Pompeo is in Italy with discredited Sebastion Gorka doing God-knows-what.  Bill Barr has been jetting around the world and talking to international leaders.  Rudy Giuliani has been engaged with the Ukrainians for months.  Now we know Pompeo lied on national television on Sunday feigning ignorance of the Zelensky call when, in fact, he was ON THE GODDAM call with Trump.

WTF is going on with all this globe trotting and mysterious meetings with world leaders?  Here’s what I think – Trump’s number one order from Putin was to get the international sanctions lifted from Russia that were imposed after it invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014.  Trump floated lifting sanctions early on, after he infested the WH in 2017, but was slapped down pretty definitively.  Since then, his pandering to Putin is well documented, including trying to tweet Russia back into the G7 to make it the G8 again.  So far, that hasn’t worked either.

Trump’s goal, since dumping Jeff Sessions and gaining Bill Barr as his attorney general personal defender, has been to discredit the investigations that concluded Russia helped get him elected with their hacking and social media meddling.  He’s so obsessed with this mission that he’s ignored the vast majority of his duties as president, focusing only on watching Fox Noise, tweeting insults at enemies in a continuous stream, and trying to help Russia.  His primary effort has been to get Ukraine to dig dirt on Biden AND promoting the ridiculous theory that it wasn’t Russian meddling, but actually Ukraine doing the hacking of the DNC. It’s stupid, but Trump and Giuliani are pushing it hard, since they’ve got nothing else.

Trump sees the end coming, especially as his numbers for reelection have sunk even lower and the impeachment inquiry started heating up.  Lord only knows what kompromat Putin has on Trump, but you know the list is long, including money laundering and financial fraud.  Trump is clearly a Russian asset, and he’s desperately trying to get Russian sanctions lifted before he’s ousted, one way or the other.  The only way he can do that (in his fevered mind) is to discredit the Mueller report and the conclusions of every major intelligence agency in the developed world.  It’s simply not going to happen, but Trump in his addled state is trying to make that happen, and he doesn’t give a good Goddam who or what he burns down trying to accomplish this goal.

Call me crazy, call me conspiratorial, but nothing else, at least to me, explains this nuclear powered three ring circus Trump is orchestrating.

Today:

Mike Pompeo was in on the mob boss call with Zelensky and Trump.  Also, McConnell said if the House impeaches, there will be a trial.

Rudy Giuliani has been subpoenaed to disgorge all of his documents pertaining to his involvement with Ukraine.f

Another Republican, Chris Collins, has resigned from Congress, this time just before pleading guilty to insider trading.

Trump asked Australian prime minister to help determine origins of Mueller investigation.

Trump suggests civil war if he’s impeached.  Harvard law professors says that by itself is impeachable.

Whistle blower’s attorney says Trump is endangering his client’s life.

RNC sent fake census forms to solicit money for Trump reelection campaign.

BREAKING: Bill Barr solicited foreign governments in an effort to discredit US intelligence agencies’ findings that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election.

Whew…

So it starts.  Two nights ago the right-wingers were all aflutter, excitedly posting that everyone should be sure to watch Hannity because he was going to drop the bomb on Biden and his son, Hunter, even predicting that Biden’s campaign was “cooked” and over.  What was the “bomb”?  The same old warmed over bullshit that Hannity always peddles.  Take whatever Trump is doing, turn it upside down, change the names and label it a Democratic scandal.  Never mind that the only sane person at Fox Noise, Shephard Smith, inoculated against their viewers earlier in the day telling his viewers that “this is not about Biden, it’s about the phone call.” How correct he was.

When news broke last week that there was a whistleblower complaint against Trump about this conduct in a call with Ukrainian president Zelensky, Trump hitman Rudy Giuliani went into full meltdown, shouting about some fictional corruption of Joe Biden.  That narrative the fell apart when news broke that Trump had ordered the freeze of some $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to put maximum pressure on Zelensky to force him to investigate the Bidens.  So, to be clear, Trump used the full power of the US government to damage his US political opponent.  When caught, his cronies have desperately tried to flip the story around that Trump wasn’t really trying to get Ukraine to open a fake investigation on Biden, but really trying to get Ukraine to clean up its own corruption (which coincidently happened to suddenly include Biden and his son Hunter).  It’s nonsense, but as we’ve discussed, totally predictable.

Then Nancy Pelosi happened.  Yesterday afternoon, in a serious speech to the nation, Pelosi announced the beginning of a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump.  The shift in politics was seismic.  To pile on Trump, word then got out that he had called Pelosi yesterday morning wanting to “work something out” about the whistleblower report that she’s demanding.  It’s reported that she told him that his people should follow the law.  That call to Pelosi was the tell that Trump has figured out that he’s screwed the pooch.  He’s in real trouble and that fact has finally penetrated the narcissistic fog within which he hides.  You can tell he knows just based on his speech which he barely got through and the remarks he made to the press prior to the speech.  He’s told so many lies that he can’t keep them straight, and is picking up the pace of lying trying to worm out of this one.  To wit:

1. Earlier this week, Trump admitted that he talked to Zelensky about Biden, but his first excuse was that it was to get Ukraine to crack down on corruption (supposedly Biden’s), and said that was why he was withholding the $400 million in military aid.  Yesterday he changed his story, saying he withheld it funding because European countries weren’t paying their fair share.
2. Trump is lying about European countries not paying.  The EU has already provided $16.5 billion in economic support of Ukraine after Russia’s attempt to annex the country.  Additionally, NATO has an active program in place to support Ukraine’s defense efforts.
3. He then said he’s leading in the polls.  That’s a blatant lie since he actually trailed Biden in recent polls by about 15 points nationally and trails Biden in the swing states.  He’s even trailing Warren nationally, even though he’s leading her in some swing states.
4. Then he said that since he’s leading in the polls, the only way “they” can get him is impeachment, which has “never happened before”.  See Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and Andrew Johnson.
5. Lastly, Trump said that he put no pressure on Zelensky about Biden, but that Ukraine should clean up its corruption that Biden had supposedly engaged in.  He continues to lie about this even though the prosecutor in Ukraine that replace ousted Viktor Shokin (who actually was corrupt) publicly stated that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by either Joe Biden or his son Hunter.

For this tsunami of lies, the Washington Post awarded Trump 4 Pinocchios this morning.  Predictably, the Noise Machine is desperately trying to distract from yesterday’s disaster by whipping up “the Democrats did this,” “Joe Biden did that,” “Trump’s been investigated since he was born,” blah, blah, blah, but you can tell that the entire machine is on its heels, at least at this moment.

Will the system work and end this long national nightmare?  I don’t know yet, but you can feel the seismic shift in  our politics.  I continue to believe that as the cost of Trump goes ever higher, the Repubs will jettison him and throw him to the wolves.  We’re far from that yet, but you can see his iron grip starting to weaken.  Ousting him can’t happen too soon.

One of our readers suggested this piece in the Washington Post yesterday, and it’s a good one. Entitled What’s so wrong with motherf—er?, writer Molly Roberts points out the silliness of the Republicans’ outrage over freshman member of Congress Rashida Tlaib’s use of the word during remarks at a private celebration the evening of her swearing in.  I don’t know if Tlaib is involved, but a movement started very early on in Trump’s term called ITMFA, or Impeach the MotherF—er Already, has nationally grown in strength as he has assaulted everything that is decent about our country.  The organization’s logo is this, and seen regularly at gatherings of progressives and never-Trumpers:

When the video of Tlaib surfaced yesterday, the rightwing noise machine went into Full Snowflake, suddenly regaining its sense of hearing after years of total deafness to Trump’s continuous stream of childish insults and profanity.  Not only were they shocked, shocked, I tell you over the notion of even mentioning the word impeachment, they were really shocked that Tlaib would use the word mother—er to describe him.  Many Americans, including me, regularly use this descriptor for Trump.

When I heard serial liar Kevin McCarthy feigning insult over the incident yesterday, I actually burst out laughing.  Being one of the leading Invertebrates in Congress who have dismissed concerns over Trump’s actual conduct, it’s hilarious that now he’s worried about decorum.  Here’s my position of this issue – First, anyone who still supports His Orangeness has forfeited any right to be insulted by profanity and lack of decorum for life. Second, the Dems need to stop worrying about motivating his base of angry, old white people.  They can’t get any more angry since they are teeth gnashing, drooling, pissed off 24/7 fed a red meat diet of Fox Noise bullshit in a continuous stream.  Third, I agree with Roberts that suburban middle of the roaders are not going to base their votes on some bad word uttered by a freshman Dem at a private event, but on Trump’s actual record of ripping children from their parents and caging them in “tender age” detention facilities.  It insults the intelligence of those suburbanites for Dems to be so fearful of backlash over an insult that doesn’t even approach Trump’s egregious and illegal behavior.

Lastly,  I also agree with this:

“‘Motherf—er,’ in short, is about civility. ‘Shithole countries’ is about character. Democrats who conflate the two weaken themselves. They minimize the abuses of the Trump administration, and they invite the president to go on committing them without expecting anything more than an anemic reprimand. Democrats, he understands, won’t ever really fight back.”

It’s long past time to start fighting back, Dems.  The real snowflakes are on the OTHER side.

As we roll into the new year, a few observations:

As of this moment, we have no Attorney General, no White House Chief of Staff, no Interior Secretary, no Director of the EPA, the Secretary of Education is a religious nut trying to destroy education, the VP is a religious nut who believes women should be subjugated, the Secretary of State is a political hack helping cover up the murder of a Saudi journalist, the Director of National Security wants to bomb Iran, 18 countries have no US ambassador (including Australia), half of the positions in the State Department remain unfilled, the stock market is down almost 3,000 points, China now owns Pacific rim trade, the US is the only major power to NOT be in the Paris accords, the entire world is either terrified or laughing at us, and the president has shut down the government for the last 10 days over his 5th century solution to a 21st century problem. Notice I didn’t mention anything about everyone convicted, in jail, or on the way to jail, or Trump’s current average of telling over 500 lies per month.

This is great? Are we tired of winning yet?

I’m just tired.

Happy New Year

#myattorneygotarrested #pleasetellmethisisanightmare #ITMFA #gotemoluments? #trumpresign

It’s just getting worse for Trump.  As his Trumpist base calcifies into fact-free paralysis, normal Americans have grown weary of the reality show that has played 24/7 since His Orangeness rode down the escalator at Individual 1 Tower alongside his third wife, the nude model from Slovenia.  Are we finally reaching the point where America has had enough of this train wreck?  Perhaps.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 62% of respondents believe that Trump is not telling the truth about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.  Additionally, they also want congressional Dems to take control to correct the course our country is taking.  Only 10% believe Trump got the message in the 2018 election, and 56% believe the US is on the wrong track.

We’re finally seeing cracks in Trump’s big beautiful wall of bullshit.  While his base remains sycophantic, normal people are turning against him.  This presidency will end badly, and insiders acknowledge that, besides all of Trump’s bloviating and bluster, he now fears impeachment.

Good.