Freak Out Friday – August 24, 2018

Well, well, well. Been quite the week for Trump. His continued howls of “witch hunt” were crushed on Tuesday, because the definition of a witch hunt is that innocent people suffer as mob hysteria sets in and seeks justice for imagined offenses. But four days ago the verdict came back in the Paul Manafort trial convicting him on eight of the eighteen offenses for which he was being tried (a single juror was the holdout on the remaining ten; possibly a Trump supporter, we don’t know.). Meanwhile, within minutes of that, Michael D. Cohen admitted under oath in open court that Trump instructed him to make payments hushing up his affair with Stormy Daniels in order to influence the election.

Once again we are hearing the oldest refrain in the world: the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.

Once again we get to watch as the GOP, who would already be halfway through impeachment proceedings if this were Hillary Clinton covering up her affair with a male porn star, will continue to enable their guy to act as if the laws of the land do not apply to him. His opponents are either dying (sorry, McCain, for ever thinking poorly of you) or getting out of politics rather than be faced with Trump stoking hatred against them through his millions of idiot supports that believe every word he tweets.

1). The Don. Reading Trump’s tweet messages regarding Manafort and Cohen can become an exercise in insanity if you still have any hope that Trump will ever start acting like a President. He praises the convicted felon for “not flipping.” In other words, like any good Mafioso lieutenant, Manafort places loyalty to the Don above loyalty to his own family, perhaps hoping that Trump will pardon him in the near future…which Trump will absolutely do. Meanwhile Cohen openly admits to wrong doing and condemns the man who instructed him to do it. Why? Because he values his family’s needs over those of Trump to not be held accountable. Naturally the man who swore on a bible to uphold those laws condemns Cohen for violating his oath of loyalty. The man who swore he’d take a bullet for Trump is now the one holding the gun, and all Trump can do is condemn him as being a lousy lawyer. Hey Don, YOU’RE the one for whom he worked for over a decade. So what does that say about you?

In all, five of Trump’s associates have either been convicted or pleaded guilty to various crimes. Not only has Trump not drained the swamp, he’s restocked it with alligators.

2). I don’t know how you can impeach someone who’s done a great job. . That is a direct quote from Trump when he was asked about the possibilities of impeachment in respect to Cohen’s sworn statement that Trump violated campaign finance laws. Since he doesn’t know, I will answer him, leaving aside the whole notion of his self-proclaimed “great job.” Impeachment isn’t a job revue. They don’t run one every year and determine if you should get a gold star. You get impeached if you’ve broken the law. Trump broke the law. He is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator, which is what Nixon was described as in the Watergate burglary. And if Nixon hadn’t resigned, he would have been impeached, without question.

3). Does he even remember HE hired him?. Look, I have to admit I’m not a fan of Jeff Sessions. The guy’s a dick. But Trump’s ceaseless attacks on his appointed legal representative is way beyond the point of absurdity. He’s furious because the justice department is rounding up, prosecuting and convicting associates of his and keeps insisting that Sessions shift his focus onto people he, Trump, doesn’t like. Seriously? Hillary’s emails still? Trump cannot wrap himself around the notion that investigating actions which helped him steal an election are of far greater interest than a dumbass non-scandal that helped Clinton lose an election. His endless bitching about Sessions just makes him sound more and more guilty with every tweet. Sessions, in a rare outburst, fired back at his boss, defending himself and the justice department. Naturally all that did was ramp him up. How dare Sessions doesn’t just shut up and take it. What’s wrong with him/

4). Here’s how I think this will end: . Trump will fire Mueller. That is simply inevitable. Thus far he’s been following the advice of everyone telling him that firing Mueller would be a catastrophic move. But all that’s happened as he’s refrained from doing what he wants is that Mueller keeps rounding up his followers and advisors, most of whom turn on Trump. At some point he’s going to declare enough is enough, and when he fires Mueller , that is finally going to spur the House and Senate to do their damned jobs, especially if it happens before the November elections. His inevitable firing of Sessions won’t have quite the same impact, but dumping Mueller will be a dead on comparison to Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. Whatever day it is, it’ll be that night’s Massacre (much as any conspiracy has the word “gate” attached to it, which remains weird because “gate” was part of the Watergate hotel’s name, not an arbitrary suffix.). When he fires Mueller, the House and Senate is going to have to reach across the aisle and say “Enough is enough.” Because although the hardcore Trumpites will take no issue with it since they’ve bought into the whole “witch hunt” calumnies, they are not the majority of the voters. Better to piss off them than the millions more voters who are going to want their representatives to take action. They recognize the Cosa Nostra attitudes of Don Trump and realize that these are not things a President should be spouting, or even believing.

But even so, it will likely only happen if Democrats take the majority at the mid-terms. So go out and vote. And double check that you are registered; far too many places are finding means to purge voter rolls without bothering to inform the purged voters.

PAD