The Disease Of Trump

Now that the disease in the Oval Office is threatening American lives perhaps more viscerally than ever, will President Donald Trump loyalists in the electorate finally snap out of their cult-like trance?

Predictably, Trump is more concerned with a slumping stock market -- due to the threat of the Coronavirus to the United States homeland -- than American lives.

"Trump has become furious about the stock market’s slide, according to two people familiar with the president’s thinking," reported The Washington Post recently. But the actual threat of a deadly virus outbreak, in Trump's view, is no big deal.

The President's reported anger with CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) official Dr. Nancy Messonnier's pre-emptive press conference Wednesday to knowledgeably inform the citizenry of potential dangers of the Coronavirus, which has infected some 60 Americans in the States, is more par for the of course.

Nothing matters more to Trump than his perceived successful economy that caters to the richest one percent at the expense of the middle class and poor. Expect more obfuscation of the truth now that Wall Street has officially suffered it's worst week since the 2008 start of the Great Recession.

It doesn't help matters that Trump irresponsibly fired the U.S. pandemic response team and cut CDC funding in 2018, reportedly as a cost-saving measure. The cuts forced the CDC to abandon its foreign aid to prevent the spread of infectious disease in countries -- including China, according to Judd Legum's "Popular Information" newsletter.

And Trump's move of late to appoint Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the U.S. response to the Coronavirus threat doesn't inspire confidence either. As Governor of Indiana, Pence was criticized for mishandling an HIV outbreak that infected more than 200 people in a single county between 2013 and 2015. It took Pence two years before authorizing a needle exchange program that eventually curbed the number of HIV cases.

In a further disturbing move, that reflects Trump's drive for autocratic control, the President has ordered that all government health officials must clear any statements about the Coronavirus, detected in 47 countries and which has caused more than 2,000 deaths, through Pence's office.

At his damage-control press conference, the President also misrepresented the time frame for the availability of a Coronavirus vaccine, seemingly in an attempt to reassure investors of a faltering stock market. A red-faced Trump claimed a vaccine "is coming along quickly."

More than once, administration officials have been obliged to refute Trump's placating embellishment. In that same press conference, a National Institute of Health physician stated that it would be at least a year before a Coronavirus vaccine is available.

In the meantime, right wing hate radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was downplaying the Coronavirus, likening it to "common cold" and absurdly insinuated that Dr. Messonnier's warning to Americans to prepare for the virus, was part of a plot to undermine Trump.

Americans by no means should panic in light of the increased threat of the Coronavirus spreading in our country. But to what degree has President Trump's cuts to the CDC, downplaying and slow response of the virus's threat, already put vulnerable citizens' lives at risk?

Obsessive Trump believers, in the coming days and weeks, may have their best chance yet to more soberly assess just whose side the President is truly on, and for their own good, rethink their undying allegiance.

Normalizing The White-collar Criminal Elite

An emboldened President Donald Trump's long-demonstrated devotion to normalize criminal behavior (his embracing dictators Rodrigo Duterte, Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin) is predictably mutating into something more abhorrently brazen -- all, of course, to muddle the truth of his own glaring guilt.

Mitt And Nancy Derserve "Medal Of Freedom"

Well, that didn't take long -- to put Mitt Romney's head "on a pike."

Now, we know reportedly what a confidant of President Donald Trump meant when he warned Senators that Republicans voting to convict Trump, would end up with their "head on a pike."

CBS News reported just more than a week ago that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned: "Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike."

Sneaky, black ops Trump operators must have had that attack ad all geared up and ready to roll after Romney was one of just two Republicans who voted to call for witnesses last week in Trump's Senate impeachment trial.

The Senate had barely acquitted Trump of impeachment for abuse of power and obstructing Congress, when Trump's TV ad slamming Romney as some kind of spy hit the airwaves.

Trump and his apologists are such a pathetic, petty, truth-twisting, justice-obstructing bunch. Romney deserves credit. 
It's not easy to be a lone dissenter among your party on such a monumental decision.

And credit also goes to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- who appropriately tore up Trump's hypocritical, exceedingly disingenuous, pandering State of The Union address moments after the President finished up Wednesday night. 

In fact, maybe Mitt and Nancy should both be awarded the "Medal of Freedom" for their courageous actions in defense of the American Republic.

Cover Up -- Or Flat Out Betrayal?

Republican Senators willful blindness to the glaring facts that demonstrate Trump's abuse of power and clear obstruction of Congress is not so much a cover-up, as it is a blatant betrayal.

To call the Republican Senators dismissal of the President's impeachable offenses a "cover-up" is really a misnomer.

Our elected Republican representatives - abetted by theatrical, deceptive White House counsel, obstructed justice by any disingenuous means available -- in the light of day and right in front of our face.

Our Founding Fathers obviously imagined a future President of the United States abusing his power to such a degree that it demand impeachment.

What the Founders didn't foresee, was an entire political party of legislators abandoning their oath to uphold The Constitution of the United States and selling their souls to protect a tyrannical cult leader posing as President.

"If you find that the House has proved its case and still find to acquit, your name will be tied to (Trump's) with chords of steel and for all of history," berated lead Democratic House manager Adam Schiff on Monday. 

So far a handful of Republican Senators -- Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), Marco Rubio, (Fla.) and Rob Portman, Ohio, have indicated that the House indeed had proved it's case -- that Trump pressured Ukraine to help him cheat in the 2020 elections by withholding nearly $400 million in vital, Congress-approved military aid.

But those Senators essentially have said "So, what?" Trump's offenses don't warrant impeachment.

Now that it's okay for the president of the United States to shake down a foreign government for political favors how much further will American democracy backslide?

"You may be asking, how much damage can (Trump) he really do in the next several months until the election? A lot. A lot of damage,” said Schiff in his mpeachment trial arguments. “This is why, if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters and truth matters. Otherwise we are lost.”

Senate Republicans blocking witnesses in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, on their speedy way to acquitt the President come Wednesday, will have some explaining to do for some time to come.

How can a legislative body, charged with conducting a fair trial and purportedly following impeachment precedent, deny key witnesses -- like former National Security Advisor John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney -- who were figuratively begging to be heard from?

All 15 of the nation's past Senate impeachment trials since 1804 -- mostly judges and a few presidents -- heard from witnesses.

What's a trial without witnesses? A sham.

And exactly why is Chief Justice John Roberts presiding over the impeachment trial if he's going to play the role of a stuffed shirt while our Constitution, rule of law is eviscerated?

Democratic House managers did a masterful job presenting damning testimonial evidence interspersed with video clips of testimony from most of the 17 government witnesses who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings in December.

Many of the witnesses in the House proceedings were long- serving Republican U.S. government officials. Some were even Trump appointees.

But White House counsel, led by Pat Cippione, Jay Sekulow and Ken Starr didn't want to hear the damning evidence against Trump, which nailed down the incriminating details surrouding Trump's July 25, 2019 shakedown phone call with the Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelinsky.

They pathetically argued that House  Democrats impeached the President simply because they "don't like" Trump, reducing the President's trial to a mere popularity contest.

Hence, there's no grounds for impeachment here. It's a simplistic, child-like argument our thin-skinned, narcissistic President might make.

Cippione and Sekulow persistently sent up smoke screens, distracting from the facts and challenging the legitimacy of the House's impeachment procedures -- while fear mongering a "partisan impeachment."

But, who are they to accuse the other side of partisanship? That's so Trumpian.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in effect, declared the President "not guilty" through his professed allegiance to Trump, weeks before the Trump's Senate impeachment trial gaveled to order. 

"Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel,” said McConnell in mid December, shortly after the House voted to impeach President Trump. “There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this to the extent that we can.”

Meanwhile, President Trump is emboldened to stretch the boundaries of decency, truth and justice that much further in the same way he does at his "Keep America Great" rallies.

Thousands flocked to the boardwalk town of Wildwood, NJ, in the dead of winter this past week to experience Trump's mind-numbing "Reality TV" schtick.

The 7,500-seat capacity Wildwood Convention Center Convention was packed and thousands gathered outside to watch the President on a Jumbotron TV. 

Wildwood is in my neck of the woods. So, I was among the rally goers outside the center to witness the spectacle.

Predictably, the President lied about crowd sizes, embellished job numbers and incited anger toward Democrats, The Press and anything he perceives as a threat to expose his swindling of the American Republic.

And the crowds loved it. Truth is fast becoming obsolete in the theatre of American Republican politics.

It seriously makes you wonder if in Trump's alternate universe, in which so many Americans seems to live, is there anything this brazen, crude and divisive President can do wrong?