Thanks, Trump. Part II

UPDATE: Thursday, the Dow fell more than a thousand points. Trump come, Trump go.

Markets up remarkably. Trump pausing "new" tariffs for 90 days. Who the hell knows what's going on? The situaton may be, as they say, fluid.

Donald Trump Eats Poo

Donald Trump eats poo.

That is all.

Impeachment Predictions

So the House is (finally) opening an impeachment inquiry to see if President Donald Trump is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” or however that quote goes.

Going to make a few predictions:

9/24/2019 – Inquiry announced.

Sometime in December 2019 – Inquiry officially opens.

Election Day, 2019 – Inquiry ongoing. Democratic candidates boxed it out during the primaries, with winner and bloodied all beating the drum of IMPEACH TRUMP, leaving Elizabeth Warren as their nominee and It Doesn’t Even Matter as her vice presidential pick, because the headlines the day after Election Day scream TRUMP WINS SECOND TERM.*

Not that the inquiry, ongoing still after election day, won’t find that he did bad. That he doesn’t deserve to be in the Army. But because the inquiry, in the nature of inquiries, gets dragged on and on and on and on by politics and poker, politics and poker, shuffle up the cards and find the joker. But because the Republican base will always be able to do one thing that the Democratic base will never be able to do: No matter how rotten their candidate is, they will hold their nose and vote for that candidate.

So Mike Pence fills Trump’s second term after Trump is forced from office, sometime in August or September 2021.

It’s a full inquiry. Full impeachment finding him guilty. No resignations; that’s not his style.

And impeachment is what will demand full attention and energy of Congress. Not getting other stuff done. But impeachment and impeachment only. And they’ll still get paid, that’s the beauty of it. And they’ll all feel GOOD they did something RIGHT for a change and they’ll run TV ads saying YES YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL and give us contributions so we can KEEP ON DOING THE BUSINESS OF THE PEOPLE.

Or not.

*I’m NOT in favor of Trump. I’m just making predictions.

This Bears Repeating, Apparently

From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago":

At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). ... For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the stormy applause, rising to an ovation, continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin.

However, who would dare to be the first to stop? … After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who would quit first! And in the obscure, small hall, unknown to the leader, the applause went on – six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly – but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them?

The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter…

Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved!

The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:

“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”

Afraid of Nixon? Wait for Jaworski.

Nixonian.

It’s a popular adjective these days.

Many of the talking heads I’m listening to and many of the schooled and amateur commenters are missing the point, however, when they spew the Nixonian epithet in the wake of President Donald Trump firing FBI Director James Comey over what I’m not exactly sure:

The redress to Nixonianism is Jaworskianism.

Remember your history: Richard Nixon wanted Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox fired for daring to subpoena recordings of Nixon’s conversations with his staff. Attorney General Elliot Richardson refused to fire Cox and resigned – followed by Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus refusal and resignation, the new Attorney General, Robert Bork (who, later would see his own last name used to coin a popular political phrase) fired Cox. Classic Saturday Night Massacre.

Enter Leon Jaworski.

Jaworski came in as the second special prosecutor in the growing Watergate scandal, and contrary to fears (even those expressed by Bork) Jaworski didn’t toe any line except that of justice.

Jaworski immediately subpoenaed the same tapes Cox wanted to listen to, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, saying the “generalized assertion of [executive] privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial.”

Nixon, I suppose, could have fired Jaworski, and kept on firing attorneys general until he found on who would not subpoena the tapes, but not even Nixon is that Nixonian.

What I’m driving at is this: The truth will out, no matter what presidents may or may not do. We’ve seen sufficient checks and balances in our government since January 20, and we will continue to see them. I suppose I’m one of the naïve few who still believes government functions as the Founders intended, even if that functionality is as creaky and slow as it is. In hindsight, it’s also important to remember that the Nixonian epithet didn’t develop overnight, nor did the white hats triumph over the black hats immediately. It took time.  Have faith that government will work, albeit not at the pace you might expect.

As for that investigation, I have my doubts (amateurish as they may be) that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and/or Russian hackers (I don’t dispute the hacking and disinformation campaign took place). The Democrats were going to be split between Clinton and Sanders with or without Russian hacking or disinformation, and the rise of Trump can only be explained by the rise of Trump. Until any investigation can prove collusion that led to victory (despite, remember, Clinton winning the popular vote) I have to question whether the Russian Connection is merely the Democrats’ Benghazi.