Trump and his family are self described business folks. While their legacy in business is debatable, that they come from the corporate world not political becomes more obvious everyday. We don’t know yet if Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia last year but the Trump family isn’t making it easy for innocence to be considered.
This week Donald Trump Jr. became the center of the Russian storm. After days of having his ever changing story disproven by leaks, he released the emails in question. They did not vindicate him. When asked if he would like information on Clinton gathered by Russia to aid his father, he says he would love it. He brought Kushner and Manafort to the meeting, the Russian lawyer ended up not having anything on Clinton. Leaving us in a situation where we know that the Trump campaign would have colluded but not if they did.
Ignore the discussion of impeachment for a moment. What other implications are there? One is a revelation behind the curtain. Political operators have long been portrayed as ruthless anything goes types in movies but the real political world always had norms and bounds. I’m not saying they are knights of the round table. Yet even the Gore campaign called the FBI when someone leaked Bush’s campaign bible to them. This event shows the business world core of the Trump universe one where damning emails end in a fine and mea culpas but in politics things end differently just ask Abramoff.
The anti-left media keeps yelling Ukraine like its Benghazi (as a waste of time). A low level former staffer is not the same as a high campaign advisor and candidate’s child. Manafort did in fact lobby for pro Russia candidates in Ukraine and was unable to hide it. Whether the decision to remove support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion from the GOP platform came from Manafort is unknown. In the end, evidence from a foreign public investigation is not close to the same as a foreign nation stealing documents from a political opponent to aid a candidate. As Watergate taught us having your own countrymen steal documents is damning without foreign involvement.
The emails aren’t a smoking gun for criminal proceedings but they without a doubt bolster Mueller’s investigation. One can only wonder what subpeonas will uncover.
-E.C. Fiori
Tag: president
Day 151: Found Them
Day 124: The Gospel of America
Since the beginning, America has struggled between two destinies: God and Gold. The Virginians and southern colonies birthed by Corporations and Massachusetts and it’s offshoots birthed by the Cloth. Later Slave and Free. Internal migration has shifted the strongholds as we grew and the struggle continues. In the Pax Americana, God is embodied in American Values and physical gold has become the intangible notion of Capital.
American Values have become endangered in the 21st century. The change from liberalism to neoliberalism was mostly removing the morality from the pursuit of profit. Sweat shop child labor became acceptable again for low low prices. Factory shuttering and relocation to countries where worker exploitation is still in vogue has damaged not just an American’s earning potential but our integrity. American world power is more than the number of aircraft carriers we have. It is that the international community is held to our standards and those that fall short are not rewarded. The current administration has voiced that profits are more important than human rights, the cornerstone of Americanism. This has been unspoken policy for some time.
How else can we explain American business’ dependence on China as anything other than selling out our values?
The Great Firewall blocks the truth and free speech maintained in large thanks to American companies. Google gave the Chinese government the data of dissents who are now jailed or executed. How do we explain a major arms sale to Saudi Arabia? A country that practices gender apartheid. A woman last month was detained in the Philippines while fleeing to Australia to escape a forced marriage who was beaten and tied up like a slave by the relatives sent to retrieve her. Our former territory is just as horrific under the murderer Duarte.
The American Way isn’t just a marketing phrase for comic books. It is why the Union won, why the Reich fell, and why Americans are still dying in the desert. It would be an incomprehensible tragedy for Freedom and Justice to survive the jihad to be slaughtered in the boardroom.
– 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
Day 3: No One Can Be Everything
Trump opens his presidency stating a lie that his inauguration was the most attended ever. I think the photo comparing 2009 to 2017 was an unflattering angle but 2009 had a bigger crowd. There’s no shame in saying Trump supporters are usually found far from Washington. This morning we were given “alternative facts” by Kellyanne Conway on “Meet the Press”. This is Trumpland. When it comes to debriefing the people it will be strictly agitprop.
In the opposition, chaos reigns. Organizers and public officials have different numbers on the attendees of the event. Just taking the lower estimate totals still amounts to the largest presidential protest in America. But what were they protesting everything. Some protested Jimmy Fallon as the source of Trump’s win. Demanding he cover their medical bills. I assume in this age they were satirical in nature but that is truly worse. 2.5 million people isn’t close to a percent of the nation. A protest of everything in the sense that yesterday’s gathering amounts to a beginning at best.
I’ve seen today people call for attendees to call their senators and reps. It is a next step. But with such an unending list all considered equal there is no agenda. Just the ever emerging demographic majority. This isn’t to say protests are useless and that the organizers aren’t building on the momentum. In my opinion the first is to save ACA along with the necessary reforms. Especially stopping the now discussed conversion of Medicaid to block state grants. I’m glad to see Charlie Baker the Republican Governor of Massachusetts writing against the notion of cutting back funding. Reach out to people outside the bubble and ask them about their grandparents benefits that they earned through hard work. The pressure must spread.
-E.C. Fiori
Day 1: The Progressives Don’t Stand a Chance
One woman proclaims identity politics will save the democrats and by proxy America.
The Atlantic lambasted his inaugural address for being too dark.
I frothed at Trump’s convention acceptance speech, it was the call of a dictator. The bellicose voice raging for law and order that stemmed from him and him alone.
We saw a different man swear the oath. He spoke of returning Washington to the people. Rhetoric not matched by his cabinet picks. Is he still unqualified and indifferent to that fact? Yes. Still a threat through his conflicts of interest? Yes. Will any unconstitutional action be fought? Yes. But when we been attacking every action we become the problem. If we believe that our elections have meaning. If we hold our republic dear. We make the government work.
Democrats must give up federal gun control. It is best left as a local matter. Democrats need to expand their geographical horizons. Get serious in discussing internal investment.
All of us must sacrifice for the republic whether it be taxes, investing through higher wages in our neighbors. Accept many if not most Americans are hurting from a vast number if issues but inequality brings us all down. By resolving inequality the people will have more ability to enact change through monetary power.
Jihad is growing and changing. Russia wants us to become savages under Trump. China is changing. Our current phase of timid imperialism has come to an end. The allies of NATO can pay the 2% for their share. It is still a bargain. The UN must go the way of the League of Nations and be rechartered for the age of multinational nonstate actors from terrorist to corporation.
Do I think Trump is the right man? I sure as hell didn’t vote for him. He got the job anyway and he must do what’s required.
-E.C. Fiori
The Radical Centrists 