Three Long Years

I'm reposting my foreboding opinion published in a local weekly, the Cape May County Herald, three turbulent years ago. It was crystal clear then in May 2016 that Trump spelled doom. Predictably, the disease has only spread and threatens the death of America. Democrats, powered by 'The people,' finally must be the cure.

Blame GOP
For Trump

By Kevin McKinney 

As Donald Trump sells out America, leaving behind a slew of defeated establishment candidates to squirm and sweat before the funhouse mirror in this Twilight Zone playing on an endless loop, one thing is clear:

These United States of America aren't what we've cracked them up to be. And we wonder, were they ever?

Our once great nation's standards, values and hopes have seemingly crumbled right before our eyes into a reality TV rubble, where the truth is a joke, the disingenuous reigns, insults are hip, fear motivates and a walking, talking tabloid caricature has a serious shot at the Oval Office.

How did we get here? How did the most powerful democracy in the world become so desperate as to welcome the phony, inciting declarations of a billionaire successfully bidding for the highest office in the land? 

The Republican Party only has itself to blame. The unmitigated rise of ‘The Donald’ is as much about the tangible as the intangible, about a twisted, single-minded, conservative ideology which has long catered only to a powerful, select few.

In truth, it’s been a slow fade. Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Trump is just the tip of the iceberg, the most visible symptom of an insidious disease that for decades has been quietly compromising many aspects of American life - our security, health, finances and overall quality - certainly since Reaganomics trickled down, trickled out and left the people dry.

But, only now, in the flotsam wake of unprecedented, ultra-conservative, think-tank-orchestrated, corporation-endorsed, alarmist manipulation of the people's hearts, minds and lives since the watershed 2001 high-jacking of the White House is the devastation suddenly and sickeningly obvious.

Donald Trump is what happens, he's the result, the divine justice administered, in the wake of so much criminal negligence and inexcusable abandonment of the people in their most desperate times of need.

After eight hellish years of George W. Bush's "War of Terror" against the American people - through the inexplicable Sept. 11 failures, Iraq War lies, profiteering and bloodshed, domestic spying, bungled Hurricane Katrina response and the deregulation-instigated 2008 Great Recession - untold damage was done.

Then, while millions of Americans were losing their homes, jobs and savings, obstructionist Republicans blocked hundreds of bills, including those designed to help veterans, senior citizens, women victims of violence, ill Sept. 11 first responders, the jobless, middle class families, teachers and the underpaid.

Today, more than 16 million American children are living in poverty and the richest one-tenth percent of Americans have almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.

The only time congressional Republicans have lifted a finger for the past seven years was to point it accusingly at the president. Fear-mongering and personal attacks became common. Trust in the Republican establishment evaporated like so many campaign promises.

Emerging from this toxic atmosphere was the bright and shiny political outsider, ‘The Donald,' to the rescue of the disenchanted.

Promising change in loud, condescending, childlike declarations - repeating his adjectives, "great," "amazing," and "special" - devoid of substance, the grand illusionist gradually won the hearts of the forsaken and desperate. 

Who can resist a peep under the sideshow circus tent?

Despite his anti-establishment appeal, Trump, in essence, is the amplified embodiment of everything ugly about today’s Republican Party.

Rock bottom line: Obsessive greed and the relentless pursuit of absolute power, is the mad scientist that inadvertently electrified and enlivened this amalgamation of our lesser selves, Trump, to run amok, deceive, disparage and ultimately destroy with impunity.  

"Cover-up General" Up To Old Tricks

Deja Vu all over again.

In 1992, New York Times writer William Safire didn't refer to then Attorney General Bill Barr as "Cover-up General" for nothing.

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/10/opinion/essay-iraqgate-whitewash.html https://t.co/r3Rvd6vaqN

Despite Attorney General Barr's rosy, pro-Donald Trump spin on Mueller's findings this morning, the redacted Mueller report released today makes it clear:

The President isn't off the hook. Not by a long shot.

And no amount of predictable disingenuous declarations from any of Trump's loyalists -- whether it's from the coverup AG Barr, Fox News' syphocant Sean Hannity, President's counsel Kellyanne Conway or Trump's studious lawyer Jay Sekulow -- can change that.

President Trump hasn't been cleared of anything other than being honorable.

And as rare as it is these days, amidst a mounting Republican Party black-ops attempt to muzzle it, that's the God's honest truth.

As we already knew, Mueller reports, in part: "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."  
  
But now we know why, after laying out a slew of instances where Trump attempted to obstruct justice or collude, Mueller stopped short of indicting the President.

By his own admission, as stated in the report, Mueller felt constrained by the rule protecting a "sitting president" from indictment.

It's all surreal. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been scratching eachother's back right before our eyes for years.

Remember the Helsinki love fest last summer?

The President took Putin at his word, over U.S. intelligence, that Russia didn't interfere with our 2016 presidential elections.

And what does Trump have to say now that Mueller has unequivocally confirmed Russia's full court press to swing the election for the President?

Nothing, of course. Nothing outside of childishly disparaging the Mueller probe as a political attack "hoax" while claiming vindication. 

So, after Trump gains the presidency by suspicious means, he then tries to obscure the underlying particulars of his Russia connections.

And due to this suspect justice department rule, advocated by Barr, that protects a sitting president, it appears at first glance that Trump gets away with it.

Where's the logic? Where's the justice?  

But we've only glossed through the first chapter of this tale of White House deception and corruption.

It seems Mueller couldn't have played his hand any other way. The bar was high. He knew that Barr was on the record as opposing the indictment of sitting presidents.

And, as Mueller outlined in his report, he couldn't ethically accuse the President when it was clear he wouldn't get his day in court.

If Mueller had recommended charges, it would have kicked off a firestorm of protest from the attorney general, the President and accomplice Conservatives crying foul -- resurrecting claims of "witch hunt."

The fight to bring Trump to justice, perhaps, would have been stopped dead in its tracks. 

So, instead, Mueller punted to Congress. He submitted a thorough, but inconclusive report on Trump's shady behavior as President, knowing Congress will rightfully dig into it and find fodder for impeachment.

"We concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a president’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” wrote Mueller in his 448-page report released by the Justice Department Thursday.  

Bob Mueller knows what he's doing.