Lost at Sea

“The prime constant factor in American politics across the past six decades has been a counterattack by the rich against the social reforms of the 1930’s.” Alexander Cockburn

All week I’ve felt this terrible sense of foreboding, even though my personal life, and that of my family, is fine, nobody sick or living in poverty, nobody going hungry or struggling to find  clean water, nobody running for their lives because of political or environmental upheaval. Right now mornings in Santa Barbara are cool, but by midday the sun is out, the sky is blue, and all is well.

I’m prone to bouts of depression, dark, somber moods. I’d be better off if I stopped reading dozens of online news sources every day, but it’s hard to look away from the most bizarre political era of my life. I think Trump fatigue is as real as any ailment the pharmaceutical industry hawks during the evening news. If only there was a little oval -- purple, blue or white -- pill to cure Trumpism. The Orange Menace must be worried about the midterm elections because he’s really gone off the rails this week, even by his lofty standards of sheer madness. Provoking a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Promising his supporters a tax cut before the midterms, even though Congress isn’t in session until after the election. Opening the Alaskan coast to oil drilling. Identifying himself as a nationalist, which means “white” nationalist. Calling for unity after spending nearly two years pouring gasoline on the flames of division. Claiming that the ranks of a Central American caravan of migrants headed toward the US are infiltrated with MS-13 gang members and Muslim terrorists, hell-bent on “invading” the country that spends more on its military than any other on the planet. The corporate media, playing along with Trump, calls the migrants an “army.” (If it’s an army, it’s an army of the desperate, the fearful, the displaced, and the impoverished.) Spewing utter nonsense about the great US jobs his proposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia will produce, pulling numbers out of his ass and flinging them at reporters, all fabrications, of course.  

A nation is in deep trouble far at sea when facts don’t matter, when a president makes stuff up on the fly, and the media more often than not accepts the mindless drivel, rather than calling BS, loud and incessantly.

Trump is a laughingstock. His administration is a shambles, a cruel, dangerous shambles. What about the children in custody at our border, separated from their parents, in limbo in cages? Have we forgotten them? Yes. The media moves on, fascinated by the next shiny thing, the next outrage, the next scandal, the next heaping pile of lies. What about Fukushima? What about the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, spewing oil as I write these words? What of our endless war in Afghanistan? Silence. Not shiny enough, not as interesting as Trump’s latest Tweet.

I worry about the malignant seeds Trump is spreading in our soil, some of which will wither and die when he finally leaves or is forced from the stage, but others that will take root and grow, with the fruit not to appear until ten or twenty years from now. Sometimes the real danger is unseen. Trump didn’t come from nowhere. He’s the result of a political and economic system turned corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the people. The tinder was there when Trump rode his escalator down, primed and waiting for a match.

This Week in the Kleptocracy

“In public relations, perception becomes the highest value, just as in capitalist societies, profit is the singular ethic.” Jason Hirthler

EAR TO THE GROUND:

“I don’t have any financial interests with Saudi Arabia, never have.” Donald Trump

“We don’t know what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. Just because he disappeared inside a Saudi consulate doesn’t mean the Saudis had anything to do with it. Could have been a lot of people, many different people, maybe Turks, maybe Greeks, maybe rogue elements we don’t know about. The fake news media is jumping to conclusions, as usual. The King of Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince, both fine men, very fine men, told me they had nothing to do with it, and I believe them, very strongly, very bigly.” Donald Trump

“I, Donald Trump, do solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, unless doing so interferes with my personal business interests.” Donald Trump  

RECENT HEADLINES:

Trump Humiliates Chinese Panda, Calls for Sanctions.

Trump Compares Crown Prince Salman to George Washington.

Trump Mocks Deaf-Mute Student at White House Ceremony.

Trump Claims Jamal Khashoggi On Vacation In Istanbul, Says Murder Allegation is Fake News Hoax.

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi looks more and more like an episode of the Blacklist gone awry. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, darling of corporate America and New York Times sage Tom Friedman, is, like Donald J. Trump, a rich fuck-up, thin-skinned, not very bright, who relies on brute force to have his way, and makes most everything he touches turn rancid. No wonder Trump admires him. By most accounts, Khashoggi didn’t earn the “dissident” label hung on him by the Western media; he was a relatively mild critic of the monarchy, but he obviously got under bin Salman’s skin, and paid the price for it. Trump and the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who reminds me of a self-satisfied mob bagman, claim the Saudis are innocent until more evidence is unearthed, like video or audio recordings said to be in the hands of Turkish authorities. Sober observers seem resigned that such evidence will not see the light of day, and that Prince Salman will escape this gruesome episode with no more than a black eye. The “special” murderous relationship between Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US will continue.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan believes hostility toward Iran is what unites and animates this trio. Although no Iranian has been accused let alone convicted for murdering Americans on American soil, Trump and many in the war establishment view Iran as the next great bogeyman that must be vanquished. Conveniently forgotten is the fact that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. How is it the Kingdom got a pass for that? Oil, money, influence with the Bush family and in the corridors of Congress buys a lot of amnesia.

Trump’s fawning, servile and solicitous treatment of the Saudis makes for interesting speculation about the extent of his business ties with the Kingdom. As Ian Masters, host of Background Briefing, said the other day on his program, it’s not about country-to-country relations under Trump, it’s family-to-family -- or more accurately -- crime family-to-crime family. Unravel Trump’s financial dealings and it’s likely that his dependence on Saudi money -- and possibly Russian money -- is more significant than we realize. Trump is a walking, talking, breathing, snorting cesspool of corruption, a human ethical violation, who started cheating in the sandbox in kindergarten and has never done differently since.

Meanwhile, while all eyes are glued to the Khashoggi affair, Mitch McConnell and his band of thugs have set their sights on gutting Social Security and Medicare, a long held wet dream of the whacky right. The talking points are making the rounds, with amplification from Trump, and it’s the same BS story the GOP has hawked for 40 years. Budget deficits are caused by overly generous Social Security and Medicare benefits and must be slashed or America will collapse. Absent from the GOP’s logic are the billions of dollars handed to the wealthy and corporations in the form of tax cuts, subsidies, and other types of “relief.” Also missing is the bloated, wasteful, but sacrosanct Pentagon budget, which accounts for more than half of all Federal outlays. And no mention at all of the legal tax avoidance schemes practiced by major corporations like Apple, Amazon, Verizon, AT&T and so on. Ironic that corporate CEO’s and Trump himself, who talk so lovingly of America and our military machine, our freedoms, blah, blah, feel no obligation to support our country with their tax dollars. For Trump and others of his ilk, paying taxes is for suckers.  

The game is rigged in a 101 different ways and the wealthy elite win when they lose, at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk, as they sleep and when they wake.

We’re nearing the midterm elections, the TV ads are heavy, the mailers arrive in the mailbox daily (and go straight into the blue recycling bin), and I still have no idea what Democrats stand for, save for tepid opposition to the Trump crime family, and a fairy-tale belief that Russia stole the 2016 election for Trump and is planning to do it again. Little proof is offered amid the dire warnings. Progressive Democrats fight through a thicket of the old guard led by Pelosi and Schumer, who insist on keeping the Democratic Party on the same losing trajectory. Corporate campaign money is as addictive as heroin. Schumer is hopelessly addicted and until he, Pelosi, the Clintons, Obama, Feinstein and others are expelled from the party, the Democrats will continue to wander in the political wilderness.

By the way, in case you are wondering, I made up the quotes and headlines. Just having a little fun in these dismal times.

Interview - Rudy Valdez

Rudy Valdez directed the documentary, The Sentence, airing now on HBO. It's a powerful film about the American system of criminal justice, or, in this case, injustice. I interviewed Rudy for the Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/news/2018/oct/15/interview-sentence-director-rudy-valdez/

Poem: War on Men (Not)

As usual Trump gets it wrong

The war isn’t on men, it’s on decency

Respect, civility, and the rule of law.

White men need to get in line

Behind African-Americans, the indigenous, Chinese and Japanese,

And all the Women down the decades

who have borne the oppression and

violence

Of white male privilege

Trump apologizing to Brett Kavanaugh

On behalf of the nation

Is another example of crazy Trump World

Where up is down,

Evil is good

And lies are truth.

Most of the nation views Kavanaugh for what he is

A symptom

Of a corrupt ruling class desperate to hold its

Privilege and power.

What’s needed is accountability

Not an apology.

Sooner or later the smug powerful

Overreach, take too much and cast too

Many into misery.

The revolution is underway

And it will be led

By women

Sick and tired of being

Scorned.

The Impunity of Privileged White Men

“There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.” James Baldwin

Imagine if a female nominee for the United States Supreme Court acted like Brett Kavanaugh did last Thursday. Angry, belligerent, accusatory, self-pitying, whiny. How would that behavior have gone over if it had come from a woman? Yeah, think about that for a moment, think of the double-standard, and think of the courage it took Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford to walk into that lions den of mostly old, closed-minded, judgmental white men, who hired a woman to question Ford so they wouldn’t look like a gang of bullies. The drunken frat boy, son of privilege, white-skinned, always has the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence. Not so the woman, the accuser. She misremembers. She can’t be certain. She is distraught, emotional, easy to dismiss. Or she invited the man, laid a trap, cast a spell to which the man succumbed. Go home, my dear, bake cookies and polish the furniture.  

Brett Kavanaugh, like Donald Trump, is a symptom of a disease, the disease being hoary old white privilege, the presumption -- so persistent in America -- that whites, particularly prep school Ivy League whites like Kavanaugh - are the superior race, ordained by God to run the affairs of this world, and who are schooled in the notion that their behavior, no matter how obscene or injurious to others, carries no consequences, for they are the chosen, above the law, masters to whom lower mortals must submit. Members of the superior race cannot even be questioned about their behavior, their lies, their crimes without becoming outraged and indignant.

Kavanaugh’s White House sponsor, the lying, boastful, tax and draft evading, misogynistic and idiotic Donald J. Trump, is cut from the same bolt of fabric, also a son of privilege and wealth, saved from failure repeatedly by his daddy’s money and connections, who has never had to account for his boorish behavior and criminal deeds. Privileged white men like Trump and Kavanaugh defy the laws of nature and fail upwards. Trump is so morally and ethically bankrupt and debased that at one of his weird “rallies” in Mississippi, home to some of his stalwart supporters, he mocked Christine Blasey-Ford. The irony of the coward Trump mocking a woman who had the moral courage and fortitude to act on her conscience isn’t shocking or astonishing or breathtaking, it’s simply repugnant and despicable. That Trump can’t keep his mouth shut about the Kavanaugh confirmation process, like a normal sitting president, isn’t surprising; the man is deranged and cannot help himself.

I have, like most Americans of good will and decency, grown accustomed to the daily stupidity and idiocy oozing from the White House and Trump’s mouth, just as I am now accustomed to Trump’s nonsensical boasts about peace agreements and trade deals and the booming economy, but what I refuse to get used to is the cruelty, venality and mendacity of Trump and the people around him, and the moral indifference of his most ardent followers.  

The Sniveler

“Inequality creates liars and delusion.” Rebecca Solnit

Last week I flew up to Oregon to visit my brother who lives in Tillamook. We drove to Astoria, spent one night, and early the following morning crossed the bridge over the Columbia River into Washington, headed for the Olympic Peninsula. Over three days we made an arc from Port Angeles to the Quinault River, stopping along the way in little towns like Forks, where we visited a timber museum, and the lodge at Lake Crescent. The creator, whoever she is, went a bit crazy in this part of the world, creating breathtaking vistas, towering trees and abundant water, hills shrouded in mist. So much beauty you run out of awe. Seeing my brother again was wonderful, and I felt the ties of blood as I never have before. Actually brought me to tears, something that doesn’t happen very often. If you were to ask me why I cried I couldn’t tell you. Although Santa Barbara is holding to its beauty like an old pageant winner and remains a fine city to live in, it was good to get away and see new scenery, different people, container ships on the Columbia, big log trucks jamming down the highway on their way to mill, guys fishing for salmon, dairy cows, old barns, verdant pastures.

Sadly, my sense of renewal and peace quickly faded, this being, after all, Trump’s perverse America, where, according to the Orange Menace, we are winning on every level and becoming great again, where truth is put to the sword every single day, and an unqualified sniveling prep-school prick like Brett Kavanaugh is elevated to the highest court in our land by a gang of Republican mobsters.

Come one, come all to the kangaroo court, behold aging white men as they cast judgment on a brave woman who had lost before she ever sat down to speak. Revel in the tyranny of the minority. 30% of the country dictating how the game will be played by the other 70%. As a father, as a man, as a citizen, I feel powerless, invisible, and irrelevant. Who represents me and my values? Nobody. What do I want? That’s easy. Justice. Fairness. A more equitable distribution of riches. A balance of power. Respect for the environment, and a realization that there is more to life than accumulating money and stuff, that there are limits and natural laws we cannot ignore.  

I didn’t watch the Kavanaugh circus, knowing that it would only infuriate me, but I caught some of Kavanaugh’s remarks via Democracy Now, his poor me and my family routine, we are broken by false accusations, it’s a left-wing conspiracy on behalf of the Clinton’s, and so on, the usual tropes of the whack-job right. Kavanaugh showed no class, no judicial cool, confirming the old saying that the higher a monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass. (Apologies to monkeys.) This charade will result in Kavanaugh’s confirmation, no doubt, proving, again, how busted American “democracy” really is. Then the fun will begin -- for the rich and powerful, the corporations, the crazy evangelical Christians -- but not you or me, my daughter, your sister, the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Here’s an interesting tidbit pointed out by Thom Hartmann on his radio program. Back in 2000, during the Florida recount and shenanigans that gifted the presidency to George W. Bush, there were three lawyers deeply involved on behalf of the GOP: John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Two of these jokers are sitting on the Supreme Court now. The third amigo is about to join them.

The leaders of the world laughed at the President of the United States this week. Laughed at his hubris, his fantasy world, his phony accomplishments, his bluster and stupidity. In this bizarre time certain things bear repeating: Donald Trump, aside from being an idiot, is a failed human being, devoid of empathy, compassion, and decency; the Republican Party is a political party in name only, it is actually a criminal organization; deregulated capitalism is killing the planet; it has been decades since US elites feared the public.

Wisdom, courage, justice and moderation are almost non-existent in America. This week proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

A-Plus

“And that, against this: the king-types who would snatch the apple from your hand and claim to have grown it, even though what they had, had come to them intact, or been gained unfairly…” George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

A few days ago in front of a few thousand people in Minot, North Dakota, Donald J. Trump took the stage against the backdrop of a massive American flag. Red MAGA hats. T-shirts emblazoned with, “This Is Trump Country.” All-white audience, of course, North Dakota not being known for its hospitality to people of color. Raucous applause, whistling, whooping, one woman swooned and was carried off. For no apparent reason a skinny kid with bad acne was yanked from his seat by Security and frog-marched to the exit.

So great, Trump said, settling behind the podium. So great. This is a great reception. Thank you, thank you. North Dakota is a wonderful place. Thanks to me, your economy is booming and because of my tough action against China, manufacturing jobs are coming back by the millions. The millions! So great. America is winning all over, from sea to shining sea. But, you know, the fake news media, CNN and The New York Times, they don’t want to talk about what a wonderful job I’m doing, maybe the greatest American president, ever. I was asked to give myself a grade for the job I’ve done so far, and what could I give myself but an A-plus? Right, so fantastic.

(Cheering, a few chants of four more years)

The media is the enemy of good people like you. All they want to talk about is Russia and collusion, it’s a witch hunt, a fraud. My administration is totally ethical, the most ethical in our history. Believe me, I know all about ethics. Robert Mueller’s chasing ghosts, wasting your tax dollars, he’s not going to find anything, it’s a big, big waste of time. He should be investigating crooked Hillary…

(Chants of Lock Her Up, Lock Her Up)

Crooked Hillary and her sour grapes. But make no mistake, the economy’s roaring, we’re producing oil like it’s going out of style, and I brought beautiful coal back. We’re building the Wall to secure our border, keep bad people out of our country, protect Americans from MS-13 gangs and drugs, criminals and perverts.

(Chants of Make Mexico Pay, Make Mexico Pay)

Oh yeah, you can bet on that, Mexico will pay for the Wall, and we’re making NATO pay their fair share, too, because they know they have to. American first, ladies and gentlemen, America first. Our country has never been stronger, more united or respected. Don’t believe the fake news media. A phony report came out recently which said that thousands of Puerto Ricans died as a result of Hurricane Maria. Well, I can tell you that because of the great response by my administration, the absolutely flawless response -- so fast, so efficient -- only about 16 people were killed. I went to Puerto Rico, a place surrounded by water, and saved hundreds of lives on my own, just by tossing out rolls of paper towels.

(Chants of Trump, Trump, Trump)

The Democrats think there’s a blue wave coming this November, but if we know anything about Democrats it’s that they are weak, they are losers, and they don’t know what it means to be a true American. We know, only we know. You know what the Democrats are going to do? Destroy Social Security and Medicare, the greatest programs ever created by the Republican Party. They’ll throw our senior citizens in the street! Do you want your 90-year-old grandmother eating cat food?

(Chants of No Cat Food, No Cat Food)

Teddy Roosevelt created Social Security a long time ago, a great law, fantastic. We had dinner at the White House a few weeks ago, Teddy, me, Melania and Frederick Douglass, and I can tell you that Teddy and Frederick are big Trump fans, big fans, big, big, big fans. They’re good people, the best. We’re going to play golf at Mar-A-Lago real soon. Frederick said he’d be my caddy.

The Cherry on Top

“Right now, the triumph of market logic, with its ethos of domination and fierce competition, is paralyzing almost all serious efforts to respond to climate change.” Naomi Klein

You know how it feels when something you believed in -- a person, a company, a social institution -- turns out to be an elaborate sham. Like when you learn that dear Father O’Brien, your first grade teacher at Saint Augustine, buggered thousands of boys; like when you finally grasp the brutal reality of American capitalism; like when you realize that the “democracy”  American leaders are always crowing about is a steaming pile of goat shit.

Millions of Americans are horrified by Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s ultra-right wing, reactionary Supreme Court nominee, but he will be confirmed no matter how horrified we become. We don’t matter. This game is being played on another level -- the process is rigged, the dice loaded, the cards marked. Carefully scripted theater. You don’t believe this farce, do you? Kavanaugh, a highly suspect jurist, who was probably the biggest dick in his college fraternity, will join four other men who will determine the direction of our legal system for the next 30 years. Kavanaugh is a corporate toady, against human beings in decision after decision, against the environment, against holding police officers accountable when they lose their minds and pump 20 rounds from a 9MM into the back of a suspect. This pasty fucker is against workers, gays, women, transgender folk, African-Americans, protesters of any color or creed, union members, and any style of sex beyond the missionary position.

How did we get to this sad fork in the road? Well, that’s the question isn’t it, how in hell we got ourselves in this bleak (unless you’re rich) capitalist wasteland. It was 1971 when the Powell Memo was issued, that blueprint for a corporate counterattack against the America the flower children were attempting to midwife into being. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, socialism, and real respect for the planet. Man, the white elite, the wealthy, the corporate honchos, the Christian zealots, freaked out, shook from head to toe, shit their pants, and got themselves organized, poured major money into think-tanks and university endowments, into the campaign coffers of capitalist zealots, and in the space of 40 years, transformed America into an oligarchy. Bought state houses. Bought congresspeople. Bought judges. Capitalism will, they pledged, be the basis for the law of the land, for every decision we make, for the value of human life. The pillars undergirding this assault are: privatization, deregulation, and reduced taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

Mission accomplished. Kavanaugh is the cherry on top, the last piece of a solid 5-4 radical right majority.

They’ll kill the right to a safe abortion. They’ll make Christian prayer mandatory in public schools. They’ll allow corporations to pollute our air, water, and land in the name of profit. They’ll allow guns in schools. They’ll force workers to toil in unsafe conditions. They’ll make voting harder for people of color.

The Post-Death Whitewash

“Freedom is just frosting/on somebody else’s cake.” Langston Hughes

John McCain was a war hero, a giant in the United States Senate, a saint, and, of course, a maverick, whatever that means, or so you would believe from the recent fawning mainstream media coverage. This sort of post-death whitewash isn’t unusual. When Richard Nixon died, the corporate media and a phalanx of politicians closed ranks to pay homage to the man who bombed Cambodia and inflicted the Watergate scandal on the nation. When a prominent politician dies, memories get very hazy very fast.

Here’s what I will remember about John McCain. First, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a country that posed no credible threat to the United States. Even when the hoped for cakewalk became a quagmire, McCain supported the greatest military blunder in American history. I’m also sure McCain’s pulse quickened any time there was talk of bombing Iran or when the US actually bombed some other country.

Always a reliable and enthusiastic cheerleader for American empire, McCain was a true believer in American exceptionalism and our divine right to order and rule the world for our own benefit; and if that domination came on the back of a cruise missile, all the better.   

But what will always and forever color my perception of John McCain was his cynical and opportunistic selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate in 2008. McCain was in his late 60’s then, and for him to potentially place Sarah Palin that close to the throne was an act of manifest irresponsibility. In some respects, the cartoonish Palin paved the road for the buffoonish Donald J. Trump. Like the Orange Menace, Palin celebrated ignorance, coarseness, and pushed simplistic solutions to complex problems. Like Trump today, Palin was all about the soundbite, the media moment, you betcha. By choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain debased himself and his campaign. Run with a dingbat and you’re likely to lose.

It’s no surprise that Trump turned petty when McCain passed, messing around about flying the flag at half staff. In the first place, Trump wasn’t the center of attention, the subject of fond reminices and accolades from the political elite. Second, unlike most of his GOP colleagues, McCain never dropped down on bended knee and kissed Trump’s hand or pledged his eternal loyalty to the Donald, so that made the senator from Arizona suspect. Trump, the Vietnam War draft evader, ridiculed McCain, the Navy pilot shot down over Hanoi and captured. In Trump’s fantasy universe, real heroes never allow themselves to be captured, but if they are, they overpower their captors and escape, like Rambo.

So, McCain will be mythologized by the political class, including ex-presidents W. Bush and Barack Obama, and the wooden Christian warrior, Mike Pence. His virtues will be touted universally, his flaws forgotten. Senator, warrior, patriot, true American hero. A flag-draped coffin, a burial filled with pomp and circumstance, and then the empire will totter on toward dissolution.  

A Step Closer to the Gallows

“What we know for sure is that the path to the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of the president of the United States is now clear. How it is handled will be a major test for the American system of government.” James Risen

Trump pals Manafort and Cohen are convicted and Fox News ignores the evolving story, sticks its collective head in a pile of Trump’s beautiful clean coal. Not surprising. Fox is the real fake news, a phony network that acts as the official propaganda organ of the right-wing and Donald J. Trump. But in the real world of facts, the noose is clearly tightening around Trump’s fat white neck. His former campaign manager and his lawyer/confidant/fixer face jail time, and that bleak future usually renders people quite cooperative. Sing, men, sing.

Day by day the sleaze oozes out of the White House, drips down the front steps, and streams toward the gutter. Trump’s criminal gang falls like dominoes. Who will be next? I’m old enough to remember Watergate, Nixon, the cover up, All the President’s Men, John Dean, Erlichman and Halderman, the web of lies, how the unraveling gathered speed and ended with Nixon waving like a spastic from the helicopter that carried him away. What’s happening with Trump is much worse. Not only is Trump an ignorant douchebag, he’s an odious human being, a liar and a grifter. If hell exists, Trump is headed there, express ticket, non-stop. He has debased his office, insulted the world, and divided this country.

Though Trump is marching them to the edge of the precipice, the lapdogs and sycophants of the GOP, having forgotten their oath of office and obligations under the Constitution, stand by their man. Trump says bend over, they do; Trump says spread your cheeks, they do. The Party of Lincoln. Sorry, Abraham, poor sod. When will Republican members of congress find their spines and turn on Trump? How much more water does the ship need to take on before the rats sprint for the exits?

Of course, the Trump spin machine is now on overdrive, denying and deflecting and dissembling and defending, insisting that there is no crime, no collusion, no campaign finance violation, even though Cohen copped to two counts of federal election violations. “Nothing to do with campaign finance,” Trump says. “I don’t know Cohen that well. Hardly know him, rarely talked to him. Might not be able to pick him out of a police lineup.” The detestable Huckabee Sanders ridicules media questions, regurgitates Trump’s ludicrous denials, and the machine spins on, black is white, 1+1=4, coal burns clean, and the economy of West Virginia is the envy of America. Here’s what the Orange Menace said to Fox News:

“I don't know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job,” Mr Trump told Fox News. “I will tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor because, without this thinking, you would see – you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe, in reverse.”

Great job? The market would crash? I’ve said it before, but I have to say it again, the President of the United States of America is a fucking imbecile. There’s no point in even deconstructing his comments.

What happened to us, to America, a country that has been occasionally good but never, ever great? How in the world have we fallen so far so fast? Or does it only feel fast? Capital has been on the ascendancy for 40 years, buying politicians to write laws in their favor, chipping away at the welfare state and New Deal institutions, labor unions, environmental regulations, shifting manufacturing to low-wage nations, freeing capital from restraint, packing the federal courts with corporate-friendly judges; little by little amassing more power, more control in fewer hands, always a recipe for tyranny. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Boeing, Goldman Sachs. A corporate coup, as Chris Hedges might say.

And so it goes in Trump’s capitalist wasteland.