PUBLISHED TO
I am not by nature a greedy person. As a
father of four, with a stint as a single parent, I long ago decided that
as long as they were cared for, that's all that mattered. Now? Hell,
I've got a wife and kids that love me, my pooties, a roof over my head,
food in my belly, a wifi connection, my laptop, MSNBC and CNN, my
readers, and my X-Box 360. What more does a crusty old fart need?
Gordon Gekko was right when he said "Greed id good." He's absolutely right, in moderate doses, greed is not only good, it's necessary. Without an inherent desire to better our own personal situations, and our world, there would be no cars, airplanes, computers or lifesaving medical treatments. Oh yeah, and kiss Starbucks goodbye too. Most of the worlds great advancements had some ulterior motive behind them. Greed equals human progress.
But taken to extremes, greed can be not only corrosive, but self destructive. Just ask Michael Millken, Jack Abramoff, Martha Stewart, Leona Helmsley, and Bernie Madoff about that. And right now, a large chunk of our current political turmoil can be laid at the feet of greed, greed overcoming many, but fueled by the greed of one in particular.
Tom Price gave up his safe House seat to become the Secretary of HHS. Now he has neither, being forced out by an ethics scandal involving possible improper stock trades involving companies he held sway over by dint of his House chairmanship. Scott Pruitt gave up his cushy House seat to become the EPA administrator. His days are numbered, and for what? Rampant greed. First class or private air travel, a taxpayer paid junket to Paris and Morocco, full time security., shady housing accommodations. Pruitt will be sacrificed at the Trump alter as a distraction to some other scandal when the time is right.
And how about Michael "What Hit Me" Cohen? There's a good reason why Donald Trump is Michael Cohen's only paying client. Nobody with the IQ of celery would let this guy fight a traffic ticket for them. But apparently Cohen talks a good New York tough guy fixer game, and Trump will lose to celery on Final Jeopardy every time out, so it's all good. But Cohen's greed, and his high profile association with Trump is going to land him in prison. Not only for his fumble thumbing of the Stormy Daniels affair, but for whatever dirt they can dig up on his NY based taxi business, as well as God only knows what other sins they're finding as they turn over his business rocks. A Trump pardon won't save him when Eric Schneiderman drops on him like a hammer. The only thing Cohen has to decide is whether he prefers the safety of a federal pen or a NY state slammer.
Jared Kushner is going to prison, one way or the other. If any multi cell organism is stupid enough to be caught pimping green card visas to Chinese investors in return for keeping his inheritance afloat, who knows what kind of lame shit he was pulling before the big time came along? But Robert Mueller sure as hell is looking now. And if things keep "Breaking Bad," this cut rate preppie Walter White may end up with his ex con father as his cell mate. And again, a Trump pardon won't save either of them from the clutches of the NY and NJ Attorneys General.
I also believe that Donnie Redux, and quite possibly his idiot brother Eric will be modeling orange in the future. Where IQ is concerned, these two nitwits actually look up to celery as a mentor. Their life ambition is to rise to carrot. The Trump organization is under a Mueller microscope, and anything hinky that has occurred since January 20, 2017 will be laid directly at their doorstop, considering the fact that their treacherous father fingered them as exclusively running the business in his absence. Never mind that anything more complicated than Push-twist-open had to come from the old man himself, their signatures will be on the documents. Seeing as how the Trump organization is based in New York, Eric Schneiderman will scrape them up like bugs off of a windshield. I doubt that his vapid daughter Ivanka will suffer the same fate, since she was not publicly linked to the Trump organization in any official capacity, but she may be at risk of ruinous litigation involving her own business practices, including violating child labor laws in foreign countries. Let it percolate for a bit.
And now, we get to the "Head Cheese" himself so to speak (pun intended). All by himself, Donald John Trump is the axis of evil here. Look above, all of these people were swimming along, contented as carp bottom feeding, pulling their little scams under the radar, until Trump came along. When you look at them individually, theirs is actually a rather plebian form of greed, they're puny spuds. But when Trump shit in his own mess kit on Russia, all of these people came under the microscope, and all of them will pay. Shit, Scott Pruitt wouldn't even have a problem if it wasn't for the open EPA checkbook Trump handed him.
I have said since the primaries, where I covered him almost exclusively, and when he made his campaign as obnoxious as possible, that he never wanted to win, that this was nothing more than a "branding exercise" to him. A good measure of Trump's stupidity is that he tailored his campaign to supporters who couldn't buy his overpriced shit, live in one of his schlock condo's, or stay in one of his glitzy wealth wet dream hotels. But that's Trump, all bullshit, and no brains.
And it was a totally self inflicted gunshot wound! Trump had been cruising along as an all purpose scumbag for 40 years, and likely could have cruised on indefinitely. But, when the criminal charges for his business, and there will be criminal charges, for things like wire fraud and money laundering start pouring in, enraged business partners, vendors, and tenants are going to start suing. And when she sees that, Melania is going to abandon the sinking garbage scow that is her marriage, and grab everything she can before it ends up in the grubby mitts of litigants. Hell, they didn't have to suffer through sleeping with Trump for that money!
Trump is going to prison, of that I have no doubt. While there may be a DOJ "opinion" that states that a sitting President can't be indicted, even if Mueller decides not to test its tensile strength, there is no prohibition against a state from indicting a sitting President. And even if the US Supreme Court rules that he cannot be tried on state charges while serving, it doesn't matter, he can't run out the clock on the statute of limitations. Most states, including the federal code have an exemption to the statute. This exemption is based on the "availability of the defendant to stand trial." This prevents felons from committing a crime in the US, and then fleeing to a non extradition country to run out the statute clock. This is why Erdogan's bodyguards can never return to the US, there are outstanding arrest warrants in Washington DC on them for beating up protesters. As long as Schneiderman charges or indicts in time, he can wait for Trump to leave office.
And who is going to put them all there? Why, Robert Mueller III of course. One way or another. Because Robert Mueller is no moron. He has known all along that he has been living on borrowed time since day one. MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuaid, a former US Attorney, stated that she thought that Mueller had started preparing his reports to congress and Rosenstein on the day he started, updating them with every new piece of information. If his firing were imminent, she believes that he would have the reports couriered over to congress as a last act, and possibly to the media. I believe so too, he has worked to hard on this, and believes too strongly in justice to let this come to naught.
And for the exact same reason, I believe that since day one, whenever his investigation turns up something on any of the principals listed above, as well as others such as Roger Stone, that may facilitate a state charge, he has regularly forwarded that information to the applicable state Attorney General, mostly Eric Schneiderman, with the explicit understanding that they would not move on any charges until either Mueller charged them federally, or he was fired. I firmly believe that Mueller has been building their cases for them, side by side with his, letting them buttress their own eventual prosecutions. All they're waiting for is the go ahead. We should start getting some early examples of that if and when Trump starts handing out pardons like candy on Halloween to his faithful cronies. For instance, I'm betting that if Trump pardons Paul Manafort, it won't take a week for either the Virginia Attorney General or the Washington DC prosecutor to charge him.
"Greed is good." Somehow or other, I find it hard to believe that that is going to be the Trump Mob;s slogan for very much longer. And it can't come soon enough.
Gordon Gekko was right when he said "Greed id good." He's absolutely right, in moderate doses, greed is not only good, it's necessary. Without an inherent desire to better our own personal situations, and our world, there would be no cars, airplanes, computers or lifesaving medical treatments. Oh yeah, and kiss Starbucks goodbye too. Most of the worlds great advancements had some ulterior motive behind them. Greed equals human progress.
But taken to extremes, greed can be not only corrosive, but self destructive. Just ask Michael Millken, Jack Abramoff, Martha Stewart, Leona Helmsley, and Bernie Madoff about that. And right now, a large chunk of our current political turmoil can be laid at the feet of greed, greed overcoming many, but fueled by the greed of one in particular.
Tom Price gave up his safe House seat to become the Secretary of HHS. Now he has neither, being forced out by an ethics scandal involving possible improper stock trades involving companies he held sway over by dint of his House chairmanship. Scott Pruitt gave up his cushy House seat to become the EPA administrator. His days are numbered, and for what? Rampant greed. First class or private air travel, a taxpayer paid junket to Paris and Morocco, full time security., shady housing accommodations. Pruitt will be sacrificed at the Trump alter as a distraction to some other scandal when the time is right.
And how about Michael "What Hit Me" Cohen? There's a good reason why Donald Trump is Michael Cohen's only paying client. Nobody with the IQ of celery would let this guy fight a traffic ticket for them. But apparently Cohen talks a good New York tough guy fixer game, and Trump will lose to celery on Final Jeopardy every time out, so it's all good. But Cohen's greed, and his high profile association with Trump is going to land him in prison. Not only for his fumble thumbing of the Stormy Daniels affair, but for whatever dirt they can dig up on his NY based taxi business, as well as God only knows what other sins they're finding as they turn over his business rocks. A Trump pardon won't save him when Eric Schneiderman drops on him like a hammer. The only thing Cohen has to decide is whether he prefers the safety of a federal pen or a NY state slammer.
Jared Kushner is going to prison, one way or the other. If any multi cell organism is stupid enough to be caught pimping green card visas to Chinese investors in return for keeping his inheritance afloat, who knows what kind of lame shit he was pulling before the big time came along? But Robert Mueller sure as hell is looking now. And if things keep "Breaking Bad," this cut rate preppie Walter White may end up with his ex con father as his cell mate. And again, a Trump pardon won't save either of them from the clutches of the NY and NJ Attorneys General.
I also believe that Donnie Redux, and quite possibly his idiot brother Eric will be modeling orange in the future. Where IQ is concerned, these two nitwits actually look up to celery as a mentor. Their life ambition is to rise to carrot. The Trump organization is under a Mueller microscope, and anything hinky that has occurred since January 20, 2017 will be laid directly at their doorstop, considering the fact that their treacherous father fingered them as exclusively running the business in his absence. Never mind that anything more complicated than Push-twist-open had to come from the old man himself, their signatures will be on the documents. Seeing as how the Trump organization is based in New York, Eric Schneiderman will scrape them up like bugs off of a windshield. I doubt that his vapid daughter Ivanka will suffer the same fate, since she was not publicly linked to the Trump organization in any official capacity, but she may be at risk of ruinous litigation involving her own business practices, including violating child labor laws in foreign countries. Let it percolate for a bit.
And now, we get to the "Head Cheese" himself so to speak (pun intended). All by himself, Donald John Trump is the axis of evil here. Look above, all of these people were swimming along, contented as carp bottom feeding, pulling their little scams under the radar, until Trump came along. When you look at them individually, theirs is actually a rather plebian form of greed, they're puny spuds. But when Trump shit in his own mess kit on Russia, all of these people came under the microscope, and all of them will pay. Shit, Scott Pruitt wouldn't even have a problem if it wasn't for the open EPA checkbook Trump handed him.
I have said since the primaries, where I covered him almost exclusively, and when he made his campaign as obnoxious as possible, that he never wanted to win, that this was nothing more than a "branding exercise" to him. A good measure of Trump's stupidity is that he tailored his campaign to supporters who couldn't buy his overpriced shit, live in one of his schlock condo's, or stay in one of his glitzy wealth wet dream hotels. But that's Trump, all bullshit, and no brains.
And it was a totally self inflicted gunshot wound! Trump had been cruising along as an all purpose scumbag for 40 years, and likely could have cruised on indefinitely. But, when the criminal charges for his business, and there will be criminal charges, for things like wire fraud and money laundering start pouring in, enraged business partners, vendors, and tenants are going to start suing. And when she sees that, Melania is going to abandon the sinking garbage scow that is her marriage, and grab everything she can before it ends up in the grubby mitts of litigants. Hell, they didn't have to suffer through sleeping with Trump for that money!
Trump is going to prison, of that I have no doubt. While there may be a DOJ "opinion" that states that a sitting President can't be indicted, even if Mueller decides not to test its tensile strength, there is no prohibition against a state from indicting a sitting President. And even if the US Supreme Court rules that he cannot be tried on state charges while serving, it doesn't matter, he can't run out the clock on the statute of limitations. Most states, including the federal code have an exemption to the statute. This exemption is based on the "availability of the defendant to stand trial." This prevents felons from committing a crime in the US, and then fleeing to a non extradition country to run out the statute clock. This is why Erdogan's bodyguards can never return to the US, there are outstanding arrest warrants in Washington DC on them for beating up protesters. As long as Schneiderman charges or indicts in time, he can wait for Trump to leave office.
And who is going to put them all there? Why, Robert Mueller III of course. One way or another. Because Robert Mueller is no moron. He has known all along that he has been living on borrowed time since day one. MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuaid, a former US Attorney, stated that she thought that Mueller had started preparing his reports to congress and Rosenstein on the day he started, updating them with every new piece of information. If his firing were imminent, she believes that he would have the reports couriered over to congress as a last act, and possibly to the media. I believe so too, he has worked to hard on this, and believes too strongly in justice to let this come to naught.
And for the exact same reason, I believe that since day one, whenever his investigation turns up something on any of the principals listed above, as well as others such as Roger Stone, that may facilitate a state charge, he has regularly forwarded that information to the applicable state Attorney General, mostly Eric Schneiderman, with the explicit understanding that they would not move on any charges until either Mueller charged them federally, or he was fired. I firmly believe that Mueller has been building their cases for them, side by side with his, letting them buttress their own eventual prosecutions. All they're waiting for is the go ahead. We should start getting some early examples of that if and when Trump starts handing out pardons like candy on Halloween to his faithful cronies. For instance, I'm betting that if Trump pardons Paul Manafort, it won't take a week for either the Virginia Attorney General or the Washington DC prosecutor to charge him.
"Greed is good." Somehow or other, I find it hard to believe that that is going to be the Trump Mob;s slogan for very much longer. And it can't come soon enough.
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