Trumpty Dumpty Had A Great Fall

Well, it finally happened today.  The Donald has become the first (former) president to be indicted for a crime.  In his case, the primary charge (possibly a felony) was one related to the infamous Stormy Daniels hush money scheme, of all things.  And he also faces potential charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  It is really NOT looking good for the washed up plutocrat turned reality TV star turned wannabe politician turned wannabe dictator turned disgrace of epic proportions.

All the king's horses and all the king's men, won't be able to put Trumpty together again.  Believe me.

UPDATE:  Trump was arrested and arraigned on April 4, 2023, and charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and that's just what they have so far.  His next court date is December 4, 2023.  Scratch that, it is the next court date for THESE particular charges.  A civil case against him related to rape allegations is coming up before then on April 25.  Looks like all of that Teflon has finally worn off of the Don for good, and for the first time in his life he is finally being held accountable for something.  

And far from rallying around their fallen idol like they would have in the past, most of his supporters were strangely out to lunch when it happened.

He is rapidly falling away and falling apart now, and it is only going to get worse for him going forward.  Really sucks to be him now.  Sad!  Believe me. 

It's Mueller Time!

The Mueller investigation of the Trump Crime Family is now in its endgame, and it isn't looking good at all for the Donald or any of his cronies.  Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, along with several others, are now officially convicted (or very soon to be convicted) felons at this point, and it looks like both the Teflon Don (and probably Don Jr.) will soon be next.

Ruh roh.  (Cue the Dragnet music, Maestro!)

There is no longer any reasonable doubt at this point about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin regime of Russia, all technicalities aside.  Now it's more like, "what did they know and when did they know it" for each of these individuals involved, and they have already been caught in several lies in that regard.  Both Cohen and Manafort, along with Flynn and others, are apparently singing like canaries and throwing Trump and Jr. under the bus to save their own skins.  It's only a matter of time now.

Let's see:  bribery, money laundering, racketeering/RICO, conspiracy to commit election fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the United States are all at least on the table now as charges related to the Trump-Russia collusion scandal.  And even if somehow none of these charges end up sticking for whatever reason, there is always perjury, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering as well, all of which are not only impeachable offenses, but also punishable by prison as well.  (All of which are easily proven, by the way, and in this case are so glaringly obvious now.)  And you can probably also throw tax fraud and tax evasion in there for at least some of the members of the Trump Crime Family as well.

The jig is basically up now, Donald.  And Pence will most likely be implicated as well, if he hasn't been already.  At the very least, they can likely get Pence for misprision of felony, if not conspiracy to obstruct justice (and aiding and abetting) in the firing of James Comey.  So Trump would be wise to resign right now so Pence can pardon him, but even that would only buy the administration a little more time before they are all "Out Like Flynn" if not behind bars for a very long time.  Hope you like orange, Donald, because for once your clothing and skin will actually match!

It's beginning to look a lot like TREASON, everywhere Trump goes....

"President" Trump: More Damage in One Week than Most Presidents Do in Eight Years

Well, it's official.  The Donald has managed to do more damage in his first week in the White House, than most presidents have done in eight years.  And that is truly "unpresidented" indeed!

Let's see.  In his first week on the job, he 1) threw a hissy fit over the size of his innauseation...er...inauguration crowd, 2) implicitly threatened martial law in Chicago, 3) passed a record number of 17 executive orders in one week, 4) put a gag order on EPA and USDA scientists, 5) manufactured chaos in rolling back Obamacare by executive fiat, 6) ordered the commencement of his signature plan to build a border wall on Mexico, 7) angered Mexico by demanding they pay for the wall or else get zinged with a 20% tariff on Mexican imports, 8) angered China (for the gazillionth time), 9) angered North Korea (albeit before the inauguration), 10) cozied up to Putin (yet again), 11) ordered stepped-up deportations and the blocking of federal grants to sanctuary cities, 12) instituted a federal hiring freeze, which also includes a large number of Veterans, 13) re-instituted the "global gag rule" on abortion, 14) froze all new federal regulations, 15) sped up approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and 16) arbitrarily blocked all refugees, immigrants, and visitors from seven countries, most notably Iraq and Syria, while curiously leaving out the counties he does business in, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.  (This latter executive order as written, is basically a de-facto Muslim ban from the specified countries, though a federal court did put a temporary injunction on this ban for those who were already in transit or detained at the time thanks to massive protests at JFK International Airport and elsewhere).  Note that there were other executive orders, proclamations, and outbursts as well, this is just a list of the most damaging ones thus far.

Also, Trump's relentless verbal attacks on the media and journalists who disagree with him may not be just bluster after all, especially considering how two journalists covering the inauguration protests were arrested and even face felony riot charges, carrying up to 10 years in prison.  Yes, you read that right.  Remember, the very first people that authoritarian and totalitarian regimes always go after is the journalists. And couple that with his recent purge (sorry, "resignation") of the State Department and his blithely ignoring the recent court ruling, we have the makings for exactly that kind of regime right now.

Oh, and he still flat out refuses to divest from his numerous conflicts of interest, including his foreign ones that run afoul of the Emolunents Clause, and now says he won't even release his tax returns as he once promised he would.  This is #NotNormal!

Looks like Der Trumpenfuehrer is really batting 1000 by unhinged fascist standards.  And his approval rating is quickly approaching Nickelback territory at warp speed.  Or should we say, 3 Doors Down territory?  Those who still support him and his agenda, how does it feel to be on the wrong side of history?  Because honestly, we wouldn't know anything about that.

The Electoral College Is Completely Useless (Part Deux)

Psst....wanna know a secret about the Electoral College?

As I noted in the previous post, one of the reasons the Founders, especially Alexander Hamilton, designed the Electoral College was as a supposed fail-safe to prevent a dangerous and unqualified demagogue (especially one with foreign entanglements) from becoming President of the United States. (The 2016 election most ironically proved otherwise) Hamilton basically laid out the Federalist case for the Electoral College thusly, albeit combined with the sort of sneering elitism that even the most rabid Trump supporters would ironically claim to dislike today.

But there was also a much darker reason behind the creation of the Electoral College.  To put it bluntly, it was explicitly designed to protect--wait for it--SLAVERY.  In fact, that was the only way to get the Anti-Federalists in the southern slave states to sign on to the Constitution at all.  That is why less-populous states get a disproportionately large amount of electoral votes (since slave states often had as many slaves as free citizens and each slave only counted as 3/5 of a person in the census and was not allowed to vote).  And to this day, the Electoral College remains a bastion of white (sorry, "rural") privilege for the same reason.

Thus, the Electoral College is obsolete and currently serves no useful purpose anymore.  In fact, the winner-take-all aspect, over and above the small state bias, was the primary reason Trump won the election despite getting nearly 3 million fewer votes than Hillary, so it actually does more harm than good to this country.  Allocating electoral votes proportionally in each state instead of winner-take-all would go a long way to fixing it, and indeed Hillary would have won the electoral vote by changing just this aspect of the system.  It would also make it harder to effectively cheat as well.  But it would not solve all problems, and would in fact create a new problem--third-party candidates throwing the election into the House of Representatives when no one gets 270 majority--unless candidates with a de minimis amount of the popular vote (say, 5%) are then denied any electoral votes and/or only the top two or three candidates actually counting.  Therefore, all things considered, the very best and simplest solution is to abolish the Electoral College altogether, and elect the president by straight national popular vote going forward.

Of course, abolishing it entirely would require a constitutional amendment, and would thus be quite a long shot indeed, but there is a way to make it irrelevant by 2020.  The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is the way to do it, making it so that that only the winner of the national popular vote would win 270 electoral votes and become President, while still technically keeping the Electoral College in place.  Sign and share!

The Electoral College Is Completely Useless

On December 19, 2016, that 18th century relic known as the Electoral College effectively rubber-stamped Donald Trump as the 45th POTUS, proving that it is utterly useless in what Alexander Hamilton designed it for, i.e. preventing dangerous demagogues (especially with foreign entanglements) from ascending to the highest office in the land.  Only six Electors defected (four from Hillary, two from the Donald), which was nowhere near the 38 required to flip the election or 37 required to throw it to the House of Representatives.  Thus, no overall change.

Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but still lost the electoral vote due to the winner-take-all aspect of the way electoral votes are allocated to the states.  As a result, barring a miracle of miracles involving Congress and/or the courts, we will end up exactly the type of president that the Founders warned about.  Thus, going forward we at the TSAP have this to say to the Electoral College:  YOU'RE FIRED!  (As your buddy would say)

Here is the letter I wrote to the Electors that were pledged to Trump, in an attempt to sway them:

Dear Electors,

My name is [Redacted] from [Redacted], NY.

I am gravely concerned about the clear and present danger that Donald Trump poses to the United States of America as well as globally. He has shown reckless disregard for even the most rudimentary responsibilities that come with the awesome power of the office of the presidency. He has behaved in a blatantly racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, narcissistic, and dictatorial manner. He has ignored intelligence briefings, recklessly pokes every proverbial angry bear he can find globally with his tweets, nominated the worst possible candidates to his cabinet, avoids the media, reneged (or plans on reneging) on most of his campaign promises, and has apparently received help via hacking, propaganda, and election sabotage from his buddy Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian dictator who is clearly no friend of the United States as of late. FBI director James Comey also played his own role in sabotage his opponent with a phony scandal while simultaneously ignoring Russian hacking. In spite of such sabotage and skulduggery, Hillary Clinton still managed to win the national popular vote nonetheless by nearly three million votes--just not where those votes really mattered due to the winner-takes-all aspect of the Electoral College system. And while the (curiously aborted) recount efforts have not proven anything, they have not actually disproven anything either, and several "irregularites" benefiting Trump in crucial swing states have been found to one degree or another. In other words, a dangerous demagogue who is woefully unqualified and unfit for command--the kind that the Founders warned about and in fact created the Electoral College in order to prevent--ironically has managed to ascend to the presidency thus far.

In light of the above facts, please do the right thing and vote for Hillary. Doing so would be good for America and good for democracy overall. And if you somehow can't bring yourself to do that, at least vote for someone other than Trump. Our nation and world literally depend on it. Whether you vote for Trump or not, your decision is certain to anger roughly half of the population either way, so you might as well do it for good and vote your conscience.

Thank you for your time and consideration, I appreciate and respect the role you serve in our electoral process.

Sincerely,
[Redacted]

(Ajax the Great)

Clearly, if that couldn't sway them, nothing would.  They clearly had their minds made up.    But truly hindsight is 2020--pun intended, of course.  That is the year we must RE-DEFEAT TRUMP.  Bigly.  If he is still even in office at that point, that is.  At the rate he is going, if he is not disqualified before taking office, he is very likely to get himself impeached, resign in disgrace, or even die in office due to either poking the wrong angry bear one too many times (which he apparently luuurrrves to do) or simply having a massive heart attack from his fiery temper, stress, junk food diet, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle.  Believe me.

Why Trump Must Be Disqualified Before Taking Office

On December 9, 2016, it has been revealed that Russia has been meddling in the presidential election in an attempt to help Donald Trump win.  At first it was thought that Russia was just trying to undermine confidence in our electoral system, but it now appears that they were attacking Hillary in order to help Trump.  That includes both illegal hacking as well as the creation and dissemination of "fake news", aka propaganda.  So why would they do that?  Well, Trump seems to have some explaining to do.  From his alleged business interests in Russia to his praise of Putin to his cabinet picks with connections to Russia to his foreign-policy platform that basically reads like the ultimate Putin wish-list, the Russian regime seems to really want Trump for POTUS--dare I say, as Putin's puppet in the White House?

And Republican Senator Mitch McConnell as well as FBI Director James Comey (remember him?) both allegedly knew about it and helped cover it up.  That's right--a foreign power (if not a foreign enemy) blatantly interfered with an American presidential election, and these two supposedly swept it under the rug in order to help Trump win.  Seriously.  It's beginning to look a lot like TREASON, everywhere Trump goes...

Therefore, at a minimum, Trump needs to be disqualified from the presidency before he takes office in January, and Hillary needs to be declared the winner by default.  Yesterday.  And there is apparently at least some precedent for doing just that, as federal courts have ruled for a 1994 local election in Philadelphia.

Imagine if it were reversed, that is, if instead Hillary had won by the skin of her teeth via the arcane math of the Electoral College system while losing the popular vote.  And then it were revealed that Russia or some other foreign power had meddled in the election to help her in like fashion.  Truly the Republicans would be up in arms about that, as they should be.  Yet except for John McCain and Lindsey Graham, they have been strangely silent for some reason.  Gee, I wonder why?

And Trump's reaction to this news?  He basically just attacked the messenger (i.e. discrediting the CIA in this case) without actually refuting the allegations.  Yep, that's real normal behavior for an incoming President.  Electors and Congresscritters, take note.

UPDATE:  On December 19, the Electoral College overall did end up rubber-stamping Trump's "victory".  Only six electors defected--four from Hillary, and two from Trump, thus no effect on the outcome.  But there is still a chance to disqualify him via the courts and/or Congress, though that window is closing fast.  After inauguration on January 20, 2017, the only legal option left would be impeachment, particularly via the Emoluments Clause.  He does have a ludicrous amount of conflicts of interest, including numerous foreign entanglements of which he refuses to divest.