Day 982 The Fight for the Soul of Our Country
Saturday September 14, 2019
417 Days until the 2020 election and 499 days until the Inauguration
It’s Saturday. It’s a good day to review where we are and where we are heading. As I thought about all that has happened this week I had to wonder what is the point of what Mitch McConnell and William Barr want? What do these conservatives (so called) want? It seems the only vision they have is to enrich themselves. I see no other real motive. The damning thing is why do they insist on doing such petty heinous things? Oh well, let’s move on to the week’s wrap up.
It’s been another “I can’t believe it” week. One of veniality meanness and pettiness with a large serving of ignorance and stupidity on the side of the administration and their backers.
Where did it begin? I guess with the denying of safe passage to the people in the Bahamas that were trying to come to our country temporarily. I mean how mean and petty is that? We’ve always done it. It’s a no brainer. It seems that if we can do something crasser than we did to Puerto Rico let’s give it a try.
Speaking of Puerto Rico, an official in charge of the relief effort has been sleeping with one of the major contractors whose company is supposed to be helping the island recover. So that island isn’t the only one getting screwed.
Then there’s the law suit against Trump, one of three, that’s centered around his profiting from his position. It was put on hold by one court, but is now given the green light to go ahead. It is being brought by the businesses that have to compete with Trump’s hotel in DC and his restaurants. They are being hurt because he is taking business away from them.
Then there was the news that our military, our military!, is landing planes at a commercial airport in Scotland near one of Trump’s money losing golf courses, and they are staying at his hotel thirty miles away. The airplanes are refueling at that airport and have forked over eleven million dollars in fuel fees. It’s at a higher rate than they would pay if they had gone to a regular military base. The folks staying at Trump’s resort thirty miles away are on a per diem, which it doesn’t seem covers the cost of staying there. We now know that this has happened at least forty times.
Oh then there’s Mike Pence’s jaunt to Ireland. He stayed 180 miles away from where he was having meeting so he could stay at a Trump property. He commuted by Airforce 2 back and forth. The commuting cost? $600,000.00 Yeah, we paid 600 grand for Mike and Mommy to stay at a Trump hotel. That’s not including what it cost for the hotel. (Funny story. It was announced that Mike was going to meet with the people of Ireland. No one showed!)
Then there was the news that Barr booked the Trump hotel for his Christmas party, $30K. He and Pence were also at the hotel this week for a conservative fund raiser.
Was it this week or last week that Trump came out and said he wanted the next G-7 meeting at his golf course in Miami. The one whose revenue is down 69%. Seems the brand is a bit tarnished.
But all this is just the stuff that is in direct violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution. (Except. the screwing over the people in the Bahamas.)
Then there is the obstruction stuff. Let’s see. Oh yes, Attorney General of the United States and ad hoc personal lawyer for the president, William Barr has issued a rather “novel” (I think that’s the word that people are using when this administration comes up with a nutty legal opinion) claim as to why Congress can’t see the underlying documentation that the Mueller Report is based on. See, that was a legal proceeding, and Congress is asking for the information because they are doing an impeachment proceeding, and that’s not really a legal proceeding so Mr. Barr has to protect the legal proceeding and not let Congress see the grand jury stuff. Got it? Then Barr goes on with an “even if it was a legal proceeding you can’t see it” argument. What horse pucky!
Speaking of Grand Juries, there was a report that the grand jury that looked into brining charges against Andrew McCabe, for – as far as I can figure out – doing his job, has done something “novel.” A grand jury is a place where prosecutors bring their case, show their evidence, and based on what they present the grand jury decides whether or not charges are warranted, ie indictments. There is no representation by the defense. It is said that a prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted. Not in this case. The novel thing the grand jury did was – nothing! No indictment. How can that be? Why would that be? Well, heh heh, lemme see, Mr. McCabe talked to reporters at the Wall Street Journal. It was his job to talk to reporters. The reporters had a story they were going to run with and they came to the FBI to verify what they had. McCabe was the guy they saw. The story centered around an ongoing investigation. Being an ongoing investigation the FBI typically doesn’t talk about what they are doing. However, the story the reporters had was way off base. It might effect the ongoing case if it got out in the way it was going to be reported. McCabe had to walk a delicate line, which was his job, to tell the reporters that what they had was not accurate, but also not reveal anything more about the investigation. Later, he was asked by internal affairs or some such what he had said to the reporters. He either gave them an off the cuff or flip response. This was later interpreted as lying and that’s what the whole thing is about.
On the surface.
But the reality is that after meeting Trump in the White House hours after being put in charge of the FBI he was told by the president things that he found not to be true. It was clear to him that what the president was telling him was what Trump wanted McCabe to take as the facts and to repeat them to the public. This would have been a real case of lying. Instead, of taking the cue from the president he instead started a probe of the president and made sure that the president or others could not easily make it go away. This is one of two probes McCabe started into Trump, and this is actually what the possible indictment of the McCabe is all about. The president has twittered against McCabe. He had called for him to be fired and made sure it was done 26 hours before McCabe could have gotten his retirement from the FBI. (McCabe is suing.)
So why didn’t the grand jury indict? Why were they called back into session months after they had looked at all this? They were called back because the president wanted to get McCabe. Plain and simple. They didn’t indict because there was no case to be had. Plain and simple.
McCabe’s lawyers have filed a WTF? memo asking the Justice Department if in fact all this is true. Given Barr’s penchant for ass kissing I doubt we’ll hear much for awhile. When Barr got appointed some folks who claim to have known him said he was a good lawyer. Yet, when he worked for Papa Bush, he did the same kind of sleazy stuff. I don’t get the “good lawyer” comments.
What else? The top ten Dem candidates had a debate and it was good. It didn’t really move the ball much in terms of whom one might want to vote for, but it got deeper in substantive issues. Julian Castro attacked Joe Biden for forgetting what Joe had just said. It turned out Castro was wrong and that hurt him. But other than that for negatives it was a pretty good showing by all the candidates. I had thought that these ten would make a great cabinet. I was surprised to hear the same thing said the next day by commentators. The big moment of the night was when Beto O’Rourke was asked if he was talking about coming to take your guns away. He said that if it was a weapon of war like an AR-15 or an AK-47 whose only purpose was to kill as many soldiers as possible on the battlefield “You’re damn right.”
Later on he was asked presumptively that it was going to be voluntary, He made it clear it was mandatory. No, he wasn’t talking about going into your home and taking them, He was saying he’d pass legislation making it illegal to own one. If you didn’t turn it in, you would be in possession of an illegal weapon.
Heads exploded on the right. “AK-47s and AR-15s aren’t really weapons of war and if you went up a real battlefield weapon you’d quickly realize that” blah blah blah.
All I can say is, “Thank god. Someone is hitting this problem head on.”
And guess what? People like it.
Mothers it is said are reporting their kids are being traumatized by active shooter drills and the like. It’s the suburban moms who put Trump over the top. Hum, don’t think it’s gonna happen again.
In economic news reports are outlining the damage the Trump tariffs are having on our economy. The number of jobs lost is staggering, 300,000 so far, and it’s going up!
Don’t worry Donnie is going to talk to his good bud in China and everything will be okay. Trust him.
Farmers are going bankrupt, their crops are rotting in their silos with no one to sell to. This is what winning looks like.
The debt is going up by a trillion dollars a year.
Reporters asked Nancy Pelosi what she was going to do about gun violence. She said why are you asking me? We’ve done out job. We passed the legislation. It’s on McConnell’s desk. Ask him.
So that’s the week in review.
If you haven’t done so I urge you to look up Randy Rainbow. He does videos of our political situation.
Look up his video on Covfefe and his one on Ivanka.
417 Days until the 2020 election and 499 days until the Inauguration
PS – C D bull? I C D bull. Do U C D bull?