StupidiNews!

• Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain has been hospitalized and is being treated for an intestinal infection, he continues to recover from treatment of brain cancer which he was diagnosed with last year.
• The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced, with the New York Times winning three and locally the Cincinnati Enquirer with an award, the prize for Music went to rapper Kendrick Lamar.
• Myanmar's new president Win Myint says he will pardon more than 8,000 political prisoners to mark the country's new year, but two Reuters journalists will remain behind bars.
• The world's chemical weapons watchdog agency will begin investigations on a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria near Damascus from ten days ago that prompted US missile strikes.
• After 15 months the Trump regime has finally nominated a NASA administrator, a Senate vote on Oklahoma GOP Congressman Jim Bridenstine is expected by the end of the week.

Last Call For Comey Island, Con't

ABC ran an hour-long interview with former FBI Director James Comey last night ahead of Comey's book release on Tuesday, and it pretty much confirmed every thought I've had about the guy:

I’m just thinking if there was anyone in America who should have known that Donald Trump was an unethical sack of garbage, it should have been the *Director of the FBI* and yet Jim Comey was apparently *repeatedly surprised* by just how much of a cartoonish crook Trump was

— Zandar Wakandar (@ZandarVTS) April 16, 2018

Comey also says that if given the choice, he still would have informed the world eleven days before the 2016 election of the Clinton e-mails on Anthony Weiner's laptop, a bungled mess of an investigation reveal that essentially cost Clinton the race.

My take on Comey hasn't changed, he's self-serving and is using defending the "honor" of the FBI as an excuse to violate FBI rules and absolve himself of being the Judas goat that basically elected Donald Trump in the last week of October 2016. 

To save you the trouble of reading the transcript, he takes shots at everyone on the way out the door: Trump, Bob Mueller (who was his boss at one point), Rod Rosenstein, Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus, Loretta Lynch, Michael Flynn, Republicans in Congress, Democrats in Congress, the American people, you name it. Everyone's at fault here except James Comey, according to James Comey anyway.

Finally he compares Trump to a forest fire that damages America but clears out the old to make way for the new and hopes America will recover, but not if Democrats impeach Trump, which will do more damage to the country and "let the American voters off the hook" for electing the guy in the first place.

The real victim of all this is James Comey though, at least that's his view.  For that, I'll never forgive the man.

You shouldn't either.  He's right about Trump being an unfit mob boss, but he's only saying what's obvious now in the harsh glare of the spotlight that Comey himself wanted in order to save his own ass.

History won't be kind to either man.

The Greitens Report

Hey guys, Bon Tindle. here.  It's been a while, and I'm sorry that these are the circumstances that bring me back.  Zandar graciously asked me to help cover the shame of my home state, Missouri.

[Zandar here.  Bon Tindle has graciously agreed to write about Missouri GOP Gov. Eric Greitens for ZVTS as she lives in the state, so please let her know what you think in the comments!]

After reading the entire report about our governor, I was upset for a variety of reasons.  As a woman who has been targeted by a man in power, I recognized the setup.  The way they test victims, and make sure they are able to terrorize them into silence.  The stalking and unwanted appearances.

And, of course, the violence.

This story has a lot of angles, and speaks to a lot of topics.  I am going to focus on the victim and consent right now, and circle back to other subjects in later posts.

It is important to note that the victim did not consent to the acts that took place.  She was sometimes not even given the chance to give or revoke consent because she was not in control of her situation, such as when the photograph was allegedly taken.  Other times, she complied because it brought her closer to escape.  In testimony deemed credible, the victim was not a willing party to the actions that took place.

That's called rape, and there is no backing away from it.  The blackmail is an enormous ethical violation as well, but the way the rape was engineered is thoroughly disturbing.

But there are other violations, as well.  The media grabbed this story and took off, and though the fact was known that the victim did not initiate the story, very few stopped to consider what that means.  It means this story was not driven by the victim, and was likely against her wishes. It was broken by her ex-husband, who drove the narrative for the first several days.  It involved a recorded call and the victim had no idea her words were recorded. While that is legal in Missouri, that doesn't mean it is ethical when used to further victimize.  Thoughtless posters on social media poked fun without considering it came at a victim's expense.  These are issues that also need to be addressed and filed appropriately.

Good journalists note these things and question the motives of a source. I am very proud to say the Springfield News-Leader was sensitive to this throughout the coverage.  They also voiced an opinion that the governor must go, in light of what we know.  For the record, I could not agree more.

Make no mistake, there is some support for Greitens among the most loyal, but it is dying quickly.  Political allies are dropping one by one, but as the story unfolds and the victim gains credibility, most people I  have interviewed believe there is a dead end ahead, whether through resignation or involuntary process is the only question.

I will continue to cover this, and as the story develops bring it over here and share the local knowledge and response.

Sign Of The Times

The New York Times editorial board finally makes the call on Trump that they should have made more than 18 months ago.

News reports point to a growing possibility that President Trump may act to cripple or shut down an investigation by the nation’s top law-enforcement agencies into his campaign and administration. Lawmakers need to be preparing now for that possibility because if and when it comes to pass, they will suddenly find themselves on the edge of an abyss, with the Constitution in their hands.

Make no mistake: If Mr. Trump takes such drastic action, he will be striking at the foundation of the American government, attempting to set a precedent that a president, alone among American citizens, is above the law. What can seem now like a political sideshow will instantly become a constitutional crisis, and history will come calling for Mr. Hatch and his colleagues.

For months, investigators have been examining whether Mr. Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russian government to undermine American democracy, and whether the president misused his power by obstructing justice in an effort to end that investigation.

Until the last few weeks, Mr. Trump had shown restraint, by his standards, anyway. He and his lawyers cooperated with investigators. Mr. Trump never tweeted directly about Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and spoke about him publicly only when asked.

Alas, that whiff of higher executive function is gone. Mr. Trump is openly attacking both Mr. Mueller and Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, appointed by Mr. Trump himself. Mr. Rosenstein is overseeing the Russia investigation and signing off on Mr. Mueller’s actions.

Of course, this president has been known to huff and puff, to bluff and bluster, and he may be doing no more than that now. He may choose not to fire either man. We know he has already twice told his aides he wanted Mr. Mueller fired, only to be talked out of such rash action.

But if the president does move against the investigators, it will be up to Congress to affirm the rule of law, the separation of powers and the American constitutional order. The miserable polarization and partisan anger that have been rising in American life for decades will hit a new crescendo, and that will present congressional Republicans with a heavy burden indeed.

They go on to plead with congressional Republicans, starting with Senate president pro tempore and Judiciary Committee chair Orrin Hatch, to do the right thing for America's sake should Trump make the move we all at this point expect him to make on Rosenstein and Mueller (and possibly Jeff Sessions being taken out by the ensuing collateral damage as well).

I wouldn't hold my breath on Hatch doing anything at all.  Mitch McConnell will see to that.  Paul Ryan in the House?  Well, he's heading for the hills.  Don't expect anything there either.

This was always going to be up to Republicans in Congress, and there's nothing that I've seen that makes it even remotely feasible that they will choose country over party.  Perhaps in January with a new House and Senate controlled by the Dems, but the one we have now, no way.

And let's not forget we have an entire media empire devoted to keeping Trump in power no matter how far he goes.

The 2018 elections may be our best hope, and even then by the time they roll around it may already be too late.

StupidiNews!

• Former First Lady Barbara Bush is in failing health according to a family spokesperson, the 92-year-old matriarch is forgoing more hospitalization and instead is focusing on "comfort care".
• Britain's foreign minister says that the US, Britain, and France will consider all options should the Assad regime use chemical weapons again in Syria.
• Likewise, Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that another strike by the US in Syria will "cause global chaos" as the Trump regime is expected to announce new sanctions against Syria's suppliers.
• The US Supreme Court will take up a case this week on whether or not states can force all online retailers to collect sales taxes, not just businesses that have a physical presence in a state. 
• Energy Secretary Rick Perry appears eager to help coal and nuclear plant companies out with an emergency bailout order that could cost taxpayers billions.

Last Call For Courting Disaster

The Trump regime has long insisted that it has unlimited power over firing Robert Mueller and can choose to do so at any time for any reason, and made that statement again last week.

The White House “has been advised” that President Donald Trump has the authority to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday.

Trump fumed to reporters about Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign on Monday after the FBI raided the office and other properties of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. The president described the raid as a crime, called the probe “a disgrace” and “an attack on our country” and entertained a question about whether he would fire the special counsel, but didn’t directly answer it.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

Sanders, asked repeatedly about the remarks on Tuesday, referred many questions to Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice. But asked whether Trump can fire Mueller, she insisted that he could.

“We’ve been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision,” she said, an answer that suggests the White House has explored the matter.

Even with some Republicans saying that he shouldn't fire Robert Mueller, no Republican has ever said that Trump lacks the authority to do so, nor do they see the need to make it clear through legislation that he can't.

Senate Republican leaders sharply warned President Donald Trump not to fire Robert Mueller III on Tuesday - but they once again stopped short of embracing legislation to protect the special counsel.

Their reluctance to take more forceful action came as Democratic leaders voiced new urgency to shield Mueller a day after Trump said he had been encouraged by some to dismiss the special counsel. At least one rank-and-file Republican endorsed moving forward soon with a bill to protect him.

But Senate GOP leaders were not budging from their position against taking preventive action, underscoring the downside they have long seen in being too confrontational against the leader of their party. Even at moments of great uncertainty about what Trump will do next, congressional Republican leaders have opted not to further agitate him.

"I haven't seen clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed, because I don't think that's going to happen," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. McConnell did not elaborate on why he believed that.

And should Trump fire Mueller's current boss, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, well, they've laid out a succession plan for that, too.

Rosenstein, the No. 2 official at the department, is supervising the Mueller probe because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 presidential campaign. 

So if Rosenstein is fired or recuses himself (as a witness to key events), someone else at the Justice Department will have to manage the investigation. 

This is where the department's succession plan and the President's executive order for vacancies come into play. 

The following list of individuals -- which is a mashup of officials because certain Trump nominees have not yet been Senate-confirmed -- would be next in line to step in Rosenstein's shoes:

1. Solicitor General Noel Francisco
2. The assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Engel
3. The assistant attorney general for national security, John Demers
4. The US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Robert Higdon
5. The US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Erin Nealy Cox  

Under this hypothetical, Francisco would be the first in line to supervise Mueller. But Rosenstein's acting principal associate deputy, Ed O'Callaghan, would become acting deputy attorney general for all other regular duties.

Now, I always thought it was odd that the Solicitor General, the government's lawyer before the Supreme Court, would be the number three person at the DoJ, followed by four lawyers all appointed by Trump. And yes, Francisco was appointed by Trump too, he was on Dubya's recount legal team back in 2000.

"So what does all this mean, Zandar?" you ask.

It means that alarm bells should be ringing all over Washington DC.

It means Donald Trump is going to try to fire Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller, and soon. 

Because Noel Francisco is auditioning for Rosenstein's job by arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump can fire Mueller.

The Supreme Court is set to hear a seemingly minor case later this month on the status of administrative judges at the Securities and Exchange Commission, an issue that normally might only draw the interest of those accused of stock fraud.

But the dispute turns on the president's power to hire and fire officials throughout the government. And it comes just as the White House is saying President Trump believes he has the power to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Trump's Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco intervened in the SEC case to urge the high court to clarify the president's constitutional power to fire all "officers of the United States" who "exercise significant authority" under the law.

"The Constitution gives the president what the framers saw as the traditional means of ensuring accountability: the power to oversee executive officers through removal," he wrote in Lucia vs. SEC. "The president is accordingly authorized under our constitutional system to remove all principal officers, as well as all 'inferior officers' he has appointed."

Yes, this is what you think it is.  Trump wants a call on firing Mueller from the Supreme Court.

In addition to representing the administration before the Supreme Court, Francisco, a former law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, could be in line to oversee the Mueller inquiry if Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein is fired. Atty. Gen Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the investigation.

Peter Shane, a law professor at the Ohio State University, called Francisco's argument a "radical proposition," and one that goes beyond what is at issue in the case. The justices said they would focus only on how the SEC in-house judges are appointed. But Francisco is asking them to go further and rule on the "removal" issue.

"The solicitor general is obviously trying to goad the court into a broad statement about the removability of all officers of the United States," Shane said. "Were the court to make any such statement, it would surely be cited by Trump as backing any move by him to fire Mueller directly."

It's possible that this is just a contingency plan.  Trump's lawyers continue to insist he has the power to fire Mueller anyway.  But should the courts make such a call in this case, Trump would have the cover he needs.

Now I think the Supreme Court won't address this issue yet and could even ask the Trump regime to refer the issue to Congress if they want increased authority.  Such a statement could imply that Trump doesn't have the power to fire Mueller however, and I think SCOTUS may punt completely and keep the narrow focus.

But the fact Francisco is even asking the courts for this is a dead giveaway that Trump wants to make this move ASAP.

Be ready.

America Gets That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds Trump's approval rating inching back up to 40% from 36% in January, but the real news is Trump's base is coming back to him.

Overall, Trump has gained ground in approval among several demographic groups that were important in his 2016 campaign. For one, 59 percent of Americans living in rural areas now approve of his job performance, up 17 points from January and a smaller seven points from last November. Among white rural Americans specifically, his approval is even higher: 65 percent approve, up from 50 percent in January.

Trump garners above-water approval among whites, 53 percent of whom approve of the president, up seven points from January. He does even better among whites without college degrees (60 percent, up seven points) and white men without college degrees (70 percent, up six points). Almost three-quarters of conservatives approve of the president in the latest poll, 74 percent, up nine points from January.

Trump continues to face overwhelming disapproval from an array of other groups, including 79 percent of racial and ethnic minorities, 67 percent of adults under age 30, and 64 percent of women. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and over 8 in 10 liberals also disapprove of Trump.

If you're wondering why the last six weeks has been nothing but Trump attacks on his enemies' list, it's because Trump is circling his wagons and rallying the base, and these numbers are out before the latest strikes in Syria.  When it comes to rural white voters, and especially white men without college degrees, Trump is now fully their man.  Portraying attacks on Trump as attacks on them is a deliberate strategy.

It's working.   I expect this number to only grow as we head into midterms.

I don't know if it will be enough to save other Republicans in November, especially since Trump's attacks are landing on congressional Republicans and there's a lot of collateral damage on the GOP in general.  But if Trump gets those white voters to turn out, the blue wave will crash on the rocks and do no damage.

This tells me Trump is re-motivating the base, even with taking his trade war with China into effect on rural voters.  They believe he's going to win and make the jobs come back.  They're willing to suffer for him for a variety of reasons.

This also tells me that red state voter suppression of black and Hispanic voters will be even more important in 2018 and 2020.

The most important poll in 2018 though happens on Election Day.  Get out there.

Sunday Long Read: The Birth Of Racism

Over the last twenty years, America's infant mortality rate has increased dramatically, and the change has come almost exclusively at the expense of black mothers and black babies.  This is true for pregnant black women regardless of education and income level, and in the era of Trump, this is will absolutely explode into a national crisis of epic proportions.

From 1915 through the 1990s, amid vast improvements in hygiene, nutrition, living conditions and health care, the number of babies of all races who died in the first year of life dropped by over 90 percent — a decrease unparalleled by reductions in other causes of death. But that national decline in infant mortality has since slowed. In 1960, the United States was ranked 12th among developed countries in infant mortality. Since then, with its rate largely driven by the deaths of black babies, the United States has fallen behind and now ranks 32nd out of the 35 wealthiest nations. Low birth weight is a key factor in infant death, and a new report released in March by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin suggests that the number of low-birth-weight babies born in the United States — also driven by the data for black babies — has inched up for the first time in a decade.

Black infants in America are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants — 11.3 per 1,000 black babies, compared with 4.9 per 1,000 white babies, according to the most recent government data — a racial disparity that is actually wider than in 1850, 15 years before the end of slavery, when most black women were considered chattel. In one year, that racial gap adds up to more than 4,000 lost black babies. Education and income offer little protection. In fact, a black woman with an advanced degree is more likely to lose her baby than a white woman with less than an eighth-grade education.

This tragedy of black infant mortality is intimately intertwined with another tragedy: a crisis of death and near death in black mothers themselves. The United States is one of only 13 countries in the world where the rate of maternal mortality — the death of a woman related to pregnancy or childbirth up to a year after the end of pregnancy — is now worse than it was 25 years ago. Each year, an estimated 700 to 900 maternal deaths occur in the United States. In addition, the C.D.C. reports more than 50,000 potentially preventable near-deaths, like Landrum’s, per year — a number that rose nearly 200 percent from 1993 to 2014, the last year for which statistics are available. Black women are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts, according to the C.D.C. — a disproportionate rate that is higher than that of Mexico, where nearly half the population lives in poverty — and as with infants, the high numbers for black women drive the national numbers.

Monica Simpson is the executive director of SisterSong, the country’s largest organization dedicated to reproductive justice for women of color, and a member of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, an advocacy group. In 2014, she testified in Geneva before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, saying that the United States, by failing to address the crisis in black maternal mortality, was violating an international human rights treaty. After her testimony, the committee called on the United States to “eliminate racial disparities in the field of sexual and reproductive health and standardize the data-collection system on maternal and infant deaths in all states to effectively identify and address the causes of disparities in maternal- and infant-mortality rates.” No such measures have been forthcoming. Only about half the states and a few cities maintain maternal-mortality review boards to analyze individual cases of pregnancy-related deaths. There has not been an official federal count of deaths related to pregnancy in more than 10 years. An effort to standardize the national count has been financed in part by contributions from Merck for Mothers, a program of the pharmaceutical company, to the CDC Foundation.

The crisis of maternal death and near-death also persists for black women across class lines. This year, the tennis star Serena Williams shared in Vogue the story of the birth of her first child and in further detail in a Facebook post. The day after delivering her daughter, Alexis Olympia, via C-section in September, Williams experienced a pulmonary embolism, the sudden blockage of an artery in the lung by a blood clot. Though she had a history of this disorder and was gasping for breath, she says medical personnel initially ignored her concerns. Though Williams should have been able to count on the most attentive health care in the world, her medical team seems to have been unprepared to monitor her for complications after her cesarean, including blood clots, one of the most common side effects of C-sections. Even after she received treatment, her problems continued; coughing, triggered by the embolism, caused her C-section wound to rupture. When she returned to surgery, physicians discovered a large hematoma, or collection of blood, in her abdomen, which required more surgery. Williams, 36, spent the first six weeks of her baby’s life bedridden.

The reasons for the black-white divide in both infant and maternal mortality have been debated by researchers and doctors for more than two decades. But recently there has been growing acceptance of what has largely been, for the medical establishment, a shocking idea: For black women in America, an inescapable atmosphere of societal and systemic racism can create a kind of toxic physiological stress, resulting in conditions — including hypertension and pre-eclampsia — that lead directly to higher rates of infant and maternal death. And that societal racism is further expressed in a pervasive, longstanding racial bias in health care — including the dismissal of legitimate concerns and symptoms — that can help explain poor birth outcomes even in the case of black women with the most advantages.

“Actual institutional and structural racism has a big bearing on our patients’ lives, and it’s our responsibility to talk about that more than just saying that it’s a problem,” says Dr. Sanithia L. Williams, an African-American OB-GYN in the Bay Area and a fellow with the nonprofit organization Physicians for Reproductive Health. “That has been the missing piece, I think, for a long time in medicine.”

Racism can and does kill at birth in America.

That is the cold, hard truth.

We live in a country where making sure black mothers gave birth was more important in the era of slavery than it is today, because back then black women were an economic investment.  In 2018, black people are routinely killed because we are seen as without worth.  The stress of that is lethal.  In an era where simply being black gets you arrested for the crime of being at a Starbucks and waiting for a friend, the stress kills.

And I'm so tired of this.  We all are.

It's killing us.,  Everything about this country it seems is designed to kill us.  It is specifically designed to kill black women.  It is monstrous.

It is all we can do just to survive.

The Bonfire Of The Manatee

Adam Davidson at the New Yorker has covered the collapse of systems before, both in Iraq and in the 2007 financial crisis, and posits that this week was the turning point, like the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns and Dubya's 2003 "Mission Impossible" declaration on the USS Abraham Lincoln, that indicates events are now leading into the end of the Trump regime.

I thought of those earlier experiences this week as I began to feel a familiar clarity about what will unfold next in the Trump Presidency. There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored. Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue. Even if Trump pardons Cohen, the information the Feds have on him can become the basis for charges against others in the Trump Organization.

This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth. I know dozens of reporters and other investigators who have studied Donald Trump and his business and political ties. Some have been skeptical of the idea that President Trump himself knowingly colluded with Russian officials. It seems not at all Trumpian to participate in a complex plan with a long-term, uncertain payoff. Collusion is an imprecise word, but it does seem close to certain that his son Donald, Jr., and several people who worked for him colluded with people close to the Kremlin; it is up to prosecutors and then the courts to figure out if this was illegal or merely deceitful. We may have a hard time finding out what President Trump himself knew and approved.

However, I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history. In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”; there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil; the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud. Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously. His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations.

Listing all the financial misconduct can be overwhelming and tedious. I have limited myself to some of the deals over the past decade, thus ignoring Trump’s long history of links to New York Mafia figures and other financial irregularities. It has become commonplace to say that enough was known about Trump’s shady business before he was elected; his followers voted for him precisely because they liked that he was someone willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and they also believe that all rich businesspeople have to do shady things from time to time. In this way of thinking, any new information about his corrupt past has no political salience. Those who hate Trump already think he’s a crook; those who love him don’t care.

I believe this assessment is wrong. Sure, many people have a vague sense of Trump’s shadiness, but once the full details are better known and digested, a fundamentally different narrative about Trump will become commonplace. Remember: we knew a lot about problems in Iraq in May, 2003. Americans saw TV footage of looting and heard reports of U.S. forces struggling to gain control of the entire country. We had plenty of reporting, throughout 2007, about various minor financial problems. Somehow, though, these specific details failed to impress upon most Americans the over-all picture. It took a long time for the nation to accept that these were not minor aberrations but, rather, signs of fundamental crisis. Sadly, things had to get much worse before Americans came to see that our occupation of Iraq was disastrous and, a few years later, that our financial system was in tatters.

I have to agree.  This week, in particular the Cohen raid, was the moment that when we look back on the Trump era, will be the moment where we can point to this all ending very badly for Trump and for America.  The rest of this play hasn't been written yet, but you can see the foreshadowing and the smell the coming storm.  If the November 2016 election was act one and the Mueller investigation starting in May 2017 was act two, the Cohen raid signals the third act of our uniquely American dark comedy.

I don't know where all this will end up.  As with Iraq and the Great Recession, the coda will take years, if not decades, to perform on the world stage.  I don't know what will come after, whether it's a Pence presidency, a neutered Trump under a Democratic Congress, or an America plunged into something much worse, but the Trump era as it is now is on its way out.

It's up to us to shape that coda.

Last Call For The Other Side

The Trumpies are in real trouble from the Cohen side of Mueller's probe, and they know it.  At this point the only thing keeping their side from complete breakdown is message discipline, and that's starting to come apart at the seams.  

The goofballs over at Power Line think Trump should pardon everyone and rip off the bandaid, as if it will end the Mueller probe or resolve any of the issues involving Trump, Russia, money laundering or obstruction of justice.

In “What is to be done?” I set forth the possibility that President Trump might shut down his entanglement in the Mueller probe (the Mueller Switch Project) by pardoning its criminal targets so far: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and the Dutch lawyer. He could do so with the explanation that Mueller’s probe has come up dry on its supposed predicate of Russian collusion with the Trump presidential campaign. Rush Limbaugh argued the pardon option in “If you want to end this, Mr. President, start pardoning.”

As President Trump has said repeatedly, there was “no collusion.” Thus the never-ending detours of the Mueller probe. In this scenario President Trump would leave Mueller free to write up the results of his investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign and even the evidence of alleged collusion, if any. I have assumed the veracity of the president’s claim of “no collusion” from the outset. If it weren’t true, we would have heard about the facts that make it out by now and we haven’t.

The "Where's the smoking gun?" strawman is a fun one, as if somehow everything we've heard about Trump doing in the last 18 months doesn't disqualify him from office.  But here's the hysterical part:

Mulling this over a bit further, I have one final thought. If President Trump were to take up the pardon solution, I think he would be well advised to include Hillary Clinton and the entire Clinton circle in the pardons. He could explain that he is trying to put the controversies arising from the past election behind us for the good of the country. It might make him look magnanimous and would have the additional advantage of driving them and their friends absolutely nuts.

Can you imagine what the people baying for Clinton and Obama's blood at Trump rallies would do should LOCK HER UP become "Well we pardoned her"?  Start the RINO hunt!

This is what the "principled" defense of Trump looks like, folks.  Highbrow comedy at its finest.

Wag The Dog, Con't

Trump's efforts to get the Comey/Cohen stories off the front page may have worked for a day, but Syria, Russia, and Iran are already taunting the Tangerine Tyrant as last night's missile strikes against Syria were mostly intercepted by Russian air defenses.

Syria, Russia and Iran shrugged off strikes on Saturday by the United States and its allies against three Syrian chemical weapons facilities, which drew angry condemnations but no indication that there would be a wider escalation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the U.S.-led strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities as an “act of aggression,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatalloh Ali Khamenei tweeted that the attack represented “a war crime,” and the Syrian Foreign Ministry described it as “barbarous aggression.”

But the pre-dawn volleys of cruise missiles launched by the United States, Britain and France were limited to three sites linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program and triggered no retaliation. Russia said they did little damage and that most of the cruise missiles targeting Syrian sites had been intercepted by Syrian air defenses, including all of those that were bound for the site from which last week’s alleged chemical attack originated.

World leaders sought to tamp down any tensions associated with the strike.

“This was not about interfering in a civil war and it was not about regime change,” Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May told a news conference in London. “We expressly sought to avoid escalation and did everything to avoid civilian casualties.”

In Damascus, there was defiance and relief as residents jolted awake by explosions at around 4 a.m. realized the strikes would be limited. Syrian state television broadcast scenes of citizens taking to the streets to celebrate and demonstrate their support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, waving Syrian, Russian and Iranian flags.

“The honorable cannot be humiliated,” said a post from the Twitter account maintained by Assad’s office shortly after the attack. A few hours later the account tweeted a video of him walking nonchalantly to work through the halls of the Syrian presidential palace.

The United States and its allies said three facilities associated with Syria’s chemical weapons program were targeted: a scientific research center in the greater Damascus area, a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs, and a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and command post, also near Homs.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said they did little damage. In a statement the ministry said that of 103 cruise missiles fired in the U.S.-led airstrike, 71 were shot down by Syria’s Soviet-made air-defense systems. The intercepted missiles included all 12 of those bound for the Al-Dumayr military airfield near Damascus, where the chemical attack that triggered the crisis was allegedly launched.

If you want to know what Putin's retaliation was for being called out by both British PM Theresa May and Trump for last month's attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, you're looking at it, and once again Putin has won a near complete victory.

Yes, the chemical weapon attack by Assad a couple weeks ago was abhorrent, but it was also obvious in its intent to get under Trump's skin and show the world that the US and UK can no longer just launch cruise missiles with impunity.  The Russians still insist that Britian was behind the chemical weapon attacks both on their home soil and in Syria and the US is aiding and abetting in war crimes, and both Trump and May look like fools.

And remember, this is being done all while Trump's travel ban preventing refugees from war-torn Syria, who we've been bombing since day one of the Trump regime, from entering the US as the worst refugee crisis in recent history continues to unfold.  He fires missiles into their country, then when their people flee the hell he's brought to them, he calls them terrorists and leaves them to rot.

Trump is so predictable in his egomania that Putin is having a field day with it, and once again he's gotten the upper hand on proving just how easily he can make Trump his puppet, this time for all the world to see. And Russia is now promising retaliation.

And the trouble back here in the states?  That hasn't gone away just because a petulant man-child threw a $100 million military temper tantrum.  And what does Trump get for his troubles?  His most virulent supporters like Alex Jones and Michael Savage have utterly turned on him this weekend, vowing that Trump has given in to the "globalists".

On we go.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan, Con't

As if we didn't have enough news to process today, here in Kentucky things also took a turn for the worse, both ugly and bizarre.  GOP Gov. Matt Bevin vetoed the state budget, tax reform, and pension reform bills because they didn't punish state employees and Kentucky's poor enough earlier this week, so on Friday the state legislature overrode all three vetoes.

The Kentucky General Assembly on Friday voted to override vetoes by Gov. Matt Bevin on three key bills: the two-year, $22 billion state budget; changes to the tax code expected to generate several hundred million dollars in new revenue; and a measure that will give pension relief to local governments.

Although the House and Senate are overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans, lawmakers said they wanted to show their independence from the Republican governor, who early in the day criticized their budget and tax bills on Twitter.

“If you think siding with the governor and giving him the authority to control this budget is a good idea, then vote ‘No,’” Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, told his Senate colleagues, urging them to vote for the veto override on the budget bill.

Lawmakers return to the Capitol on Saturday for the last day of the 2018 legislative session. They said they expect to pass one or more measures to “tweak” inadvertent errors in their hastily assembled tax bill and deal with other problems brought to their attention in the past two weeks, including additional money needed for the statewide Kentucky Wired internet broadband project.

Bevin does have line-item veto power, but he scrapped all three bills in their entirely because his significantly deeper budget cuts, especially to education and infrastructure, were not included.  He sent the bills back this week and announced that unless his cuts were passed, he would call a special session and keep it open until he got his way.

When he didn't get what he demanded on cuts to education funding and teacher benefits and pensions, Matt Bevin showed who he truly is to the entire state, country, and world.

Gov. Matt Bevin, asked Friday about teachers leaving the classrooms to attend a protest rally in Frankfort, said, “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

Louisville’s WDRB-TV interviewed Bevin outside the Capitol Friday about the rally.

In the interview, Bevin said, “This is what’s crazy to me. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of children today were left home alone?

He then added that consequently a child in Kentucky was sexually assaulted. He added that he guaranteed a child was “physically assaulted or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them.”

Kentucky Education Association President Stephanie Winkler said Friday night she was appalled at Bevin’s comment.

“There are no words,” Winkler said. “My mouth was hanging open and I don’t even know what I can tell you." 

Lawmakers in both parties called him out after Bevin exploded in rage on Friday.

“The disgusting comments by Gov. Bevin insinuating that a peaceful protest by teachers would lead to sexual assault are reprehensible,” tweeted state Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville. “I don’t agree with these comments & I find them repulsive. I disagreed with his radio comments about teachers before & I disagree with these.”

In response to Wise’s tweet, Daviess County Superintendent Matt Robbins called for the Republican-led General Assembly — in Frankfort on Saturday for its last day of business — to censure Bevin.

“This is reprehensible and his own party needs to tell him enough is enough,” Robbins said.

Former House Speaker Jeff Hoover, who has been sniping with Bevin over his ethic hearing on sexual harassment had just two sentences on Twitter:

“Out of control. Unhinged.”

Another Republican senator, Whitney Westerfield of Hopkinsville, said on Twitter he was troubled, frustrated and disappointed by Bevin’s comments, “once again needlessly and unjustly demonizing a group of professionals who, like the eight I met with for an hour before we convened, were engaging with legislators peacefully.”

I've been telling people for years that Bevin is an asshole of the lowest order.  What Trump is doing to the country right now, Bevin's been doing since 2015.  If you still somehow had doubt that he wasn't a vile scumbag, now you know what Kentucky's had to deal with.

I expect that situation will be rectified next year.

 

Last Call For Wag The Dog

It was a devastating news day for Donald Trump today.

First, came the obvious message pitch across Robert Mueller's bow that Trump will reward loyalty with pardons, as he pardoned former Dick Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby.

In his decision Friday to pardon a former Bush administration official convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, President Trump telegraphed his open hostility to the criminal justice system and his desire to use the power of the presidency as a personal political tool.

As with his controversial pardon last year of a former Arizona county sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who had been held in contempt of court, Trump effectively thumbed his nose at the judiciary by pardoning I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. The Justice Department was not involved in either case, officials said.

Trump acknowledged Friday that he has no personal relationship with Libby, but the George W. Bush administration veteran has powerful allies in the conservative movement who lobbied Trump over many months. Trump concluded that Libby had been unfairly convicted in 2007 because of an overzealous prosecutor who investigated the leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity and was deserving of a pardon.

When that's the lede in your story on the Libby pardon, you've already lost.  Trump knew it.  And the day only got worse for him when the cycle turned to his lawyer, Michael Cohen.

The FBI seized recordings President Donald Trump's attorney made of his conversations with a lawyer representing two women who had alleged affairs with Trump, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN. 

The recordings could prove valuable to the government's criminal investigation of Michael Cohen. The President's personal attorney is under scrutiny in part for his role in seeking to suppress the alleged affair through a hush deal with porn star Stormy Daniels. The warrant sought information about that payment along with any information that connected Cohen with efforts to suppress disclosure of Trump's alleged affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal. 

The warrant for the raids also specified that Cohen was being investigated for bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance issues, CNN reported earlier this week. 

While Cohen has admitted to no wrongdoing, the intensity of the government's investigation will put significant pressure on one of the President's closest confidants. If Cohen chooses to cooperate rather than fight a potential case against him, then his knowledge about the President's activities could create serious problems for Trump as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his investigation. 

The source said Cohen recorded some calls he had with attorney Keith Davidson, who at the time represented both Daniels and McDougal. Davidson no longer represents either woman. Their deals to keep their stories about alleged affairs quiet are now the subject of litigation, with each seeking to be released from their agreements. 

Again, Cohen is definitely under a major federal investigation and has been for months, and the FBI has pretty much everything as far as evidence.  Trump knows the walls are closing in.

It only got worse for him.

A major donor with close ties to the White House resigned on Friday as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after the revelation that he had agreed to pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair.

The deal was arranged in the final months of 2017 by President Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen.

Under the terms of the deal, the Republican donor, Elliott Broidy, would pay the woman in installments over the course of two years, and she would agree to stay silent about their relationship, two people with knowledge of the arrangement told The New York Times. The deal was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The agreement with Mr. Broidy is the latest instance to come to light of Mr. Cohen’s involvement in efforts to suppress negative information. On Monday, as part of a wide-ranging federal inquiry into Mr. Cohen’s activities, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the lawyer’s Manhattan office and hotel room. The F.B.I. was seeking, among other things, business records, emails and documents relating to Mr. Cohen’s role in paid confidentiality agreements during the presidential campaign with two other women, who said they had had sexual relationships with Mr. Trump.

Another deal, this time a massive payout to cover for a major GOP donor and deputy finance chairman of the RNC.  The Republicans are neck-deep in a titanic campaign finance scandal, and it looks like everything revolved around Michael Cohen.

The Trump regime though has struck back, first, trying to discredit Andrew McCabe by choosing today to release the section of the Justice Department's Inspector General report on McCabe's firing.

The Justice Department inspector general delivered to Congress on Friday a scathing report that accused Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, of violating the federal law enforcement agency’s media policy and then repeatedly misleading investigators about his actions.

The inspector general found that Mr. McCabe, 50, had lacked candor on four occasions when questioned by investigators and faulted his decision to authorize the disclosure of information to a reporter with The Wall Street Journal in October 2016 as self-serving.

In a point-by-point rebuttal of the report, Mr. McCabe said that he had full authorization to share this information with the news media as deputy director and that he did not intentionally mislead investigators. He also argued that his decision to release information about an investigation into the financial dealings of the Clinton Foundation was justified and in the public’s interest.

Mr. McCabe, a 21-year F.B.I. veteran, was fired in March after Attorney General Jeff Sessions rejected an appeal that would have let him retire with a full government pension.

At the time, Mr. Sessions said that Mr. McCabe had repeatedly shown a lack of candor under oath. Mr. McCabe disputed that, saying his firing was meant to undermine the special counsel investigation being led by Robert S. Mueller III, and to discredit him as a witness.

The report is brutal on McCabe, basically accusing him of leaking the details of the Clinton email investigation to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 and crucifying him for it, serving him up as the Judas goat that ruined Clinton's chances (and neatly exonerating any Russian connection or Trump, according to the White House, anyway.)  The dastardly villain who wrecked the Clinton campaign with an October surprise was caught and fired, case closed, investigation over!

That Trump "victory" turned to ashes though this evening when an even bigger Cohen story hit the wire.

The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.

Cohen caught cold considering collusion!  My my my, this story certainly will be the headline tomorrow morning, won't it?  Trump knows the walls are closing in certainly now.  Mueller and Rosenstein are no longer the threat.

President Trump’s advisers have concluded that a wide-ranging corruption investigation into his personal lawyer poses a greater and more imminent threat to the president than even the special counsel’s investigation, according to several people close to Mr. Trump.

As his lawyers went to court in New York on Friday to try to block prosecutors from reading files that were seized from the personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, this week, Mr. Trump found himself increasingly isolated in mounting a response. He continued to struggle to hire a new criminal lawyer, and some of his own aides were reluctant to advise him about a response for fear of being dragged into a criminal investigation themselves.

The raids on Mr. Cohen came as part of a monthslong federal investigation based in New York, court records show, and were sweeping in their breadth. In addition to searching his home, office and hotel room, F.B.I. agents seized material from Mr. Cohen’s cellphones, tablet, laptop and safe deposit box, according to people briefed on the warrants. Prosecutors revealed in court documents that they had already secretly obtained many of Mr. Cohen’s emails.

Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen on Friday to “check in,” according to two people briefed on the call. Depending on what else was discussed, the call could be problematic, as lawyers typically advise their clients against discussing investigations.

Mr. Cohen has publicly declared that he would defend the president to the end, but court documents show that prosecutors are building a significant case that could put pressure on him to cooperate and tell investigators what he knows.

The documents seized by prosecutors could shed light on the president’s relationship with a lawyer who has helped navigate some of Mr. Trump’s thorniest personal and business dilemmas. Mr. Cohen served for more than a decade as a trusted fixer and, during the campaign, helped tamp down brewing scandals about women who claimed to have carried on affairs with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and their teams were still scrambling on Friday to assess the damage from the raid early Monday morning. They remained unsure what had been taken, an uncertainty that has heightened the unease around Mr. Trump.

Trump is in the bunker, up against the clock.  And he made the only move he figured he had left.

For tonight, Friday the 13th of April, 2018, we just declared war on Syria.

The United States and European allies launched strikes against Syrian targets, President Trump announced on Friday, seeking to punish President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected chemical attack near Damascus last weekend that killed more than 40 people.

Mr. Trump said Britain and France had joined the United States in the strikes, which he said were underway.

“These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead,” Mr. Trump, in a televised nighttime address from the White House Diplomatic Room, said of the chemical attacks that he blamed on Mr. Assad.

He said the allied strikes of precision weapons sought to deter the production, spread and use of chemical weapons as “a vital national security interest of the United States.”

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Mr. Trump said.

The strikes risked pulling the United States deeper into the complex, multi-sided war in Syria from which Mr. Trump only last week said he wanted to withdraw. They also raised the possibility of confrontation with Russia and Iran, both of which have military forces in Syria to support Mr. Assad.

And so, less than two weeks after wanting to completely cut and run from Syria, Donald Trump has played the "wag the dog" card in order to save his presidency.

Tonight, America and the world just became an exponentially scarier place.  All of this happened in less than 24 hours.

At this point, all bets are off.  Here there be dragons.

Godspeed. Where we go from here is anyone's guess.

So Fast It'll SNAP Your Head Back

Trump and the GOP are now turning to "welfare reform" after giving corporations their huge tax cut and wrecking Obamacare.  House Republicans want to start by imposing a three month limit and an 80-hours-per-month work requirement on all SNAP recipients, not just those without dependents.

Republicans controlling the House are proposing sweeping new work mandates on the nation’s more than 40 million food stamp recipients as they kick off debate on a politically-freighted election-year overhaul of the government’s food and farm programs. 

Legislation released Thursday would require able-bodied adults aged 18-59 to work or participate in job training for 20 hours a week in order to receive food stamp benefits that average about $450 a month for a family of four.

The measure, which ignored recommendations outlined in President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget proposal, has already sparked opposition from Democrats, whose support is generally needed to pass the measure through Congress. They say the tougher work requirements would drive millions of people off of the program.

That's the point, of course.  Can't find anyone to watch your kids while you work 20 hours a week in a minimum wage job?  Too bad, you're off SNAP and so are your kids.  Better hope school lunches fill in the gap...oh wait, Republicans want to trash that too.

Of course the whole point of criminalizing poverty is because our prison system always needs more bodies.

The latest proposal on food stamps, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, would require states to impose stricter uniform work requirements for SNAP recipients between 18 and 59. 

Currently, adults 18-59 are required to work part-time or agree to accept a job if they’re offered one. Stricter rules apply to able-bodied adults without dependents between the ages of 18 and 49, who are subject to a three-month limit of benefits unless they meet a work requirement of 80 hours per month. Under the new bill, that requirement would be expanded to apply to all work-capable adults, mandating that they either work or participate in work training for 20 hours per week with the exception of seniors, pregnant women, caretakers of children under the age of six, or people with disabilities. 

The new work requirements would take effect in 2021, and increase to 25 hours per week in 2026. Each new SNAP recipient would have one month to comply with the rule. 

The measure also limits circumstances under which families who qualify for other poverty programs can automatically be eligible for SNAP.

So it gets even worse, especially for anyone new to SNAP.  Another massive recession, caused by say, an unstable narcissist sociopath and his terrible trade, economic, and housing policies, would drive millions of families to SNAP, where they would have to work or starve.  Sorry, no free lunch in America, citizen.  You can have your food, or your job and freedom to earn minimum wage so that you can't afford anything else, but not both.

Try feeding that to voters in 2020.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Looks like the Mueller investigation will move forward without Mueller interviewing Donald Trump as the Trump lawyer Michael Cohen raid on Monday means the White House is now refusing to make Trump available to talk.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and President Donald Trump’s legal team are now proceeding with strategies that presume a presidential interview will likely not take place as part of the Russia investigation, after months of talks between the two sides collapsed earlier this week, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

On Monday Trump’s lawyers were discussing a possible interview with Mueller's team and had begun to hash out the final sticking points, including the timing, scope and length, according to people familiar with the discussions. One person familiar with the strategy said the president’s lawyers had over the weekend sought to expand his legal team to include individuals who would prepare him for an interview. Another person familiar with the matter, however, said preparations had not yet gone that far. 

But the prospects for a presidential interview dramatically dimmed once the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of Trump’s long-time personal lawyer, Michael Cohen on Monday, these people said. The president criticized the raid as out of bounds in Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump aides.

So, petulant, petty Trump is picking up his ball and going home.  That's fine, Mueller never really needed to interview Trump to make his case, especially now that he's holding all the cards from the Cohen raid.  But now that the White House has told Mueller to go pound sand, Mueller can just smile and say "Well, we gave Mr. Trump the option to present his side of the story and he refused to do so."

It'll make it all the more damning when the truth all comes out.  And that truth could come faster than expected with the Washington Post revelation that Michael Cohen liked to record his clients...and his only client right now is Donald Trump.

President Trump’s personal attorney Michael D. Cohen sometimes taped conversations with associates, according to three people familiar with his practice, and allies of the president are worried that the recordings were seized by federal investigators in a raid of Cohen’s office and residences this week.

Cohen, who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidant of Trump, was known to store the conversations using digital files and then replay them for colleagues, according to people who have interacted with him.

“We heard he had some proclivity to make tapes,” said one Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. “Now we are wondering, who did he tape? Did he store those someplace where they were actually seized? . . . Did they find his recordings?”

Cohen did not respond to requests for comment. Stephen Ryan, an attorney for Cohen, declined to comment. A White House spokeswoman referred a request for comment to Cohen and his attorney.

If Donald Trump wasn't seething before, he is now.  Again, Mueller is holding all the cards and Trump damn well knows it.

Somebody else who has quite a handful of cards?  Former FBI Director James Comey, whose tell-all book A Higher Loyalty is out next week.  The reviews and excerpts are out now, and dear lord, is Donald Trump going to be extra pissed this weekend.

Former FBI Director James Comey blasts President Donald Trump as unethical and “untethered to truth” in a sharply critical new book that describes Trump as fixated in the early days of his administration on having the FBI debunk salacious rumors he insisted were untrue but could distress his wife.

In the forthcoming book, Comey compares Trump to a mafia don and calls his leadership of the country “ego driven and about personal loyalty.”

He also reveals new details about his interactions with Trump and his own decision-making in handling the Hillary Clinton email investigation before the 2016 election. He casts Trump as a mobster-like figure who sought to blur the line between law enforcement and politics and tried to pressure him personally regarding his investigation into Russian election interference.

The book adheres closely to Comey’s public testimony and written statements about his contacts with Trump and his growing concern about Trump’s integrity. It also includes strikingly personal jabs at Trump that appear sure to irritate the president.

The 6-foot-8 Comey describes Trump as shorter than he expected with a “too long” tie and “bright white half-moons” under his eyes that he suggests came from tanning goggles. He also says he made a conscious effort to check the president’s hand size, saying it was “smaller than mine but did not seem unusually so.”

Now Comey's tale is self-serving to a point, as far as I'm concerned Comey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are about as responsible as it comes for putting Trump in the White House in the last 30 days of the 2016 campaign, and both men are searching for absolution that will never come.  But the revelations here are guaranteed to make Trump volcanically furious.

And now Trump will absolutely need to lash out and punish someone. Trump and company are now seriously going after Rod Rosenstein as the base is being tilled and seeded for his inevitable firing.

The White House is preparing talking points designed to undermine Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's credibility, according to sources familiar with the plan. 

The plan calls on President Donald Trump's allies to cast Rosenstein as too conflicted to fairly oversee the Russia investigation. 

The talking points are still in their preliminary form, and not yet finalized, people familiar with their preparation said. The White House and the Justice Department declined to comment. 

Already, a number of Trump's associates have called for Rosenstein's firing in appearances on television and in public remarks over the past few days, but not all of them did so at the request of the White House.

Again, there's no need to do this unless the plan is to put pressure on Rosenstein to convince him to resign or to prep the narrative for his firing.  Note that Trump did the same for pushing Jeff Sessions into firing Andrew McCabe.  Something similiar and much more sinister is happening here, as of course this is deliberately interference in the investigation against Trump and at worse, clearly obstruction of justice.

Efforts to undermine Rosenstein in the media come as the President is weighing whether to fire the top official overseeing the Russia investigation. 

Trump is still livid about the raid on his private attorney Michael Cohen -- "He'll be pissed about it until he dies," another source said -- and he and his allies are increasingly convinced that Mueller and Rosenstein have overstepped their bounds. 

One area of conflict the White House wants its surrogates to highlight: Rosenstein's role as a key witness to the Comey firing, sources said. Rosenstein wrote the memo justifying Comey's dismissal. It centered on his conduct in investigating Hillary Clinton's use of private email. 

The White House is also hoping Trump's defenders will paint Rosenstein and Comey as close colleagues and argue that Rosenstein is approving an ever-expanding investigation against Trump and his associates as retribution.

This is what the White House wants.  Trump wants Rosenstein gone, and with him, Robert Mueller.  There should be no doubt that the move will be made in the next few weeks, if not days. Whether or not Congress or the American people act as a result, we'll see.