We’ve all heard it…hell, most of us have spoken it.  We know it’s as true as our knowledge that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.  The Russians worked to get Donald Trump elected to the most powerful office in the world.  And he and his team colluded with them, and WikiLeaks, to do just that. And NOW, the worst president in the history of the United States is now infesting OUR White House, twitter raging from the toilet and binging on Fox Noise.  Jesus, what a travesty.

But, I digress.  As we all know, Mike Flynn, fired National Security Advisor and now confessed felon, flipped on Trump to save himself and his son from long sentences in federal prison.  Where that goes can’t be good for whoever is left in the White House.  But let’s look at what Mueller got Flynn to plead to, which is lying to the FBI.  To me, this points to Mueller’s direction in this case, which is not collusion, which will be very tough to prove and prosecute, but to obstruction of justice.  Trump’s spastic and ever-changing stories on Russia, Comey’s firing, Flynn’s firing, and his chaotic administration all point to Trump’s desperate attempt to lie his way out of this problem, but it’s not working.  The more he lies, the more press he gets, but also the brighter the spotlight shines.

In his past life as a real estate promoter and game show host, Trump lied on a regular basis.  He has not held to any normalized standard because he was only screwing his investors, his contractors, his game show contestants, and his banks.  Now he’s screwing around on the world stage, and his conduct just simply won’t fly here.  Because he’s a tool for the hard right conservatives in the congress they enable this abhorrent behavior.  However, once Mueller and the FBI make their case, it will be virtually impossible to protect him.

I have been saying since the first moment of this train wreck, the Trump administration will not end well.  Those who voted for him and still support him will have to explain to their grandkids why they did.

File under Sumbitches:

Yesterday, Newt Gingrich, career philanderer and prolific liar, made the head-snapping pronouncement that a US president “cannot obstruct justice“, and can fire anyone he wants to fire, regardless of legality.  His comments were made at the National Press Club where he was peddling his new collection of fairytales, Understanding Trump, which is his usual pile of manure delivered with the gravity of a college professor.  Apparently to Gingrich, there is a completely different set of rules for a Democrat in the WH than for a Republican.

Never burdened by the truth or a sense common decency, Gingrich is famous for delivering these kinds of proclamations that swing from one wild lie to another, changing his “sincere” belief to match whatever argument he’s positing at the time.  This proclamation, though, is especially egregious; when he was speaker of the house, he lead the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about having a sexual affair and obstruction of justice.   To make matters worse, at the time of the impeachment, he was having an affair himself with his current wife, Calista, while going after Clinton for his affair.  He was forced out of the Speaker job in 1999 under a storm cloud of ethics violations and election losses.

Gingrich is a shameless liar and his books are useful as two things: Kindling and toilet paper.

This morning, as I listen to all the MoJo talking heads recounting the stream of lies spewing out of the White House I am actually physically revulsed. Since the night of November 8th, my emotions have ranged from anger to despair.  My anger was directed at virtually everyone – those who supported Hillary’s nomination when her flaws were obvious to those not devoted to her (I know, I know), those who didn’t bother to vote, those who voted for third parties, and especially those who were so stupid as to vote for the worst presidential candidate in US history.  Those people were overcome with Trump’s celebrity, his crass word salad, his tacky gold-plated lifestyle, his obvious mental instability, and his absolutely undeniable immoral existence.  After he took office, despair overwhelmed me as my worst fears were realized.  Not only was Trump as bad as I feared, he surrounded himself with the worst WH staff imaginable.  It seemed his priority was to pick the absolute worst nominee you could imagine for each role, from an education secretary who opposes education, a housing secretary who knows nothing of housing, to a strategist who is a known bigot.

Trump also tightened his grip on power with the judiciary in his pocket and a cowed legislature.  I had hoped that the career professionals around him could at least hold him in check, but he’s now fired an acting attorney general, every single ambassador around the world, 46 US attorneys including Preet Bharara, the head of the Census Bureau, and now the head of the FBI who was investigating his corruption and ties to Russia.

Just this week, after firing Comey, Trump mustered his merry band of liars to go in front of the cameras and blatantly spin tales, not bothering to even try to square those tales with actual timelines or even with each other.  The only consistent lie that night was that Cheeto Jesus took “swift and decisive action”, and that was most certainly one of the worst lies after he later admitted to Lester Holt that he had decided long ago to fire Comey.  I sat and watched Holt try to get Trump to answer for his lies, and the result was the most concentrated collection of falsehood that has ever been emitted on national television.

As I watch this rolling disaster, I’m nostalgic for past days where we had a president who was precisely the opposite of  this creature now infesting OUR White House.  Barack Obama was known for his steadiness, his caution (some would say too cautious), his ability to speak to the nation’s heart at times of tragedy.  He occupied this very same house for a scandal-free 8 years, leading the country through some of its toughest times.

So I have to ask: Do you miss him yet?

As for me, I answer, you’re damned right I do, every single day.

After watching the cynical self-congratulatory beer bust in the WH rose garden on Thursday, I found myself not just angry or disappointed; I was enraged.  The arrogant, taunting, narcissistic, boasting Cheeto-skinned parasite currently infesting Our House, along with virtually every gerrymandered-in weirdo and screwball in DC made me want to throw my shoe through the screen.

That rage came alive on Friday morning when, on Facebook, one of my conservative friends expressed frustration with Republicans voting to strip him of his healthcare because of his pre-existing condition. Immediately, one of his more conservative friends responded about how wonderful the new bill was and that it would “help many”.   Enough was enough; I launched on him, pointing out that the bill was rushed through the House without representatives reading it, it wasn’t scored by the CBO, and that early readings by the media were pointing out its legion of flaws, including re-introducing lifetime and annual caps, restoring exclusion of pre-existing conditions, slashing of Medicaid, slashing healthcare for special needs kids, etc., etc.  His defense?  Lying.  Not just spinning, outright lying.

He argued that they caps are not part of the bill when they are.  He argued that health savings accounts would cover the shortfalls (which is laughable; when’s the last time you saw someone pay a $300,000 chemotherapy bill with an HSA?); he argued that this bill was an actual effort to improve healthcare when, in fact, it was just a disguised tax cut.  When challenged, he said, “Well, the bill’s not finished.”  Not finished?  They already voted for it in the House!  They went to the WH and celebrated!

In fact, this last statement was the only thing that he had said that was true…it wasn’t finished.  It still must go to the Senate where it most certainly won’t survive, at least in its current form.  The defense of this bill is built on lies.  It has to, because math is math.  You cut a trillion dollars out of healthcare, and millions will suffer, and no lie justifying it can change that.  You place caps on coverage, people will die.  You exclude pre-existing conditions, people will die.  It’s like gravity; those truths are just there.

So, what was this all about?  That’s easy – it’s Kabuki.  It’s a glittery show for the base voters of this crowd in DC who waste a lot of oxygen trying to meet there demands of erasing President Obama’s name from history regardless of damage to millions of Americans.  I believe that Trump and conservatives in the House realize that the chance of actually repealing the ACA is slim, therefore the shameful display in the rose garden.  With any luck, this will be the only celebration they hold cheering on the deaths of millions of Americans.