Not Counting Calories (Cohen And Faithful Trumpers)

by with No Comment FeaturedPolitics

During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Donald Trump regularly ate McDonald’s and other fast food. Each meal contained nearly a day’s worth of calories and sodium! Almost double the recommended daily dose of saturated fat and two and a half times the sugar he should eat in a day, according to US Dietary Guidelines.

When the National Champion Clemson Tigers visited the White House, the traditional catered meal wasn’t an option due to the government shutdown. Instead, Trump famously paid for their dinner… an all-out fast food buffet extravaganza! Enough food that surely broke the record for calories per person. 

Trumps eating habits would only bother one who actually took their health seriously. And one of the ways you do that is by watching your calorie intake.

Even without the bun, which is how Trump eats his sandwiches, fast food is ridiculously unhealthy. But Trump doesn’t care about that, and you know who else isn’t counting calories… beloved Trump voters just like Trump himself, they don’t care about calories. 

Even though there’s a not so shocking correlation in that the states who voted for Trump are also the most obese states in the nation, I’m not just talking about food. I’m talking about the evidence that continues to pile up against the improprieties of the Donald Trump presidency.

The Cohen interview… hearing… spilling the tea… whatever you want to call it, it’ll have zero effect on Trump voters, despite how damaging it was against the Trump presidency.

Why is this important? 

Because Trump has entrenched a cult, and not based solely on party lines; but of people who believe his acts are on the right side of history. They don’t really believe this, nor do they care. They care that Trump is a president mostly for the preservation and advancement of Whiteness, more so than any president since Reagan.

Though that’s toxic for all, it’s what they know (a White majority thinking nation) and what makes them most comfortable. Just like fast food. You see that golden arch after a long drive or long day, and no matter how much you know it will hurt your stomach and destroy your diet, you begrudgingly pull into the drive-thru line and place your order… a number 2… super-sized… with a Diet Coke, of course. 

Mueller’s Russia Investigation: Why this Big NothingBurger will be Trump’s Saving Grace

by with No Comment Gen Z

Let’s face it folks… It’s been over two years since the FBI used real Russian Collusion via Hillary’s Campaign financing, the infamous Trump Dossier through Fusion GPS, and Russian Operatives to start investigating Trump for fake Russian Collusion.  And it’s been a year and a half since Mueller started spending millions of dollars trying to prove Russian Collusion… and NOTHING.  They used the Hillary-financed fake (or at least unverified) dossier to start surveilling Trump’s associate, Carter Page, and others.  And yes, they did ‘tap’ Trump Tower looking for information. They said they did all this to protect poor vulnerable Mr. Trump from the big bad Russians, yet they did not surveil the Hillary campaign who actually did get hacked by the Russians!  Hmmm? Seems odd… almost like they had other reasons for doing so? 

So after two years and many lives of very decent (Gates, Papadoplous & Flynn) and some not so decent (Manafort & Cohen) people being ruined by this investigation, there have been many indictments.  The charges so far include tax evasion and lying to the FBI, but nothing to tie any of these men to Russia and certainly not collusion. Mueller is ruining lives by trying to force these men and others to take plea deals so he can squeeze them for other information on Trump or bury them with legal fees if they don’t falsely admit to lying.  It’s a sad time for our Constitution when an individual’s rights and freedoms are violated for political reason or any reason for that matter.

So how is Mueller’s Russia Investigation Trump’s Saving Grace?  

It starts with the fact that after 2 years, NO American citizen has been charged with anything even close to collusion with the Russians.  Zero.  And that is very significant.  Trump has tweeted ‘no collusion’ and ‘witch hunt’ with regard to Mueller’s investigation hundreds of times, which in essence established the benchmark Mueller needs to hit to prove that the investigation was worthwhile — proof of Trump working with Russia to influence the election. For many of his supporters, anything short of that mark is indeed a sign that Mueller has come up dry.  And that may prove to be Trump’s saving grace. 

One of the main issues facing the President is campaign financing.  That story alone is exceptional in the history of presidential campaign behavior.  Even the idea that a President would be implicated in an illegal payoff to secure an election would be an unusual occurrence in U.S. history, especially one where he won by less than 100,000 votes in 3 key states. 

Trump set the high standard of misbehavior at ‘direct collusion’ months before any of this other stuff emerged. For every new revelation about criminal activity by people related to the Trump campaign or for every new development in the campaign finance story, the immediate response from Trump and his base is consistent: “Where’s the collusion? Show me the collusion.”

Imagine if this Russia investigation or these campaign finance allegations didn’t exist?  Imagine if Trump’s evolving lies about what happened were the most significant issue the President faced? The direct pressure he faced would probably be more significant.  The Russian Collusion ‘Witch Hunt’ will never implicate Trump in any criminal activity. The fact that it occupies the public’s minds right now instead of the campaign finance issue gives Trump cover.  So, for all of his dislike of the Mueller Russia Investigation, it just might end up being his Saving Grace.

Cohen Stands Alone

by with No Comment FeaturedPolitics

As my father used to say, “A man without a center can have no sides.” That saying seems perfectly suited to Michael Cohen, former fixer for Donald Trump, as he was sentenced today to three years in prison despite loudly and vehemently decrying his former boss – to whom he once declared fervent loyalty.

And yet the President sent him clear signals in pardoning Scooter Libby – a man with little need of a pardon, having already had his sentence commuted, regained his voting rights and even having been reinstated to the bar.

Libby was, in fact, a good model for a man who finds himself in his initial position. Libby stayed loyal to VP Cheney and (perhaps?) to President Bush, went to jail quietly and returned with a place to go, the same powerful friends, a life and the ability to earn a living. Why side with Mueller when your ally is a multi-billionaire with pardoning power, willing to use that power in the first year of his term? 

Cohen would have been wise to have taken a hint. Manifort surely seemed to in his final days. Upon realizing he was still likely to see prison, Manafort self-destructed as a witness, preferring some time in prison to a lifetime of isolation from friends, colleagues, and his profession.

Cohen it seems was never that smart. Making a career compensating for a lack of skills and work ethic with ethical flexibility, he found himself blowing in the winds of more determined men – and so he finds himself today as he heads off to prison. He is likely to find few friends in jail as a ‘rat’ who turned on his boss, and may find even fewer as he returns home without his profession, friends, or his former self-professed mentor.

Don’t feel sorry for Cohen. He’s a criminal. And what’s more, he’s a buffoon of a criminal who sacrificed his ethics for his boss, and then sacrificed his boss for nothing at all.  

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS (A BLACK WOMAN AND TWO FELONS)

by with One Comment PoliticsTrump Administration

Last week, Omarosa Manigault, formerly Trump’s lone Black advisor, did her rounds blasting the President. Of course, she wrote a book looking to cash in. Nothing new there. Besides, that seems to be the de facto move immediately following a relationship going south in Washington. But even more interesting, she’s claiming to have more than 200 recordings of her time in the White House. One can only guess what’s on those recordings. She’s also claiming that Trump is a racist and has said the N word. I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that some pundits have suggested that such a tape would be a deal breaker, as if the President has shown no signs of discrimination rhetorically or policy wise, or the fact that Omarosa wants us to believe she didn’t know or think the President was a racist for the past 20 years until the moment Kelly fired her in the Situation Room.

Either way, this dog, as he referred to her in a tweet, might have his card and stop at nothing to ruin him… and in Trump fashion, get paid while doing it.

This week, as if things couldn’t get any worse, Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was found guilty on 8 felony charges including tax and bank fraud.

And his long time “fixer” attorney, Michael Cohen, who once vowed to take a bullet for the President, did the exact opposite and pleaded guilty to 8 felony charges including campaign financing violations.

Weeks ahead. Mueller and his team are clearly working hard. Omarosa will likely leak tape after tape as slowly as possible to ensure she cashes in for as much and as long as she can. Convicted felon Manafort’s second trial, where he faces charges of lying to the FBI and money laundering, begins next month in Washington, DC. Cohen has shown his true colors, the facade of being a loyal solider didn’t last long when he was faced with an ultimatum. Oh, and the mid-terms are coming up.

Can the Democrats gain enough momentum to win big and take back the House? With all this chaos surrounding Trump and the White House, if Dems can’t capitalize and convince voters to vote Blue instead of Red in November, this country deserves a Trump presidency and everything that comes with it. After all, the American people will have voted for him… twice.

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A Tangled Web, Mueller Eyes Cohen

by with No Comment Uncategorized

After a short lull in developments in the Mueller probe, the F.B.I. conducted a raid of Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen’s office and hotel room on Monday. While this is a significant development, it’s probably not as definitive or conclusive as some might wish. However, it is very interesting, and adds another layer to the complex network of connections this investigation is uncovering.

First, Mueller’s team didn’t order the raid, and it doesn’t appear to be directly related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Mueller, apparently not willing to investigate all of the evidence his team uncovers, referred the matter to prosecutors unconnected with the investigation. Then the Justice Department gave the green light. This is a big deal. Trump’s own Justice Department authorized the raid.

So, what does this mean?

It doesn’t mean that Cohen had anything directly to do with Russian interference, although that might come up later. The search warrant includes documents from several years back, which might indicate that there’s a long history of shady dealings. One of those was a pitch by close Trump associate Felix Sater about a property deal in Russia. This is not a revelation; emails were uncovered recently between he and Cohen discussing the potentially lucrative deal.

It does mean that something big may be happening. Search warrants authorizing raids like this are used only in situations when it’s strongly believed that the subject will not willingly turn over potential evidence, and in fact may attempt to destroy it. While the raid isn’t because of suspicion of interference in the election, it could dredge up evidence that happens to have that connection. And this evidence will be shared with Mueller’s team. So, it would seem that Mr. Cohen has a lot to worry about, one way or another.

Cohen has been one of Trump’s closest confidantes for more than a decade. He’s been privy to many of the inner workings of the Trump Organization, and no doubt has many sensitive documents full of privileged information. Any evidence uncovered could have far-reaching consequences.

Trump can scream to the rafters that the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt, but the search is an indication that there is a rumbling of a volcano that will surely erupt into real charges. When is anyone’s guess, but Mueller better have something solid to show pretty soon.

His job is more at risk now than ever before.