1/ So, we discovered PowerPoint presentations delivered by top execs at the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) that described @realDonaldTrump as an “autocratic leader” who runs his administration “like a bad family owned small business.” https://t.co/FV8nczHfKv
Rumor has it that Mueller is preparing to issue indictments for Russians (and who knows who else) for the hacking of the DNC email server in 2016. I wonder if it’s going to be another speaking indictment. He’s telling a story in a specific way, preparing us for what’s to come.
We’ll know who did it and soon we’ll know who benefitted and why.
I feel we’re at the stage in the reaction where we have overcome some energy barrier and it’s all downhill from here.
As I mentioned before, Masha Gessen, a Russian American observer of authoritarianism, has said that she doesn’t think Mueller’s investigation will end conclusively with enough evidence to impeach the president.
But Chris Hayes tweeted last night something to the effect that we can see where this investigation is headed, it is not at all murky or ambiguous, and he fears that we as a country are not ready for what happens next. I’m assuming what he is referring to is a constitutional crisis where it is very clear that the president is guilty of a high crime or misdemeanor and stays in office because the Republican legislature that is supposed to hold him accountable doesn’t.
We could see that Republican phalanx crack sometime in the near future. The Republicans are starting to sweat over the number of special election seats that have flipped red to blue. It’s something like 35 out of 39 elections since 2016. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is so rattled that he canceled special elections in his state for the state legislature’s open seats. That’s about to be challenged in court because cancelling elections is one glaring neon indicator of undemocratic regimes elsewhere in the world and as we can see, the judicial branch is the only one functioning to any degree right now.
Then there is the gun control issue. Republicans are on the wrong side of that issue as well. And reproductive rights and healthcare and DACA and on and on…
The way things are going, they are going to get slaughtered in November at the polls unless they do something drastic and Trump is starting to weigh on them bigly. He’s widely unpopular. The tax breaks turned out to be not much and the corporations that got a drastic reduction in their rates are using most of that money to buy back stock, NOT increase wages of their workers, just like Democrats predicted. So there won’t be a lot of growth in the economy to offset the ballooning deficit.
In other words, Congress might find that it has to do something but it might be constrained by its own ideology from doing anything. And that will just make the rest of us even more determined to get rid of them which may make them dig in their heels.
I suspect that whatever takes down Trump is also going to take down Pence. Especially if vote tampering is discovered and I’m not ruling that out.
So, we are headed for very rocky, unexplored territory. This scandal resembles Watergate in many ways but it’s also more insidious than that because there are no Republicans of principle anymore.
Get ready because this spring and summer is going to get very ugly.
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It has been noted before by mental health professionals that Trump has a problem. The Goldwater rule constrains them from diagnosing him but we can see for ourselves that Trump has a very hard time with empathy. The grandiosity, incredible lack of humility and thinking he knows everything are also pretty obvious. But it’s his lack of empathy that’s really striking. So I was really dismayed but not surprised that Trump referred to the shooter at MSD HS as a sicko.
That kid, and he’s still only 19 years old, practically broadcast his need for help. Our mental healthcare in this country is appalling and depends a lot on what kind of insurance you have. He should have been evaluated and had a lot of outpatient care. Like on daily basis. That’s not what happened.
I was sickened when Trump called him a sicko. No one grows up with the ambition to become a mass murderer. There are some truly evil people in the world. Tim McVeigh comes to mind. And serial killers. But even the university of Texas sniper told people he thought there was something wrong with him before he killed people. It turns out he had a brain tumor, found during the autopsy.
If you have ever had mentally ill people in your life, and I have had several, you know that what they need is compassion and understanding, not name calling and stigma.
I hesitate to pick out the worst things Trump has ever done or said but this surely ranks at the top. What the shooter did was evil. What we failed to do for the shooter before the event was more evil.
And what Trump said about him was the evilest of all because his followers who are equally lacking in empathy won’t think twice about picking on yet another group of people who need help. They don’t seem capable of reflection or love or compassion. It’s only going to make the problem worse.
What’s the purpose of all this meanness?
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The politics of love. Buy a street person hot chocolate.
The Confluence 