Day 826 Friday April 12, 2019
570 Days to the 2020 election and 648 Days to Inauguration Day
So much has happened in the last few days that it’s hard to keep track of it all, but I feel we must for fear that if we don’t we will forget and think that what is happening is normal for our country and the world. If we do not stand up and remember and call out what is happening it will become “the new normal.”
The kinds of things that are going on are not new. We’ve seen this before. It was the same cast of characters. Actually, it was their parents or grandparents, but the motivations are the same: power and control.
George Orwell was so outraged by the behavior he saw in the world and specifically to The Spanish Civil War that he wrote “1984” in 1949. Pablo Picasso was so moved by the suffering of his people at the hands of the fascist Franco aided and abetted by Hitler that he painted “Guernica” in 1937. Let us be clear, the people that helped the Fascists of the 1930s that helped Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler were the parents of the Koch brothers and their ilk. They wrap themselves in patriotism and hatred, but their motivation is power and control. They believe they know what is best – for them (screw you.) We are seeing this play out around the world and in this country.
These people are not interested in “fair” or “legal.” They are interested in getting rich and staying in power to protect their wealth. Period. They will resort to any means possible to do so.
The other day I was thinking about when I was a kid and we’d play Monopoly with other kids. Sometimes their was a kid that cheated. They would steal money from the bank (ie the extra money not doled out.) They’d do it when you went to the bathroom, or they’d steal your money so you would lose. (You’d learn to take your money with you, but they’d steal from the bank.) If you’d call them out on it they’d either deny it, say, “So what?”, or they’d say their wasn’t a rule against it.
I have to wonder – Are all the people Trump hires Monopoly cheaters? Steve Mnuchin for sure. What about Bill Barr? I’d say he’d only take a little from the bank when you were in the bathroom. Trump? He’d take it while you were watching, deny it, and say so what?
Egads.
Okay, news of the last few days:
Trump’s older sister, the Federal judge retired. Why? She was being investigated for a tax fraud scam that she and her younger brother (the president) had perpetrated for years to siphon money from their father’s estate and not pay taxes. By retiring the inquiry ended. ( WTF? )
William Barr, under oath said he believed “spying” did occur during the 2016 election. Specifically, against the Trump campaign. Then he tried to say he didn’t mean spying what he meant was spying, but in weasel words. This is a talking point of the right wing lunatic fringe, also known as Fox News and president Trump and his toadies. There was investigations of the Trump campaign trying to figure out what the Russians were doing. There was opposition research done by a hired gun for Republicans before Trump got the nomination. That group investigated all the public records they could find on Trump. What they couldn’t understand or find much on was Trump and Russia. Trump was spending a lot of time in Russia, yet had little to show for it. They turned to the leading British expert on Russia and asked him to sniff around. From that investigation came the Steele Dossier. When Trump got the nomination, the Republican opposition no longer wanted to pay for the research so the firm peddled it to the Democrats who paid for the ongoing opposition research.
There was no spying on the Trump campaign. There was an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and trying to make contact with that campaign but there was no spying.
If William Barr does not know this then what can we conclude? If he does know this then what can we conclude. Either he’s an idiot or he’s a toady for Trump. Either way he’s not fit to be Attorney General. Just like he wasn’t fit the last time and told Papa Bush to forgive all the criminals in Iran-Contra.
We are now at an inflection point where the forces of the cheaters are coming in contact with those of us left who believe in the Constitution and the Rule of Law. It is not clear who will win out.
Steve Mnunchin has not released Trump’s tax returns to the head of The Ways and Means Committee. Not that Mnunchin should be involved; he shouldn’t, but that hasn’t stopped him from getting in the middle of this. There might be jail time involved. I’d love to see that. But we are at the point where the Secretary of the Treasury is getting in the way of the IRS Commissioner, whose job it is under law, to give up the tax returns. What will happen is not clear.
Meanwhile Julian Assange was kicked out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and immediately arrested. He is being asked to be extradited to the U.S. on a charge of helping Chelsea Manning steal stuff from a database. If he is to be charged with anything else it must be done before he is extradited. That’s the way international law works. Will the Justice Department do that? Or will William Barr or someone else get in the way? Interestingly Trump says “WikiLeaks is not his thing.” Really? Because, depending on which account you read he mentioned WikiLeaks 140-160 times on the campaign trail. Said he loved them. His son was in personal communication with Assange. Over – guess what? Spying! Spying on the Democrats and Hillary Clinton and her campaign.
So there was spying in the 2016 election. But it wasn’t of the Trump campaign but rather of Hillary and the Dems by the Russians aided and abetted by WikiLeaks in concert with Don Jr. and others, like Roger Stone.
There’s more, but enough for now.
570 Days to the 2020 election and 648 Days to Inauguration Day
PS Buy god. Cheap!
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