November 6, 2018--Final Predictions

While people are still voting and before there are any results, to distract myself here are a few predictions and speculations--

The numbers in the Senate will remain the same with the GOP continuing to hold a one-seat majority.

Arizona and Texas will flip from Republican to Democratic with Beto O'Rourke emerging as the brightest new Democrat star. By Thursday, no, by tomorrow he will become the frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination and two years from now will defeat Mike Pence.

Obviously, this means that Donald Trump, for one reason or another, will not serve out his first term. Early next year he will declare Mission Accomplished and turn the keys to the Oval Office over to Pence.

In the House we will see a real "wave election." Still stung for getting 2016 wrong (no one predicted Trump would win, including Trump himself), pollsters and media pundits are being very conservative this time in analyzing the data and making projections. The consensus going in is that the Democrats will eek out just enough flipped seats (they need 23) to take control. I suspect they will do much better, winning close to 50 currently Republican-held seats.

As it should be, this will be the headline. 

Anticipating this, Trump in recent days has been saying he's been concentrating exclusively on the Senate. There are too many seats in the House for him to pay attention to, he said, and thus he won't be surprised if the Democrats take control of the House. "We'll work it out," he has been saying. 

Since he's all about winning, "losing" the House will be what will motivate him to not run in 2020. Better to declare victory than try to deal with losing.

In early January the Democrats, who will control all House committees, will begin a judicious number of investigations. To launch too many will make it look as if there is in fact a witch hunt going on, that the election to Democrats was all about the opportunity to overturn the 2016 election. 

These congressional investigations, where the Dems will have subpoena power, will focus on Trump's finances. Especially his business dealings with the Russians. The Mueller report, which will be submitted within the month, will cover the same ground, and with both dominating the discourse it will make Trump crazier than anything else that might be revealed about him. In a panic he will fire Attorney General Sessions, Rob Rosenstein, and Mueller himself. 

But this will not impede the House's work. The genie is coming out of the bottle and it will lead to Trump's downfall. Giving up the presidency will not stall this momentum much less end the investigations.

Most important, tomorrow's results will be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency and will ultimately lead to his own more personal decline because there is so much corruption and criminality waiting to come to light that even he, as nimble as he has been at surviving (his whole life has been about wiggling out of trouble) will not be able to squirm free. After decades, his luck is finally running out.

This is why people today are voting in record numbers: it is to say to him--"Enough."

Unpacking the polling data later this week we will discover that ten percent of his supporters will have either stayed home, not voted because they can't bare to vote for Democrats, or held their noses and pulled the lever for those who opposed Trump.

Republican survivors in Congress who have been among his enablers will begin to abandon ship. All they care about is having power; and with Trump now a liability, they will cut and run. Even Lindsay Graham will be looking for another macho man to suck up to. 

In addition, there is considerable pent-up schadenfreude that needs to and will be expressed. 

My final prediction is that all will begin to turn out for the best, The system will have been shown to work. That's a very big thing.

September 26, 2018--Jack: Freaking Out

"Not me. You." Jack was on the line.

"Huh?"

"Freaking out. You must be freaking out because it looks like the president is about to fire a whole lot of folks, starting with that weasel Rosen-Rosen, or whatever his name is."

"To tell you the truth, I am a little. I mean, freaked out about where this might be headed and maybe how Trump will figure out how to get away with murder."

"You mean like the Clintons and Vince Foster?" He laughed at that reference.

"Not a bad one," I said, "I'm impressed you remember that conspiracy theory with all the ones circulating these days."

"I never forget anything," Jack boasted. From what I know about him, though we disagree about pretty much everything, he does have an amazing memory.

"But to tell you the truth," Jack said, "if Trump fires Rosen and replaces him with some flunky who fires Mueller and while he's at it fires Session and half the senior people in the White House, there'll be a lot to be made crazy by. That's why Hannity and the other Fox people are urging him, publicly begging him not to fire Rosenberg."

"The Fox world is one I don't really know my way around in. Half the time when I tune in for a while to see what they're spinning (and the hosts do seem to get the same talking points every day so if you listen to one it's like listening to them all), I don't know what they're talking about. It's like they speak in shorthand or code with their unhinged viewers. So weren't you also surprised that they were pressuring Trump not to fire anyone? I would have thought after Rosenstein was outed by the New York Times, which revealed that early in his history as deputy attorney general he thought about wearing a wire to gather evidence about Trump that could then be used to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Wouldn't Fox want Rosenstein out of the picture?"

Jack said, "One could come to that conclusion. Especially if one doesn't get what's going on." [That someone he referred to being me.] "How firing Rosenthal and the rest of them would be a political disaster for Trump. It would be at least as big a nightmare as Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. There are a few clever Democrats and they are setting an obstruction of justice trap. If Trump fires Rosenthal it will be viewed as his doing so to get him off the case. To stamp out the investigation of Trump, his family, and his American and Russian associates."

"In other words, to obstruct justice?"

"Yup."

"If you're right about this," I said to Jack, "and I think you may be, those Fox people really do have Trump's back."

"Yes and no."

"Because?"

"Because it may be too late."

"Really? I mean, I hope so."

"By now Mueller has tons of evidence from all the Trump people who have flipped, the people they deposed, and of course Mueller has access to all of Trump's and his people's tax and financial records."

"I suspect this is true, but wouldn't pulling the plug on Rosenstein and reining in Mueller put a lid on things? Bury evidence and documents from public view with Trump slipping out of the noose?"

"That wouldn't work," Jack said, "because I suspect a pretty complete Mueller report has already been drafted with him waiting for the best time to drop it. I suspect soon after the midterms. If he's allowed to do that, we'll all see it then. All the ugly details."

"I can only wish that you're right. But . . ."

"Let's say your Rosenman does get fired and an acting DAG is appointed by Trump. Ordinarily it would need the deputy's approval to release the findings and recommendations. Or not. Mueller or whomever follows him reports to the deputy attorney general. The findings go to the new DAG who could decided to squelch them, claiming they're too sensitive or whatever."

"So there you go," I said, end of story."

"As usual you're forgetting two very big things," Jack said, "First there are the midterms. All signs point to a big turnover in the House. If the Dems take over, and I suspect they will, as of January 2nd they'll begin their own investigations and will have the power to subpoena everything Mueller gathered. Probably even calling him as a witness."

"I'm tracking this."

"And then there's one more even bigger thing." He took a deep breath, "I assume you know all about the Pentagon Papers?"

"I do."

"Hundreds, thousands of pages were copied at a time when the only way to do so was to Xerox it page-by-page. Now, in a few minutes the whole friggen Mueller report can be copied onto a thumb drive, put in a jacket pocket, taken home, and plopped in the mail to the New York Times or Washington Post. In other words there's no way to hide it. To keep it from the public. So the Fox people wanted to help Trump from making things even worse for himself." 

He paused to gather himself, "And that's why I'm freaking and why you shouldn't be."

"Of course I hope you're right. Maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight."

"Really, one final thing--with Trump I could be wrong about all of this. He could just as easily fire Rosen-Rosen on Thursday, in part to distract from the Kavanaugh hearings, and get his replacement to . . . ."

Jack broke off and I was left as confused as ever.

Rosen-Rosen

January 19, 2018--Lock Them Up

Announced Friday was the first in at least three chapters about how Russians influenced the 2016 presidential election. 

This report from the Mueller investigation and the Department of Justice did not contain a "smoking gun."

That means no one from the Trump campaign, including President Trump, was accused (yet) of knowingly playing a direct part in the dozens of efforts to derail Hillary Clinton's campaign while boosting his.

But a smoking gun, in a second or third chapter, will soon be forthcoming.

The second chapter will show the many ways in which Trump's people wittingly were involved, likely including Trump himself. A third chapter, knitting everything together, will reveal how money was the root of all evil that led to this widespread malfeasance--how Russians indirectly and directly laundered oligarchs' ill-gotten gains (including from Putin) through western banks such as Deutsche Bank, which in turn loaned it to the likes of Trump (and the Kushners) to bail out their failing real estate deals.

Expect in these two chapters to hear directly from the perpetrators themselves as perhaps up to a dozen have been cooperating, for months working undercover for the Mueller investigation, wearing a wire, in exchange for not being tried, convicted, and sent to jail.

Thus far, some of this is unintentionally ironic.

For example, we learn how pervasive and effective Russian interference was in the 2016 campaigns and likely continues to be, including as we grind toward the 2018 midterm elections.

Their use of social media and their direct involvement in dirty tricks undoubtedly helped tip the election to Trump. By working strategically how could the Russians not have turned the few thousand votes Trump needed in purple states (which they targeted) such as Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania to build his winning margin in the Electoral College?

This means (the irony) that the Russian campaign in 2016 was more effective than Hillary's--Trump won with Russian support; she lost for the same reason.

Rattled by the implication that he is an illegitimate president Trump spent the weekend off the golf course (too windy) attacking via tweets those he perceives to be his enemies from Congressman Adam Schiff (who he called a "monster") to his own National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMaster to . . . Oprah, who Trump says is "insecure".

Making what the Russians were up to vivid, Mueller, in this first series of indictments revealed how Russian operatives showed up at campaign events, including in West Palm Beach, FL with a flatbed truck on which there was a simulated jail cell within which there was "incarcerated" an actress dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit pretending to be Hillary Clinton.

Mueller is now moving quickly, wanting to complete as much of his work as possible before Trump attempts to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in an attempt to shut down the investigation.

None of this will work. Friday witnessed the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.