Day 121: Something is Rotten in America

Chaffetz is stepping down. 
The Trump team knew of the Flynn investigation before hiring him.

Comey kept a paper trail.
I don’t want to leap off a cliff of fancy but it isn’t hyperbole to say something is very wrong. 
Chaffetz fleeing the spotlight is like canary dying. He showboated his way to the top of the DC attention heap. Backstabbing his mentors at each opening. His claim that he never planned to spent a lifetime as rep. doesn’t explain why he won’t finish his current term. His position as chairman on the House oversight committee does. Trump is too beloved by Chaffetz’s base to investigate but too hated by the general voter to ignore. Will voters remember his yellow streak in 2028? His url thinks not.
In the White House, more light is being shed. Trump’s team knew Flynn was being investigated for undisclosed payments from a foreign government when they chose him to head the National Security Council. Trump did fire Comey due to the Russian collusion investigation and told the Russians as much. Sessions who lied in his nomination hearing about meeting with the Russians is still AG, the one who ensures the President stays within the law. We do know Trump has business with Russian entities. Any Russian deals done through a shell are still unknown.
We still don’t know a great deal. We can’t say anything criminal has happened but there is enough evidence for cause to investigate. I think a rush to impeach or remove Trump would backfire. He has been the most damning witness in his own scandal. But we also can never take him at his word. You could at least trust Nixon to look out for Nixon but Trump seems to be unaware of the lines he crosses. Its like how the wall was going to be like the one from Game of Thrones magic and all but really is a chain link fence, congress won’t fund. 
I think Trump is unfit and mentally inept for the standards of the presidency. He doesn’t need to be a criminal to be removed but the country would need to be united in chorus for it to happen. Rush Limbaugh changed the title from Advanced Conservative Studies to Advanced Anti-Left Studies. Our democracy has become a sport and religion. We no longer debate policy but preach to hostile converts. We don’t fight in an agreed arena and at some metaphysical level lost our American social contract. This is not a first or a last. The Civil War was the first re-negotiation. The second took place over 25 years beginning with Theodore Roosevelt’s Fair Deal finalized with FDR’s New Deal. Republicans and neo liberals since the Reagan revolution dismantled that agreement. They bring no replacement to the table.
We need to have a society. No one desires the freedom of Somaliland. Community on a large scale is a tremendous gift of humanities. It doesn’t function without effort. It may be imperfect but the cruelties can be softened. If we believe modern is defined as higher quality of life, it should go beyond. Trump is not the Emperor, he is the child. He has shown the empty state of the government and no impeachment can reverse that. People trust a government when they trust their neighbor no matter where they lie on the political spectrum. 
We cannot allow foreign influence in our process of rebirth. That’s why all the current investigations not just the search for criminal evidence matter. We cannot let others define us. Trump is the lesser consequence of the Russian interference.
-E.C. Fiori

Day 17/18/19: An Empty Olympus 

Shame on Republicans especially Rubio, McCain, and Graham on supporting DeVos to become Sec. of Education. Even if you agree with her ideologies, she proved herself to be completely ignorant of her duties in her hearing. Not to mention the confirmation of Tillerson. The story of the Justice Department is equally shameful. Sessions confirmation vote has been delayed to allow him to push through other nominations as a sitting senator leaving the Justice department leaderless as serious court battles befall the executive branch. 
America is without a doubt broken. Congress should be a body to itself and long before Trump gave up their own integrity rubber stamping presidential agendas. Each senator receives a mandate in their election to uphold the constitution and represent their constituents interests. By allowing harmful and incompetent cabinet choices, Congress has seceded their right to advise. With the Wall coming through executive order, they have seceded border control. Each refusal to govern whether by obstruction or blind agreement bleeds our republic and aids the birth of the coming Monarchy. 
This morning has proven to me the easy of the autocracy. Reading about Eric Trump’s recent 2 day business trip cost us $100,000 in secret service and state department costs. Including possible charges for staying and eating in Trump hotels. That’s right the Trump family might be charging us to put their security detail up and making money off it again. This happened during the campaign. For a man who says he is too rich to be bought, his company seems desperate to steal any dime possible from the taxpayer. Granted without his tax returns, we’ll never know anything about his money. The entire Trump cover for the business separation relies on one believing that Trump and his sons don’t talk and Trump is okay losing it all in order to put America first. An impossible position. 
Meanwhile Trump has delayed the ACA replacement until after 2018 midterms. Will he undo his executive order against it? Or will GOP congressman reverse their budget vote? No of course not, so the holes in ACA just got larger. I bet it is an attempt to keep the spectre of the law in play for the midterms. Will it work? They sure weren’t punished for the gov. shutdown. Going back to why elections only work with an informed voter base.
Trump’s defense of Russia keeps getting stranger. I don’t think Putin denies that he is a killer himself, he was KGB. Trump’s belief in the kindness of Putin must stem from the election interference because Putin doesn’t care about non Russians maybe no one other than himself. Trump’s reliance on Putin’s friendship is at least rightfully making waves among the GOP leadership.
In Rome, the shadow president is attempting another halfass coup against Francis. It is foolish because Francis isn’t some global elite pushing an agenda but a humble servant of the Lord simply caring for the poor and other sufferers. It is hard not to see the hand of God in the rise of Francis. His needed shift from the bedroom of believers to the whole of their life. The people have responded I do not believe that Bannon can stop the wave.
In Yemen, Trump’s first authorized raid was so bungled that US ground forces no longer have Yemen’s permission to operate. Iran has used Trump’s provocations to strengthen their totalitarian state. 
Back home Melania is suing over the concept of paid First Lady endorsements in a slander suit. Those are her words “had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multimillion-dollar business relationships for a multiyear term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.” She shouldn’t worry all press is good press for the Trumps no? 
All this begs the question is anyone running America? Trump’s hiring freeze to further shrink a diminishing federal work force. A task the GOP congress would love to finish. 
Not that it matters because the grand new scheme of the left is a Rosie O’Donnell Bannon on SNL as Trump would hate it so much he would get rid of Bannon. This assumes that Trump is manipulated by television and not that television is manipulated by Trump. An argument I don’t believe. The man knows his medium of choice probably better than the Ivied offices of SNL. It never faced Nixon. Go ask the Smother Brothers.
In the 19 days in office, Trump has been busy raising a lot of dirt. Will it amount to anything great? That’s still anyone’s guess. 
-E.C. Fiori