Trump is now in Mar a Lago for Christmas.  I can only hope they changed the locks on the White House and have started the deep clean and fumigation.  On his way out the door, Trump granted another 26 pardons, mostly for more of his allies, corrupt congressmen, and murderers who he really enjoys pardoning.  Included on yesterday’s list was Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner (Jared’s father) who plead guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, 1 of retaliating against a witness, and 1 for lying to the FEC.  Nice guy.  The congressmen were felons Steve Stockman (fraud and money laundering), Chris Collins (securities fraud) , along with Duncan Hunter along with his wife (misuse of campaign funds).  He also pardon George Papadapoulos and Alex Van De Swaan, snared by Robert Mueller.  He also pardoned the Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 innocent Iraqis and wounded another 17.

During his time in office, Trump has turned the President’s pardon power on its head.  Envisioned by the Founders as a tool for mercy, to right wrongful sentences or false charges, the pardon power depends on the President actually using these powers for those purposes.  There have been some isolated abuses of this power, like when Clinton pardoned Mark Rich, but those instances are rare.  Trump has used the power almost exclusively to pardon his friends and fellow criminals, those endorsed by Hollywood stars, and criminals who committed their crimes against those who Trump doesn’t like.  They are overwhelmingly white and male.

These pardons are so corrupt that even a few Republicans have been able to stand vertically, sans backbones, to condemn them. Even conservative Been Sasse of Nebraska called these pardons to be “Rotten to the Core.”  That’s an understatement, way too little, way too late.

In an interesting twist, the NY Times is reporting that Trump’s longtime banker has suddenly resigned from her position at Deutsche Bank.  The banker, Rosemary Vrablic, and her associate, Dominic Scalzi, have both resigned.  Vrablic brought Trump to  the bank in 2011, convincing her credit committee to loan him over $300 million in multiple projects despite his long record of defaulting on loans, not paying his bills, and screwing his equity investors.  A real estate loan she arranged for Jared Kushner in 2013 is also under an internal investigation.  NYC DA Cyrus Vance has several civil and criminal investigations underway into whether Trump committed fraud in obtaining the loans.

Watch this space.

Since November 3rd, Trump has been childishly ranting about the election, obstinately refusing to accept the inevitable. For the most part, his enablers have played along with his claims of massive fraud and even amplified his claims.  There are now plans being circulated by Trump loyalists in Congress to actually steal the election from the voters on January 6th when both houses meet to tally the electoral votes and finally certify the election.  That effort will fail, of course, but the damage Trumpists will do to our democracy is incalculable.

Let’s consider how we got here.  One of these conclusions are true:

1. 1. Thousands of voting machines, run by Dominion Voting Systems, were manipulated by a server in Berlin to delete millions of votes for Trump and flip the votes to Biden.  Dominion has links to Venezuela and its dead former president Hugo Chavez.  Also, thousands of dead people voted for Biden, and thousands of volunteer vote tabulators added suitcases full of fake ballots, all in favor of Biden.  Republican vote observers were denied access to the counting rooms in counties where Trump lost.  Also, state legislatures violated the Constitution by making it easier and safer for legal registered voters to vote during an exploding pandemic.  Mysteriously, all of this massive voter fraud and unconstitutional action exclusively benefitted Biden.  While the election was being stolen from Trump, Republicans gained seats in the US House and kept control in most State houses.  To accomplish this fraud on Trump, the conspiracy was massive, requiring thousands  of politicians, career staffers, and volunteers all over the country to conspire to steal the election.  Then all of those involved in the conspiracy committed perjury or just remained silent to cover their crime.
   2. More people voted for Biden.

From Merriam Webster:

Last night, acting Secretary of Defense, Chris Miller, unilaterally shut down all transition meetings with the Biden team.  His reason?  The holidays.  Recall that Miller has only been in office a little over a month after the unceremonious firing of Mark Esper right after the election.  In a statement, Miller said the DOD is “taking a knee” for two weeks for the holiday.  The Biden team was unaware of Miller’s decision and staff throughout the DOD were shocked.

So let’s be clear – after over a month of refusing to allow the transition to move forward, another “acting” Trump staffer has thrown another monkey wrench into the works to sabotage Biden.  It’s beyond shameful.

The head of the WH security office, Crede Bailey, in the hospital for 3 months with what’s described at an extreme case of COVID-19, has survived, but required amputation of his lower right leg and big toe on the left foot.  He is now facing staggering hospital bills and a Go Fund Me page has been started.  Apparently a big Trump supporter, Bailey’s family has refused to talk to the press about his case and the WH press office declines to discuss his case.  I wonder where he could have possibly been infected.

When Trump was infected, he received an anti-viral treatment only ten other Americans had received.  He then bragged about how easy it was to overcome the virus.  When Giuliani was infected, he was given similar treatment.  Now Trump and his circle are jumping the line to get these treatments and the vaccine.  Let’s be clear here.  Between Trump, Giuliani, Pompeo, and many other in his inner circle, their carelessness has  exposed thousands of people to the Coronavirus infecting an unknown amount of people because of his resistance to any viable contact tracing protocol.

Even as this line-jumping is occurring, his sycophants now want Biden to “unify the country” by giving Trump credit for the vaccine.  In the Washington Post this morning, former GWB speech writer Marc Thiessen demanded just that, saying that Trump deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed, which never participated or supported the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine developed in Germany.  While providing funding for some manufacturing, this vaccine was developed with no US participation.  In fact, Trump’s incompetence put the US at the back of the global line for the vaccine since they refused to buy vaccine for more than 50 million people (yes it takes TWO doses to vaccinate, so the 100 million doses Trump touts only vaccinates half that number).   There are about 275 million people in the US over the age of 16.  The Pfizer vaccine will only cover less than 20%.

Trump has spent the better part of a year downplaying the virus, holding super spreader events, firing staff and insulting science ands scientists and now to “unify” the country we should now give him credit for the vaccine?  Fuck that.  We’re finally going to see him flee to Mar a Lago sometime between now and January 20 to continue inflicting damage on our society by tweeting his grievances.  It will take the Biden administration an untold number of months to begin repairing the vast damage Trump has inflicted on us.  The LAST thing he deserves is praise for anything.  It’s time to give Trump what he deserves – anonymity and criminal charges.  We can start by disabling his Twitter account.