During Trump’s 45 minute teleprompter drone this afternoon in front of the rain soaked Lincoln Memorial, he clearly stumbled while reading the narration of the Revolutionary War.  Quote:

“In June of 1775 the Continental Congress created a unified Army out of the Revolutionary Forces encamped around Boston and New York, and named after the great George Washington, commander-in-chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown.”

Then Trump had a brain fart:

“Our Army manned the air, it rammed (?) the ramparts, it took over airports, it did everything it had to do. And at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, had nothing but victory. When dawn came, the star-spangled banner waved defiant.”

The US Army took over the airports?  During the war for independence or in 1812?  Two hundred years before there were airports?  Just another example of Trump’s mindless recitation of lines written by someone else.  If he loses track, he just substitutes phonetics, much like Beatles cover bands in Bangkok.  If it’s close, it’s good enough for this guy.  Clearly, Trump spent more time on watching Fox News for instructions than rehearsing his speech for his “lifetime experience”.

Jesus.

For those of you who are the praying kind, those prayers are being answered.  It’s pouring rain in Washington, DC, and there are special weather warnings for heavy rain and lightning until 9 pm.  It might be a happy 4th of July after all.  Happy #4thofyoulie !

Trump’s takeover of the 4th of July is complete.  The Park Service is having to shift millions of dollars over from other projects to accommodate his Miss America style display, and he’s taken over the Mall for himself.  He’s going to hold a political rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, take the entire area around the reflecting pool in front of the memorial for his high dollar donors, and use US military personnel as props for his cheesy Salute to America Twitterfingers’ Tiny Hands.  He’s going to park tanks on the mall, move the picnic honoring military families away from the South Lawn of the WH to the Mall, bring the Blue Angels back from holiday leave to do a fly over of the Mall, and, of course use Air Force One as his own.

He’s moved the fireworks down to Potomac Park and made it larger than the Bicentennial display in 1976 using private donations.  Even worse, the Smithsonians’ Folk Life Festival, a 10 day celebration that has been held over the 4th for over 50 years was cut down to 2 days, and ended this weekend.  It was shortened because Trump’s idiotic government shutdown over the holidays  caused planning to be also shut down making it impossible to hold the entire event.  Thanks for nothing, Donnie.  And, all of this will likely cost well over $100 million before he’s finished.  All we need are banners of Trump’s likeness carried by young MAGA sycophants goose stepping down Constitution Ave.

Two bright spots are planned, though…first, the Trump Baby blimp has been approved to fly over the event, and several veterans organizations will be handing out USS John McCain t shirts for vets to wear

I cannot describe in words how much I despise this worthless thing who inflicts himself on the American people 24/7.  He’s stolen our culture, our elections, our economy, our soul, our history, our traditions, common decency, and now even our national holiday to honor – himself.

Fuck him.  There.  I said it.

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.

So, the RNC is now so corrupted by Trump’s control that it is now using donor dollars to pay lawyers to obstruct justice by interfering with Congressional investigations.  That’s right, Teabaggers – your money is being used to violate your precious Constitution into order to protect your spray painted tribal chief.  Along with that, WH lawyers paid with your taxes are also actively helping Trump violate his duty to protect and defend the Constitution in order to hide his crimes from the Congress.

During Hope Hicks non-testimony testimony this week in a closed door session with the House Judiciary Committee, US government paid lawyers objected to every question from the committee, even including her office location in the West Wing.  Trump’s lawyer, Pat Cipollone, even told Congress that Hicks has “absolute immunity” from testifying before Congress, a legal condition that simply doesn’t exist and is being laughed at by legal and ethics experts.  Clearly, Trump believes the courts are so packed with corrupt radicals that they’ll rule in his favor.  I don’t believe that when it goes there, SCOTUS (even with its corrupt justices like Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch) won’t go there.  John Roberts may be a conservative and somewhat corrupted, he is still  true to the Constitution and will rule correctly.

I predict this one won’t end well for Ms. Hicks, and in the end, she’ll pay dearly for her silence and her loyalty to Trump.

We all remember it – the time that the most respected member of the Bush II administration, sat before the UN’s Security Council blatantly lying about the fake evidence of Iraqi WMDs that didn’t exist.  Colin Powell permanently stained his impeccable reputation by carrying Dick Cheney’s water to invade a sovereign nation just because.  As is well documented now, too little and too late, Cheney and company lied their asses off for months to whip up a case against Saddam Hussein, to justify a full-fledged invasion which continues to destabilize the Middle East to this day.

The War Based on Lies killed over 4,000 American lives, maimed over 30,000, and created an entire generation of veterans with PTSD, and other mental problems.  This is not to mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis murdered on their own soil.  Trillions of US tax dollars were spent doing that, and we’re still paying today for a terrible result.  These thousands of people and trillions of dollars paid for Bush II’s re-election in 2004.

Trump and his enablers are doing exactly the same thing again, except this time they don’t have a Colin Powell to lie us into war.  There’s no one in this criminal administration who hasn’t already sacrificed their own reputations and careers and the altar of Trump Loyalty.  Mike Pompeo made the rounds of Sunday talk shows yesterday beating the war drums and miserably failed to make a case that passed the straight faced test.  He presented not one shred of evidence beyond the grainy video of an unidentified boat alongside an unidentified ship doing an unidentified activity.  It looked just like the manure that Powell shoveled in 2003 to the UN. The others banging the war drums all wrecked what little reputation they had last time around and have no credibility this time around.  John Bolton comes to mind as the poster child for lying us into war.

I’m no genius, but I knew from the very first moment that Bush and company were lying in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.  I’m seeing exactly the same thing right now.  Trump is lying.  Pompeo is lying.  They’re all lying to get us into a war because that is Trump’s only chance for re-election.  Let’s not give him that opportunity.