One thing you have to say about Trump, he's consistent. Basically, he's full of shit 100% of the time. His word has the life expectancy of a may fly buzzing over a trout stream. He violated his solemn oath of office on the second his fat, lying, New York lips said the words, by refusing to divest himself from hotels that thrived on income from foreign governments, bringing him afoul of the emoluments clause of the US constitution. He promised to repeal and replace Obamacare on day one in office, and we all both fortunately, and gleefully saw how that one turned out. He promised to bring only "the best and brightest" into his administration, and we ended up with The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. He promised to "drain the swamp", and said swamp has now expanded to the size that it occupies an area roughly the size of Lake Michigan. The list goes on and on.
But those are just words, and we all learned the hard way that all politicians lie their asses off, They say whatever the sheeple will believe to get them elected. As conservative political pundit PJ O'Rourke once wrote in Parliament of Whores, "Note for me, and I'll bring the pork home in boxcars. I'll hire a tutor to do Jumior's homework. If your garden hose makes a puddle, I'll build a 4 lane bridge over it. You'll work a 40 hour year instead of week, and you'll get unemployment for your days off. Vote for me and you'll be farting through silk." You've gotta admit, it sounds familiar, and just about right.
But, if your word is your bond, than a "red line" should be your Gold Bond (I love puns). President Obama drew a "red line" over chemical weapons use by Assad in Syria, and we all saw how it turned out when he backed down on that promise, he was skewered for it. Which I agreed with. We all know a politicians words are bullshit, but a red line should stand for more. As the old saying goes, "You don't point a gun at somebody unless you're ready to pull the trigger." A President can't afford to back down from red lines, or other leaders and despots won't pay attention to them in the future.
So far, to the best of my knowledge, Jabba the Trump has drawn two red lines in the sand. The first one was identical to Obama's, a red line over chemical weapons use in Syria. That one he followed through on, launching a missile strike against the airbase that Syrian helicopters took off from to drop chemical weapons on a Syrian rebel held town. Although it came out later that he actually tipped his hand, sneaking word when and where the raid was taking place, allowing the Russians and Syrians to get their troops out before the missiles hit. To me, this kinda seems like the cops calling the pushers to let them know that they're raiding the meth lab at 3:00, but wadda I know? At leawt he followed through.
But Trump also drew another red line, and guess what? It's just about time to pay the piper Rainbow Bright. Several months ago, in an interview with the New York Times discussing the Mueller investigation, Trump was asked if Mueller looking into his and his family's personal business dealings would be considered crossing a red line. Trump's response was, "Uh-huh, yes. I think that would be crossing a red line, yeah."
Well, red line crossed, numbnuts. It has already been reported that Bob Mueller has at least some of Darth Silius' previous tax returns. It has been reported that Mueller has people combing through Trump company records, researching possible money laundering in various real estate deals in New York and Florida. It is already known that Mueller is digging into Jared Kushner's contortionist accounting to try and keep his 666 Fifth Avenue boondoggle afloat. I guess there's a reason why the number "666" is associated with the devil, at least in Kushner's case, that property seems to be his personal dybbuk. And on a non financial front, Mueller and congress are investigating Kushner's undisclosed Russian contacts and Li'l Donnie's digital kissy-face with Wikileaks. The walls are closing in.
Trump actually had his chance to get rid of Mueller, and he blew it. And please remember, Trump can't directly fire Mueller, he was appointed by the then acting Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, Mueller doesn't serve at the pleasure of the President, and I can guarantee you that Trump is not taking any pleasure at all at the work of Mueller and his minions of legal doom.Rosenstein would have to fire Mueller, for cause, since AG Jeff Sessions is recused from the probe, and I don't see Rosenstein doing that. 4-6 months ago, Trump probably could have weathered the fallout from axing Mueller, even at the expense of another "Saturday Night Massacre". But now, with polling showing that with the constant bombardment, and damning , coming out of the Mueller investigation having more Americans taking the issue seriously, and with polling showing an increasing number of Americans, including Republicans believing that there were more likely than not crimes committed, Trump is boxed in. If Trump were to try to fire Mueller now, especially with the specter of a GOP bloodletting coming in the 2018 midterms, I find it highly likely that congress would just reinstate the Special Prosecutor law, and hire Mueller to pick up right where he left off, removing the possibility of Trump firing him again.
And so, it is my belief that in the next few, brief months, we may well find ourselves teetering on the razors edge of a constitutional crisis. The time for shutting Mueller up is long past. Too much credible and damning information has come out, and just like the Brangelina breakup, more and more Americans want to know every last, sordid detail. If Trump tries to fire Mueller, he will lead to the final breakup of the Republican party, an unbridgeable schism between "sane" Republicans that actually believe in something, and want to keep their jobs, and the brainless TeleTrumpies, who just want to see the walls of the government come tumbling down.
And one more thing before I take my leave of you. With his mandatory narcissistic braggadocio about "the unlimited powers" of the Presidential pardon, Trump has shown his hole card before the river card is flipped. Nixon knew enough to not pardon his advisers over Watergate, certainly not preemptively, leaving them to their fate. Even Bush Lite knew better than to pardon Scooter libby over the outing of Valerie Plame, he let him spend time in the crossbar Hilton, and even then didn't pardon him, he simply commuted his sentence. It is becoming more and more obvious that the American public is getting fed up with this bullshit, the Virginia election is a prime example of that. If Trump tries to pardon family members like Donnie redux or Jared Kushner, or even Michael Flynn, especially if he does it before convictions, the impeachment process will almost immediately start, for abuse of power if nothing else. At this point, the GOP wants him gone almost as badly as everybody else does. And if he tries to pardon himself, I have absolutely no doubt that we'll end up seeing what the Supreme Court has to say on that subject. From where I'm sitting, either way he's fucked. And it couldn't happen to a more deserving scumbag.
Reposted on The Trump Impeachment