Victory Lap

Was I let down when Special Counsel Robert Mueller chose not to lower the hammer on Trump & Co. in his recently released report? Sure. Was I surprised? No, not really. I never really believed that Trump & Co. were really capable of pulling off a John le Carré-esque bit of intrigue and conspiring with the Russians in any meaningful way. If for no other reason, they are all a bunch of bumbling fools for whom putting their shoes on the correct feet in the morning constitutes a minor miracle.

No, what I've been waiting for is more indictments (and convictions) for the corrupt practices that are more the rule than the exception with this crowd. The number of open cases involving Trump and his family and associates, most of which have little to nothing to do with the 2016 election, never mind "collusion" with the Russians, continues to increase. Again, none of this is at all surprising, because what we're seeing is a continuation of the kind of "business" practices Trump engaged in on his way to six bankruptcies and a myriad of suits and court cases for his sociopathic lack of ethos.

What worries me is the seeming effectiveness of Trump and his GOP enablers to turn the tables and go after the Democrats, at least in the court of public opinion. No, I don't see Adam Schiff or Jerome Nadler being frogmarched off to Gitmo anytime soon. However, the fact that Trump even tries to use the machinery of the state to go after his political opponents (often with the GOP leadership's blessing) reminds me of my time living in developing countries, working on democracy and governance programs. In these countries, the thin veneer of institutional checks and balances on the executive branch was so flimsy - IF it existed at all - that most political opponents were lucky to stay alive.

Here in the U.S., we'd like to believe that nothing like that could ever happen. But let's take note of the well-documented increased levels of terrorist attacks made on the basis of Islamophobia, misogyny, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, nativism, etc, many of which have assumed a more political intent. Let's also acknowledge that all of these diseases of the heart have been around for decades if not centuries in our country. Finally, let's recognize that they manifest themselves at dangerously high prevalence rates in our security sector forces, which, if we're really honest, we'll recognize as having been originally designed to safeguard white lives, wealth and supremacy.

So as Trump takes his victory lap, using his Attorney General's whitewashed summary of Mueller's report to falsely claim "total exoneration" and "complete vindication," let's make sure to put a few speed bumps in his path. Let's return our focus to methodically gathering evidence and making the case for prosecuting what has clearly been a corrupt presidency with a dual mission: the pursuit of self-enrichment and the execution of a relentless hit job on our nation's institutions of governance. Otherwise, we risk giving him license to continue on his merry, psychotic way, running over all who dare to place themselves in his path with his out-of-control golf cart.

Godawful Toddler

The events of the past week have been horrific. The tragic crash of the Ethiopian Airways flight, killing all aboard, and the massacre of 50 innocent Muslims by a white supremacist in New Zealand are two of the big ones that come to mind. But what would a week of disasters be without our very own Donald Trump.

I'm speaking, of course, of his proposed fiscal year 2020 budget. Unless you're wealthy, white and male, fuggedaboutit, you're shtupped. Not only is the budget horrible fiscal policy, it also reveals in no uncertain terms the utter moral depravity of Donald Trump and his GOP enablers. Why slash the social safety net when you can light it on fire and toss it in that burning dumpster that is the Trump administration? Why bother trying to overturn "Obamacare" when you can practically zero out Medicaid instead? Pollution? Global warming? Who cares? Let's begin to zero out the Environment Protection Agency's funding and capacity to do anything about it.

You say you're concerned about the federal deficit? Thbbpthbpt! That's so last administration...

Right, go figure. The great chicken hawk himself - Ouch! Those pesky bone spurs! - is leading the party that once claimed to be the true fiscal hawks over the cliff and into the Red (Ink) Sea. While they are at it, the GOP 2017 tax cut for the über wealthy will reduce the federal government's revenue collections significantly while also failing to make good on their promise to eliminate any of the loopholes in the corporate tax system. To paraphrase the Donald, "Lies made. Lies denied."

I realize, of course, that this budget has no chance of being accepted as is. I just hope and pray that the Democrats don't try to channel their inner ca. 1980s Republicans in beating the breasts as a sign of sanctimonious fidelity to fiscal discipline. You want to reduce the federal deficit? Try reducing military spending, which was one of the few areas to receive a plus up from the White House, on top of it already being bloated, excessive and bursting with bogus corporate welfare for armchair imperialists. What about eliminating the intelligence agencies? They're never right about anything anyway (end of the Cold War?), and on the rare occasion when they are, nobody in power bothers to listen to them (9/11).

On the revenue side, how about a tax on financial transactions? What about ending corporate welfare as we know it? Carbon tax anyone? You know, because we have about a dozen years and counting before the planet begins its irreversible descent into spontaneously combustion?

At some point, probably not in my lifetime, the American public will wake up to the huge swindle that is the whole federal budget. It consistently transfers wealth upwards to those who need it least, either through tax cuts or an expansion of loopholes, as well as through discretionary spending that favors corporate interests with little to no net social benefit for the vast majority of Americans. This skewed fiscal policy is a direct result of asymmetric access and influence by the small army lobbyists serving the various interests of the wealth elite, a situation that will remain in place well into the foreseeable future, thanks to the GOP bought and paid for Roberts' Supreme Court - "Corporations are people, too, my friend!"

But that is a topic of another rant 'n' rave. Meanwhile, we are left with this hot, stinky mess left by our very own Godawful Toddler, which will likely need more than just a few butt wipes to clean up.

A Very Fine Fellow

Not surprisingly, Trump and the rest of the GOP have been all over the Democrats' recent attempts to address the genuine differences that exist among their ranks. The Democratic-controlled House finally managed to pass a resolution condemning all forms of hatred, including anti-Semitism as well as Islamophobia, homophobia and white supremacy. I'm not going to unpack all of the angst and inner turmoil the Democrats went through to finally get to that point. Let me instead just say that I salute them for taking on the issue, hashing it out, and coming to some form of an in-group consensus...unlike the very fine people on the other side.

And that is the subject of today's rant 'n' rave. Any time you have Donald Trump trying to shame someone else for anti-Semitism, you have truly summited the Mount Everest of hypocrisy. Here's a dude who has spent his entire adult life marinating in a toxic bilious brew of misogyny, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism. The idea that he or his spineless Republican lemmings have even an iota of moral authority remaining to castigate anyone else for anti-Semitism...Well, let me just tip my hat to Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO, who tweeted, "Those who truly care about the Jewish community shouldn't politicize #antiSemitism. No one should be grandstanding now. Elected leaders can best help us move forward by ending the blame game & genuinely committing to rebuild bonds & fight #hate in all forms."

Exactly. Because that's what Trump is and has always been about - grandstanding - transparently baseless buffoonery, puffery, bullying and the amoral, sociopathic pursuit of gratifying his painfully insecure ego. Despite all that, deep down underneath, I'm sure he's probably a very fine fellow... Nicht.

Kool Aid Luke

And suddenly, there was silence...

Go figure. After spending the last decade and some, beating the drum about bogus endemic voter fraud sweeping the nation, it turns out (surprise!) that all along it was the Republicans who were the biggest perpetrators of actual election fraud.

Quick point of information, voter fraud is carried out by individuals who seek to misrepresent themselves in casting individual ballots. Election fraud is a systematic effort to influence the administration of an election so that the playing field is skewed in favor of one candidate over another. Mark Harris, the Republican candidate for the 9th Congressional district in North Carolina, attempted the latter while the North Carolina GOP accused Democratic voters of perpetrating the former. Oh, the irony.

Funny how that works. Looks like Donald Trump didn't write the fraudster playbook after all, he was just one of its more shameless, adept users. No, in fact, ever since the enactment of landmark voting rights legislation over 50 years ago, the GOP, in pursuing its Southern Strategy, has sought to roll back and neutralize these reforms. Give them credit, though. This is not your grandfather's Jim Crow. Now, they're much more "subtle," using a variety of techniques with the advantage of enjoying a thin veneer of legality:

• gerrymandering electoral districts, either by cracking or stacking them to dilute minority voice; 
• limiting the number of days for early voting to suppress voting by working class folks unable to take time off their jobs to go to a polling station; 
• reducing the number of polling stations, especially in areas populated predominately by poor folks and people of color: and, 
• as was the case in NC, harvesting and bundling absentee ballots from voters who are unaware of that this practice is actually illegal.

To add insult to injury, last year Donald Trump established a bogus commission, led by one of the country's biggest election fraudsters, Kris Kobach, Kansas' now former secretary of state, to investigate voter fraud. After several states refused to submit their electoral data to the commission, effectively rendering it toothless, Trump disbanded it. Since then, we haven't heard too much about this false crisis, which, by my estimation, is approximately #17 of a running list of 139 false crises manufactured by Trump and his cronies and enablers.

And now, when there is finally evidence of widespread election fraud, an actual crime, all we hear are...crickets. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Or maybe I'm wrong, and it's not a guilty silence. Maybe the Republican Party has done nothing illegal at all. Maybe it was just poor messaging and what we really have here is just failure to communicate...

Rest NOT Assured

I read in this morning's Washington Post that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is nearing completion on his investigation - if he hasn't already - of the Trump campaign/administration and that he might deliver his report might soon. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-preparing-for-mueller-report-in-coming-days/2019/02/20/c472691c-354b-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html

Coincidentally, amidst all of the Trump goons going down with indictments, convictions and jail time, Trump has decided - with plenty of cover from supine Democratic Party "leadership" - to party like it's 1979 and rattle his little itty bitty saber. Led by the patron saint of mass murderers, Eliot Abrams, the US has attempted to stage a "soft" coup d'état in Venezuela and is now threatening the country with military intervention if they Nicolas Maduro doesn't hit the road, prontíssimo.

Coincidence...right? Sure, and I have some nice real estate to sell you in Florida, coincidentally in the same exact spot as Mar-a-Lago.

Back to the likely contents of the Mueller report...it appears there have been major movements of the lower intestinal variety by many in the White House in anticipation of its release, and with good reason. After Congress has a chance to view and use its findings, assuming newly minted AG William Barr allows it to go public in some form, federal prosecutors will have opportunities a plenty to follow up with their various investigation: into the now moribund Trump Foundation's self-dealing; the sources of the Trump inaugural committee's funding; and of course, the biggie, hush payments to Trump's "mistresses," which might well have been made with campaign funding.

To paraphrase the inimitable Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the places we will go!"

But before we get anywhere we'll have to endure more of the GOP operatives' trashing of Mueller, his team of prosecutors, and of national law enforcement agencies more generally. Funny, how this smack down of our security sector is being perpetrated by the so-called "law and order" Trump administration and its enablers, the so-called "tough on crime" GOP. I guess their ethical compass is calibrated to point to "true South," which means when they get into a jam rather than take responsibility, they come out swinging lead pipes, collateral damage be damned. At this rate, I wonder if there will be any of our institutions left standing should Trump make it to the end of his first term without first resigning or getting impeached, such is the GOP's willingness to smash all that it once held so holy and dear.

N.B. - I'm no great fan of this particular part of the U.S. federal government. The FBI especially has a deep, troubling history when it comes to delegitimizing, harassing and even assassinating civil society leaders who were identified as potential threats to power holders. Case in point, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, along with fellow Black Panther Mark Clark and other innocents, were slaughtered while they slept during a raid carried out by the FBI and the Chicago Police in a December 1969 raid.

I'm just observing and expressing my frustration about how it always seems to work that the full weight of the federal government's coercive powers always land 99.9% on those without power, usually people of color and those who are economically disadvantaged. But when it's the powerful who have potentially run afoul of the law? Never mind...next subject...move along. Nothing to see here.

I also realize that pointing out the sheer mind numbing pervasiveness and scale and hypocrisy of how stuff actually works in America is an exercise in pointing out the obvious. Still, I still think it's worth stating it and demanding accountability, especially of the powerful. That accountability is rarely if ever exacted of the powerful makes me imagine that there must be some sort of black market for insurance to cover the their multiple, systemic abuses of authority, which led me to ink today's 'toon. I wonder if Trump & co. are covered? Or did he stiff his insurers, too?

Witch Hunt Season

We've all probably become numb to Trump's daily attacks on everyone and everything that doesn't feed and stroke his bloated ego: journalists, who do their job reporting facts instead of making stuff up and praising the beloved leader for his innumerable feats of supreme excellence; political opponents, real and imagined, who dare to call Trump to account for his "performance" as president of the United States instead of falling in love and in line with his magnificence; his own appointees and staff, who make the foolish mistake of occasionally following the law when carrying out their duties rather than blindly doing exactly--what--he--wants; and, of course, Trump's arch-nemesis, Robert Mueller, who may or may not be close to wrapping up with his investigation of the Trump campaign/administration and its shenanigans.

Today the New York Times published an exhaustive recounting, not only of what we have all seen and heard in these very public attacks but also those that are not so public and that have been carried out on the down-low.

It's well worth a read if only to help us appreciate one of the few areas where Trump and his merry band of slime-ball wannabe gangstas have shown a modicum of competency - going after and kneecapping people. You thought soon-to-be jailbird Michael "Stoolie" Cohen was the only "fixer" in Trump's inner circle? Evidently not. It's enough to make you rub your eyes and think you're watching a rerun of some forgettable episode of the Sopranos. But then you remember, "No, wait a sec. This is Trump. Tony and his crew were actually good at what they did." So, maybe a more apt comparison would be to characters in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

And given Trump's obsession with Mueller and his interminable "witch hunt" I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite episodes - "Wabbit Season." Seriously. Look at how Trump makes a big show of doing EXACTLY the very thing his lawyers (the good ones, the ones whom he fired or who fled the scene on their own volition) told him NOT to do. I'm no shrink, but this dude clearly has got some issues when he not only behaves in (borderline) criminal ways and then boasts that he did so AND that he'll get away with it. He's almost daring you to try to stop him.

And, so far, no one has. I don't have any great faith that the Mueller report, if it's ever actually made public, will include some smoking gun. Nor am I counting on the Democratic-controlled House to do the right thing and start impeachment proceedings. Instead, they're going about trying to stage a political death by a thousand committee hearings, which, as Yoni Appelbaum pointed out in the Atlantic, is far less likely to succeed. It's less likely to mitigate the damage Trump is currently wreaking on nation on a daily basis and it does nothing at all to safeguard our institutions in the medium-term from being thoroughly delegitimized by his constant trashing of our governing norms.

It's all enough to make me channel my inner Daffy Duck and insist, no, DEMAND, that someone shoot me now!

Low Barr

While we're all fixated with the coup d'état the Donald is in the midst of perpetrating, maybe folks haven't bothered to pay closer attention to another little news tidbit. The U.S. Senate confirmed William Barr as the next Attorney General of the United States. Here's a few things to mull about our new AG as he assumes his post, as taken from an article on the website of Democracy Now:

• As Attorney General (1991-93) under President George H.W. Bush, Barr "was involved in the pardon of six Reagan officials for the Iran-Contra scandal..." 
• He "...oversaw the opening of the Guantánamo Bay military prison, which was initially used to indefinitely detain Haitian asylum seekers." 
• "Barr also openly backed mass incarceration at home and helped develop a secret Drug Enforcement Administration program which became a 'blueprint; for the National Security Agency’s mass phone surveillance effort."
• He's just as pro-incarceration, anti-civil rights and anti-immigration as Jeff Sessions.
• Barr openly supported Trump's anti-Muslim ban.
• And, yes, he inappropriately weighed in with his interpretation of presidential authority as it relates to Trump's options in reaction to special counsel Mueller's ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign/administration's possible collusion with Russia.

Etc., etc., etc.

This is not the guy I want to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Actually, this is not the guy I want as a hall monitor in my kids' school. Instead, let him spend the rest of his career raking in big bucks to make some fat cats even fatter.

When the question is inevitably asked, "He couldn't possibly be worse than Sessions, and definitely nowhere near as bad as Whitaker?" I have to answer, "Uh-yeah!" Why? Because unlike his predecessors, (1) he has already served as AG and knows his way around federal bureaucracies in general and the Justice Department in particular; and (2), unlike most bottom-of-the-barrel scraping knuckleheads appointed by Trump, he might actually be really good at what he does. That should give us all pause, given his track record.

So once we get through Trump's attempted takeover of the U.S. Government, we might want to turn some of our attention to the DOJ where Barr will be looking to accelerate Trump's agenda with greater efficiency, competency and, at least for now, support from Trump himself. If you thought we couldn't go any lower, then you better buckle your seat belts and be prepared for the worst.