Well here we go again.  From all appearances it seems Donald Trump Jr just pulled off the bone-head move of the political decade and once again the resulting stink from a disjointed White House has all of us anti-Trumpers giddy with anticipation.  Surely this is finally going to motivate any  principled Republican in congress to admit enough is enough.  But I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.  In fact, hang onto your hats folks because on the horizon will be some of the most creatively entertaining political spin Conway, Spicer, and Huckabee Sanders have ever produced.  And remarkably our elected sycophants will continue to enable a man who has no business in the Oval Office.

Ooopsie!

Politics has become so polarized in this country this is where we have landed.  Wave after wave of alarming events pound the shoreline of our consciousness until rock solid principles of democracy and decency are pulverized into grains of indifference.  Instead of considering Junior’s behavior disturbing, defenders are treating it as if it was little more than a glass of spilled milk.  Just a simple mistake by a neophyte.  “Most people would take that meeting” says the President of the United States.

What in the hell have we become?  Put the idiocy and collusion surrounding this episode aside for a moment and just look at the computer hacking aspects.   What keeps getting lost every time one of these mind-bending stories surfaces is the fact there was Russian interference in our election process.  Geezuz H the country has been attacked and this administration is perfectly happy doing nothing about it.  The internet corruption that went on here is not much less frightening than the danger posed by the nut job in North Korea.  You could say what Russia managed to get away with so far is cyber sniper fire.  Besides fomenting fake stories on the internet, they hacked the election system computers in 21 states.  What’s to stop them from pushing the envelope.  It is not out of the realm of possibility that with the tapping of a few keystrokes they could accomplish the near equivalent of a nuclear missile strike- disabling a huge section of our electrical power grid.  They already have their foot in the door  Russia hacks U.S. Nuclear Power Plant  The results would be very similar to a nuclear missile attack. If you are interested in some shit-scary observation about this, read Ted Koppel’s book “Lights Out.”  

Ask the county what their number one fear is and half will say terrorism. Maybe you think it’s a stretch to say that election tampering by an adversarial foreign government is terrorism, but should all the lights go out and hospital ventilators stop functioning and gas pumps quit working, you might concede early intervention might have been helpful.   We know Russia meddled in our democratic process.  The point I am trying to make is we need to direct our  focus on the larger issue.  The reason all these investigations are going on is it is extremely important we find out if any American citizens were involved because they are either guilty of obstruction of Justice or possibly treason, or stunning and dangerous ignorance, all of which  might well serve to accelerate a more heinous foreign agenda. Robert Mueller is likely to expose Trump’s shifty business practices as well, especially if tax returns are subpoenaed, but the president has no one to blame but himself for that investigation.  A cyber war catastrophe in this country is just as likely to occur as a nuclear one.  Why so many people have chosen to regard this Russian intrusion with casual indifference is beyond me.

Most people would take that meeting?  Most people in the Trump family maybe.  Most normal people would contact the authorities.

I can not help thinking  how we have just circled back to the very beginning.  Of course before Trump got elected we had no inkling of how he would govern. Right after he became president I think the majority of us thought the guy should at least be given a chance.  That did not last long in my case.  If you are like me and have nothing better to do than sit on your ass all day, see my previous blog  https://www.asiteforsoreguys.com/gaslighting  .  As time has progressed, about the only consistent thing we are seeing from this administration is what a total clusterfuck it is.  Our democracy is certainly being put to the test.  Undoubtedly it will survive this shit-storm, but if congress is to get anything of substance accomplished its members had better pull their collective heads out of their asses and mitigate the damage.  Get a spine and tell the president he needs to quit deflecting, take responsibility, and start cooperating.  Hopefully Trump’s recent veiled threat against Robert Mueller if he investigates the president’s family business ties will raise your democratic hackles.

However, what we do know now that we knew from the very beginning of the campaign season is how bereft of moral character Donald Trump Sr. is.  Unfortunately it seems obvious what Senior considers good parenting is to make sure the polarity of Junior’s moral compass is as discharged as his is.  “It must be magic to raise children in a household where probity has no meaning.”  That’s a perfect quote from the editorial page of a Cincinnati newspaper.  What Donald Jr. did by biting on the bait offered by Rob Goldstone was reprehensibly wrong, plain and simple.  So comically ironic is the fact that Junior, in the process of defending himself on this very issue,  only made things worse by telling yet another blatant lie- on Sean Hannity’s show no less.   He can attempt to put any spin he wants on all of this, and god knows he’s been out there twirling his best, but it does not matter.  It is obvious the orange does not fall far from the tree.

I know Trump’s most entrenched supporters will believe this is acceptable behavior, that to them the end justifies any kind of means, and the staunchest congressional Republicans will keep deflecting.  But you can not defend the indefensible.  The “family values” plank of the Republican party platform was removed and shoved through a wood chipper the minute it accepted Donald Trump as its candidate.  The man always was and will continue to be a completely amoral narcissist, a whining liar, and as we are now witnessing,  an incompetent leader.  He believes his suspect values are the only proper ones and obviously those are the ones he has instilled in his children.   Every member of congress has  intrusive knowledge of this conduct on a day to day basis.  Maybe the general public has become numb to it. But congressional members have no excuse.  They are directly exposed, and by continuing to enable this president they are displaying a shameful example to their own children.

“Botched collusion is still collusion.”  Charles Krauthammer, syndicated columnist, Washington Post

“Russia is the one country that could physically destroy America,”  Steven Pifer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine

“Release your tax returns Mr. Twitterbitch,”  me and 224 million Americans.