Tag Archives: Donald Trump

The Coming Republican Era

Politics, Rants, ,

Something we all should think about is just what will happen if the GQP/MAGA win in 2024. I will not go into what some liberals fear, but rather just what the Republican Party and its leadership have promised to deliver upon election to power.

First and foremost remember that unless the coming Republican Convention does as it did in the last election the GQP takes as its platform what ever Donald Trump says it is for. Nothing more Nothing less. The Republicans, as a political party only promises only to do as Trump directs. So forget what Republican Leaders like the Governors of Florida and Texas are doing now. Forget what they are saying in Congress. Pay no attention to what the blogs are saying. None of it maters. All that maters is what Donald Trump does.

So what can we expect? We can’t go by what he says as he really has a hard time delivering on what he promises. Like his wall on the southern border that Mexico would pay for. Or that Covid-19 would be just a memory before the election of 2020. In fact the only promises he does seem to follow thru on is when he promises to get ’even’ with someone. Now those are promises he seems to go out of his way to keep.

So we should be expecting the GQP to enable the next Republican President to take ”full direct control” of the DOJ, DOD, Internal Revenue Service, just to name a few. We should see the Democratic party both directly and indirectly attacked an emasculated to the maximum extent possible. We should see the State election officials also attacked with the aim of bringing them under the control of the GQP. This will includes every ’Purple’ and ’Blue’ state possible.

I would also expect to see as many of the people held responsible by Trump for his Impeachments to be brought up on as many criminal charges as possible. I also expect to see a total house cleaning of ’disloyal’ Republicans (aka RINOs) from the party. Also look for the aggrandizement of anyone Trump believes might be of use to him.

Finally look for a lot of infighting behind the scenes and under the table.

The Problem with the Double Standard

Politics,

Orange Koolaid
Still Drinking the Kool-Aid after seven years

Once again the Nation gets to watch the MAGA/GOP swill down the Orange Kool-Aid as Donald Trump does his best to help the prosecution in the Florida trial. An what is even better is how much the GOP leadership is doing it’s best to look like total idiots and fools. Lets just look at what has happened over the last few days.

First Donald, in an interview over the week-end, once again admitted to knowingly keeping the documents while, at the same-time, not doing anything to help keep him out of trouble. He also has shown he has no idea of what laws he has been accused of violating. He keeps talking about the ”Presidential Records Act” and that hasn’t even been mention in passing in the indictment .

Next let’s look at what the House Leadership is talking about, the ”Double Standard” that Trump is be teated with. Now this is something I can agree on, Donald Trump is being treated differently than Richard Roe, private citizen. If you know someone who has or had a security clearance just what would have happened to them if they took home a classified document. I bet they would have told you Federal agents of the appropriate agency (FBI, DIA, USMsh) would have arrested them and taken into custody and then figured out if they should hold you. An if you were charged you would have had a good time trying to get released, much less keep your passport. Now I ask you, did anything like that happen to Donald Trump? Did anything happen to Donald Trump? Was he told to surrender his passport? Was he told to not leave the jurisdiction of the Court? Of the State of Florida? No, he was not. He did even have to post any bail!

So we now have hard evidence that a double standard does exist. It just not what the GOP Leadership is complaining about or maybe it is but they don’t want the GOP rank and file to notice just what is happening. Most people understand where the MAG/GOP rank and file are coming from when they get upset about the perceived special treatment for Biden or Hilary. But what gets hard to take is when they refuse to see it when it applied to Trump. Go ahead and complain about a double standard but keep your eyes open for where and when it happens. The double standard has little to do with what political party you belong to. It has everything to do with how much power/influence/fame/wealth you have.

A Dark Thought Experiment

Philosophy, Politics, ,

This is going to be both a Dark and Brutally logical thought experiment. You have been warned.

This is just an experiment. It is not a prediction of what will be, nor even really possible to be. Only what could be. What we will be dealing with is just one possible scenario if Donald J. Trump looses in November 2020. An while this is not a prediction of the future it is as an honest “Threat Assessment“ I can formulate, given the past four years and the actions of both the Trump Administration, MAGA, and the current GOP leadership.

First some postulates:

  1. Trump looses the election with the popular and electoral college
  2. The election in the House and Senate while large is not the “Blue Tsunami”
  3. That the actions in ‘Red” States to minimize election turn out results in incredibly long lines and/or waiting times that leads to many “incidents”.
  4. The GOP/MAGA brings numerous court battles challenging the results in key “swing” states that last till early January 2021
  5. Trump is able to either use the un-identified currently mobilized to put down the protests in several Blue cities like Portland Oregon to “protect” the White House before the inauguration.

Given the above postulates it is quite possible that Donald J. Trump just might refuse to accept the election results and refuses to leave the White House. The question is if the Federal Government would accept his position. Would the current AG leave office or would AG Barr attempt to stay in office and protect Trump. What about the acting heads of DHS and/or the FBI? What would they do? What could they do legally? What could be done against them if they try to stay in office past 20 January 2021?

Finally, just to add a little spice to the mix, where will the nuclear “Football” be in January 2021? If it is still in the West Wing what will the person caring it do? What will be his/her orders from the Pentagon dealing with Trump refusing to leave office?

Could we be on the way to a new Civil War?

Love to hear your ideas so please share.

The Time has Come

General, Philosophy, Politics, , , , ,

The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
      To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
      Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
      And whether pigs have wings.’

Over the past few weeks I have been feeling more and more like I have both “fallen down the rabbit hole” and gone “Thru the Looking Glass” at the same time. It is mostly because of the rampant insanity I’m seeing around me. In the middle of the greatest pandemic in a hundred years we have both people who should know better telling us it is:

  1. All a hoax
  2. It will be over “Real Soon Now”
  3. 100,000+ death are acceptable
  4. Trust me, not the scientists, I know better
  5. It’s all a plot to defeat Donald Trump’s re-election

The above is not an exhaustive list, just what I can remember right now. But beyond the above I’ve started to hear people not on the far left, more like the middle left, thinking the unthinkable. That the GOP, the MAGAs, and Donald Trump will use the pandemic to suppress enough voter turn out. To delay the vote count due to record number of mail-in ballots. To challenge the election results when and if Trump looses both the popular and elector votes.

I am not going to be a miss Pollyanna here. I am going to try to just point out that unlike the little oysters we need to listen to the wise ones and not follow the Walrus and the Carpenter, lest we be eaten.

Coming Next: A dark Thought Experiment or Two

What May Come

Law, Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

With all the ‘talk, talk, talk’ going on about the Impeachment investigation I thought it would be nice to lay out the possible paths we may be fallowing in the near future. I’ll start with where we are now, with the Secretary of State Pompeo not honoring the House subpoenas for depositions by State Department employees. We can now ignore, or prune, that branch of the tree that starts with full cooperation.

What are the possible actions now? In no particular order of preference there seems to be three possible branches. Branch one: Increased resistance by the Executive branch. The next Branch is that the resistance stays as low key as possible and the final branch is acquiescence to the subpoenas.

I do not find the third Branch likely but it is the cleanest/simplest. What can follow it is that the House Committees either find sufficient evidence to recommend to the House to vote Impeachment or It doesn’t. If the person(s) being investigated are truly innocent of any impeachable actions this would be the best course for everyone concerned. Given the current evidence available to the public this does not seem likely as it does seem to show that Donald Trump did, in fact, attempt to get a foreign government to provide a thing of value for his upcoming campaign. Of course it is possible for the President to argue that Op Research is not a thing of value. Also it can be argued that he really didn’t ask for this. The problem is both arguments are quite thin and really don’t play well with an impartial jury.

So let us take on the first Branch of the tree, complete non-compliance subpoenas has and total resistance to giving evidence to the House Committees. This branch leads very quickly to either the House caving in and waiting to see just what the election in 13 months brings. Or the house can attempt to use it’s more usual method of enforcing it’s subpoenas by asking the Justice Department to bring criminal contempt charges. This would lead to another set of branches, the JD could honor the request or just ignore the request or responded that they see no merit in the request.

Let’s look at this last one first. Finding that the request for criminal contempt was with out merit would force the House to either just cave in or move quickly to using inherent contempt. More on inherent contempt later. Just ignoring the request has the advantage of burning time while leading eventually to the same two branches of finding no merit. As far as honoring the request for Criminal Contempt this leads to the problems of having the Attorney General go against the wishes of the President, something the current President doesn’t take well. Look for this to happen if Pres. Trump has found a way to get someone else to take the fall. In any case this path leaders inevitably to either the House passing/not passing a bill of Impeachment.

So now let us look at the possibilities of those branch’s above that lead to the use of inherent contempt which will entail having the House Sargent at Arms arresting the person or persons. As inherent contempt has not been used since 1934 (85 years) it is almost anyone’s guess on just how it will be worked now. Something to what for is actions taking place in the House Sargent at Arms office and in/around the cells in the House basement. This action by the house could quite easily lead to one of two events/branches. First, and most likely is that the person or persons peacefully submit to arrest. They also could resist the arrest. The resisting could take many forms, all the way from just not letting the persons from the House Sargent at Arms into the building the person to be arrested is in all the way up to having the persons own security detachment forcefully protecting their charge from the people attempting to make the arrest. This last would be very bad for all concerned and while possible I really don’t see it happening.

Let us look at the breach that leads to the person or persons who are defying the Congressional Subpoena(s) being taken into custody. The House would have to hold a trial and this trial could be long or short depending on the House Membership and just how strong the person(s) being held is. It is customary to drop the Contempt Charge(s) if the person so charged takes action to make amends. If the House does find them in Contempt they have several options ranging from fines to imprisonment. This can last till the current congress expires in just over a year from now. It is also possible that if these persons are of sufficient rank, that is they hold a non-selective service job (and in some cases even if they do) they too can be impeached and removed from office. (Please note that being removed from office by conviction on impeachment is tantamount to being fired for cause and you loose all benefits etc.)

That is all I can foresee for now. More later as thing become either more murky, less murky, or stay the same.

“No Me, Gim Do It.”

Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

When I and my Cuz Shari were toddlers our mothers put us down for a nap in the same play pen. The then went into the kitchen for coffee and a chat. Sometime later there was a great crashing noise from the room we were in. When the mom’s got there they saw the pen had totally collapsed. Shari, standing in the middle of everything looked up and said “No Me! Gim Do It.” Even tho it was obvious to the moms that is had been Shari’s doing.

This is exactly what I think is starting to happen with the Trump Administration and the Ukraine scandal and why I have used the illustration above. While it is Tammany Hall, and thus Democrat Party it is still very illustrative of what is happening now. (Note: I know enough political history to know that both corruption and shifting of blame is an All Parties phenomenon.). While we currently only have three people in the ring (Trump, Pence, and Giuliani) and this is more of a triangle I feel confident that more will be added soon. Some of them will be totally uninvolved, others on the side of ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’, and others guilt of some involvement. This is a classic Mob tactic, throw everyone you can under the Bus in hope you will get away scot free. That is why the Impeachment hearings in the house are so important.

Like in chess, Mobsters, try and complicate things when they are loosing. This is about the only way you can get your opponent to make a mistake and that is their only hope of winning. The American people need to see in the simplest, clearest terms just what Pres. Trump did, and what his henchmen did. All of the underbrush being tossed out by the suspects need to be clear away. The facts of the case need to be stated in the simplest, cleanest, clearest manner for all to see. This is why the hearing(s) need to be as tightly focused on the attempt to use the Ukraine to become involved in our 2020 election. While the Impeachment is just an indictment the American people need to be able to see that if the Senate does not Convict, that vote was totally motivated by partisan need and not by any reasonable doubt of culpability.

These hearing(s) need to be done quickly, too. Not only for the nation as a whole, but for the Republican Party. The worst possible outcome would be for Donald Trump to win the Republican Nomination and then be convicted in the Senate. So to the House Of Representatives I say move with ‘all deliberate speed’. To the Democrats I say, do everything you can to see that the truth is shown clearly, to Republicans I say remember you are Americans first and Republicans second and work toward the best interests of the nation, remember what America stands for. This is the only way you can save your party from going the way of the American Party.

The Sheldon Crisis, part III

General, Philosophy, Politics, , , ,
Foundation

The Sheldon Crisis the U.S. is currently experiencing is going into it’s next faze today with the first of the Donald Trump Impeachment inquiry by the House Judiciary Committee. An it did not go well for anybody. While the supporters of Pres. Trump seem to have won on points this is only round one of the match. There are many more rounds to go and maybe a few more matches.

As a person who watched much of the Senate Watergate Hearings and the most all of the House Impeachment process Of Pres. Nixon. I also followed closely all the sordid process of the Clinton Impeachment and trial. I can say that today was not a good start. I hope the chairman and the House leadership rethink just how this process needs to work. Or, just maybe we all are missing something. This is more than just a legal process, there is a lot of politics involved.

Things just might get more interesting as time goes on. The House GOP seems to have won the day today with the witness standing his ground and refusing to say anything that is not in the testimony given in the Mueller Report. I just wonder if the GOP really want’s to go down this road to the Prerogative State. The use of Executive Privilege as done by the current Administration is quite expansive and would easily lead to no one who has anything to do with the Executive branch ever having to testify about anything to any body.

Let’s run a little thought experiment here. Let us suppose that no one who has any contact with the President, either directly or indirectly can not be forced by either the Congress or the Courts to give any testimony about anything the President may know, or could have know, or should have known or does not know. Ever! Now let us suppose the Executive Branch acts to confiscate all arms not in the possession of their party membership. An now let us suppose that it is taken to court and SCOTUS rules against the Administration and then the President orders the agency/persons charged to ignore the court order and they do? Now lets say the Court orders the arrest of those persons for criminal contempt and sends US Deputy Marshals to do it and these marshals are met with armed resistance by Federal security officers. Now what?

This is, of course a bad to worse case scenario. We don’t have to go this far to be in trouble. What would happen in the case of absolutely blatant corruption, like the Tea Pot Dome scandal but involving a siting Secretary. If the President could order all witness’ not to testify how could the House and Senate Impeach and Convict? How could you even try some one? Could not the President order the forensic witness and the investigators not to testify about their findings?

I think we can see where the unfettered use of any privilege can lead to. Privilege needs to be highly limited to keep it from being abused. We may live in the 2nd Guided Age and if we do it is paramount for the citizenry to flex it’s mussels and reign in the excesses of this age. The time to start is now. This election. Each an everyone of us needs to look at our Representatives, both House and Senate and see if they are putting Self or Party before the people and the country. To do that we need to stop listening to the Hate Mongers who want to tells that all are troubles are do to ‘THEM’. We must remember who we are and what we stand for. We are Americans and we Stand for more than just wealth, power, and prestige.

Villains and Minions

Politics, , ,

Those who know me, know I am a great fan of Comics for my whole life. I am well steeped in the culture of Heros and Villains. I was a great fan of both Superman and The Daredevil, mostly because of two Super Villains, Lex Luthor and KingPin. What I liked about them is they could take on super powered hero’s even though they were just normal people. So what does this have to do with today’s politics? Simply their minions.

I would like to lay before you the idea that the GOP has been taken over by a real world equivalent of a comic Super Villain. Are own Lex Luther if you will. One of the problem all comic book villains have is finding good “reliable” minions. Minions usually come in two classes, competent or comic relief (aka incompetent). You can also judge minions by how reliable and unreliable. Think of it this way a two by two matrix

Reliable Unreliable

Competent. A. D

Incompetent B. C

From this array you can see the Villain wants a Competent and Reliable minion, lets call this a type A. What they don’t want is either an incompetent unreliable, type C. Or even worse, from the Villains stand point is the competent Unreliable, type D. Unfortunately getting type A minions is next to impossible because Reliable Competent people tend not to be villainess. Usually villains tend to be generally unreliable, that is dishonest. So what’s wrong with the type D minion? Simply put the Unreliable Competent minion will want to replace the villain with themselves. After all why be a minion when you can be the villain?

Now you are asking just what this has to do the GOP? Simply put the Republican Party is currently in the control of a Super Villain, Donald Trump. An while Donald Trump is no Lex Luthor is is still quite villainess. He also like to be surrounded by lots and lots of minions. I’d say most of Donald’s minions he brought with him were quite quite competent in their original area of operation, that is mostly type B or C in most things D.C. or political. The people in the GOP when Trump won the election who are candidates to be type A or D minions are doing one of several things.

Fist they type A minion material have mostly left the party, like Geo. F Wills, or are going to ground and keeping out of both the public and the Donalds eye. We have also been the steady leaking of the type A people from the Administration. Those brave souls who thought they could actually keep the Super Villain from doing evil things. Just take a look at the list of people who have resigned from this administration. Anywhere from a quarter to a half of them can be called type A minion material. The numbers are even more lopsided when you look at the nonpartisan people who have left government jobs since Trumps election. When we look outside the executive to the congress we see just as large an exodus.

When it comes to the national party leadership, they have shown they are either type B or C minion material. They all saw what Donald Trump is and most wanted to stop him from getting the nomination but they were totally clueless on just how to stop him. Som knew how. But just couldn’t sacrifice for the good of the party or nation. They will have to live with what has happened, and continues to happen to both their party an nation. Not that that is much solas to the rest of us.

So where does that leave us and the GOP? Simply put, by the 2020 election the GOP will be left with a single Villain in control, a few type D minions looking for their chance to take over and everything else type B and C minions doing their best to do as they are told they want to do what their are told to do. All the while trying to get everything they can for themselves, the devil take the hindmost. But all is not lost for both the Republicans or the Conservatives who once made up the GOP. They are still out their in country. They just have to do a few things, some easy, most difficult. The most difficult will be to accept the possibility that they were mistaken. Not easy for any of us.

A new Boss of Boss’s

Philosophy, Politics, , ,
Mr. Big

Hypothesis: Donald Trump has Turned the GOP in to a mafia organization.

As anyone who has followed the Trump Administration and read just a few of the ‘tell all’ books knows it has been said a time or two that it is run like a ‘Mob Family’. Not sure if they mean like a real mafia organization or just like our TV/Movies version. In any case the most recent action(s) of the GOP in the House I think it is safe to say that the House members of the GOP think it is. Further more they seem to be running their caucus like it too.

This is not something new. The GOP, all of it, has been on this road for sometime now. I submit it can be traced back to 1990’s and the “Contract on America” and the start of a much more vigorous control of the GOP Congressional Causes. It started to take it’s current form with the 2010 elections and the near absolute control of many of the state houses by GOP super majorities. With these super majorities in place the GOP was able to redraw congressional districts to favor the GOP. Good old guided age gerrymandering. With these new districts in place it became an assured thing that the only thing a GOP incumbent needed to fear was being primaried by someone to the ‘Right’ of them.

The primary challenger doesn’t have to be really more to the right of the incumbent, he just has to make the incumbent look like he is to the ‘left’ of him/her. With the way the congress worked in the teens this was quite easy to do. All the challenger has to do is show that the incumbent has ‘compromised’ with the ‘left’ (read that Democrats) or worse yet, voted with them when the caucus didn’t. This means that the House GOP Wip has a great deal of clout to swing. All he has to do is walk over to the congress person in question and say in a quite voice “Nice little district you have here. Same if you loose it.”

Other things have also come about. Like ‘out of town’ talent ($$$$$) can now be easily and quietly brought in. With the creation of ‘fake news’ and the creation of tailor made new reporting and the end of the fairness doctrine it is very easy to down any incumbent. Add into the the open acceptance of ‘transactional politics’ (I call it “Zero Sum” politics) where if your side doesn’t get everything it demands then it has lost and you have the makes of our current situation.

So how does this lead to Pres. Trump turning the GOP Mafia type organization? haven’t I just shown it was already been turned into one? Well, not really. I’ve shown all of the elements/components needed to make a mafia were present but it was missing one element. It needs a person ready willing and able to be the ‘Boss’. Sure the GOP had many many people wanting to be the Boss, but none of them had what it takes to do it. Donald Trump did and does. I submit that was missing was the way Donald Trump communicates to the ‘base’. Donald Trump has many faults but not being able to size up his mark. An make no mistake his was the GOP, not the American people. He doesn’t give a tinkers dam about the American people. He doesn’t care about the GOP except that it is a tool for gaining what he wants. Don’t ask me what he wants, I don’t know, but i am afraid we are soon to find out.

What Pres. Trump is doing to the GOP

Politics, , ,
Trump,Kim

Give all that has been happening the past few weeks I’m motivated to add to my thoughts put forward in Terrible Liars. But instead of looking at the lies being told I’m going to be looking at the actions, and lack of same, of both the Republicans and all of the self avowed Conservatives and Anti-Comunists.

For most of my entire life the GOP (aka Republicans) along with all ‘apolitical’ conservatives have loudly proclaimed their total and complete support of anti-communism and renouncing the ‘pinko’ liberal Democrats who are, at best, weak on Communism if not outright ‘fellow travelers. Don’t believe me, just go back and study the history of the McCarthy era. Too far back, how about the 1980’s? Still too old, how about 2016? Until Donald Trump was elected the GOP was know to tar and feather anyone who would show any kind of cozying up to a Communist/Socialist country. You know, countries like North Korea, or the PRC (aka China). Can anyone give me a link to a single member of the GOP that has denounced Pres. Trump for his cozying up with either of these countries? If you can I’m post it, I promise. An before you say word one about the Tariff War he started with China just show me where it was done because China was Communist and not just better at playing the Oligarchal Capitalism game than we are?

Now lets move on to just what the Trump Administration is showing is true about the GOP. Mainly that the don’t care a rats ass about true freedom and liberty. That they really don’t support Free Market Capitalism but do support Oligarchal Capitalism. That term sound strange to you? Well what it is sure isn’t, you know it as the MOB. Want to see how well it works, just take a look at Russia. All they have done is swap things around. In the USSR the state controlled all businesses now businesses control the state. Now take a look at China, not much difference when you cut out all the useless verbiage used to obfuscate how things are really organized. All we have are Mob bosses seeking to control as much as they can with little concern about side effects.

This is what the GOP is really all about now. The pursuit of power, by the powerful. The use of power for the sake of using power to demonstrate who has the power and how much. The sad thing is that the rank and file members of the GOP are much like the Outer Party in 1984. Better off than the Prols, but still totally oppressed by the Inner Party. Don’t believe me, just look at what the GOP is doing for the Farmers of the Midwest, or the people of coal country. Are they trying to change things for the better? No, they are only taking action that will increase the wealth (power) of those in power. I have yet to hear one new idea from this Administration to help just these two groups out. Send me links if you find them, I will post them.