Saturday Thoughts

We see a number of cases that have gotten a lot of media attention recently.  We have the college admissions scandal where wealthy people paid to get their children admitted, we have the Smollett case where he seems to have paid to get headlines and we have the recently concluded Mueller report where criminal charges were brought against a lot of people but the main guy wasn't charged.

I have to say the college thing is just another example that we have crooked and corrupt people in this country who can get away with fairly outrageous things.  It happens because people who should be doing more work, generally accept as true things that aren't.  College admissions boards have to fill a certain number of slots and this gets hard when you get to the ones on the margins.  So if a trusted (even if maybe they shouldn't be) fellow employee gives you a recommendation, you don't really vet it.  Maybe you should.  One might wonder why in fact schools even offer scholarships for sports like crew.  I get that football and basketball easily pay for themselves in the big schools, and in the middle of March madness I enjoy watching the games, but I'm not sure how they are in fact student athletes when all is said and done.

The Smollett case just seems to be a publicity stunt gone wrong and while it was a costly investigation the fact that he wasn't charges with a crime isn't really a big deal.  He allegedly hired too people to pretend to attack him and it went wrong.  Sure he probably lied and maybe he should be prosecuted, but it may have ended his role in Empire and if he has agreed to make restitution it should be a minor trivia question soon.  It is no more a national disgrace than the migrant issue on the border is a national crisis.  In fact it isn't much of anything when you come right down to it.

Finally we have the recently concluded Mueller investigation that resulted in a good number of prosecutions but apparently did not find evidence of criminal collusion but did find enough evidence of obstruction of justice by the President that he left the decision to the Attorney General.  Without seeing the entire report it isn't easy to conclude much, but at the same time I am a bet leery of repeating the Benghazi or E-mail probes if recent memory.  I realize that everything has a political impact but maybe constantly second guessing everything is just tedious.  I know this isn't going away, and I would like to read the report, but can we at some point just move on?

The Administration may or may not be a criminal enterprise legally, but attacking health care, diverting money for a wall, allowing the financial markets to resume bad practices, failing to take action on climate change, attacking Social Security and Medicare should be where the focus goes, not what happened in 2016.  We need a better outcome in 2020.

Another Arrest

The FBI raided and arrested another member of the dontard's campaign for obstruction of justice.

Roger Stone is accused of seven counts of obstruction and while an arrest is not a conviction, it is pretty likely that they have significant evidence and corroborating testimony.

This is the 34the arrest to date in the investigation, not all of whom were directly associated with the campaign.

There is video of the arrest which in all honesty seems more appropriate for someone who might resist, but I'm sure the FBI had their reasons.

One source indicates that Watergate resulted in 40 indictments (not all resulted in jail) and of course one Presidential resignation.

This still exceeds the current count, but the investigation is not over.

I would like to point out that while the Watergate break-in was done before we were so digital, the crimes are pretty much the same, both designed to infiltrate and steal information about the opponents campaign.

What is definitively different is that the Watergate was an operation that did not include a foreign power while the current Russian probe clearly does.

In addition to the Russians we have Wikileaks, an international group.

Its hard to imagine Nixon, the fiery anti-communist collaborating with the Soviet Union for something like this, but of course times have changed.

Its also very difficult for the dontard to ever accept responsibility for these actions and I still very much doubt that impeachment is feasible.

Consider how close we got to impeaching Bill Clinton for lying about his interaction with a white house intern.

Did not involve any foreign governments.  Don't think anyone was indicted for what happened, and of course the current dontard has very likely lied consistently about similar activities and the payoffs associated with those activities.

He just hasn't done it to congress officially.

He still has time now that we have a democratic house.

Deal with the Devil

So we now have some pretty clear allegations that the dontard directed payments that probably violated campaign finance laws.

He actually doesn't deny it, just argues they were private, not campaign related, which is why they are a violation.

He also admits he continued to deal with his business attempts to do work in China, because, if he had lost the election he still had a business to run.

These are pretty incriminating in a number of ways and at this point there is no doubt about them.

He accuses others of violating the campaign finance laws and they only got a fine, so why would he be treated differently?

Think its more about the attempt to deceive involved here.

He was never a very open candidate, we never saw his tax returns or got detailed policy proposals, yet he still managed to squeak out an electoral college victory due to what is well described as a series of unfortunate events.

Unfortunate for the country.

Still, not sure any of this is enough to impeach him and I think the focus for the next two years should be on all the harm he is doing to progressive issues in this country.

He is always going to appeal to a certain percentage of the population who are focused on certain issues that he espouses, including nationalism, guns, abortion, and immigration.

They are in other words willing to make a deal with the devil.

A majority of us, hopefully, aren't.

The Disruptive Presidency

So its pretty obvious that at the very least the dontard condoned "dirty" tricks in his campaign.

He also was aware of what was going on and to some extent directed it.

Are these criminal activities, it seems like they violate a number of laws and certainly ethics rules, but I'll wait and see if any charges are filed.

Neither of these things are surprising and we are still waiting to see the report related to obstruction and collusion concerning Russian interference.

I don't see the dontard having any integrity so I doubt he will resign and I'm not sure that helps anything since the vice president is a radical evangelical.

However he was the Governor of a mid-sized State so he must have some awareness of how politics works.

I'm not sure any of this will matter to dontard supporters, they support him partly because he is a loose cannon and they want to see things disrupted.

Certainly he has given them that and his administration is still in the first half.

It may very well sway the mid-terms and it may guarantee a Democratic majority, possibly in both houses.

That could lead to a bill of impeachment and a Senate trial where conviction might not be obtainable.

Would be disruptive though.