While everyone was distracted by Trump's feeble attempt at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma yesterday [now he's blaming the lack of attendance on the big bad protesters outside and the media, particularly CNN, who had the audacity of showing the empty overflow stage that was built to accommodate the throngs of supporters just dying (no pun intended) to hear the Sith Lord's pearls of wisdom] the real story was happening hundreds of miles away in Manhattan.
It seems Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, decided to "resign" on Friday. There was just one problem. Berman had done no such thing. He was informed of his "resignation" by Attorney General William Barr and, as you might expect, Berman was not amused. He issued a very sharp reply to Barr.
"I was appointed by the judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption."Undeterred, Barr simply fired Berman, though he was shrewd enough to say that it was at the behest of Trump, because even someone as corrupt as Barr is smart enough to know that only a sitting president can remove a judicially appointed U.S. attorney.
So why was Berman fired? Because he was getting a little too close for comfort as far as Trump was concerned. It was the SDNY that prosecuted and convicted Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer, of bank fraud, and it was that very same office that was investigating Trump's inauguration committee and Rudy Giuliani; the latter over his role in the Burisma smear campaign against Joe Biden's son, Hunter. How do we know this? Because shit-for-brains in a phone interview with The New York Daily News basically spilled the beans by calling the investigations into him "bullshit."
"I’m offended when I see people write that. If they’re investigating me, they’re doing it in the most surreptitious way possible. It’s the strangest investigation I’ve ever heard of…I’m upset that someone’s giving away this information. I have nothing against Berman, but I would like him to clarify what the hell is going on."You can bet the ranch that if Giuliani was offended, Bunker Boy was shitting his pants. The last thing he needs in the closing months of the campaign is for loose lips Rudy to get himself indicted. Just imagine the damage he could do to Trump's reelection prospects by appearing on Fox News. Trump had to prevent that from happening at all costs, even if it meant pulling a Friday Night massacre, as this move is rightly being called.
So why would Trump go to such lengths this close to an election? Because he's desperate, that's why. Forget about all the braggadocio you hear coming from Trumpworld. Where it counts in the West Wing, they are very worried. A recent Fox News Poll has Biden up by twelve points: 50-38. This isn't some progressive poll; this is Fox News. And no matter how much Trump likes to accuse the boys at News Corp of not drinking the Kool Aid, the fact is polls by Fox News are about as reliable as they come in the industry. He's losing. His people know it, and I suspect that in those private moments during his "executive time" they have conveyed as much to him.
Yes, polls can be wrong, but not by this much. Not only is Trump trailing badly, several Republican senators are in deep trouble, as well. If the election were held today, Susan Collins (Maine), Cory Gardner (Colorado), Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Martha McSally (Arizona) would all lose; Gardner and McSally by a wide margin. And Thom Tillis (North Carolina) and Steve Daines (Montana) would barely survive.
Then there's the Georgia special election in which Kelly Loefller - yes, that Kelly Loefller - is up to her you know whats in yet another Republican scandal involving insider trading. I would not be at all shocked if she loses the runoff in January. That's four flips, two near misses and one maybe. Democrats only need a net gain of three seats along with the presidency to regain the majority in the Senate. Given the damage that Trump is inflicting on the GOP, it's entirely possible that Democrats could sweep all seven races. Fake polls, my ass.
So the question isn't whether the polls are real - they are - it's what can Trump do to avoid the inevitable defeat that he and his party are sure to suffer in November? Obviously, he can't cancel the election. Even his staunchest allies have told him that isn't feasible. So, in lieu of that, the only mechanism available to him and the GOP is to deny a significant portion of the electorate the right to cast their ballots.
Voter suppression has long been one of the most reliable tools in the Republican tool shed. We've seen it before, most recently in the Georgia primary earlier this month. The long lines at polling stations in the predominantly African American section of Atlanta was no accident. It was deliberate. As was the decision in Kentucky to reduce the number of polling stations from 3700 to less than 200 for the upcoming primary this Tuesday. To add insult to injury, there will be only one polling station in all of Jefferson County - the largest county in the Commonwealth - where one in five voters are black. If this scenario were to play out this November in the all-important swing states, it could discourage potentially millions of people, many of them African American, from voting.
Now you know why Democrats have been demanding that states expand the right to vote by mail and why Trump is so terrified about it. You can't "discourage" a mail-in ballot the way you can a person who's been waiting in line for hours to vote. So long as the ballot is postmarked by election day, it gets counted. Period! And you can't pull the old "your name is not on the voter list at this polling station so please sign this affidavit" bullshit. That should ostensibly thwart any attempt by Russia to muck up the voter roles.
Yeah, Trump is sweating bullets, alright, and he should be. Most of the country doesn't like him. And unlike Trump supporters, they aren't shy about showing their disdain. Black Lives Matter enjoys 58 percent public approval. That's up from 33 percent only a year ago. That kind of seismic shift is rare in American politics. It signals that a majority of voters now believe that racism is real and systemic. And that doesn't bode well for a man who thinks he's Jefferson Davis.
When the best you can do in a 19,000 seat area is 6,200 people, that's pitiful. But then that's the problem with being a one-trick pony, like Trump is. Your most ardent supporters have seen the movie so many times, even they're bored. I remember back in 1998, I saw the movie Titanic six times, and about halfway through the sixth time, it suddenly dawned on me. I know where this is going: big ship sets sail for America, big ship hits iceberg, big ship sinks, a lot of people die.
The good ship Trump is headed for its own iceberg, as it were. Only Captain Bonespurs is devising a devious scheme in which he and his motley crew manage to get off before the ghastly finale. If he succeeds, a helluva lot more than 1,500 people will suffer. The entire nation will be lost.
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