foreign heads of state and announced his defection from the Paris Accord (now proven to have been spurred by 22 Republican senators answering the call of the Koch Brothers), his fall in all major polls plummeted. “Virtually every single poll tracking President Donald Trump’s approval rating showed the figure plummeting Monday morning, well below the margin of error compared to the rising level of support for impeachment. The results follow Trump’s controversial decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord; the ongoing investigation into his campaign’s possible ties to the Kremlin is also a factor.” (Chris Riotta, ‘SUPPORT FOR DONALD TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT IS NOW HIGHER THAN HIS APPROVAL RATING,’ in Newsweek: 6/5/17.) Even Right-wing polls showed Trump’s plunging approval ratings.
In the wake of him shitting on Nato and pulling out of the Paris Accord, it is important to note that both of Trump’s speeches for both catastrophic, world-changing blunders ran against all credible advisement from actual experts and foreign policy officials. The speeches, and the decisions themselves, were authored by Trump’s close West Wing advisors and men advanced far, far beyond their backgrounds or levels of expertise, the 31 year-old White Supremacist, Stephen Miller, with input from failed filmmaker and professional White Nationalist, Steve Bannon. Both are self-confessed nihilists who profess to want the complete destruction of all established norms, alliances, institutions, social contracts and civilities. So, laughable, yes. Pathetic, yes. Phenomenally stupid, oh yes. But also angry, self-indulgent, antisocial, juvenile and dangerously nihilistic.
