Tag Archives: Ivanka Trump

The Mueller Investigation Report – What Comes Next?

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After nearly two years of investigation that brought charges and/or guilty pleas against 34 individuals and three corporations (and, once any sealed indictments are released, that total should climb) and raked in nearly $50 million in fines, the Mueller Report has been issued. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who was charged with finding out whether there was collusion by the Orange Foolius campaign with any segment of the Russian government and if there was obstruction of justice in other matters surrounding the campaign, has seemingly closed the book on the ACTIVE INVESTIGATION portion of his work (more on this later). Now comes the “dog and pony” show that politicians love to put up for public view.

First off, we probably won’t be hearing anything about the Mueller Report this weekend and anyone who says they know what is in it is full of shit. There’s just too much information for recently seated Attorney General William Barr to go through to issue any type of statement on at this point. Even with an army of foot soldiers looking it over, the earliest we probably can expect for even a bullet-pointed outline of look at the findings would, in my estimations, be Monday. And that’s fine with me…I don’t want this minion of Orange Foolius rushing to get ANYTHING out about the Mueller Report.

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Secondly, and this is just personal conjecture, this is what I believe the Mueller Report will show. As to the underlings in the campaign, including Junior and Princess (I don’t think Eric could eat without a bib), they were colluding left and right with Russian agents THAT THEY WEREN’T AWARE OF. The collusion was coming as a result of trying to position themselves in the best business position possible – hell, they didn’t even conceive of winning the election, they thought they would be crushed. It has been proven in earlier cases, however, that lack of knowledge of who you’re dealing with isn’t a defense. If there are sealed indictments, expect one to at least have Junior’s name on it.

Third, Orange Foolius was unaware that these actions were going on underneath him. With his Narcissistic Personality Disorder, if it doesn’t directly affect him, he really doesn’t care. Thus, I am sure that the underlings were allowed to run free and run afoul of many a campaign law. But as far as his own PERSONAL knowledge of any collusion with Russian agents? I personally believe that Mueller will stop short of saying that Orange Foolius knew what was going on – it would take a shitload more investigation going back into the 1990s to try to demonstrate that Orange Foolius was a Manchurian candidate at the beck and whim of Vladimir Putin.

Fourth, as to the question of obstruction of justice. There are literally tens of examples of Orange Foolius obstructing justice, beginning with his statements to Russia’s Ambassador to the U. S., continuing on through his own statements to NBC news anchor Lester Holt, the obstruction through the convoluted statements regarding the Orange Foolius Tower meeting with Russian agents. Mueller knows, however, that the obstruction charge isn’t one that is going to be criminally prosecuted by anyone in the Department of Justice. And, with the current makeup of Congress, Mueller knows it isn’t going to be politically prosecuted…that’s right, that ugly word “impeachment.” Mueller’s not a fool…he’s dropping this ball in Barr’s lap and letting him decide, both legally and politically.

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The campaign finance violations questions? There will probably be plenty of that too. And Mueller’s going to point this out – he’s got plenty of evidence from disgraced Orange Foolius attorney Michael Cohen, who was a “great lawyer” and Orange Foolius’ “personal attorney” before he saw his life flash in front of his eyes and copped a plea deal with the Southern District of New York and became a “liar” and a “minor player” –  but he’s also going to put it on Barr to make the decision on what approach to take.

The bottom line for many will be this question…how much of the report will we see? I believe that we’ll see quite a bit of it, to be honest. Politically, the GOP doesn’t get any benefit from having the Mueller Report squelched. In fact, the GOP knows that stonewalling the report looks suspicious and would advise Barr (who is, under normal circumstances, supposed to be an independent body with the Department of Justice) to release everything he can.

The Democrats, naturally, are going to want it all, which sets up for bullshit Benghazi-like hearings that will take us up to Election Day 2020. And this is the pitfall that the Democrats must avoid…while they can make sure that all the information is known regarding the Mueller Report – including having public hearings where they bring in the former FBI director for testimony – they must resist the temptation to begin any “impeachment” proceedings against Orange Foolius.

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There are several reasons for this. Impeachment is a political act, not a criminal one, and in the current Congress the act would be a worthless one. Although they have control of the House and could conceivably vote through articles of impeachment, the Democrats are the minority in the Senate and any articles of impeachment would be laughed out by the GOP. Furthermore, by bringing charges against St. Orange Foolius, the Democrats would run the risk of making a martyr out of him, much like the GOP did with Bill Clinton in 1998.

The Democrats would be wisely advised to pursue the Mueller Report, get as close to 100% of it in the public spectrum and SHOW the criminal activities of this Administration (which is almost unheard of in recent history – only Richard Nixon had more criminal charges brought against it). But the job isn’t done there…then the Democrats must SHOW they have something more to offer for leadership of the country than “we’re not crooks,” presenting a solid vision for the future of the country rather than the anachronistic dystopia presented by the GOP.

Present the Mueller Report evidence, present a plan, and vote the fucker out in 2020. Don’t give the GOP a firebrand for the 2020 election by allowing Orange Foolius to play the “victim” in a scenario that even Shakespeare couldn’t conceive.

The endgame of the Mueller Report will be that there’s plenty of evidence of criminal activity, financial deviance and simple malfeasance inside the Orange Foolius Mafia. This will be he albatross around this Administration’s neck. The unknown – and what might become the albatross around the neck of the “American” people – is what the body politick and the people of this country want to do about it.

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Have Conservatives Begun to Come to Their Senses?

December 2018 was, by most accounts, one of the ugliest months in the history of the States of America. The Dow Jones dropped a total of 6.7% for the entirety of 2018 and the S&P 500 saw a decline of 7%, mostly driven by huge losses since October and, in particular, a volatile December. The losses by those two indexes are the first decline in the market since 2008 when…well, everyone remembers what happened then.

But it wasn’t just the stock market which suffered as 2018 closed. U. S. international influence was dealt a severe blow as situations in Syria and Afghanistan heated up, General James Mattis decided to step down from his position as Secretary of Defense (as well as U. S. envoy to the Middle East Brett McGurk, who was critical in the fight against ISIS). Add in Chief of Staff John Kelly (a fellow Marine who has besmirched his reputation already, but I digress) leaving his position and a government shutdown concocted for entirely political reasons entering its second week and the shakiness of the U. S. government has never been more evident.

And who is responsible for all of this?

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Oh, yeah…him.

Celebrating – or lamenting, on some viewpoints – the end of the second year of Orange Foolius’ reign of terror on the U. S. has brought about turmoil both domestically and internationally that is unprecedented in U. S. history. And this isn’t the type of “unprecedented” that is a good thing. In fact, the continuation of this administration – along with the Mueller Investigation (you know, that “witch hunt” that has charged and/or convicted 35 “witches” and paid for itself with $46 million in restitutions from Paul Manafort alone) and the continued “rats leaving the sinking ship” of personnel ditching their offices in the government – is beginning to demonstrate that perhaps the Idiot in Chief wasn’t the best choice.

Now there’s 65 million people, roughly, that would have been able to tell you that from the start in 2016. You know, the MAJORITY of the residents of the States of America that didn’t vote for him. But those people were already against this jackass and his thoughts of taking the office. But there is a change in the winds, per se, that is noticeable at this point.

While support for Orange Foolius amongst conservatives remains good, it isn’t of the level that it was previously. A survey from CNBC shows that support from millionaires has plunged as the Foolius Administration has demonstrated its depravity. How bad is it? Those conservative millionaires stated that there was only a 18% likelihood that Orange Foolius would be the nominee in 2020, with Ohio Governor John Kasich and current Vice President Albino Church Boy also garnering votes.

But it isn’t just the millionaires that he has to worry about. It is conservatives overall who have just about had enough of the shitshow that they are looking for a change.

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I’ve spoken to many a conservative that have reluctantly commented that their choice in 2016 was the wrong one. In many cases, they thought that the Fool on Capitol Hill would become more “presidential” as he got into the job, that he would moderate his stances and actually try to do the job. The problem is that these people forgot an old adage – “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” In other words, you can’t teach a 70-year old racist, misogynous, xenophobic bastard how to become “couth” and rein in his basal instincts.

It goes beyond that, however. These same conservatives are concerned about the current status of the White House. The departure of essentially everyone from the administration that signed up at the start (remember Reince Priebus? Sean Spicer? And don’t forget that Sarah Huckster Suckabee will be leaving soon (good riddance) along with Mattis, Kelly and all the others) has left the “B Team” of sycophants and recipients of nepotism trying to satiate the Orange Glob. That they have not the talent nor the skills to be able to do this job – run a government – is what is scaring many conservatives.

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It is also concerning to many conservatives that all the investigations that have been going on regarding Orange Foolius and his activities have essentially proven to be true. The aforementioned Mueller Investigation continues to plod along, sweeping up guilty pleas left and right. The Steele dossier, long ridiculed by conservatives, has been proven to be true for the most part, save the salacious “pee pee” parts. Further investigations by the Southern District of New York have dropped the hammer on the “charitable” Foolius Foundation and the family, putting the potential for not only Orange to go to the slammer but also the potential for Ivanka, Junior and Eric to serve time in prison (Tiffany and Baron will be spared because their mommas, Marla Maples and Melania, kept them out of the family business of grifting, lying and stealing). And the longer these investigations go on – and the wealth of info that any Democratic House investigations WILL bring up – the more corruption is shown by these cretins.

All of the evidence is mounting up against Orange Foolius. And conservatives are beginning to feel the heat.

For the most part, conservatives aren’t saying they’ll quit the Republican Party. It’s just that they’ll quit supporting a conman of infinite degrees. And that’s OK…this country needs to have the base ideas of conservatism – strong defense, commitment to business, fiscal responsibility (although the current crop of GOP needs a refresher course on this) – to be able to function. You cannot go too far one way or the other, left or right, in governing philosophy. There has to be a line in the center that takes into consideration all aspects of governance. One of the main tenets of government should be to hurt as few people as possible, and it is only through compromise and discussion (something that has been tremendously lacking in the past 20 years or so) that this can be assured.

What is happening is that many, liberal and conservative, are either beginning to see the error of their ways or holding back from saying “I told you so.” Now the work begins of keeping the ideas of the Founding Fathers in place until the elections of 2020, when correcting this humongous mistake can actually take place.

What The Hell Happened in Iowa On Monday?

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After more than a year of pandering to Hawkeye voters – quite honestly a state that in no way represents what the United States of America looks like but gets to set the tone for what a political campaign is supposed to look like – the Iowa Caucuses took place on a cold, wintry Monday night. Both the Republicans and the Democrats met in schools, town halls, churches and homes across the Iowa plains to decide how to divvy up the delegates for their respective parties at their National Conventions come this summer. Everyone thought that, for all practical purposes, that it was going to be triumphant marches to victory by both billionaire idiot Donald Trump and millionaire double-talker Hillary Clinton – so what the hell happened in Iowa on Monday night?

For the Republican Party, it always was going to be a bit of a clusterfuck. After starting the process with 17 candidates – and going to the Caucus with 12 candidates still officially running – the process was going to spread the votes across a wide swath of the candidacy. Even Jim Gilmore, who has only participated in one of the GOP debates (the sixth one right before the Caucus), received 12 votes from Iowa’s Republicans…not 12%…12 VOTES. Thus, whoever came out on top was going to have had to made an impression on the Iowa Republican constituency.

Even though he claims differently now (more on this in a minute), Trump was at the forefront of the Iowa race pretty much from the time he announced his candidacy in June 2015. According to some polls, he had built a double-digit lead over fellow candidates as varied as Dr. Ben Carson, Jeb! Bush, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as the Republican Caucus approached. In fact, Trump was so confident of his place in Iowa, he chose to poke Fox News in the eye at the final GOP debate before the Iowa Republican Caucus and not show up, instead running his own “veterans’ fundraiser” (by the way, jackass…as a veteran I ask where and when is that money going to be dispersed?) to “compete” with the debate.

That move might have been something that tipped the scales. Iowa voters don’t like to be neglected by the candidates and both Cruz, who made a great deal of noise about going “full Grassley” (hitting every county in Iowa with a campaign stop, something that Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says is critical to winning the Caucus, hence its name), and Rubio, who had an outstanding performance in that final debate, surged at the end by making the Iowa voter feel as if they were important. The result? Cruz defeated Trump by a rather comfortable margin and Rubio almost clipped Trump for second place, which would have been an even more devastating blow to Trump’s campaign and ego.

Trump, defeated for the first time in the 2016 campaign, played it off as if the resounding setback didn’t affect him. He said he was “honored” to have finished second, mentioning that he “had been told to ignore Iowa, that he didn’t have a chance” and that he was “way behind from the start,” a lie if there ever was one. But there was a menace behind his words and his body language spoke volumes, almost like he was telling wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and bland sons to “get to the plane so we can get the fuck out of this hellhole.”

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Meanwhile, Rubio and Cruz were positively giddy over their performances. Predicted to not even garner 10% of the Caucus vote, Rubio more than doubled that in earning the support of 23% of Caucus-goers and nearly upended Trump. Cruz was also proud to see that his “ground and pound” game had supplanted Trump’s “dazzle them with bullshit” approach and he didn’t miss the chance to point this out to “The Donald.”

That seems to be the biggest thing that Iowa voters looked at. After several months of listening to the candidates, it didn’t seem that they bought the Trump bullshit in the very end. Perhaps it was that misstep at Liberty University when he called it “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians” (even as a heathen I know what it is called); maybe it was the inability for Trump to have admitted a time when he prostrated himself in front of God; perhaps it was his inability to come up – or even enunciate – what was his favorite Bible verse. While these things might not be important to some, it is important to Iowa and its evangelical voters.

That is an important factor to the voters in Iowa. From the conservative, religious values voters after eliminating Trump, it was a simple step to which candidate did people want to follow, someone viewed as an “establishment” figure or someone who would “shake up” Washington, D. C.? Cruz has prided himself as someone who doesn’t follow the “establishment,” while Rubio has picked up that mantle (after the failure of Jeb! Bush throughout the early campaigning). That they were separated by only a few thousand votes indicates how close that fight may yet turn out.

On the Democratic side, you couldn’t ask for a better fight. Whereas former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thought that she would have a cakewalk over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (and let’s pause here to “pour a 40” for the campaign of former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, which never had a snowball’s chance in Hell; he suspended his campaign after the votes were in on the Iowa Democratic Caucus), it has been Sanders’ virility on the campaign trail that seems to have shocked Clinton. Sanders barnstormed Iowa, making it a fight, where Clinton thought she could throw a couple of token appearances and walk away with an easy victory.

Sanders’ message has found an excited audience, but just who is it? It would be easy to say that it is the young people, college students and the “hipsters” under-30, but that doesn’t explain the 50/50 split that came between Sanders and Clinton on Monday night in the Iowa Caucus. Sanders had to convince some of the adults in the room that his ideas and plans for the future of the United States were viable and that he is a viable choice for the Democratic Party. It may not be what Sanders is doing that is drawing in the crowd.

I’ve said it before…despite being arguably the most qualified candidate in the field (hey Republicans…if you had a candidate that was a former Secretary of State, a former Senator, had a position with a former President of the United States that helped to set national policy during one of the most prosperous periods in U. S. history and also worked with that person as a former Governor, you’d be championing that candidate like they were the Second Coming), Clinton is carrying more baggage than the Titanic and she is trying to navigate through a glacier field that would sink a weaker politician. Although there isn’t an indictment against her for the myriad of alleged transgressions she has made (and I’m not even going to count the e-mail situation, but that is a story for another time), there are those not only with the opposition party but also in the Democratic Party that will not support Clinton. Thus, they are throwing their support behind Sanders, which might explain the 50/50 split in Iowa on Monday night.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Democratic Party of Iowa has still not declared a winner between Clinton and Sanders. In reality, though, Sanders is the big winner while Clinton walks away with a slight victory. Sanders is showing that he can actually bring in voters to his supposedly “socialist” way of thinking – that people are ready for the progressive mindset that he espouses – while Clinton can say she held her ground and took a victory that eluded her in 2008, when she was upended by an upstart named Barack Obama.

So, when will President Cruz or President Sanders take office? Not so fast, bucko. The Iowa Caucus didn’t do a damn thing, in reality. Because the Iowa Caucus hands its delegates out by percentages (what is called a proportional allocation) and not a “winner take all” (as the March “SEC primaries” will be), this is the way that the Republican Party breaks down:

Ted Cruz                     8 delegates
Donald Trump            7 delegates
Marco Rubio               7 delegates
Ben Carson                 3 delegates
Rand Paul                   1 delegate
Jeb Bush                      1 delegate

(no other candidates received a delegate)

And for the Democrats:

Hillary Clinton            26 delegates
Bernie Sanders            21 delegates

(and don’t ask me how they can be 50/50 and Clinton get more delegates…must be that superdelegate thing)

As you can see, nothing has been decided.

The carnival now moves onto New Hampshire, where the barkers are already hawking their wares to the voters of The Granite State. Trump, licking his wounds after the Iowa disappointment, also is projected with a double-digit lead there, but it is supposedly thought a sizeable voting bloc that isn’t fascinated with the Circus of Trump is waiting in the wings to take him down. The reality is, however, that Trump has paid little attention to New Hampshire and has little “ground forces” there…just like what he did in Iowa that eventually doomed his candidacy. Rubio and Cruz, energized by their performances, and other candidates, such as Chris Christie, John Kasich (with the endorsement of the New York Times in his pocket) and Bush, seem to think that they can take Trump down a few more notches in New Hampshire.

For the Democrats, Clinton seems to have ceded New Hampshire to Sanders, in his Northeast backyard, and while she will contest it a bit seems to be pushing onwards to South Carolina and the March “SEC primaries” in the South, a traditional stronghold of the Clintons. She also has come to the realization that, unless she can put together a crushing set of wins in a row, she is facing a similar “delegate fight” to that which is going on in the Republican Party.

It’s just the beginning, political junkies, and it isn’t showing any signs that it will come to a close soon. Short of a seismic shift – something along the lines of Trump saying “fuck this, I’m out” (something that could conceivably happen…or his move to an Independent campaign), an indictment on Clinton, the Hellmouth opening up and sucking both parties into the Abyss – it’s going to be a battle all the way to Cleveland (Republican) and Philadelphia (Democratic)…and the fight may still rage on at the convention floor once they reach those cities.