Trump self pardon just confirms his narcissism

Donald Trump behind bars, where he should be

We have regularly seen exaggerated arrogance from Donald Trump to the extent that some even explored it to see if it was an impeachable offense. It isn't, but it just shows the length to which the Oval Office lunatic will go in making everything about himself. And now T-rump's lawyers have advised special counsel Robert Mueller...

"the president would not comply with requests for an interview, could end the special counsel's investigation and could use his executive powers to pardon if needed."

In other words, Trump would literally pardon himself. The letter was in response to a request from Mueller for an interview with Trump. The former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, who was fired by T-rump, said it would be a “self-executing impeachment” if President Trump were to pardon himself. His lawyers continually make the point that there is no substance in Mueller's investigation, while recounting all the material they have provided the special counsel, therefore, there is no reason for a personal interview.

Bharara's reaction was actually in response to Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who "appearing on ABC's This Week Sunday morning, said Trump could pardon himself, though has no plans to do so." I doubt seriously if Giuliani has any legal source he can refer to that would substantiate that remark. It is, no doubt, off the top of his head, completely without thought, as 99% of what his boss spews regularly. This from former New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie...

"If the president were to pardon himself, he'll get impeached."

This can probably all be written off to just another stupid day in the saga of Donald Trump's presidency, something, perhaps, we should have expected. Will November never get here?

Read more: Trump's lawyers to Mueller in letter: President can end probe, use pardon power
                    Former US attorney: Trump pardoning himself would be 'self-executing impeachment'
                    Giuliani says Trump 'probably' has the power to pardon himself

Should James Comey run for President? Read his book

I had a hard time getting through the first part of James Comey's book, A Higher Loyalty-Truth, Lies, and Leadership. I thought he was wasting too much time on his past life and background until I realized the core of this man's meaning and purpose for wring his tome, to present the two sides of what a government can be. Sleazy, corrupt and unacceptable like the Donald Trump administration, or honest, loyal to the people and worthy of its leader like, say, Barack Obama. The latter may not have been effective enough for many, mostly because of a repressive Republican Congress, but he had principles James Comey admired and possessed himself. Primarily honesty and loyalty.

Comey's background is diversified legally, a U.S. Attorney in New York, U.S. Deputy Attorney General under GWB, and when Barack Obama appointed him Director of the FBI. Through these four positions, he says in his book that he has become extremely familiar with the workings of the U.S. government. He doesn't say this but under both Obama and Trump, a dysfunctional government, for the former, Republicans denying everything he tried and the latter, the man himself, Trump. James Comey doesn't really badmouth anyone but he does speak the truth.

Especially in the book's epilogue where he comments...

"this president [Donald Trump] is unethical and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty."

He goes on to commend those who have stayed with the administration, even with the adversity of this lunatic's constant tirades. Perhaps they have kept us out of a nuclear war, or at least calmed the nations of the world that believe the United States has lost its mind by electing a maniac for president. Donald Trump has said for years...

"I just feel that loyalty is a very, very important part of life, not only of business but of life."

To this Paul Waldman of The American Prospect commented on Afternet...

"The truth is that Trump demands loyalty from everyone but gives it to no one. As he prowls the darkened hallways of the White House at night, alone with his thoughts, his wife and young son 200 miles away, the staff having retired for the night, it wouldn't be surprising if Trump is becoming increasingly convinced that no one is loyal to him and there's no one he can trust."

Trump tried the loyalty ploy with James Comey and was rebuked just before he was fired as FBI Director. Most have seen Comey's move as laudable and in fact there is probably no person in the American government today that is more loyal to this country than James Comey. He is a Republican but even as a liberal Progressive, I would vote for the man. However, it is just possible that James Comey has had quite enough of the stinkin' dirty politics working for Donald Trump that he wants nothing to do with a Presidential election. Only time will tell.

Read more: Trump Demands Loyalty From Everyone, But Gives It to No One

Trump to beat in 2020...if he's still around

And here is the left's voting problem

Now these are opinions based on the statements of political experts that were involved in past and current elections. They take into consideration the election of Barack Obama in 2012, and the fact that in 2016, "Voters were looking for something more "strident" than Obama’s "incrementalist agenda." In other words, they wanted a faster track than Clinton was exhibiting. Something like Bernie Sanders. Not sure, though, they wanted the ignorant bluster of a Donald Trump, but he was elected; they wanted action not promises. Trump was a mover and shaker and he excited people.

That's all proven to be big mouthed bullshit, but those who still support the Oval Office lunatic are solid in their backing. The last I heard they were around 30%, an easily beatable figure. The Democratic candidate was all wrong in 2016; it should have been Bernie Sanders but the fraud of DNC head, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, nominated Hillary Clinton. Maybe Sanders will run again, or perhaps the left could convince someone like James Comey, former FBI Director, to run as a Democrat. Think about that...James Comey running against Donald Trump. More on this later.

One of the main items on the Progressives/Democrats agenda is getting out the vote. According to Nate Silver's 538, the Republicans were able to get their voters to the polls much more aggressively than Democrats. Progressives naturally rejected Hillary Clinton because of the DNC fiasco, and the fact that it was this that beat their candidate, Bernie Sanders. If Sanders plans to run in 2020, and his age will be a factor, he must throw his hat in now. We also cannot rule out Joe Biden, or Elizabeth Warren or New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Whoever it is, the youth vote must be considered.

The Progressive/Democratic candidate must enthusiastically go after social media to spread its message to all ages and over all political persuasions. The Russia probe of Donald Trump should be a great handle for the left. If a Progressive candidate is nominated, the Democrats must get behind him or her. Many political pundits talk of the potential success of a Sanders/Warren ticket in 2020 winning big on the Progressive side, combining experience with youth, two people who seem to excite their followers to action, meaning voting.

If Trump does last, the candidates on the left will have the most corrupt administration that this country has ever experienced to run against. There are the Donald Trump daily lies, his Stormy Daniels and similar escapades, firing of FBI Director Jim Comey in obvious obstruction of justice in the Russian investigation, the scandal over Michael Cohen's consulting, more obstruction of justice, again, involving Comey, in defending Michael Flynn, and the list goes on and on. Never in the history of American elections has there been this kind of ammunition for a political party.

But...will the Progressives/Democrats be able to pull it off???

Read more: How Hillary Clinton blew it
                   How Trump won the election: volatility and a common touch
                   How did Trump win? Here are 24 theories

Evangelicals do "celebrate" Donald Trump, even though...

Billy Graham

...they know all about Donald Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels, his endorsement of alleged sexual abuser Roy Moore, his reference to “shithole” countries, his toxic tweets, recurrent racism, or general crudity, and a multitude of other things the Oval Office lunatic has said or done over the past two years. One thousand--can you believe it--evangelical ministers, supposedly of God, "plan to meet the president, both to “celebrate” his accomplishments (as one leading pastor put it) and to rally Christians for the midterm elections."
Former GWB speechwriter, Peter Wehner, revealed in a New York Times op-ed page last December, “Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican.” After being a part of both the evangelicals and the Republican Party all his life, it took Trump's endorsement of Roy Moore to make him reconsider. His opinion of Donald Trump's Republican Party is...

"a threat to conservatism, and I have concluded that the term evangelical—despite its rich history of proclaiming the ‘good news’ of Christ to a broken world—has been so distorted that it is now undermining the Christian witness.

I was a huge fan of Billy Graham, even though I am an agnostic, and believe he showed the epitome of living what you preach. But I agree with Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University, who wrote in Politico...

“to chart the troubled recent course of American evangelicalism—its powerful rise after World War II and its surprisingly quick demise in recent years”—one need look no further than the differences between Graham and his eldest son, Franklin, who took over his empire."

Prothero talks of the fact that Billy Graham was "a powerful evangelist who turned evangelicalism into the dominant spiritual impulse in modern America.” But, "his son [Franklin] is 'a political hack' who 'is rapidly rebranding evangelicalism as a belief system marked not by faith, hope, and love but by fear of Muslims and homophobia.'” Franklin Graham clearly qualifies as a religious fanatic in the worst way. Martin Luther symbolized modern-day evangelicalism with his fierce ideas, vehement language, and combative intellectual style. Evangelicals have carried the ball from there.

Read more: How Martin Luther Paved the Way for Donald Trump

The religious fanatics that support Trump

Did you know, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election? That was more than voted for George W. Bush. And they did it with the urging of their leaders who heretofore have bragged about...

"superior virtue, especially in matters of sex and marriage and parenting and social propriety. They’ve blasted premarital and extramarital sex, LGBTQ people, divorce, pornography, sex work, foul language, crude behavior, and not being a Christian—as they define “Christian”—blaming these things for everything from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina."

Since all that went out the window when these uninformed pathetic souls put their Bibles behind T-rump, the public has had a laugh fest over how this group could be so stupid. And still is. But they never got tired of berating Bill Clinton for his infidelities, which, of course, indicates these people are hopeless Republicans. Michael Gerson, former Bush speechwriter, wrote in the Atlantic...

“The moral convictions of many evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification. This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption.”

Gerson also believes evangelicals have done some good things and still do but can't really explain how they hit the bottom of the barrel with Donald Trump. What is even more troubling to me is the evangelical attitude toward women; they think women should unequivocally obey their husbands. "Southern Baptists insist that wives submit to their husbands and ban women speaking from the pulpit or having religious authority over men." Whew! Sell that to the feminists of today. It is ludicrous, of course, and clearly points out why evangelicals are regularly held in contempt.

Although Gerson doesn't believe most evangelicals are racist, he writes...

“But every strong Trump supporter has decided that racism is not a moral disqualification in the president of the United States. And that is something more than a political compromise. It is a revelation of moral priorities.”

And that should not be acceptable!

Read more: Why Evangelicals—Still!—Support Trump

Donald Trump makes the laws now...not Congress

Trump-Judge Gonzalo Curiel

The Oval Office lunatic started over two years ago during the presidential campaign making disparaging remarks about the judicial system and US District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, him because he was of Mexican heritage (born in Indiana) his court because Trump thought he was being railroaded in the lawsuit against Trump University. Trump ended up paying $25 million to his former “students,” who sued him for ripping them off. But it was the fact he felt he was above the law and not to be held accountable to the innocent folks who bought in simply because of his name.

He continues to ridicule judges along with the courts and the justice system, perhaps in part because of the lawsuits that have been filed against him. When Trump decided to mock "due process of law, the bedrock against government's arbitrary denial of a person's life, liberty or property." That was too much and there was a reaction...

"Critics warn that denunciations that once seemed so aberrational may be seeping into the American psyche and influencing how government operates."

Then he decided, "immigrants at the border could be summarily deported without any hearing to determine if they deserved asylum or were US citizens wrongly apprehended." He even said on Fox News...

"the system of immigration judges [was] "corrupt," and whoever heard of a system where you put people through trials? Where do these judges come from?"

He defends men for domestic violence shifting the blame from them on to the system. This parallels his abuse of women, which he either denies outright, or justifies because it is something he, Donald Trump, can do. He fired FBI Director Jim Comey simply because Comey was getting too close in his investigation of how the Russians helped elect him president. Former GWB aide Michael Gerson, a conservative writer, wrote...

"Whatever else Trumpism may be, it is the systematic organization of resentment against outgroups. His record is rich in dehumanization. ... This is more than a disturbing pattern; it is an organizing political principle. And it has resulted in a series of radiating consequences."

It is disturbing enough that Donald Trump and the whole Republican gang must go in November.

Read more: Trump's sustained attacks on American rights
                   
                   “Mexican” Judge (He’s American) Gets Last Laugh as Appeals Court OKs $25 Million    Trump University Settlement

Poor baby-Donald Trump ABC-TV ignores/he whines

Doesn't even whine like a guy

When Donald Trump is supposed to have more important things on his mind, definitely not thinking about the Roseanne show cancellation, according to misinformation specialist, Sara Sanders, Trump's press secretary, bam, right after she announces this, the Oval Office lunatic starts tweeting over how his feelings are hurt. Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to apologize for the tweet rant by Roseanne Barr, but T-rump complained that Iger had never called him, "to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC."

Donald Trump, as the leader of the freest nation in the world, and that supposedly includes racism, didn't take Roseanne to task for the HORRIBLE things she said about Valerie Jarrett, like comparing her to an ape and the Muslim brotherhood. Rather this moron did what he always does, turned the whole matter around until it became a Donald Trump issue. Whining like some four-year-old that doesn't get his way. Simpleton Sanders explained her boss' statement about Iger by saying, Trump was "simply calling out media bias."

That statement doesn't even deserve an answer if the person, being who he is, does not recognize blatant racial slurs when he sees them. But then we are talking about the same person who based his run for the presidency on racism and white nationalism. And he won, but thank God, not with the popular vote, which would mean this country is populated by the same kind of moron they voted for. It was the Electoral College, and it is in bi-partisan general agreement now that the College is out of date and should be replaced.

Read more: Trump breaks silence on Roseanne Barr scandal