James Dannenbaum was known as a political Sugar Daddy, or maybe whore depending on how you looked at it, all around Texas.

He had no political core values.  He just gave to people who could hire his engineering company to do government business.  His political money went from congressmen to county commissioners.  At the county commissioner level, they get to award “professional contracts” without any bidding process to architectural, engineering, and legal firms.  That’s why county commissioner is the most easily corruptible political office in Texas.

Well, James Dannenbaum finally got caught.  I interviewed him years ago for the newspaper. I’ll tell you the story sometime, but he tried to wiggle his way out of a little jam by talking about all his church work and his charities.  Of course, he only gave them about 10% of what he scammed.

So, the wheels of justice, which buys lots of lawyers, finally rolled over Dannenbaum.  Late last year —

A former University of Texas regent pleaded guilty Friday to circumventing federal election law in 2017, characterizing the plea as a solemn turning point in his 80-year life otherwise centered on family, church and philanthropic work.

Houston resident James Dannenbaum, the former CEO of a prominent Texas engineering firm, admitted to a federal judge he illegally reimbursed employees for donations to a candidate for the U.S. Senate and two candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. He pleaded guilty to making contributions between $10,000 and $25,000 in the names of other people.

He’s due for sentencing on March 5th.  His lawyers have already announced they may have to adjust his hearing for his expected heart surgery.

Oh yeah.  Of course.

And then his lawyers filed this today. They want to know the sentences received by other 80 year olds.

Y’all, I know this man.  I have seen what he’s done. He has a bad heart, in more ways than one.  He’s had 80 years of fun, two years of paying for it won’t kill him.

Okay, so it appears that we can make up funny nicknames, too.  And it’s for Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz tweeted yesterday –

Scenes from the impeachment trial: Schumer invited Lev Parnas to be his personal guest today at the trial. Minutes ago, Parnas was ejected from the gallery…because he’s wearing an ankle bracelet mandated bc he’s a criminal defendant accused of serious felonies! #CantMakeItUp

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 29, 2020

Well, come to find out. You can, indeed, make that up.

Parnas’ lawyer answered back —

Fake news Ted Cruz, makes up something that can’t be made up. Lev Parnas’ attorneys attended the trial, while Lev joined us for a unity walk & press conference. Lev wasn’t “ejected.” Read the news, check the facts, #callthewitnesses. Why not depose him now, Ted? Just let us know. https://t.co/PInidwLra6

— Joseph A. Bondy (@josephabondy) January 29, 2020

Several hours later, Ted corrected himself.  Well, kinda. “Turns out,” he said, “what I was told in the Cloakroom was slightly inaccurate.”  Slightly?  Yes, Parnas was there.  He never tried to go in the gallery.  That’s “slight” in astronomical terms.

They are all going to hell, I tell you.

In a truly jaw dropping moment during the question period at Trump’s impeachment trial, Alan Dershowitz spewed some pretty outrageous assertions, especially when he tried to defend arguing the opposite side of what he argued for the Clinton impeachment trial in 1998.  But the breathtaking moment came when Dershowitz actually said that if the president believes his reelection is in “the public interest”,  he can do ANYTHING.  That’s right, folks, Alan Dershowitz, of OJ Simpson and Jeffery Epstein fame, has now debased himself completely by actually claiming that the president of the United States is immune from all oversight and consequences as long has he/she BELIEVES their reelection is in “the public interest”.  The “public interest”?  Dershowitz has cleared Richard Nixon of the crimes he committed because he believed his reelection was good for America.

This is the logical result from Trump’s “if I deny it, I didn’t do it defense”.  Now, denial is not even needed; if the president believes his actions are in “the public interest” he can just do it and no one can do anything about it. Trump has actually declared himself monarch, and HALF of the Senate is enabling that.  I wonder how they’ll feel about their position when he suspends the Constitution and disbands the Congress if he wins (or even loses) the election.

Remember during the 2012 and 2016 elections when Republicans admitted (on television) that their strict voter ID laws were not about fictional “voter fraud”, but about suppressing Democratic voter turnout?  Well, in 2020, it’s happened again.  This time, right-winger, Joni Ersnt of Iowa, said (on television) that the Iowa caucuses were coming up and mused about how smearing Joe Biden using the Trumped up Ukraine conspiracy was going to hurt him by keeping people from caucusing for him.

The shocking thing about how conservatives talk is that they say this crappola so much amongst themselves that they blurt it out are the worst time – for them.  The jig is up.  Not only was Trump trying to smear Biden with a fake conspiracy theory and associated fake investigations, the GOP is continuing that strategy by saying “Biden” as much as possible during the trial about TRUMP.

Remember seeing the long lines for Trump’s rally where people spent the night waiting?

Click here to see it in all its glory.

A friend reminded me that F. Scott Fitzgerald had some thoughts about Daisy and Tom, who are now the Trump supporters.

“They were careless people.  They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Perfect fit for Trump.

By the way, it came out today that 50 soldiers got brain injuries in the Iran strike.  This is math.  You’d think they could get math right.

Chapter 52 in Trump’s memoirs: Trump reminds us of the time he hired Best People John Bolton in a tweet this morning.

“For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying ‘Don’t do it, sir,’ takes the job, mistakenly says ‘Libyan Model’ on T.V., and many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?”

And never forget that he knows “all the best words.”

Y’all, he tweeted about Bolton at midnight last night and then restarted at 6:28 this morning.

Republicans are to the point of admitting that Trump did it all but that it’s not impeachable.  That gives me two thoughts: (1) what else are they hiding that they are afraid will come out with witnesses? and (2) if extorting for your personal political benefit the leader of a foreign country with money that belongs to the American people, has been approved by congress, and is desperately needed for that ally’s national defense is not impeachable, what is?