You can’t help but think you reap what you sow here. Pecker Pickle  If you are a practicing incorrigible and surround yourself with people who are competitively unscrupulous, you are likely to get your ass in a jam.  It was just a matter of time before the shit really hit the fan.  And we have hardly had a glimpse of what Mueller is turning up.  It seems unlikely that state prosecutors won’t extract more salacious information about Trump from Pecker and what was stored in the Enquirer’s secret safe.  For one thing, one of those smarmy characters Trump palled around with is  American financier Jeffrey Epstein, recognized more as a registered sex offender than as a philanthropist.  What fertile fodder for the Enquirer.  Jeffrey Epstein

So there’s that.  Then there are all the guys with connections to Russia and its former satellites- Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Carter Page, Michael Flynn. Felix Sater.  Don’t forget all the shady fringe political figures- Roger Stone, Sebastian Gorka, Steve Bannon, and the late Roy Cohn.  And of course there’s his notorious fixer Michael Cohen, who has revealed that yes, as Donald Trump so adamantly complained, the fix was in on the 2016 presidential election, but it was Donald Trump himself who contributed to the fix.

When Trump was in the business of constructing buildings, it was common practice for him to award contracts to firms with connections to organized crime. The Russian mob is intertwined in many of his commercial developments.  And look at his cabinet.  Price and Pruitt were forced out because of ethics and corruption violations.  Commerce Secretary Ross shorted stock and used pending news of his own dubious investments as an opportunity for insider trading. A cloud of suspicion surrounds  Interior Secretary Zinke and his “foundation” that is run by his wife and is playing a key role in real estate deals whose companies stand to benefit from Interior department decisions to open public lands to oil exploration. Education Secretary DeVos is basically running a corruption racket, awarding student loan debt collection to a firm she is heavily invested in.

And of course there might not be any person on earth more corrupt than the president himself.  Just the tip of the iceberg  are egregious emoluments clause violations going on on a daily basis that congress refuses to do anything about.  I can’t imagine Pecker not having at least a few revealing stories to tell.

I understand most of the dynamics of the 2016 presidential election.  For many what they saw was choosing the lesser of two evils.  Staunch Trump supporters are presently entrenched    They will vote to protect him and his program because they believe they are protecting themselves.  But look around.  If this president is providing protection for your engrained bigotry, or you are a true believer that disruption and chaos are just the thing the country needs, no doubt your mind will not be changed.  But any single-issue voters out there, especially pro-life or second amendment supporters, please give serious thought about wiping the slate clean.  Protect your beliefs, just don’t put your faith in a despicable man who’s loyalty is only to himself and is slowly undermining the very institutions that serve to protect all of us.

Now Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, like Pecker, is providing information with immunity protection.  This is the beginning of path through the money trail, and as many have predicted, it is probably what leads to the end of this presidency.  Resigning might at least save Trump from some embarrassment, but it would definitely save the country from dysfunction and discord that is only going to get worse if he doesn’t.  if a person picks a peck of profiteering peckers for protection, that particular person will probably end up in a pickle.

SHARE and know you will feel good about yourself 

Let’s face it.  The national polarization created by Trump is something you could say we have not seen since the U.S. Civil War.  Discussions involving  opposing viewpoints are exercises in futility, and when they do occur, they very often become alarmingly incendiary.  How can one man create such a furor?  The allure of Trumpism is something that is difficult for me to get my head around. Having said that,  I like to think I am educated and empathic enough to at least listen to someone who feels differently than I do.  And  I understand how parts of Trump’s campaign messaging resonated with his voters.  I was not enthralled with any of our 2016 presidential candidates.  I could see how people were more than willing to take a chance with a left field candidate.

Yes, I get that.  But what I can’t figure out is the mind set of people attending a typical Trump political rally.  Honest to god  a Trump rally for me is the equivalent of watching a troop of squatting monkeys perform a shit-flinging show.   I don’t waste my time watching any of them on television, but it’s difficult to escape all the snippets  the national news programs present.  If you are like me you just can’t help focusing on the people lined up behind Trump at one of these things.  Admittedly there are always a few that look like they might be riding the distal point of a bad meth trip, but heck, take a photo of a large group of the people I hang out with and to a casual observer one or two of them would probably look out of sorts also.  But the majority standing there cheering on the president seem perfectly normal to me.  That is until once again something  unforgivingly stupid spills out of his mouth.  Then the normal people just vanish.  They were there, but then they’re gone.

To prove my point, I need only refer to the comment Trump made in Tampa about purchasing groceries.  He emphatically stated if you intend to leave the supermarket with all those items you have piled up in your shopping cart, you damn well better show ID.  The statement is so blatantly incorrect and shows such a complete disconnect from the very people standing behind him that you would think there would be at least a smattering of people with quizzical expressions on their faces.  If my wife and I were there what we would be doing is glancing at each other and those around us, and if not actually saying “what the fuck,” at the very least our stunned appearance would convey to the entire viewing audience that we consider what we just heard to be unconditionally moronic.

But no, what you see are normal people turning abnormal.  There is nothing about those attendees standing behind Trump that would indicate they find anything out of the ordinary in what he just said.  Just glazed looks of acceptance.  What is going on there?  Sure Trump lies all the time.  His lying during ambiguous political and social commentary that can’t be readily fact-checked is one thing.  But geezuz even the nine year old kids who were dragged to the event by moms and dads with questionably commendable parenting skills  know how to grocery shop.  I refuse to believe all those people are that stupid.

So are they brainwashed?  Is there something behind all the talk about gas-lighting?  What in the hell goes on at Fox News anyway?   Is there some kind of subliminal message Sean Hannity is surreptitiously transmitting?  Does Fox News broadcast via a secret wave length that is able to worm its way into the subconscious and gradually abduct the human mind?

I guess I don’t know what’s worse- stupidity or perverse psychological manipulation.  Whichever, it becomes even more perilous when people so afflicted are coerced into hostility.  Trump’s use of the term “fake news” has certainly  instilled vocal provocation in those attending his political gatherings.  However, calling the main stream media the “enemy of the people,” a phrase that normal people consider to be outrageous subterfuge,  somehow triggers people at a Trump rally to react in a very abnormal, extremely vitriolic manner.  For a frightfully long period of time it looked like CNN’s Jim Acosta might not get out of that arena in Tampa alive.  Trump rally attendees display their displeasure with hot dog vendor when he runs out of mustard

I know there are decent Trump supporters out there.  If you considerer yourself to be decent and normal, I encourage you to attend your local Trump rally, only please, do your best to shoulder your way through the crowd and position yourself directly in front of any television camera you happen to notice..  And then when the president of the United States says something incoherently implausible, maliciously insulting,  or blatantly incorrect, restore my faith in humanity and evoke all the normal powers within yourself and stay normal.  And for your own safety and well being, it wouldn’t hurt to wear a tin foil hat while watching Fox News.

SHARE- and you will rest tonight in peaceful slumber knowing people might think you really aren’t an asshole after all.