Blithering
This is a president of the United States in near total self-delusion. Ninety percent of what he says and implies in this rambling peroration is untrue. The simple facts are these: most undocumented immigrants and drugs in the US come through regular border crossings, few come through areas where this is no fencing, crime rates by undocumented immigrants are lower than by native-born Americans, and the overall numbers of undocumented immigrants have fallen dramatically for decades. There is no immigration crisis and no need for more than modest extensions and modernization of existing border barriers.
Trump belatedly realized that closing down of a large part of the US government in order to get border wall funding was a big political mistake. Republican Senators had started to defect on keeping the government closed, and Senate Majority Leader McConnell was warning Trump that he could no longer hold the line. Trump’s approval rating, already unusually low, had fallen further. The strong economy he inherited from Barack Obama is starting to tremble. Special Counsel Mueller has indicted one of Trump’s closest pals for crimes incident to long-denied cooperation with Wikileaks on release of Russian-hacked documents purloined from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Things are going to get a lot worse.
The re-opening of the government is only for a few weeks. But Trump won’t be able to shut it down again. Instead he is threatening to declare a national emergency that would give him authority to spend money on his border wall. That move would trigger lawsuits that will prevent any border wall construction for years to come.
The Special Counsel has now unveiled a web of cooperation between Trump’s campaign, his friends, Wikileaks, and Russia that suggests the worst: a candidate for President not only willing to accept illegal foreign assistance, but to do so in the form of stolen emails. For details, see law professor Jennifer Taub’s Tweetsummary:
Thread We Have Seen the Mueller Report –– And It’s Spectacular 1/
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4 thoughts on “Blithering”
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While a successful impeachment and Senate trial may be welcome to all of us, some of the spin here begs credulity:
“crimes incident to long-denied cooperation with Wikileaks” — Nothing is very incident to anything here. So far, the indictments are for crimes unrelated to Mueller’s assigned mission: collusion with a foreign power to affect our national election. As is typical with most special prosecutorial efforts, the indictments are for lying to the prosecutors (and Congress), See the recent Dershowitz article on this: very enlightening (even though Mueller may yet uncover an impeachable smoking gun).
“a candidate for President not only willing to accept illegal foreign assistance, but to do so in the form of stolen emails” — There is no proof or documentation yet of any illegal foreign assistance. Should the smoking gun reveal this, so be it. But, for now, there’s no connection to the Oval office.
“The strong economy he inherited from Barack Obama is starting to tremble.” — While there’s substantial evidence the economy is just fine today, clearly Presidents don’t start or end economic cycles. Further, most economists agree that Presidents aren’t that directly involved or responsible through a cycle. And, if one must tie an administration to economic cycles, the Obama period coincided with a no-direction-to-go-but up environment.
I’ll just recommend this: https://themoscowproject.org/dispatch/the-stone-indictment-shows-the-trump-campaign-directed-collusion/
I agree all of this sounds and looks very incriminating, but shame on any publication that doesn’t recognize proof from incriminating insinuation. And that’s what this is.
When Mueller has his smoking gun I trust he’ll release it, and barring any national security entanglements we’ll all see it. Whether or not a sitting President will then be indicted is probably doubtful, as the Democrats will have what they need for a House impeachment.
Unless Mueller finds that proof, this ultimately goes nowhere. With that proof, I’m betting the Republicans attempt to do what they accomplished with President Nixon: resignation before conviction in the Senate, and the destruction of their Party.
The issue with Venezuela goes beyond Trump. It is a failed state with a large number of refugees and a bad to worst outlook. It is prudent to try to prevent some of the worst outlooks, where none is good for Venezuela. This after years of Russian ‘mentorship’ left it as a country ruined by fools. Venezuela was on its road to bottom for a long time and trying to prevent the worst is in the region’s interest and in the US interest. The alternative was to keep backing Maduro (by buying oil) and side with a dictator in making, or support elections. It think it was a timely decision.