Republicans are big on cutting the size of government and would privatize all government services. Reagan claimed he would cut the size of government by privatizing government services. But when you privatize government services the government doesn’t get smaller it just replaces government workers with private sector workers the cost of government actually goes up. Now Trump is riding in on his white horse thinking he has just discovered privatization. Trump now wants to privatize the Air Traffic Controllers. Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controllers union by firing those that were on strike. Republicans have declared war on unions in general and would outlaw them if they could.
As a union president and officer I fought off privatization for four decades. Every few years a private company would propose taking over the garbage service explaining they could do it cheaper. The only problem was that they charged twice as much in the surround area as the city did. Garbage is easy to collect what is hard to collect is the money for the service. Most of the companies wanted to take over the garbage service but let the city do the hard part, collect the money. The city garbage collection was near a 100% but they only collected 60% of the money. The private garbage companies in the suburbs simply stop collecting the garbage if they were not paid but in the city if someone stopped paying the Health Department ruled the garbage had to be picked because it became a health hazard for the neighborhood. Private companies would also lowball the price for a few years and after the city equipment was gone would double the price. I live in the suburbs and in the wintertime my garbage service comes to a halt if the roads are bad sometimes it is a month between pick ups but the cost is the same. The city continues to pick up even when the roads are slick.
Trump will destroy 30,000 people’s lives if he privatizes Air Traffic Controllers. As federal employees they have a pension once they become employees of private company they will lose their pensions and if they are lucky they will have a 401K that will amount to $50,000 at retirement enough to provide two years of retirement. When the government privatizes they also give up control and if the private company decides to hire a few ISIS members the government has lost it say as to who will control the skies. Safety will no longer be the prime directive of air traffic control cost will be the major concern. One of my buddies I grew up with was an air traffic controller it is one of the most stressful jobs in America when company start pushing the controllers to work longer hours mistakes will be made and they will be counted in hundreds of lives. Control of our skies should be left to the government in the event of war the government should be the one in control. Why would a pilot take orders from a private sector controller?
The corporation Trump wants to take over the 30,000 air traffic controllers is according to Trump going to be “non-profit” in other words the corporation will not make a profit. When most people hear the term “non-profit” charities come to mind but many other corporations are non-profit as nursing homes, churches and hospitals. One would get the impression that non profits are civic minded but there is more than one way to skin a cat or get the profit out of a non-profit corporation. Despite the fact that a profit can not be taken directly out of a non-profit there is another the CEO and directors can be paid huge salaries taking the profit out personally.
Look for the non-profit to pay huge salaries to the directors and upper management. They will be paid many times the salaries of the government employees currently doing the job. Who will get to form the non-profit? You can bet whoever it is will be politically connected and make huge campaign contributions to the “right people.” We already have a system up and working and our air traffic controllers do a good job. We don’t have a lot planes running into each other. What I have always found true about new management is they want to repeat the same mistakes that previous management learned from.
If a new non-profit takes over and mistakes are made who is going to cover the liability. The government currently covers the liability for train accidents because there is a huge liability. I was going to Marshall when the plane with the returning football team crashed killing all on board. At that time there were no air traffic controllers on duty. At night air traffic control is done from other airports. I will always wonder if a local air traffic controller could have told the pilot that his approach was way to low and to abort the landing before he slammed into the hillside and exploded. Having air traffic controllers determines if you can have an airport. Private corporations don’t have to respond to public pressure like government is subject to. If a local airport does not have enough traffic to make having air traffic controllers profitable they could simply shut down the airport and tell the locals to drive to a regional airport.
Tomorrow the former FBI director, James Comey, who was fired by Trump because he refused to end the investigation into Russia interference with our election will testify before congress. His testimony is going to be covered live by NBC. The red neck right news outlets are saying that Comey testimony will help Trump. The idiots on the right said that Comey told Trump on three occasions that he was not a subject of the Russian investigation. The problem with this is the source of those remarks was not Comey but Trump. Trump said that Comey told him he was not a subject of the Russian investigation. Trump is a pathological liar and has no credibility you simply can’t believe a word he has to say. It is unlikely that Comey said that because the investigation was underway and you don’t know where it will lead until the investigation is finished.
Trump finally caught a leaker and it turns out she is a 25 year old who works for a defense contractor. Notice that most of the recent big leaks have been employees who worked for contractors. This is another good reason why you don’t want to contract out sensitive government work. The documents show that the Russians were hard at work up till the day before the election hacking into sights that that provided the software for our voting machines. The hackers were traced back to the Russian GRU. Do you believe that the Russian Hacks will be stopped by the Trump Administration? The Trump administration is still doing its best to reward Russia for hacking into our computers. The Trump administration wanted to cancel all the sanctions that had been put in place against Russia whether they were the ones put in place because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine or those put on by the Obama administration for hacking. Trump is making enemies of our allies while he kisses up to the Russians on every chance he gets.
Orders of impeachment are currently being drawn up in Congress Comey testimony may add fuel to the fire in fact it may make it a huge bonfire with Trump on top of it. Get ready for more Trump lies, every psychopath thinks he is much smarter than everyone else. They think they can lie their way out of anything. Look for Trump to go wild on Twitter with “alternative facts.”
Trump is running scared he approached the top four law firms in the United States to defend him from obstruction of justice and the up coming impeachment charges. The trouble is that all four firms turned him down flat because Trump doesn’t pay his bills. In other words Trump is a deadbeat. Well there is always the number five law firm maybe they have not heard Trump was a deadbeat. How would the top four law firms know that Trump was a deadbeat? They are no doubt representing some of Trump’s creditors who are suing Trump for their money.
Super Bowl style parties were held from coast to coast to watch Comey testify under oath. Bars and other facilities were filled to capacity. At no point in history has anything like this happened before. The reality TV star might not have been there but there were many people who wanted to say “You’re fired!” The typical partisan divide was obvious as the Republicans were not concerned with facts but were playing defense. Comey testified that Trump asked him “I hope you can let this go” referring to the Flynn investigation. One of the Republican Senators pounced and said saying “I hope” could not possibly be obstruction of justice. Then a democratic senator from California who was a prosecutor pointed out that if a robber pointed a gun at you and said “I hope you are going to give me your money.” he would still be guilty of robbery because you knew even if he said “I hope” that if you don’t comply he is going to put a bullet in your head and take your wallet any how. Trump had already put the gun to Comey head when he asked him if he wanted to keep his job. Comey did not come across by killing the Flynn investigation and at that point Trump, like the robber, had two options he could walk away or put the gun to Comey head and pull the trigger. Trump decided to pull the trigger now like the robber he must face the consequences of his actions but don’t bother calling any of the top four law firms. Who you going to call?
I use to spend a lot of time listening to red neck right radio when I was working. I wanted to hear what the lie of the day was before I encountered in an argument. But red neck right radio is on the AM band that is pretty much line of sight transmission. Since I live about 5 miles out of the city so it is difficult to get a good signal. But a radio with an external antenna gave me a clear signal today. I wanted to hear the right bitch about Comey testimony. Sure enough Rush Slimbaugh was all over it. He believed every word lying Trump had to say or at least that is what he told his listeners. But Trump was most overjoyed that Comey had confirmed that he did tell Trump that he was not the subject of the Russian investigation.
I did many investigations when I worked for the city. In hundreds of investigations I never once told the subject up front they were being investigated and there were very good reasons for that. The subject first notice they were being investigated was an arrest citation with a court date. If someone finds out they are being investigated they will go after the complaining witness or destroy evidence. I had one complaining witness who had bought in the subject’s long criminal. He had spent considerable time in prison and a judge had advised that he not be released from jail. Once he found out that she had complained he called to threaten her. She had filled out a loan application for the work on her house and he was going to get her financing. When he found out she filed a complaint he called her and told her I have all your personal information and you have no idea how much damage I can do to you. I have no idea how he found out he was being investigated but it wasn’t from me. I had another gentleman who had been a foreman and turned in his former employer for many different jobs. When his fellow employees got a hold of him they tried to beat him to death with a brick. Again I don’t know who tipped them off.
When the arrest citations are finally issued I always tell the complaining witness to watch their step. I can’t imagine that standard operating procedure in the FBI is to tip the subject of an investigation off so they can destroy evidence and intimidate witnesses. There is no law that says you must notify a subject he is being investigated. If the FBI was investigating Trump I doubt they would tell him until they were ready to charge him. That would be like playing poker and placing all your cards on the table face up. No Rush the FBI doesn’t have to tell Trump he is being investigated just like a policeman doesn’t have to tell a prostituted he is policeman when she asks. So maybe Comey did tell one lie.
What would Trump do if he knew he was under investigation? Would he try to intimidate witnesses? Would he do his best to eliminate any evidence of a paper trail? Or would he do something more serious? His past actions when he was under investigation by the federal government might throw some light on the subject. Trump has been under investigation before once for breaking the Fair Housing Laws. Trump owned many apartments in New York and many of the buildings were all white. Blacks were not allowed in the buildings and they were directed to less desirable buildings that were mostly inhabited by other blacks. Trump had intimidated his property managers to point that they believed they would be killed if they did not lie to the investigators. In the end none of Trump’s property managers were killed but they were intimidated. They say a man’s past actions are the best predictors of future actions. So the federal government has a history with Trump and they know what he will do when he is under investigation. When you have apartments that are all white and every black tenant who applies is turned down it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what is going on.
Last week in Huntington we had an instance were a man that is going on trial for murder tried to kill the woman that witnessed the crime. When she got out of her car with her child the man started shooting. It didn’t matter to the criminal that the woman had her child in her arms. The man missed but all that was important to him was that the witness be eliminated, no witness, no crime.
Most psychologists would admit that Trump is a nut case and he has surrounded himself with extremists. Trump is now far more powerful than he was when the federal government investigated him before. We know that he intimidated witnesses before and you can be sure he will again. The less Trump knows about the Russian investigation the better. Trump fired the FBI director Nixon fired the Special Prosecutor who had requested the tapes. When Nixon ordered the Attorney General to fire the Special Prosecutor he resigned. Next Nixon ordered the Deputy Attorney General to fire the Special Prosecutor he resigned. Nixon than made Solicitor General of the United States the acting Attorney General and ordered him to fire the Special Prosecutor he considered resigning but complied. Nixon was trying to stop an investigation just like Trump bragged to the Russians that he had stopped the Russian investigation by firing the FBI director.
Another shoe fell today as former US Attorney of New York tells a very familiar story. Like Comey, Preet Bharara, the US Attorney of New York was be groomed by Trump. At first Trump praised him and ask him to stay on. The first meeting took place in Trump Tower, November 30, 2016 before Trump was inaugurated as president. Then Trump called on several other occasions just to shoot the breeze. On March the 9th Trump again called Preet but this time he decided not to return Trumps call as Trump was now president and his advisor advised him not to return the call, as it was a conflict of interest.
Why would Trump be so interested in the US Attorney of New York? Simple that is where all Trumps mafia friends he owes favors to live. I think by the time of Trumps last call Bharara knew what Trump wanted. Trump thought he had the power to decide who would be prosecuted and who would not prosecuted. It is a shame Bharara did not take Trump’s last call because Trump would have told him, that he hoped he could drop the case on this one or that one. The day after Bharara did not return Trump’s call he was among the 46 US Attorneys who Trump asked for their resignation. When Bharara did not resign he was fired by Trump. The circumstances are eerily similar to the Comey case and no doubt Trump goal is to corrupt the US Judicial system. Trump really believes that he is King and can do as he pleases.
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“It is also true…that there’s no bases to say there’s no obstruction.”
“That’s an incredibly serious thing if people think that the president of the United States can tell heads of law enforcement agencies, based on his own whim or his own personal preferences or friendships, that they should or should not pursue particular criminal cases against individuals,” he said.
Preet Bharara former US Attorney
Trump continues to shoot himself in the foot with his Twitter account. I’ll bet his attorneys hate it when Trump twitters. A 140 characters is not enough to make a valid point but it is enough to show that you are a fool. When I started posting on the Internet one of my readers chief complaints was the length of my posts. At the time most posts were just a line or two and a page post was more than most cared to read. The attention span of the public is very short now and Twitter’s 140 characters are enough for most. The public wants to know they just don’t want to know much. Like Goldielocks the public has found something that is not to big or too small, a 140 characters seems just right. You can’t argue complex political ideas in a 140 characters but, as Trump has found out, you can lose a court case.
Trump has a bad case of Twitter diarrhea and I for one hope it continues. They always say, give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves. Trump has already made his noose and placed it around his neck and tied the rope to a beam. All that is necessary now is for him to jump off the chair and that is only one 3 AM twitter storm away. Nixon would be amazed if he could see Trump now. It is said, “It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” This old saying came from a time when only a few people were involved now Trump opens his mouth in front of millions on Twitter and the rest of the nation is soon exposed to his rants through the news media.
Now Trump is being sued by two US Attorney one from Maryland and the other from Washington DC. Trump is of course using the presidency to enrich himself and the other businesses can help but notice as foreign countries drop long standing events and move them to Trumps Hotel to curry favor with Trump. Most politicians put their holdings in a blind trust while they are in office. They have nothing to do with running their business while in office. Trump refused to do this and placed his sons in charge of his business and insists that his sons bring him the profit and loses statements to him. Trump promised there would be no new deals while he was in office but now it seems Trump is going to build hospitals in red states. Why would Trump want to build hospitals when he is putting Hospitals out of business with $800 billion cuts to Medicaid? Why would Trump continue tweeting against legal advice? He is an idiot who got by on daddy’s money and even with the fortune Trump was given his dad had to bail him out of bankruptcy or he would have lost every cent of the fortune he was given.
Trump evidently thinks he on an episode of the “Apprentice” where he can just say, “you fired.” The word from one of Trump’s best friends says Trump is considering firing the special prosecutor. No doubt the special prosecutor is getting close enough to Trump that Trump can feel Muller hot breath on his neck. Trump believes that if he can continue to fire those in charge of the Russian investigation that he can impede any progress. If Trump has nothing to fear from the investigation why would he concern himself with the Russian investigation?
Of course the Whitehouse was quick to deny the story but the fact that the source of the story is a close friend of Trump’s is telling. The source is not someone who wants to remain unnamed he went public. Since he is not an enemy of Trump why would he lie? Christopher Ruddy, Trump’s friend, has no motive to lie. The Whitehouse on the other hand has a motive to deny the story.
I have to wonder if Trump has appointed all of the 46 US Attorneys he had dismissed. If he did I wonder whether any of the Attorneys who replaced those that were dismissed had to pledge loyalty to Trump? Has Trump tried to cultivate a relationship with any of them just calling to shoot the breeze and I also wonder if he told them which cases he “hoped would go away?”
One of Trump’s close business associates who provided the helicopter service to high rollers to Trump casino. He also lived in Trump Tower. It seems that Trump’s buddy was a big time drug smuggler who got caught in Florida. It was one of the bigger drug busts and everybody involved was arrested. This guy was the head of the operation and everybody involved was arrested and convicted in the Cincinnati Federal court. But here is where it gets strange when it came time to sentencing everybody got stiff sentences except Trumps buddy. His case was moved to the New York Federal court for his sentencing after his conviction in Cincinnati. Trump’s buddy received a sentence of less than what a drunken driver is given. I wouldn’t say this was an obvious fix but it does look like the fix was in. I was arguing a third step grievance that involved the Police Chief. The chief had given one of the union jobs to a daughter’s friend when we had a qualified person that bid on the job. The chief used interview question sheets to justify the outside hire. The problem the interview sheets had been altered and several answers on each candidate had been changed. There were three separate interview sheets on each candidate and one from the chief and two from police captains. All of the “mistakes” on the outside candidate ended up making her score higher all the mistakes on the union bidder were marked down on all three interviews sheets and made her score lower. This was highly unlikely and when I pointed out in front of the mayor the chief said are you calling me a liar? I said it is quite obvious from the interview sheets. At that point he lunged at me from across the table. It is a good thing it was a large table. I think Trump would likely react that way.
Every so often something happens that affirms the just world theory. The Republicans took the NRA’s blood money and support to make all the weapons of war legal on our streets, they just had no idea it would be their blood. They say you reap what you sew. The Republican’s choose to flood America with assault weapons. When the 26 children were killed in Sandy Hock their deaths were academic to the Republicans but the bullets headed their way were quite real today. The Republican right now claims Sandy Hock never happened. It was all staged by actors in a conspiracy to take your assault weapons away. Just more fake news from the news media. Trump’s favorite radio host pushes that theory. I wonder whether the Republican right will now say today’s shooting was not real and just staged by actors.
I have never seen a news conference staged so obviously to protect the guilty. When the evening news conference was held they refused to identify the gun involved. Why? Because it is an AR-15 or a knock off of that gun. The AR-15 is the overwhelming weapon of choice for mass murders. Maryland has banned this assault rifle and the Republicans and the NRA are fighting the ban with everything they have got. They call the AR-15 a “shits and giggles gun” that is it only purpose off of the battlefield. I suspect the Republicans found out why it is called that today as no doubt there was a run on men’s underwear in Washington DC today.
No one could listen to all the shots fired on the cell phone video and not realize the shooter was armed with a semi automatic with a very large clip. Rand Paul put the number of shots fired at 50 to a 100 in the 3 minutes before the cops arrived. One of the gun control regulations that the Republicans defeated would have banned these large clips. The Republicans ask for this shooting by flooding the streets and gun stores with weapons designed for mass destruction.
Once the first mass murder happened at a post office they happened all over the country at other post offices. Once the first mass shooting happened at a school they happened all over the country at other schools. It is likely that this shooting will start a trend where ever politicians gather their will be an increased likelihood that it will attract mass murders with their AR-15 who want their 20 seconds of fame and are willing to kill to get it. Only time will tell whether all the political killings will change the minds of those politicians owned by the NRA.
It turns out that the assault weapon used to shoot the Republicans was not an AR-15 but a Soviet made SKS 7.62 assault riffle. With Trump in office we can look to import millions more of these Russian made assault weapons. Who knows the SKS 7.62 may replace the AR-15 as the preferred weapon of mass murders. There is really no reason we should have to live this way when any nut case can purchase one of these weapons at the corner gun store and become famous overnight. Many people just want to be famous and killing a number of people is the only type of fame within their reach.
The shooter in the VA shooting like most other mass murders purchased his gun legally. He passed the background check. Most people think that a background check prevents the mentally ill from buying assault weapons but nothing can be further from the truth. An assault weapon can be purchased by someone who has suffered from mental illness all their lives and been institutionalized. As long as that person signs himself in he can legally buy a gun only if he has been institutionalized against his will is he disqualified in a background check. We all know people who are strange and profess strange ideas that have never been institutionalized against their will and we would be worried if they suddenly bought an assault weapon. Since I live in the country it is not unusually to hear the assault rifles and I always wonder when they will kill each other. It wouldn’t be the first the police called after a family brawl.
Politics has a long and bloody history and the ballot box is a relatively new invention. The shooter was politically active and tried to change things at the ballot box but he became frustrated when he couldn’t change things fast enough. The fact that it was so easy to buy a high-powered assault weapon is frightening. Lest face it as people grow older there are changes that take place in the human brain. This man had lived 66 years without major problems with the law and one day he wakes up and decides that the only way to solve his medical problems is to kill people. This didn’t occur to him until he got to be a senior citizen. There are more senior citizens now than any time in America history if only a small percentage decide the best solution to politics is an SKS 7.62 instead of the ballot box we are in trouble. A round from a high-powered SKS 7.62 will go a mile before it stops.
I will have to give credit where credit is do Trump said he would do something about unemployment and he has. Just in the last few weeks Trump has been responsible for finding gainful employment for thousands of attorneys. In the Whitehouse even the lawyers are hiring other lawyers to represent them. Trump just hired his forth lawyer today. I like this attorney he got his last clients the longest sentence in history for his offence maybe he can do the same for Trump. But that is what you get when you don’t pay your attorney. The vice president hired a lawyer he cannot afford and immediately went out to a fundraiser to raise some money. Even Trump’s campaign staff is hiring lawyers. Like one cop told a suspect only the guilty need to hire an attorney.
The investigation is picking up speed now and Trump finally got the news that he was a target of an investigation into obstruction of justice. He can no longer claim that he not be investigated. It seems Session lied again but he can’t keep up with Trump. It seems one of Sessions meetings he forgot about it was with a Russian lobbyist who was asked to write a speech for Trump that would impress the Russian Ambassador who was going to be in attendance at his speech. The Russian lobbyist did in fact write Trump a draft of a speech and some of it made it into the final Trump speech. A Russian lobbyist writing for an American presidential candidate is strange to say the least but Sessions not recalling it is stranger. Why did Trump need to impress the Russians? It will be interesting to find out what part of the Russian lobbyist’s draft made into the final draft. The Russian lobbyist is going to testify before the committees investigating the Russian connections.
The man responsible for Trump’s Internet campaign now that they found that the Russian attack was very specifically target at certain key areas of the US. The employee is likely to be able to tell how the Russian “bots” were targeted.
I can’t wait to hear the words “Trump you’re fired.”
@Zardoz,
You obviously haven't read the Communist Party website which clearly states that the communist part is actively seeking the White House via a Dem candidate. It also states that they have already run communist candidates as Dems and have been quite close to achieving the WH recently.
“Representative Ted Lieu of California said he believes Congress will start the impeachment process if President Donald Trump fires special council Robert Muller and Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein.”
Trump thinks he is king an as king he is not subject to the law. In business you can do what ever you want and fire whoever you please and no one will raise an eyebrow but public service has a much more sophisticated set of laws that must be followed. They say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks and Trump is certainly qualifies as an old dog. Trump can’t take advice; he can’t even take legal advice. Trump knows best or at least he thinks he does.
“Six people resigned from Trump’s presidential HIV/AIDS council because Trump doesn’t care” reads one headline. Trump really doesn’t care that is the way he has lived his life. Trump only cared about one thing, money. Trump formed a charity and others contributed most of the money and Trump used the money to settle legal claims against him and buy a large portrait of himself. Trump never thinks of anybody but himself and it is not his fault he was born a sociopath and that will never change. Studies show that Sociopath’s brains are fundamentally different and the differences can be spotted on an fMRI. The functional sociopaths observer normal people and lean to imitate them so they can blend in but when the going get tough the sociopath’s personality boils to surface. We are now watching as Trump’s sociopath personality takes over. Trump true colors are coming out. If you ever wondered how sociopath thinks watch Trump in the next few weeks.
Trump’s disapproval rating has reached 64% as more of his supporters are seeing the real Trump. The Senate has vowed to pass a Trumpcare bill sight unseen with little to no debate. The plan calls for the House’s version to be bought to the floor and debated after that a motion will be made to replace the House’s version with the Senate version and vote within an hour or two. The Republicans must eliminate healthcare in order to keep their campaign promise of huge tax cuts to the rich. The public is getting wise to the fact this has nothing to healthcare and everything to do about nearly a trillion dollar tax cut to the super wealthy.
@D45ist ,
D45ist the first part of the post deals with the origin of modern conservative movement. Many of the people that were responsible for shaping the conservative movement were at one time active members of the communist party when the communist party was a force in politics in America. When communism became unpopular in America the communists stopped calling themselves communists and started calling themselves conservatives, Whitaker Chambers was a hero to conservatives. He was a communist spy for Russia and yet Reagan made him a national hero awarding him the highest honor a civilian can receive.
These people wrote autobiographies and were very proud of their communist past. The communist party even assigned one man his wife. All these communist combined to make the conservative philosophy what it is today.
@wedge7041,
Well that's stupid. The president has the right to fire anyone who was not put in their job by an election. Did you have a hissy fit when Obama replaced everyone with Muslims and radicals?
@D45ist ,
Quote:Did you have a hissy fit when Obama replaced everyone with Muslims and radicals?
What are you talking about? When did Obama fire someone in charge of investigating the activities of his campaign committee and possible obstruction of justice? What does "radical" even mean to you — someone who favors a progressive income tax? You're not making any sense.
D45ist do you really believe that the president should be above the law? Nixon fired three people in the Saturday Night Massacre in an effort to stop the investigation into the Watergate break in and you know what happened to Nixon don’t you? It seems Nixon could not fire anyone he wanted to. You are right to a point that the President can fire people for certain reasons but he can not break the any law by firing them. I was a union president and many of the mayor thought they could fire anyone on a whim. The City Charter specifically said that employees served at the “will and pleasure of the mayor.” But we had a contract that said employees could only be fired by just cause. Most of the employees that were fired went to arbitration and an arbitrator decided if there was sufficient cause for the firing and put them back to work. In our society power is seldom absolute.
The mayors didn’t have absolute power and neither does the president. One of the local political big shots was charged with rape if the mayor told the detectives to drop the investigation into one of his friends and the detectives refused and the mayor fired them he would be guilty of obstruction of justice. There are reasons for laws and no one would want to live in the world where political power is used to decide who is prosecuted and who is not. That is political corruption at its worst. It wasn’t that the FBI director was fired, it is why he was fired. Trump made it very clear to Comey that he would terminate him if he did not stop the investigation into Flynn. When Comey refused Trump fired him that is one of the best cases ever for obstruction of justice. You have no idea how many people in America have similar power. Thousands of mayors and governors have the same type power to corrupt the political system if there were not laws to prevent it. There is no real difference between the rape case and Trump’s trying to stop the Flynn investigation.
I can see that you get most of your news from the fake stories planted by Russian. There are over 3.3 million Muslims in America and only a very small faction are radicalized. In America you cannot discriminate because of someone’s religion. The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion in America and many black Americans have converted. You encounter Muslims everyday without realizing it. Convenient stores operators, taxicab drivers, college professors and doctors are Muslim. I would expect to find Muslims in government jobs also and in fact you will find many Muslims in the Federal Government now and if Trump decides to fire them based on religion he will be breaking another law. Fear of Muslim radicals is like fear of lightening your chances of encountering either one is extremely small.
The founding fathers never intended that president be above the law. There are rules to every game and you must play by the rules or face consequences. Corruption is a slippery slope and it almost always gets worse. The man who was subject of the rape investigation was a multimillionaire who was a self made man. He was born poor and became very successful. He did not start with daddy’s million or with daddy’s mob connections. He funded most of the local political campaigns so most politicians owed him. When the rape report came in two of policemen who worked second jobs at his business immediately took him copies of the report. The two policemen ultimately were given time off for taking the report to suspect. This would give him a big advantage and time to come up with an alibi.
The woman in question was a beautiful woman who ended up leaving town. The case never came to trial and even though I worked for the city the details of that case were kept secret and 20 years later I still don’t know why the case was not prosecuted. The girl may have been paid off or pressured to drop the charges. The most likely case is that he simply had enough political clout with the right people. Like in every other town there were always rumors that certain people had political connection and their children. If they were caught dealing drugs the charges would be dropped. I didn’t encounter it often but there were times when someone in the Mayors would demand that I drop an arrest citation issued to someone that had political connections or had a friend who was connected. I tried to not let it bother me. I never liked it but there are some battles you will never win. I always figured when I issued the citation my job was done.
They call it the favor bank and even the Godfather acknowledged it. In politics once you do someone a favor you obligate someone to return a favor without laws this favor bank would exempt the political donor class and their children from the laws we must follow. Trump’s father connections made Trump one of those people who has been above the law all his life. Make no mistake about it this is why Trump believes he will get away with it.
Only 13 Republicans in the senate are deciding what the healthcare bill will be. The bill is being worked on in secret and even the other Republican senators have no idea what is in the senate bill. The bill will be kept secret up until it is time to vote on it. The real vote on healthcare bill may have taken place today in the Georgia congressional race. The Georgia district has been gerrymandered to make it Republican and no Democrat has been elected in that district for over 20 years. The race is neck and neck and will come down to the wire. This is the most expensive congressional race in history. The Koch brothers’ organization no doubt poured 10s of millions dollars into the race and the democrats have also put a lot of money in the race. If the democrat wins this race the Republicans may decide that voting for Trumpcare will likely end their career but if the Republican wins the congress will believe that they can eliminate healthcare and still get elected.
When it comes to elections money speaks the loudest and the billionaires pour what is called black money into elections. The Koch brothers were considered wild-eyed radicals in Reagan’s time but by pouring money into the election cycles the one time wild-eyed radicals have paid to mainstream their ideas. Black money comes from a hundred different sources as the billionaires have organized themselves and many of these billionaires are either under indictment or being investigated. One had a scheme to pay taxes on his billions he made 20 years after the fact. The Koch brothers put $796 million into the last election cycle and did not give a penny of it to Trump. It was spent in congressional races. The money is laundered through a number of different organizations the Koch brothers fund. A democrat win in Georgia would be a significant accomplishment and send a wave of fear through the Republicans on Capital Hill.
America is at a crossroads where we will decide whether to destroy our healthcare system to give the billionaires a forth round of tax cuts. Maybe we should let all the billionaires they could wait 20 years to pay their taxes. The type of health insurance the Republicans would market would have a $20,000 deductible and cost $20,000 a year. The insurance companies would only spend 10% of the premiums on healthcare and the other 90% would be spent on “overhead” and CEO salaries. The health insurance companies deeply resented the fact that the Affordable Healthcare Act mandated that 80% of healthcare premiums had to be spent on healthcare.
