Your Emperor Is Buck Ass Naked ... And Afraid

“We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us.” - Ken Levine

We have raised our children to understand this concept, to integrate it into their lives, their decision making.  They understand that actions always have consequences, and those consequences can be very good or very bad depending on the choice they make.

It's not a hard concept.  Do a shitty thing, expect a shitty result.  Throw karmic poo into the wind, the wind will return it in kind.  Do something nice, thoughtful, magnanimous, legal?  Well, while the repercussions may be as small as a thank you card, they will be positive.

It goes hand in hand with "Honesty is the best policy."  Pretty simple, if you don't lie, cheat, grift, steal - you have nothing to hide.

Sadly, while we unwashed masses are, on the whole, beholden to these concepts, they always seem to escape the ones for whom consequence has long lost all meaning.  With each worm like wiggle out of any true retribution for an act, they become further emboldened as they commit the next bigger act.

Enter the Toilet Tweeter In Chief.  Yes, Commander Commode.  A permanently stunted man child who crosses his arms, stomps his feet, and tries desperately to deflect attention when the spotlight of guilt is upon him.  "Look at that shiny thing over there!  Hillary caused that shiny thing!"

It has been his commodus operandi all his life.  Spin, divert, deflect, sue, settle, grandstand, self promote, and lie.  Oh, how he lies.  He says whatever gumball drops to his tongue from the dispenser that is his brain.  Facts do not play a part, just big, sweeping, bravado laden statements.

And oh, how the easily led, dimwitted flock to his circus tent - assured by Trump of how BIG, BEAUTIFUL, THE BEST, BELIEVE ME awaits inside.  He is the Barnum & Bailey of our lifetime.

And you know what?  That worked great for him in the private sector.  He told his lies - sorry, Donald, hyperbole (from The Art of The Deal: People want to believe something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.) - and always moved on.  Leaving in his wake a trail of contactors who were never paid, casinos that went bankrupt, lives that were destroyed.  Henchmen at the ready to quiet, pay off, intimidate while he moved on to the next sure-to-fail con.

Yes, sure-to-fail.  Everything he touches eventually turns to mold, not gold.  Hotels, casinos, his "university", steaks, water, an airline, mortgages, vodka, a travel search engine (yes, called GoTrump.com), a board game, a magazine, a football team, a bike race (Tour de Trump, anyone?), a catering hall, the Trump Network, a radio spot, and on and on and on.

If Trump touches something with his grubby, stubby Oopah Loopah stained hands - it eventually fails.  Built on lies, bravado, loans - the house of cards always falls down.  On the little people who bought in.

So to those who continually fill my inbox with the "You just hate Trump now" garbage?  Sorry, I have detested this bloated self promoter for decades.  Anyone paying even cursory attention since the 80s knows he has always been a self confessed cheater, crook, mobbed up conman.

Yet, his system of grift continues to work because there is never a shortage of people desperate for a quick win, a silver bullet, a messiah.  In his case, MESSiah. 

Hiding behind his trademark "Believe me" Trumplestiltskin spins his lies and grandiosity into some mesmerizing cloaking device that bedazzles the dim, convinces them the "fish is THIS big."  Or in this case, that Robert Mueller is on a witch hunt, and the deep state is out to get him.

Yesterday should have been a wake up call to even the most transfixed of the MAGAts.  With yesterday's raid on his personal attorney's office, home, and hotel room - it should make them wake up from their Trump addiction (My God, can you imagine the literal DTs involved with weaning off a crackpot addiction?).  It should finally make them understand that Trump is not some angel of chaos sent by God, but a cowardly, cheating, lying sack of sputum.

It should make them see that their emperor is buck ass naked.

And stupid.  And criminal.  And a liar.

It should.

Will it?  Of course not.  The congregants of the magachurch of Trump have proven repeatedly that they simply do not care.  Evidence is fake news.  Republican FBI investigators are actually the Deep State.  And my favorite whataboutism in their arsenal "What about Hillary?!?"

Trump crossed his arms like a petulant, hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar 6 year old yesterday and blathered to the cameras about how the FBI "broke in".  How it's a "disgraceful situation" and "total witch hunt" and an "attack on our country."  He started this morning by tweeting again about witch hunt and the death of attorney-client privilege. 

Oh, that's rich.  In fact, it may be the richest thing about him.

Facts matter, Donny, so let's unpack, shall we?

As to your whole "witch hunt" assertion, you jumped that shark months ago, Fonzie.  People in your camp have been indicted.  MANY people.  If there is, in fact, a witch in this whole Russia enterprise, expect to scream, "I'm melting!" any day now.

Attorney-client privilege is not dead, in fact, in order to obtain these search warrants of the attorney of the sitting US President, these six safeguards had to be followed.  From the US Attorneys Manual:

l. Before obtaining a search warrant, investigators had to try to obtain the evidence in another way, such as by subpoena

2. The authorization for the warrant had to come from either the U.S. attorney or an assistant attorney general. (Rosenstein is deputy attorney general, a higher position than assistant attorney general.)

3. The prosecutor had to confer with the criminal division of the department before seeking the warrant.

4. The team conducting the search had to “employ adequate precautions” to ensure that they weren’t improperly viewing privileged communications between Cohen and his clients.

5. The search team would have included a “privilege team,” including lawyers and agents not working the case, which would work to ensure that investigators conducting the search didn’t see privileged communications.

6. The investigators had to develop a review process for the seized material.

So, see?  Even if you don't play by the rules in life, they do. 

Now, to get the search warrants, a very high bar had to be hurdled.  It was.  So much so that the USAG who should have signed off on them, Geoffrey Berman - a Trump guy and Republican - recused himself.  He literally saw there was no way to play Trump loyalty (read: protect Trump) against the rule of law.  The law wins.

So, the FBI did not break into your consigliere's office and residences - they obtained legal warrants to enter.

You can tweet and howl and "Believe me" all you want from this point on, Don, it won't make a difference.  You can fire Rosenstein, Sessions, AND Mueller - it won't help you.  Mueller handed this one off, it is not of his making.  Firing him won't make any of this go away like Trump vodka down a drain.

Choices, Donald, choices.  And the repercussions from them.  You, and every swampthing around you, are finally going to face them.  Careers will be destroyed, assets seized, jailtime served, all because you have never learned that, as Sartre said, "We are our choices."

And your choices have made you an arrogant, ignorant, blustering, criminal, buck naked emperor.  You are about to become the most watched episode of Naked And Afraid ever.

I just hope we have enough popcorn.

Comments

[SK]

Thanks Linda. You articulated perfectly how I view 'him'... Why won't he just disappear!

[Nikki in nyc]

He does seem to be made of Teflon but if you have ever had a Teflon pan you know it eventually scratches and wears and things stick to it. A,d so it will be with THIS Teflon Don. They eventually got Gotti. They will get this guy too.

[chris]

I agree with Katy, Mr. Teflon

[Katy]

Thank you for writing this. I hope you are right. As I posted on FB, I want to be hopeful, but it just seems like Mr. Teflon keeps getting away with every despicable thing he does, day in and day out.