Donald Trump is going to need a big distraction ASAP. The FBI raid on his “fixer”/lawyer’s office, home and hotel room yesterday — with the Feds carting away every file, computer folder and hard drive they could find — has to have set off shrieking sirens in Trump’s head. For a guy who so clearly has terabytes of dirty personal information he doesn’t want anyone to see, the thought that his life and business career are now almost certainly an open book to prosecutors in New York and Robert Mueller has to have him feeling he’s cornered like a (pick your favorite rabid rodent.)
Thank god then for Bashir Assad and Vladimir Putin. Their (latest) chemical attack on Syrian civilians gives Trump a bona fide good reason to respond with missiles and bombs. Shock and awe never fails to thrill the psyches of ‘Murica’s 35% goober base and “mainstream” pundits as well. There is no end of professional deep thinkers who conflate every cruise missile launching with a projection of “real American power”, even if like the last time Trump ordered up a volley, the bombs crash harmlessly into a mostly abandoned airfield, (at $1.5 million per missile.)
We should expect Trump to go bigger this time, even if it means pissing off Putin, partly because he so badly needs something a lot scarier to get Michael Cohen off the front pages.
So fasten your seat belts for that one.
Meanwhile though, while the FBI raid yesterday was a result of Mueller referring an investigation to the US Attorney in New York, on the grounds that it involved the not-all-that-clandestine-or-clever bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations Cohen concocted to pay off Stormy Daniels, the gathered evidence doesn’t have stay in New York. If, as seems entirely likely, the FBI finds information on Cohen’s devices relating to Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation — decades of money laundering for Russian gangsters, communications with Russian “investors”, scheming yadda yadda — all that can be handed back up to the Special Counsel’s office.
Trump’s predicament is getting more precarious by the hour. I still believe his next move on the Russia front will be to fire Jeff Sessions and replace him with a more reliable stooge, (Devin Nunes deserves a promotion), a shameless puppet who will dutifully work through the entire basket of administrative tricks to hobble and mire Mueller’s work.
That new AG will of course have to survive a Senate confirmation process. But right now all Trump can do is buy time to fire up the goobers, and egg them on to some higher level of rebellion. Hence his description of the heavily-vetted FBI raid as, “a break in”, i.e. a crime against him, the state. (Bleeping hell.)
So once you’re belted in for what’s next in cruise missiles, check that your air bags are functioning for Trump’s FBI raid blowback.
My prediction for a late spring/early summer hell storm seems to be pretty well on track.
Good golly, miss Molly, weren’t we all going to be good liberals and not use derogatory descriptive language for the armed-to-the-teeth Trumpette rank-and-file? Seems like the “rankness” is starting to rankle when you go “goober goober” like that. OK by me, actually, because I have a sense of humor (“wry,” under the circumstances) anyway, although I would apply the epithet of “zombies” as more descriptive and equally applicable.
Agree all except you don’ mention possible fake chemical attacks by Assad.
I trust Putin more than Trump and company.
I don’t know about fake, but I’m trying to figure out the necessity of it. Assad (and Putin) have an only weakly-disputed upper hand over “the rebels”. Why bother inciting international anger beyond what it is? Unless there’s some sort of “bait” play here. As in … get the West to over-respond. It worked for Al Qaeda after 9/11. Putin’s a sick master of this stuff.
I don’t think that Putin is worse than Trump.
No one knows a single person in all of Russia who is capable of doing a better job than Putin for Russia. I also think that I can sleep tonight because Putin is president of Russia. Trump is 100% bad for all of us.
When their critical thinking rises above the level of “goober” I’ll adjust my vernacular.
Don’t forget that Comey starts his book tour this weekend with interviews on ABC News!
Trump’s blood pressure is going nowhere but up!