Donald Trump had a choice not once but twice in 2020 to save American lives. In both cases - the early days of the COVID pandemic and the weeks leading up to the January 6th attacks - he chose his own political fortunes over public safety.
Had Trump achieved his goal on January 6th, he would have turned to his family and Fox News friends who were urging him to call off his followers during the attacks by the MAGA terrorists and said, “See, you guys wanted me to stop it, but WE WON!”
Trump would have gloated in the brutality if fate had gone his way. He saw what the violent mob of insurrectionists was doing as a tribute to his greatness; where most saw violence, Trump saw his own twisted self-image reflected back to him.
Trump saw love in the blood and smoke of treason.
We’re almost two years from that awful day and we’re still waiting for charges. Which, I believe, are indeed finally coming for Trump - but how much of American life and the billable hours of our national conscience has been spent inside on sunny days, watching hearings to document his madness?
We need swift action from the Department of Justice and the newly appointed special counsel.
The second DOJ investigation Trump has faced since entering political life - but this time without a wholly corrupt attorney general, as he had in Bill Barr.
The Presidency is the greatest gift this country can bestow. That it was wasted on Donald Trump is an everlasting shame.
It took a village to hide Trump’s tax returns - from Steven Mnuchin leaving his 740 Park Avenue duplex and Wall Street windfalls to become Treasury Secretary - to Mary Barr Daly transferring from DOJ where her entire career as a U.S. Attorney was prosecuting drug cases as the Director of Opioid Enforcement, to Treasury where Trump’s tax returns fell under her purview.
Changing jobs on the day her father was sworn in as A.G., Mary Barr Daly’s purview would also include Deutsche Bank money-laundering cases and Hunter Biden disclosures, two other very sensitive subjects for the Trump Administration.
In essence, Mary and Mnuchin were there to keep hidden where the bodies were buried for Team Trump. And of course to have access to any information that could be weaponized against his opponents.
So it is not surprising that Trump’s tax returns were not audited despite the fact that they were subject to long-standing mandatory review, until halfway through his term when Congress looked into it.
Only one audit was opened during Trump’s time in office and never completed.
At the same time, intensive audits were triggered at the IRS of Trump’s perceived enemies at the FBI, James Comey and Andrew McCabe.
The tax cheat was using tax laws as a weapon.
It’s worth noting that both men had nothing to hide, unlike the former POTUS. James Comey even received a $347 dollar refund for over payment.
Trump’s hold over the lowest element, and by extension most of the GOP, continues to this day, despite the recent embarrassment of the NFTs and his criminal referrals by the House Select Committee.
The next few days will surely bring many more revelations about the depth of their grift and depravity in the midst of the January 6th insurrection.
Kim Guilfoyle’s demands of a $60,000 appearance fee at the MAGA rally kicking off the violence jumps out as an early contender.
Her gleeful dance as ‘Gloria’ played in the VIP tent, as the Trump family watched TV screens while their army assembled for battle, is an image that few will ever fully exorcise in their memory.
Punctuated, of course by Don Jr.’s coked-out call for snacks.
Last night’s address to a joint session of Congress by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, was a historic affair whose closest echo was Winston Churchill’s address in 1941.
Such a momentous event, coming at time of a time of war for Ukraine that has reverberations not just for NATO, but to the very peace and security of the free world and democracy itself, is not something to turn into a trolling stunt.
Yet, there was Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz brushing past security checkpoints to enter the floor of the U.S. Capitol.
A not-so-subtle wink and a nod to the concealed carry, ‘yea, I might be armed crowd’ of NRA fetishists the GOP so actively courts despite how much bloodshed their products and policies cause.
The same Capitol in which they gleefully cheered on an insurrection just two years ago; where Boebert tweeted out the location of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and third in line for the Presidency, as the rioters attacked.
Seemingly not just oblivious to security protocols but aiding the anti-democratic terrorists in carrying out their evil deeds.
Those sworn to uphold the Constitution were aiding those attempting to destroy the protection it enshrined.
All on behalf of a mad king who had already shown himself to be entirely venal and a threat to peace and stability in the free world.
A man who is hopefully as close as the United States will ever come to having a full blown dictator.
President Zelensky’s bravery threatens Trump, therefore it threatens the GOP itself.
They prefer cartoon bravery and cold-blooded killers that fit in with their branding operations over true valor.
Boebert and Gaetz (which sounds like a cut-rate law firm) refused to stand and applaud for Zelensky, instead choosing to stare at their phones like immature teenage trolls.
Which is basically what they are paid to be by the GOP and the dark money that funds the poor excuse for a political party the Republicans have become; a fitting end to a week in which their degradation and humiliation should be complete.
It comes after seven years of groveling at the feet of a two-bit huckster, tax cheat and sexual predator, who will go down in history as this nation’s first wholly criminal president.
A party so nakedly ambitious when it comes to their own hold on power, that they are willing to overlook such a historical moment, is perhaps one of the most un-American things I have ever witnessed.
But we can all take comfort in the fact that quiet, steady leadership, willing to stand up and fight for freedom and equality, and toe the line against naked aggression, no matter the stakes or personal sacrifice, is on full display.
That is what the world will remember.
Those who stand with President Zelensky and President Biden can take comfort in the fact they will forevermore be on the right side of history.
Go into this holiday knowing that the fight for freedom, while certainly still upon us and far from over, will ultimately be won by the side that has compassion, humility, religious freedom, equality and ultimately love itself in its corner.
Be well, stay warm and have a blessed holiday.
It was coordinated with fox along with their coms only stopped it when it the inserrection didn't work and they knew they got caught. Fox was with this shit all the way and it's unforgivable what they all did
👍😎💙🇺🇲👍