Astros win!

Ok, seriously…two Giuliani associates, Ukraine born Lev Parma, and Belarusian born Igor Fruman were arrested last night trying to board a flight out of the country at Dulles airport after having lunch earlier in the day with…wait for it…Rudy Giuliani.  And guess where they had lunch…that’s right, the Trump International Hotel.  They’re now charged with funneling foreign money (including from a Russian oligarch) into pro-Trump PACs to influence US politicians including our own Pete Sessions, former congressvarmit.  Sessions has been exposed for pushing the State Department to fire former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yavanovich; Parma and Fruman have been implicated in that ousting.  Why was she ousted, you ask?  For being “anti-Trump”.

Also, Trump unilaterally announced the withdrawl of support of longstanding allies, the Kurds of Northern Syria.  Recall that the Kurds led the way in ousting ISIS from Syria, and for holding 50,000 former ISIS fighters in prison.  All those bets are off, and some Republicans, including Lindsey Graham have actually learned to stand without spines against Trump’s rashness.

Meanwhile, Jared and Ivanka have reported $82 million in income during 2018 while serving in the White House, 4 more White House staff are reported to have blown the whistle on Trump’s shakedown of Zelensky, and Trump continues spouting bullshit in Hitleresque political rallies.

Oh, and Rick Perry’s been subpoenaed to testify before the impeachment inquiry about his involvement in shaking down Ukraine to get them to manufacture dirt on a political rival.

But, please…let’s talk about Biden.

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.

• Eric and Donald Trump Jr are running Trump’s international businesses costing the US taxpayer millions of dollars for security during their travel.  And, since they stay in Trump properties when they travel, the US taxpayer is pouring money into Trump’s pockets.
• Jared Kushner continues to run his family’s real estate businesses, but also works in the WH.  He’s personal friends with the murderous Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
• Ivanka Trump continues to run her clothing business while working in the WH.  Trump has issued waivers on her products so she doesn’t pay tariffs on Chinese goods.

But let’s talk about Hunter Biden, because that’s more important.  That’s not hypocritical, is it?  Nah.

George Conway teamed up with Neal Katyal yesterday to opine on Trump’s latest outrage of holding up aid to Ukraine as inducement to dig dirt on Joe Biden.  Katyal was solicitor general in the Obama administration.  It’s become obvious now that the whistleblower case that Bill Barr is covering up is a blatant incident of Trump violating the Constitution and US law to induce a foreign power to assist him in defeating a domestic political opponent.  Another weekend must-read, this one is powerful.

In a shocking shift that is now appearing complete, the DOJ has morphed from law enforcement to protect the United States to DOP (Defense of the President) against the United States.  Starting under Jeff Sessions, and driven home under Bill Barr, the DOP has turned over 150 years of Constitutional law on its head.  Up until 2 years ago, the DOJ strictly interpreted the emoluments clause, even extending it beyond the president to others in the federal government from receiving ANY funds or gifts from a foreign government.  No more.  After several lawsuits were filed asserting that Trump receiving funds from foreign governments through his hotels and golf courses, his lawyers said that this is perfectly OK since those funds are received by his company in a “commercial” transaction.  They interpreted the emoluments clause as meaning direct payments to the president for actual action from the president; in other words, directly paid bribes.

The DOP has now adopted that very same position, turning 150 years of precedent on its head.  Now that the DOP is 100% Trumpland, along with the Senate, the courts are our only hope, but even that is now corrupted with the radical judges that Trump has succeeded in getting seated on the SCOTUS after McConnell stole a seat in 2016.  The result is that We the People are now completely exposed to Trump’s corruption.  The executive branch is broken; the DOP is corrupted and now representing Trump personally; the legislative branch is broken with the Senate in Trump’s pocket; the SCOTUS is corrupt with grossly unqualified judges political operatives sitting on the court.

What’s needed is nothing short of a complete overhaul of the laws, traditions, and statutes surrounding governance of all three branches of the federal government from campaign finance to ethics rules to term limits for EVERYONE.  Beto has just presented a plan for a constitutional amendment that limits house and senate members to 12 years, and SCOTUS judges to 18.  I would say that’s a good start.

From late last year, George Packer of the Atlantic summarized the last 60 years of the GOP and nailed it, from pre-Goldwater to the Trump era.  Best quote:

“The corruption of the Republican Party in the Trump era seemed to set in with breathtaking speed. In fact, it took more than a half century to reach the point where faced with a choice between democracy and power, the party chose the latter. Its leaders don’t see a dilemma—democratic principles turn out to be disposable tools, sometimes useful, sometimes inconvenient. The higher cause is conservatism, but the highest is power.”

it gives a blistering picture of what we non-GOPers face against “true believers”.  And it ain’t pretty.