Trump and Giuliani are close to succeeding in permanently damaging Joe Biden through their illegal extortion scheme to smear him.  Add that to attacks from the left who support zero chance presidential candidates, and that makes for an almost insurmountable task for Biden to take the nomination.  It’s a shame, and it’s unfair, but Biden has a real problem.  Similar to Hillary’s baggage in 2016, Biden has been saddled with a “scandal” that’s not a scandal at all.  The problem?  It doesn’t matter if it’s true; the damage is done.  If Biden doesn’t bounce back by double digits in Nevada and South Carolina, it’s going to be over.

So, who can beat Trump in November?  It’s clearly none of the top four Dem candidates, and that has been apparent for months.  Trump is a vicious campaigner and slanderer, and I can’t see ANY of the primary leaders with enough fortitude or toughness to top him.  There’s only one out there, and that’s Bloomberg.  An ACTUAL billionaire, Bloomberg has the resources on top of NY toughness.  He’s already hitting Trump where it hurts insulting him about his silly hairdo, heavy makeup, and obesity.  He’s a street fighter, and an objective numbers guy.  He’s already risen to third in the latest Quinnipiac poll and he’s not even on the early states’ ballots.  Bloomberg won’t take any shit off of Trump, AND will attract those he needs to win – independents, moderate Republicans, and suburban women, the same coalition Barack Obama so successfully assembled in 2008 and 2012, and the one the Dems rode to victory in 2018.  It’s a winning combination.  Tom Friedman made the perfect case for Bloomberg in today’s NY Times.  You can read that here.

And before you say it, I know some of you hate me for my opinions on this election and the last.  I’ve been excoriated for those opinions and some of you have even accused me of misogyny and worse because I didn’t support Hillary, Harris, Klobuchar, or Warren.  I’m about winning.  Period.  As I’ve said before, all policies are secondary in this election.  There is one issue and one issue only in 2020 – beating Trump.  I’m not going to waste even one second arguing over healthcare plans, student loans, war fighting, or even climate change.  Those policy questions are important, critical even.  But THIS is not the year for those discussions.  As Friedman noted, another four Trump years will destroy our country.  His corruption is total, and his control over the Senate, the Judiciary, and the DOJ is nothing short of shocking.  Trump must be beaten and beaten badly  to run him out of office.  Bloomberg is our last, best chance if (when) Biden stumbles; the remaining candidates simply are not.  I know you hate that, but it is what it is.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Last year, Barr’s DOJ granted over $1 million to Hookers for Jesus and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation while denying established organizations Catholic Charities of Miami and Chicanos Por La Causa in Phoenix. Why?  Hookers for Jesus was founded by a conservative christian and anti-gay activist, Annie Lobert.  She is a former prostitute who supposedly ministers to sex workers in Las Vegas.  Oh, and she’s anti-gay.  The Lincoln Tubman Foundation was started in 2018 by the daughter of a Trumpist who was actually a Trump delegate at the 2016 Republican convention.

Why were the more established charities denied?  Both organizations are active with Democrats and oppose cruel Trump immigration policy.  So Trump has even corrupted US charitable grants, damaging those who oppose him and helping friends.  He doesn’t care what it looks like.

As if that meant anything.

In the “I told you so” department, Trump tweeted out his displeasure yesterday that US attorneys in charge of Roger Stone’s felony convictions recommended a 7 to 9 year sentence.  As a reminder, Stone was convicted of lying to Congress about his involvement with the hacking by Russians of the DNC server and coordinating with WikiLeaks, lying to the FBI, and federal witness tampering, not trivial convictions.  Not long after his tweet, Bouncing Bill Barr’s DOJ backpedaled the sentence saying it was reconsidering.  In response and protest, two federal prosecutors resigned.

It’s not like we didn’t know that this was going to happen.  Now the we have Trump Unchained, I’m shocked he hasn’t just given Stone an outright pardon, the Medal of Freedom, and an appointment as head of, say, the Bureau of Land Management.

The corruption of this administration is wide, deep, and getting wider by the moment.

Roger Stone is going to prison unless Donald Trump dusts off his magic wand and practices forgiveness.

He was sentenced to 87 months to 108 months in prison.  Federal Courts use months instead of years for two reasons: (1) to confuse the hell outta reporters who can’t do math in their heads, and (2) they actually tried to use days so their legal fees won’t seem inflated.

That’s 7 to 9 years, 364 to 468 weeks, or 2,555 to 3,285 days plus a couple of leap year days thrown in.

That’s not long enough. Roger Stone is 67 years old. He’s apt to live another 20 years. We do not need a man with a Richard Nixon tattoo living among us again because he didn’t contribute anything the first time.  Am I right?

UPDATE:  This just in from CNN

The Justice Department will backtrack on its request that longtime Donald Trump confidante Roger Stone get up to nine years in prison, a senior department official said Tuesday, contradicting its own federal prosecutors in a highly unusual and politically charged move.

WHY?

 … that sentencing recommendation, transmitted to a judge and signed off on by the office’s top prosecutor, had not been communicated to leadership at the Justice Department.

Yep, just gotta rub our noses in it.  This is Trump Justice.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE.  This just in from CNN

A Justice Department prosecutor who asked a judge to sentence Roger Stone to between seven to nine years in prison has withdrawn from the former Trump aide’s case after reports that officials would seek to reduce the sentencing recommendation.

The withdrawal by prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky on Tuesday came after the initial sentencing guidance was sharply criticized by President Trump, raising questions about potential political interference in the sentencing of Stone. Stone was found guilty of lying to Congress and witness tampering .

Oh good lord, Trump just broke the justice system.  Hell, and he did it before nap time.

Last weekend the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee, the elected body that controls the internal governance of the state party, went all Mardi Gras on Mitt Romney’s ass.

They passed a censure resolution saying that Mitt Romney was being mean to poor, defenseless, picked-on Donald Trump.  Yeah, the same Louisiana Republican Party who refused to censure David Duke.

Now here’s the cup of crazy in the gumbo: the resolution was written before Romney voted for impeaching Trump.  If they’d known he was going to do that, I suspect they’d replace language like …

with, “he’s a butt face.”  Oh, give me a break, they are only about 6 people in all of Louisiana who know what egregious, rhetoric or belligerent even mean, and exactly none of them were at the Republican convention.

It passed with a voice vote.  They were drunk and showing people their ta-tas.

Okay, already there’s talk.

I dunno – we usually get our act together by mid summer.  However, I think people missed part of the process last time and aren’t anxious to coronate anyone.  I would not count on a floor fight because the Super Delegates kept just enough power to win.  They gave away just enough power to make it a landslide.

I’m not anxious for a fight in Texas.   When I was younger, it didn’t bother me at all.  Hell, I even wrote about it.

I think I’ve grown weary of all the whining and finger pointing.  Honey, we Democrats can nurse a grudge back from the dead and carry it around for fifty more years.  Speaking of which, I used to have a bumper sticker that said, “I don’t care if Nixon is dead, I still want him impeached.”  I guess that’s not funny now, considering that Bob Barr is trying like hell to find a way to retroactively impeach President Obama.

I think there’s a pretty good chance that the Texas caucus and state convention will be brokered, because it was in 2008.  That might be fun. But a brokered national convention? Not so much.