July 14, 2018
After the events of the past week, it is clear that our government has disintegrated into a three ring circus peopled by malevolent, demented clowns hellbent on destroying our vaunted system of three co-equal branches of government designed to prevent abuses of power by any one branch.Trump’s behavior comes as no surprise, given a personality that is a toxic cocktail of impulsivity, bellicosity and Lilliputian intellect. He spent the week incinerating our 73 year old NATO alliances with one outrageous statement after another. First, he made the claim that Germany was in thrall to Russia based on its reliance on it for their natural gas supply. He went on to berate our allies for falling short of defense spending targets. Trump’s behavior was so over the top that even Chief of Staff Kelly couldn’t hide his dyspeptic reaction.Trump followed up that performance by giving The Sun, a British tabloid, an exclusive interview trashing embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan (Source: “After berating his British hosts, Trump lauds Theresa May in bid to ease tensions,” by Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey and William Booth, The Washington Post, 7/13/18).Meanwhile, Thursday’s combined House Judiciary and House Committee on Oversight hearing interrogating FBI Agent Peter Strzok was an embarrassing freak show. It featured nakedly partisan hacks like Darrell Issa and Draco Malfoy cosplayer, Trey Gowdy, maligning Strzok for sending mean texts about Trump. The astonishingly stupid Louie Gohmert nastily impugned Strzok’s honesty by raising the specter of his infidelity, causing the Chamber to erupt. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee questioned why hours were being spent taking Strzok over the coals, rather than investigating the fate of nearly 3000 children stolen away from their parents or “the role that Russia played in the 2016 elections”(Source: Video of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee at 7/12/18 House Judiciary Committee and Oversight Committee, C-Span).Jackson-Lee’s query was answered Friday afternoon when the Special Counsel’s office issued a 11 count indictment detailing how 12 Russian Military Intelligence officers conspired to interfere with our 2016 elections. The indictment alleges that GRU agents hacked into the computer networks of the DNC and the DCCC with the express goal of hurting Hillary Clinton’s electoral chances. In 29 pages, Mueller spells out what the Russian government did and how they did it, along the way dropping hints of the Americans implicated who are not beyond the reach of U.S. prosecutors. In Par. 43, the indictment alleges that a Congressional candidate sought and received stolen data on their Democratic opponent from the Russian hackers. Paragraph 44 of the indictment alleges correspondence between the Russian hackers and “a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.”This indictment is a clear signal to this treasonous lot that the axe is about to fall. This is why Congressional Republicans staged that spectacle of misdirection with Peter Strzok on Thursday. This is why Trump is in Europe making naked appeals to white supremacy with his claim that immigrants are changing the culture of Europe. They know that obfuscation and hatred are their only weapons. They know precisely what they are guilty of. After Friday, they know that it is only a matter of time before we do too.#Paperballots#Votethemout#Bluewave