We often focus on the obvious about Trump: Thin-skinned narcissist, cheesy reality television star, criminal, schoolyard bully, prolific liar, lazy spray painted hair-weaved fake, skirt chasing philanderer, welsher, and pretty much all-round shitbag.  But that’s not all.  Except for disassembling our government and packing the courts with incompetent ideologues, Trump really doesn’t do anything.  His trade wars are circular and have only accomplished 3 things – bankrupting US farmers and businesses, costing the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, and finally, handing global trade dominance to the Chinese.

But there is something else he does that almost no one focuses on; he roils the markets with his sudden proclamations.  It goes something like this:

Trump runs a never ending cycle in almost everything he does while never really accomplishing anything.  Without warning, he slaps tariffs on selected imports, crashing the markets, then he starts making off the cuff comments about some kind of “deal” that increases with time.  The market rallies, nothing with trade changes, then he attacks China (or whatever country du jour), crashes the markets again.  Rinse and repeat.  He uses the same tactic with not only trade talks, but in negotiations with allies, foes, and actually dangerous countries like North Korea.  Part of his tactic includes spouting bullshit on national television while standing in front of his helicopter with turbine engines screaming in the background, called by Stephen Colbert “Chopper Talk”.

But it’s more nefarious than that.  Every time Trump shoots off his mouth and moves the markets, somebody makes a lot of money while somebody else loses a lot of money.  I have always believe he does this on purpose, especially when markets are sagging due to his trade wars or other idiocy.  In fact, one of his buddies, aging corporate raider Carl Icahn, saved millions when he dumped $31 million in shares of steel industry stocks just days before Trump announced steep China import tariffs.  But it gets worse – in October, Vanity Fair published an article documenting very suspicious trades in the S&P futures markets timed precisely to make hundreds of millions of dollars when a Trump proclamation moves the markets.  We know Trump intentionally manipulates markets with lies.   One well documented case was last August when Trump blatantly lied at the G7 summit that he was talking to top officials in China when there were no talks occurring.  The markets rallied at the lie, only to trade off when nothing happened – again.

Trump has always gotten away with questionable, if not outright illegal activity.  It’s engrained in his DNA.  He’s not constrained by rules and laws normal people follow, and it would not be in the slightest bit surprising that, in addition to his random lying, he (or someone close to him) was actually signaling to associates when he was going to make some big proclamation so they could get on the right side of a particular trade to rake in cash.  It certainly looks like it.  As one of Vanity Fair’s trading sources said, “There is definitely some hanky panky going on.”

One of the most rare sheep in the world is the Mongolian Argali, which is listed as endangered, was the latest victim of Don Jr.’s apparent obsession with killing rare animals.  Most egregious, he killed it at night with a laser sight mounted to a rifle, and even worse, was granted a permit to kill the animal AFTER HE KILLED IT.  That’s right, folks, this sheep lives only on the high plains and mountains of Mongolia and is so endangered that less than 90 hunting permits are issued a year in the country.  Carrying the privilege gene of Donald Trump, Don Jr. isn’t bound laws like the rest of us.  He uses his dad’s position to do what he wants since so far, like Trump, he’s been above the law his entire life.

In this particular case, after the hunt, which occurred in August, Jr. met with Mongolian president Khaltmaagiin Battulga.  He received the permit, one of only 3 granted in this particular region, AFTER he had left the country, which is highly unusual.  Oh, and this all happened only weeks after Mongolian diplomats had a WH house meeting with US officials.

No privilege here, right?

A federal judge in Manhattan just ordered Trump to turn over 8 years of tax returns to Cyrus Vance, the NY DA.  The judge said that Trump is not immune from criminal investigations while president.  Vance is investigating Trump paying a bribe to Stormy Daniels to silence her during the 2016 election.  Boom.

In a conference call with House Republicans yesterday, Trump characteristically reasserted he’s been “perfect” in all things Ukraine, but then threw Rick Perry, of all Trumpists, under the bus saying that the Zelensky call was HIS idea.  Nevermind that all of the text messages between State Department diplomats about the call and the extortion of Zelensky all point to Rudy Giuliani, Perry is apparently the next victim to be thrown under the Trump bus.  Surely, I’m not the only one to figure out that Perry was set up as the patsy to protect Giuliani, who set the whole thing up.  In May, Mike Pence suddenly couldn’t go to Zelensky’s inauguration, so Perry was tapped to represent the US government for the event.  There was no plausible explanation for this move and no one had tagged Perry with having to do anything with the growing scandal until the last 48 hours, and it’s pretty apparent that Trump has pinned the whole thing on him even though there is zero evidence that Perry even knew what was going on.  Over the last couple of days, word has leaked out that he’ll be stepping down at the end of this year.  Now we know why, and I predict it will come a lot sooner than that.

This is classic gangland style character assassination.  Don’t get me wrong – Rick Perry is a dumbass and a shameless suck up, and he deserves everything he’s going to get here.  He hitched his wagon to Trump, the Reverse King Midas; everything he touches dies, and now it’s Rick Perry’s career.

In 1974, Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace to avoid being impeached and removed from office for obstruction of justice.  New shiny new president, Gerald Ford, pardoned him of any possible federal charges immediately after taking the oath of office citing that it was in the best interest of the country and “a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.”  Nixon walked and lived out his life out in isolation in San Clemente.

In 1998, Clinton was impeached by Republicans in the House for obstruction of justice (for lying about sex), but the Senate failed to convict.  Clinton’s popularity actually rose during the proceedings and the impeachment hearings ended up hurting the GOP in the subsequent mid-term election.

From 2002 through 2008 George W. Bush and Dick Cheney led one of the most lawless periods for the executive branch in US history, prosecuting the “War on Terror” by terrorizing millions of innocents, killing hundreds of thousands of people, detaining thousands without charges, kidnapping and torturing, and killing thousands more remotely by drone.  That’s not to mention the war profiteering and mass surveillance of millions of Americans.  President Barack Obama refused to allow any investigations of the Bush Administration, sweeping 7 years of crimes against humanity under the rug saying, “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”  Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the sorry lot walked, most into lucrative speaking and lobbying gigs.

So.  Bad conduct, lawlessness, violation of human rights laws, obstruction of justice, and profiteering don’t matter anymore, especially after internal DOJ memos of 1973 and 2000 opined that the President of the United States cannot be indicted for a federal crime while in office.  These memos are just another nail in the coffin of our democracy, giving a criminal like Trump free reign to plunder and pillage the US government, allies, other foreign governments, US industry, farmers, religious devotees, workers (especially union), children, migrants, and the poor with impunity.  Surely, there’s a special place in hell for the sumbitches who came up with that stupid policy that led to the catastrophe playing out on our televisions on a daily basis.

The Founders feared corruption in the executive branch as a critical threat to our democracy.  That’s why they inserted the Emoluments Clause, (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8), that forbids federal officials from receiving money, gifts, and titles from foreign governments.  They also inserted Article II, Section 4, which provided for the impeachment and removal of a corrupt president or vice president.  The problem?  Our elected gerrymandered representatives don’t give a shit about us.  Our Senators are drunk with power (or just trying to hang on), and corruption is consuming the very core of our democracy.  The Supreme Court has become a cancer on the rule of law, infested with deplorables who believe that money is speech, unlimited money does not corrupt, and that individual liberty is subject to corporate power and permissions they grant.  And all this set the stage for…

Trump.  Trump is the president the Founders dreaded.  Trump is the president we all feared.  Trump has destroyed our norms of conduct and common decency, ignored our laws, and exuberantly claimed the WH, the US government, our society, and the global economy for himself.  He’s too stupid to actually govern, but smart enough to line his own pockets.  And he’s mean; cruelty and revenge are hallmarks of his infestation of the Oval Office.  Yet, we do nothing. NOTHING.  Our decades long practice of looking the other way in the face of felonious conduct has now come home to roost.  Past presidents and congresses have demurred in the face of abject corruption, and this is what we get.  Who do I blame?  I blame everyone…Nixon, Ford, Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Gingrich, McConnell, and yes, absolutely Trump.

All these sumbitches let us down, and now we, as individual Americans, are threatened…threatened with the undoing of over 230 years of democracy and the greatest experiment in the history of free people.  Politicians know they can urinate all over our laws and society and there is no price to pay.  Trump understands this…McConnell understands this…they’re raking in millions and millions of dirty dollars as our justice system does nothing.  Our representative form of government atrophies while our leaders do nothing.

Such is the price of complacency and corruption.  The Founders saw Trump coming.  The problem is that those who followed took the easy route and let him come.  Now we’re paying the price.