The Enemy of the People
Just when you thought Sharpiegate was dying down, we have two or three new scandals being uncovered that our beloved President Donald Trump seems to be perpetrating. These are not conspiracies being reported by left wing radical news blogs (like this one), these are stories posted by Politico and the Washington Post. There is so much to discuss, I almost don’t know where to start.
We are all used to the notion that the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. is on shaky emoluments ground since foreign and domestic panderers use it regularly to curry favor with El Jefe. Even Mar-a-Lago and its use as a destination venue for dignitaries and official meetings is questionable. And then we thought we had hit rock-bottom at the G-7 when Trump spend twenty minutes extolling the virtues of the failing Trump Doral Resort in Miami as the place where he plans to hold the 2020 G7/8 (where he fully expects to invite his handler Vladimir Putin to the party). And of course, our pandering Attorney General had to have a DOJ offsite at Trump’s Doral Resort “because there were no other hotels available”. This tithing to the king by loyalists is as old as the Bible. Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar’s…”
But now we have hit several new, more meaningful lows. Making Veep Pence, who is on the bubble with his job based on reports that a new Veep might help Trump in his failing quest for reelection in 2020, stay 180 miles from his meeting venue in Dublin so he can officially stay at Trump’s failing Doonbeg golf resort to help prop it up, seems bad. Of course, the Veep is all about saying it was the logical choice, which either clearly establishes him as a welcome mat for El Jefe or a dolt…or both…times five.
But now, apparently, it has been discovered that Trump has caused the military transports flying to Kuwait to stop at the small failing airport (Prestwick Airport) near the failing Trump Turnberry Resort south of Glasgow, Scotland. The reporting is suggesting that $11 million in gas charges were paid at rates much higher than if the refueling had been done at any of the many foreign military bases where this refueling traditionally occurs. There is also the matter of the crews driving 50 miles to stay at the pricey Trump resort. This now gives Congressional Democrats an added clear course of impeachment action, starting with the clearly illegal situation of the Stormy Daniels payoffs, where Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator and now the emoluments violations.
I saw Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas (D) make a point of saying that it is no wonder that Trump considers the press to be The Enemy of the People. He thinks he is the people for all intents and purposes and that he should be allowed to take money out of the pockets of the military and the electorate and put it both in his own pockets, but also into the pocket of his Re-election committee by giving lucrative contracts to big supporters to build a wall to prove the President right when he campaigns on having fulfilled his promises to his base.
I also saw that someone in Trumpland has decided that even the Sharpie idiocy has a monetization value. Those black Trump-signed Sharpies are now available on a Trump website for sale. Think about that for a moment. Trump is now monetizing the reputational degradation of the Presidency and the United States itself. It is Nero selling marshmallows while Rome burns. That’s a nice new twist.
This was a long and action-packed week and it’s not over yet. It is now being suggested by the Washington Post that Trump is pressuring the Ukraine by withholding appropriated military aid to find scandals from the past that can be used against Joe Biden. Wow, if that’s at all true, it’s like a multi-ball billiard shot. Imagine using U.S. military funds (those that are left after his wall-pillaging efforrts) to benefit your own electoral situation and doing it through a foreign power…and one that is the subject of worldwide censure and run by the country (Russia and Putin) that is the subject of a major independent counsel investigation and a proven 2016 electoral interference program. And of course, Paul Manafort is in jail, in part, due to his work in Ukraine. You can’t make this stuff up.
We could question why these fake news outlets keep trying to make Trump look bad over every little thing. The problem is that there are so many of them and they keep getting bigger and bigger and worse and worse. It might even make some of wonder whether Enemy of the People isn’t a very accurate way to describe the situation. Except instead of the press, maybe it’s a good way to describe the Trump Administration overall.
I have seen for many years that corruption is a cancer that spreads widely and quickly and even empowers itself until it starts to be unable to keep itself hidden, at which time it justifies itself by thinking that it has worked so well to that point that it is certain to keep working. It’s not just say-anything, do-anything. It becomes say and do more and more and more again and do it any way you can because, subconsciously, they know that it will all come crashing down soon and theyy might as well get in for a pound if they are in for a penny. Who knows, they might get away with enough more that it all ends up for the best when the dust eventually settles.
The rot in this man’s soul and the souls of his acolytes like Mitch and Pence and everyone in between is hideous. The thing about cancer is that it stays hidden beneath pink and innocent-looking skin right until it gets exposed for the nasty black rot that it truly is. Well, this rot is coming out of Trump’s ears at this point and the press is almost unable to hold itself back from reporting on it as much as they feel it should for fear that they will inundate the public and they will do what people do when presented with a picture of a black lung…they will look away and try to find something more pleasant to focus their attention.
Let me be perfectly clear least any reader feels I have wandered off point. Trump and his gang are pillaging this country, its wealth, its reputation, its resources and some of its future. He and they are 100% The Enemy of the People.
I look at the situations you describe and for whatever reason it reminds me of the famous (infamous) meeting of all of the organized higher ups in November, 1957. About 100 met at Joseph “Joe the Barber” Barbara’s home In Apalachin, New York. An astute sheriff noticed all these cars from all over the place, told the FBI who then raided this meeting. Mobsters scattered, running through the woods but almost half were caught. What is the correlation to Trump’s aberrations about presidential powers and abuses of them? Well, until this event, everyone, even J. Edgar Hoover, denied the existence of the ‘Mafia’. Now the cat was out of the bag. It could no longer be denied.
In my convoluted way I see the Trump administration in a similar light. He denies everything over and over again as if the evidence of the growing landfill of his ‘garbage’ and wrong doings that pile ever higher day by day will somehow go away. I sort of liken all those who have fled the White House to the crime figures running in desperation through the woods. Albeit it, though it is not happening all at once, I think in essence it is similar in the respect that they don’t want to be caught for all the wrongdoings of the president they had a hand in.
Like the head in the sand efforts of the ‘Mafia’ deniers, you cannot hide this stuff. That the evidence of the absurd quantity of these things that his supporters continuously slough off is amazing. His closest supporters like Mitch and Spence, I believe, already have presidential pardons written just awaiting Trumps’ signature when the need arises. That it hasn’t come yet is a sad commentary/indictment of the segment of the American public who continue to stifle it so they can justify continuing to support El Jefe.
God help us.
Indeed