Day 582 Friday August 24, 2018 996 Days to Go
What a week!
It’s hard to know where to start. But I’m gonna start with Mike Pompeo. There are video bits of him as a Congressman saying all kinds of wacky things that were attacks on the government institutions and those running it. Now he’s been in the administration. First, as I forget, then Secretary of State, now head of the C.I.A.
Can you imagine what it must be like to wake up and find out that your boss, the president has asked via tweet that you look into something? And that something is a phony story that Fox News reported that is straight out of a white supremacist website and playbook. It takes what, one google search to find this out? Maybe, he picks up the phone and asks some underling what the deal is and they give him the information. So you’ve got one of the best information gathering agencies in the world at your fingertips and you’re boss is listening to some BS ginned up on a white nationalist website and regurgitated on Fox. What do you do? And, how does that make you feel?
Speaking of feelings, how about Jeff Sessions? The Kebler Elf stood up to the blowing and bellowing of the big bad wolf. Then he went and had a meeting with him, and neither one brought up all that crap. Some have asked why doesn’t he resign? Reason, he is carrying out his agenda. It happens to coincide with Trump’s a lot, but remember it was he who gave Trump his first immigration foreign policy speech and talking points when Trump came to Alabama as a candidate. The thing was written by super racist Stephen Miller. So Jeff the racist gets to do as much as he can to advance this terrible awful mean spirited agenda of his, Trump, and Miller while he’s the AG. But he does end up having to defend the Department of Justice, and that’s hard to do when you have a boss who doesn’t understand what the DOJ is for, and thinks it should be an arm of his personal domain.
Then you get to the downright – silly if it weren’t that they are running the country – stuff. Trump doesn’t like flippers? He’s known a lot of them during the course of his career. Really? Which begs the question of what kind of businesses have you been in that there are lots of people cutting deals with prosecutors to avoid prosecution?
This was revealed on an interview on Fox News with some blond chic asking softball questions until Donald took over the interview. He thinks pleading to a lesser sentence should be illegal. Hey, Jeff how ‘bout that? And then Donald said something like, “just because some one is facing five or ten years in jail they flip.” Wow. The thing that gets me about all this is that Trump is such a pussy he’d be crawling up the steps of the Justice Department if they threatened him with jail time. And as to loyalty? When has he ever shown loyalty to those who stood by him, committed crimes for him, or worked for him? He’d throw you under the bus so fast you wouldn’t have time to look up and see the bus.
In the Manafort trial we’ve gotten to see the jury sheet: eight counts – GUILTY, ten counts – G 11, N 1 No Consensus. Were it not for one juror Manafort would have been found guilty on all eighteen counts. What now?
He’s got his next trial in September. This is the more serious one and there’s a lot more evidence too. The prosecution has seven days left to say whether they will retry the ten counts and the defense has thirty days from the end of the first trial to file for a mistrial on the eight counts.
Let’s say both sides decide to go forward: prosecution with a retrial and defense with a mistrial. This would all be going on while another trial is going on. And because Manafort is now a convicted felon the penalties for him go way up in this next trial.
But this is mostly old news. There are some strange bits still floating around, like that fat faced f*ck who was a Republican finance person or fund raiser who paid 1.6 million to keep an affair quiet. Interestingly, the name used was the same name used on the agreement that Donald Trump had with Stormy Daniels. So was it really he that had the affair with her, or was it “David” the Donald? Somewhere in the Cohen stuff there was an illusion to money paid to women, which would mean more than the two we know about, perhaps? And this fat faced guy has been doing scut work for Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Hum.
Speaking of Stormy, her lawyer is now saying the way is clear for him to depose Trump – interesting. Even more interesting is Stormy is coming to Richmond, where we could see her perform in September! Some women I know of were thinking of going down to support her. They’re on the fence. I was pretty gung ho about the idea, because Ms. Daniels is one of the few people who would know, actually know, if when it comes to Donald if there “is a problem down there.” I’m the kind of guy who would ask. I went on line to find out where she was performing. A place called Paper Moon. So far, so good, then I read the reviews. Not on good one: the girls are ugly, the waitresses surly, the bathrooms disgusting, and beer warm and hugely overpriced. There wasn’t one good review. Hum, maybe I’ll pass. Too bad. I was looking forward to Ms. Daniels terpsichorean routine.
In another head scratching laughable routine Representative Duncan Hunter said that he never did any of the things alleged. He’s been busy working for the American people. (I guess from that Italian vacation he took on the campaign’s dime.) He said it’s all his chairman’s fault. He had nothing to do with it. That person is his wife! She went on that Italian vacation with him. (Or should I say was his wife? No, not yet.)
Speaking of crystal ball fortune telling with a high degree of accuracy for the week – the winner is Mika Brezezinka for correctly predicting that when Cohen was indicted Trump would run to Fox News and have an interview. She hoped they’d ask tough question, but knew better. What happened? Trump ran to Fox news and gave a bizarre interview where the woman lobed a few softballs and then he took over and admitted to crimes and lied and asked silly questions of himself. The best was about Jeff Sessions where Trump said Sessions never got control of the Justice Department and that he, Sessions, recused himself, and he, Trump, would never have given him the job, which he only did out of the fact that Sessions was loyal, and then he recused himself, “What kind of man does that?” and “If I had known he was going to recuse himself I would have never given him the job.”
Oh boy, like many of Trump’s statements, they demonstrate a lack of understanding of the law, logic, timelines, regulation, professional ethics and courtesy. He even went on to say that two of the charges against Manafort weren’t crimes. “A lot of people say so.” Those people being Fox News pundits. I have an idea for the president why not ask lawyers? You know like the lawyers at the Justice Department? As for Sessions recusing himself, he didn’t necessarily know that he would have to recuse himself until he got to Justice and talked to – wait for it – lawyers. They would have explained the law, the regulations, the ethics and so on to old Beauregard.
We are looking at all this and has anyone jumped up and down on the sofa (like Tom Cruise) and said, “Hey, the president of the United States was having affairs with women!” Where’s the outrage from the Christian Right, from Mike Pence, from the Republicans who were so worried about Bill Clinton and his improprieties?
On the day that Michael Cohen was pleading guilty what were the Republicans on the hill doing? Scheduling a person to come talk to them about Hillary’s emails.
I feel certain there may be another recipe lurking in the 30,000 emails. If I were Hillary I’d say to Donald, “I’ll show you mine (personal emails) if you show me yours (tax returns).” Oh wait, never mind, when the Dems take the House. I predict on the stroke of mid-night Maxine Waters will be demanding Trump’s tax returns.
996 Days to Go
PS Spider!
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