President Trump Needs a New Coat of Arms!

Did you know President Trump has a coat of arms? Well, he does. And this coat of arms is really quite impressive: three lions rampant, or whatever the official term happens to be, and two chevrons on a shield. Above: a hand grips an arrow. Or maybe it’s a spear. It’s a decidedly warlike image.

Naturally, the coat of arms includes the word: “Trump.” It’s emblazoned across the bottom.

It turns out this coat appears everywhere at the Trump National Golf Club outside Washington. You can see it on the gate. You can gaze in wonder at it on signs out front, spot it in the pro shop and the exercise room. Perhaps, someday you will be able to buy a Trump line of women’s panties, featuring the design.

That would be fitting.

Speaking of fitting: It turns out the Trump coat of arms is…um…stolen. According to “fake news,” as in The New York Times, it was originally granted to Joseph Edward Davies in 1939, third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built Mar-a-Lago. So Donald J. Trump took the design and made one minor change. Gone was the word “Integritas,” Latin for “integrity,” at the bottom of the Davies coat of arms. In an irony almost too rich to be true, the word “Trump” appeared.

Trump even tried try to trademark his purloined coat of arms in Scotland when he built a golf course at Aberdeen. For obvious reasons, such as the fact that if you have two eyeballs you can clearly tell the design is stolen, The College of Arms rejected his request. 

So, let me be the first to suggest a few changes—to insure President Trump doesn’t get sued by the Davies family.

He should start with a new design. Naturally, you keep the Trump name. The Trump name must appear on every item President Trump touches or sees or dreams about. You wonder why he never branded his employees like cattle. Next, you dump the three lions. Why not replace them with three chickens? Trump’s father managed to avoid serving during World War II. Donald J. himself couldn’t fight in Vietnam because his feet hurt. And his two brave sons, Donald J., 23 years old on 9/11, and Eric, who turned 18 four months later, have always been too busy making money to spend time in the military.

When it really boils down to defending a nation their father wants to make great again, they are happy to let others do the bleeding.

Anyway, you could keep the chevrons, but turn them gold, and superimpose rows of green dollars signs to punch up the image.

Finally, at the top, ditch the warlike imagery—and I hereby offer my design free of charge to my President. Ditch the arrow or spear. Add an arm, lowered, a hand placed to grab what appears to be a woman’s crotch.

Now that would be a coat of arms that said something. 

Trump: Smells Even More Like Watergate

I can’t deny it. President Trump repels me. But that doesn’t mean I think he’s in imminent danger of impeachment. He may be innocent of wrongdoing. 

He may just be an idiot.

Still, with multiplying questions involving Trump himself, his campaign team, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, it might be time to look at a few lessons from the Watergate Era. By chance, I was going through my closet last week and pitching books I no longer needed. A dog-eared collection of Doonesbury cartoons by Gary Trudeau caught my attention. Leafing through his work, I was struck how many examples from the 70s resonate today in the happy Land of Trumpistan.

At first, the Watergate Affair didn’t seem to amount to much. On June 19, 1972, two days after the five original burglars of the Democratic National Committee offices were arrested, White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler was already assuring reporters no one working for President Richard M. Nixon knew anything about it. 

“A third-rate burglary,” he labeled the incident.

Yet, inside the White House, a cover-up was already unfolding.

Forty-four summers later, we know there was serious Russian meddling during the 2016 election. President Trump refused to admit it. The story was “a hoax.” There was no Russian interference.

“Fake news,” he called it.

Real news, American intelligence agencies countered.

Like Nixon before him, Trump believed he could put the matter quickly behind him. Nixon was never able to get ahead of the story. Trump hasn’t been either. For Nixon the burglary marked the beginning of a debacle that included the incarceration of three dozen men who worked in the White House or for his re-election campaign. That included the burglars. G. Gordon Liddy, a lookout for the five—and a man who put forward a plan that included “mugging squads, kidnapping teams, prostitutes to compromise the opposition and electronic surveillance” and followed up with offers to kill journalists and maybe snuff out a witness—also spent time in the slammer. Later Liddy showed up frequently as a guest on Fox News.

Just saying.

Today, I would argue, there’s nothing yet to merit calls for impeachment; but you have to wonder. None of the logical possibilities reflect well on our current President. In fact, among options to choose from, you have to be thinking that Trump and his boys are (choose as many as you like):

a. Incompetents

b. Liars

c. Money grubbers

d. Criminals

e. Traitors

Regardless of your answer, Trump and Company would be well-served to delve into Watergate history. It might give them a few ideas of what not to do—whereas, so far, they seem adept at doing exactly what they shouldn’t.

You don’t want to end up, for starters, with a Press Secretary who is mocked in almost every corner. (Well, not on Fox News, true.) Sean Spicer is the Trump version of Ron Ziegler (see below). 

Ron Ziegler and Sean Spicer are similar.

In the same way, when Trump addressed a crowd at the graduation ceremony of the Coast Guard Academy recently, he channeled his inner “Tricky Dick,” as Nixon was often referred to. “Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media,” Trump moaned. “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

Nixon would have commiserated. In the cartoon which follows, Trudeau is actually quoting Nixon:

Nixon, like Trump, hated the way the press kept digging for the truth.

Month after month, following the break-in, a dark cloud of suspicion grew over the Nixon White House. People inside government agencies, including the famed “Deep Throat” (top FBI official Mark Felt) kept “leaking,” or supplying leads to reporters. Press Secretary Ziegler complained repeatedly in the spring of 1973, saying there had been a plague of “irresponsible leaks of tidal wave proportion.”

But leaks, by their nature, don’t mean leakers aren’t chasing the truth. More often than not, they were pointing a path to the truth. The leaks weren’t the story then—and they aren’t the story today. And the “fake news” wasn’t fake then either. It was nothing more, nor less, than good investigative journalism. It was the First Amendment, working as the Founding Fathers intended.

Then, as now, the White House fought back until facts overwhelmed all defenses. On April 17, 1973, in the face of a cascade of fresh evidence, Ziegler was forced to tell reporters that all previous White House statements on Watergate were “inoperative.” 

Mike Pence could relate. Remember when he said James Comey wasn’t fired because of the Russian probe?

Mark it: “Inoperative.”

Nor is poor Trump the only President to complain about the free press, including the “failing New York Times,” as he called it and the Washington Post. In the summer of 1973, the White House issued a statement, accusing those same two papers of taking part in a “careful, coordinated strategy…to prosecute a case against the President in the press, using innuendo, distortion of fact, and outright falsehood.”

The more the noose tightened, the more Nixon and Company flailed. There were calls to acting F.B.I. Director L. Patrick Gray, demanding he call off the Watergate investigation. Gray went so far as to destroy incriminating evidence and foundations for a case of obstruction of justice were laid. Today, we know former F.B.I. Director James Comey is prepared to testify that he too was asked to end an investigation. This may still not indicate we have a second Watergate; but a logical person must wonder.

When Nixon was in office it took months before the first heads rolled. John Mitchell, who ran his re-election campaign, ended up in court and eventually joined half the Nixon Administration in prison. For Trump, General Flynn may represent the first canary in the court room. In Nixon’s day, the dam broke when John Dean, his White House Counsel, ran into legal trouble.

Today, the key may be Jared Kushner.  

Indeed, President Trump reacts just as badly, with similar paranoia, as Mr. Nixon, harming his defense, even if innocent. He refers to the press and media outlets he doesn’t like as “enemies of the people.” Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, attacked the press and the nation’s elites as “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Real Americans wouldn’t be fooled by their biased reporting. A nation, Nixon insisted, should not “be remembered only for the petty, little, indecent things that seem to obsess us…Let others spend their time dealing with the murky, small, unimportant, vicious little things. We…will spend our time building a better world.”

Trump? He’s going to build a big, beautiful Wall.

In the face of an unending stream of revelations, Nixon had increasing trouble sleeping. He began drinking heavily. By fall of 1973 he admitted he was worn down by “innuendo, by leak, by, frankly, leers and sneers of commentators.”

Trump might soon say the same.

If you’re a Trump supporter or a member of his Administration, you might want to recall that a trail of shady financial transactions helped blow the top off the Watergate cover-up. In 1973 a series of checks and Mexican money laundering helped tie Liddy and the five burglars to the Nixon campaign team and a cover-up rooted in the Oval Office. 

Four decades later, questions involving money may help us get to the bottom of the story of Trump and the Russians. You start with General Flynn and clear ties to Russian rubles. You move on to Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager, and pro-Russian ties and links to crooked banks and shell companies in Cyprus. Next, you consider Carter Page, who advised the campaign briefly, and reports of an alleged secret deal with Gazprom, a Russian energy company with direct ties to Vladimir Putin. That deal was worth $10.2 billion euros, an “art of the deal” move that might interest even a newly-minted U.S. President. Finally, we have to ask why Jared Kushner can’t seem to remember talking to, making eye contact or even seeing a Russian from a distance. Yet we know he met with a representative of a Russian bank under U.S. sanction.

Somehow, he forgot that.

Even more unsettling, if you’re a Trump fan, Watergate investigations kept spreading like kudzu. An examination of President Nixon’s taxes—are you listening, Mr. Trump, because you should be—resulted in an order to pay $432,787.13 in back taxes, plus interest.

(As a bonus: Vice President Agnew was ousted from office in a bribery and tax evasion scheme.)

In the end, Nixon might have survived had the existence of a secret taping system not been revealed. Once Congress and the federal courts started demanding the recordings, Nixon and his top aides were finished.

Tapes? President Trump, do you have tapes? You hinted you did. And we would all love to hear them!

Once people heard the tapes, Nixon and his men were finished.

In one famous taped moment, Nixon discussed how White House staffers should testify before Congress or in court. “Stonewall it,” he said. Don’t give any information if you can help it. It reminds you a little of President Trump calling General Flynn in April and telling him to “stay strong,” which might sound to the unbiased more than a little like an attempt to suborn a witness.

In yet another tape from an April long ago, Nixon admitted to his Attorney General that many of his aides had serious legal problems. “The obstruction of justice is what’s bad,” the President told him, while feigning his own innocence.

The Attorney General added, “And the perjury—the suborning of witnesses, the perjury and perjuring yourself.”

Finally, he reminded Nixon: “[A]s the President of the United States, your job is to enforce the law.”

Trump would do well to remember.

Donald J. Trump's Hallucinatory Quest: Catching the Illusive Illegal Immigrant Voter!

IF YOUR DEMOCRACY-LOVING HEAD is spinning, who would blame you? In four short months, we have seen President Trump (a.k.a. Orange Mussolini ) vilify the press, chastise an independent judiciary and work to block an F.B.I. investigation. Even though, trust Trump and his sycophants: There’s no there, there. 

James Comey? 

Sad!

Unfortunately, Trump’s efforts to undermine democracy may prove more dangerous than we fear, abetted by a supine GOP that finds it difficult to win elections fairly. 

You may not know anything about Secretary of State Kris Kobach of Kansas. Trust me: the man is dangerous. Having spent the last two years hunting illegal immigrant voters in every sunflower patch in his state, Kobach is about to take futility national. As the Kansas City Star reported earlier this month, “Kobach, who repeatedly has made questionable claims of rampant voter fraud, will co-chair President Donald Trump’s new Commission on Election Integrity.” 

Did you know Trump had created a Commission on Election Integrity? Now you do!

For good reason people who care about civil rights were quick to criticize the choice of Kobach. For his part, the Kansas Secretary of State was “very excited and honored to have this opportunity to serve the country.” “The commission,” he claimed, “does not begin with foregone conclusions. All members…are approaching it with an open mind…The objective is to go where the facts lead us.”

That’s the problem: where “the facts” lead Kobach.

THE POOR FELLOW IS NUTS.

Not quite the face of the illegal immigrant voter the GOP has in mind.

Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear in recent years that the GOP’s fundamental problem is dark-skinned people voting. Hispanics voting legally? A terrible idea. African Americans? You get the impression Trump & Co. would be delighted to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment.

In fact, the GOP is intent on making it hard for college kids to vote, perhaps because many are working on their tans.

Those commies!

Take for example a strict Texas voter ID law, which has been struck down repeatedly by the courts. A variety of judges have described it as a thinly veiled attempt to keep 600,000 otherwise eligible, but mostly dark-skinned or tanned young citizens from casting ballots. Under the proposed law, a voter must have one of a handful of proper kinds of photo IDs to vote. Many poor Hispanic and African American voters don’t have the official birth certificate needed to get the ID they require. Then again, if you show up at the polls you can vote if you present a concealed carry license. You can’t vote, though, if all you have is a photo ID from, say, the University of Texas.

Makes sense, right? 

THIS IS WHERE KOBACH and the “Commission on Election Integrity” take their bows. According to Trump a tidal wave of three to five million imaginary illegal immigrant voters swamped the polls in 2016. Every one voted for “Crooked Hillary.” Not one imaginary voter pulled an imaginary lever for Orange Mussolini.

(Actually, that’s true, in an imaginary way.)

Luckily, in Kansas, that tide was staunched by Secretary of State Kobach. Out on the Great Plains, he was doing his best to save America, so Trump could make it great again and maybe bring back the poll tax. For two years, under Kansas law, Kobach was hard at work ferreting out trillions and trillions of illegals who, he insisted, infested voter registration rolls across the nation. In fact, if you recall Trump’s insistence that he would have won the popular vote if all those illegals hadn’t voted, you might keep in mind Kobach was his main source for his absurd claims.

This is where the delusions of Trump and the anti-democratic instincts of the GOP intersect to perfection. If you set out to suppress the vote and capture Bigfoot you need a leader who believes Bigfoot exists to lead the search—and suppress the minority vote in the process. Using rare powers vested in him by a GOP-controlled legislature, Kobach left no suffrage stone unturned. He cleaned out criminals left and right. 

Like fascist right. 

This past April the Kansas City Star proudly proclaimed that, “Victor David Garcia Bebek has pleaded guilty to voter fraud.”

Bebek is dark-skinned for sure, a native of Peru, who ran afoul of Kobach after qualifying for citizenship and applying to vote legally. It turned out Bebek had been confused about his legal status, had already cast ballots in two elections, and a brand new citizen was hauled into court and fined $5,000.

With that, the total number of illegal immigrant voters caught and convicted by Kobach since July 2015 rose to…one.

One!

HERE A LIBERAL—OR ANY LOGICAL HUMAN—might suggest Bebek voted because he got mixed up, not because he was part of a nefarious plot to subvert the nation. Bebek wouldn’t be the first citizen, new or used, to be unclear how democracy works. It took Trump five years to figure out Hawaii was part of the United States and President Obama was therefor an American citizen. In a recent poll 57% of adults couldn’t name a single justice on the Supreme Court, even though they had nine chances. (You figure they didn’t know there were nine justices, either.) In another stunner, only 1 in 3 Americans could correctly name the three branches of government, and 1 in 8 agreed the U.S. Constitution guaranteed the right to own a pet. During the 2016 campaign, 59% of Trump supporters still believed Mr. Obama was the first alien to land in the Oval Office. 

So it’s no surprise that Trump, who has clearly never read the U.S. Constitution, and many loyal Trumpsters believe Bigfoot exists.

Look at the evidence from Kansas!

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, Kobach has managed to prosecute a total of nine people for voter fraud in two short years, collecting $30,000 in fines in the process. Sadly, eight of nine convictions involve noticeably white, native-born citizens, who voted in two different states during one election. The Wichita Eagle highlighted Kobach’s “success” in May 2016, when Ron Weems, 77, pled guilty to three misdemeanors, including double voting in Kansas and Colorado.

Soon a fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth criminal fell to the blazing guns of the Kansan Kobach.

Nine cases—out of 1,788,673 registered Kansas voters.

Sure, the “fake news” folks might quibble. CNN might point out that one Kansan criminal, Randall Kilian, 62, was a registered Republican.

MSNBC might focus on Steven Gaedtke, also surprisingly white, who paid a fine after voting in Kansas and Arkansas in 2010.

Some damn liberal might point out his crime was committed six years before Trump ran for office.

When Kansas newspapers (and even Fox News) scoffed, Kobach defended his efforts, claiming he had uncovered many more cases. In Sedgewick County he said he had turned up 25 illegally registered criminals, their evil deeds spread over a a lawless period of thirteen years. Some had even cast ballots! In many cases, Kobach discovered “criminals” who registered to vote, realized they weren’t eligible, and didn’t. In one particularly egregious case five Kansans in one county illegally registered—and then self-reported their errors. And it was too bad when a Shawnee County judge struck down new voter registration rules, pushed by Mr. Kobach, on the judicially flimsy grounds that…um…18,000 Kansans who had every right to vote would have been denied ballots.

SADLY, WE’VE SEEN THIS SORRY SAGA play out before. In North Carolina a federal appeals court ruling that another GOP-supported voter ID law was drafted in a way to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision” and insure they didn’t cast ballots was upheld (meaning the law was nullified) by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And consider the case of Florida. With an estimated 850,000 illegal immigrants residing in that state, Governor Rick Scott set out in 2012 to purge the voting rolls and protect democracy at its roots. First, the Florida Department of State created a list of 182,000 men and women who might be voting illegally. 

Bigfoot! Sooooo scary!

A second careful check of records, duplicate names, wrong addresses, and more, quickly cut that figure to 2,700.  

Less scary!

Then more checking reduced the total to 200 possible illegals, one of whom turned out to be an 85-year-old World War II veteran. 

Eventually, after many tax dollars wasted, the state did manage to purge 85 names from the rolls.

Not at all scary! 

(Unless you care about the tens of thousands of eligible voters who nearly got kicked off the rolls.)

IN ANY CASE,, President Donald J. Trump pledges a massive effort to catch millions of illegal voters. He has promised to spend millions and millions in taxpayer dollars on his hallucinatory quest.

Kris Kobach will do his part to find Bigfoot and work hard to justify keeping as many dark-skinned individuals as possible away from the polls. “This is really a first-of-its-kind enterprise,” he told reporters after hearing of his appointment. “For the first time having a national body gather data from all 50 states. The objective of the commission is to bring those hard facts together on a national level.”

So, good luck, Mr. Kobach. Sometime soon, we know you’ll find Illegal Immigrant Voter #2.

MAYBE THE K.K.K will even pitch in and help you.

Trump and the GOP Make the Case for Democrats in 2018 and 2020

If you set out to convince people to return power control of Congress to the Democrats in 2018, and the White House two years later, what would be the most effective way to accomplish it?

It could be, all you need to do is focus on the incompetence of Donald Trump and the most ineffective, GOP-controlled Congress in history.

Polls (see below) show that might be all you need.

If the election were held today, the GOP would be in well-earned and deep trouble.

But we can help speed the process if we approach the situation carefully. We can run strictly honest candidates in 2018 and 2020. 

That would be a start.

Also—Democrats could address the needs of older, white working class voters, especially men, who have seen their economic standing erode. We should keep championing the concerns of darker-skinned citizens, as well as women, and law-abiding immigrants, even undocumented ones. But we should be sympathetic to the financial concerns of many Trump supporters, realizing they are valid.

(We are liberals: we want to help the down-trodden.) 

You would also want to make a powerful case that it isn’t government that has screwed the average white, working-class man and woman. It was giant corporations that shipped millions of good jobs to low-wage nations. It wasn’t President Obama who forced those greedy companies to start operating in Vietnam, China and Sri Lanka.

Muslim Americans didn’t do it.

Mexican immigrants, legal or otherwise, weren’t responsible.

The CEO’s of corporations did it—and did it because CEO’s don’t bleed red, white and blue. They bleed green.

To the degree that President Trump has talked about bringing jobs back to America, his case resonates with many of our fellow citizens. The problem—and here, I am ignoring the fact that on many topics Trump sounds nuts—is that he represents a political party that has worked diligently to break fiscal back of the average worker. Expecting the GOP to push for policies that aid the working stiff is like expecting the Tooth Fairy to show up when you have impacted wisdom teeth, perform surgery, and leave $1,000 under your pillow.

It’s not going to happen.

At no point since the GOP took complete control of Congress has the approval rate of that august body reached 30%.

It would help if Democrats could make clear how little regard the ordinary GOP lawmaker has for the ordinary American worker. Consider the virulent Republican hatred for labor unions. Perhaps you’re too young to remember. But there was a time when no non-union worker dared pick up a shovel or swing a hammer on any unionized job site. (As a bonus, that meant no undocumented worker plucked off the street would have a chance to take a good American job; and, again, I do not mean to disparage those who come here from other countries in search of a better life). And why does the GOP loathe unions? For all their imperfections, unions exist to fight for higher wages and improved fringe benefits.

If you go back to the 1980s, Republicans were happy to argue that business leaders had every right to move jobs from Ohio and Michigan, where wages were “too high” and pensions “too good,” to states like Texas and Tennessee. There workers would expect less and there would be no unions to demand more.

Then the GOP used the same argument, and made it with increasing fervor, starting in the late 90s. If Apple or Ford or Caterpillar wanted to ship jobs overseas, well, that’s how the system is intended to work. The first, last and only imperative of a company is to make as much money as possible.

Republican policies were designed to facilitate that process, not to help the average worker. Tax shelters overseas, where giant companies could hide cash? Good idea! Special tax rates for hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs banking executives? Just as Jesus intended! Tax cuts for billionaires? Just what the Koch brothers ordered! Raise the minimum wage, which would have a ripple effect for workers at the lower end of the spectrum, even those not directly covered? Can’t do it! That would cripple the U.S. economy! I once listened to a conservative friend insist if Congress raised the minimum wage a McDonald’s hamburger would suddenly cost $5.00. I said I was pretty sure his math was suspect, and he stalked away, muttering darkly that he was going home to turn on Fox News.

Now, is it okay if the typical CEO earns 300 times as much as the average worker? Does that raise the price of the hamburger? Not at all. According to the GOP, that’s why capitalism was invented.

In the same way, Democrats would be wise to point out that Republicans have been playing political “rope-a-dope” with their base supporters. While offering tax cut crumbs, and secretly smiling as hourly wages for those supporters declined, the GOP warned darkly that if Democrats regained control:

1. Gay marriages would ruin marriage for straight people. This was kind of like insisting: If your gay neighbors painted their house pink your formerly straight children would all come marching out of the closet.

2. Granny, kicking and screaming, would be carted away in a sinister black van, if Obamacare was enacted. There would be “death panels!”

GOP ineptitude has even convinced a majority of Americans the Affordable Care Act is good.

3. Speaking of “death,” Democrats would insist on innocent middle class Americans paying a “death tax.” I.R.S agents dressed like the Grim Reaper would show up at Granny’s funeral (see above). Granny would have to pay a huge tax on all assets, house, car and savings. Okay, don’t mention the fact the estate tax applies only to individuals who leave behind $5.5 million and couples that leave twice as much.

4. Also, if Democrats gain control, Muslims will enforce Sharia law in every village and town and every cornfield in Iowa. Even Mormons and Amish women will have to wear face coverings and long black robes.

5. If Muslim Obama (see above) was elected—and especially reelected—good citizens would immediately be required to give up all their guns. Even Nerf guns would be banned! And when Muslim Obama didn’t take away a single gun during his first term, or his second, well, it was a ruse, because Hillary was lurking in the wings ready to seize all the guns Obama was going to seize only didn’t. Meanwhile, worried Americans, their right to bear arms under terrible attack, ran out and bought another 150 million weapons, and gun-makers raked in the cash and happily raised CEO pay.

6. If Democrats ran Congress, we as a nation would lose the “War on Christmas.” We would suffer a catastrophic defeat in the “War on Coal” and even the “War on Ear Wax.”  After the government disposed of granny, your Christmas tree would get it too. And: no coal for the kids’ stockings!

7. Indeed, “tree huggers” would come to your house and take away your tree and trample all your ornaments; because they’re commies who believe in science and actually read NASA studies and think the earth is heating up in unnatural fashion. But the CEO’s of Big Oil companies and Big Coal know what’s best for all of us, and who are you going to trust? Scientists, or, say, guys who run Big Pharma?

The question, then, is how does our side counteract all the fear-mongering and make a case to vote “Democrat” in 2018 and 2020?

A little respect for the principles and beliefs, the valid fears and concerns of most Trump voters wouldn’t hurt.

And it might not be a bad idea to quote that great Republican president, a bit of a “tree hugger,” himself, Theodore Roosevelt:

The true welfare of the nation is indissolubly bound up with the welfare of the farmer and the wage-worker—of the man who tills the soil, and of the mechanic, the handicraftsman, the laborer. If we can insure the prosperity of these two classes we need not trouble ourselves about the prosperity of the rest, for that will follow as a matter of course.

  

Or, you might just enjoy the show as President Trump, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell bumble every issue and make a hash of the democratic process.

That clearly works, too.

Asked to choose: more Americans today would like to see the Democrats regain control of the legislative branch.

Letter to Nine U.S. Senators

This is a copy of the letter I sent to nine U. S. senators today.

As you will read, I have hope for eight and almost no faith in Mitch McConnell.

Senator Mitch McConnell

U. S. Senate

317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

                                                                                                                        May 11, 2017

Dear Senators McConnell, Burr, Corker, McCain, Brown, Flake, Graham, Portman and Sasse:

As a former Marine, retired American history teacher, and one who loves his country, I call on you to act decisively in excising a growing “cancer on the Presidency,” to use a phrase from the Watergate Era.

I sincerely believe most of you have the best interests of our nation at heart. I am reassured to hear Senators Burr, Corker and McCain, Senate committee chairmen, have expressed misgivings over the bizarre timing of the firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey. I am also heartened to know Senator Sasse and Senator Flake have expressed doubts about the decision of President Trump to fire the F.B.I. head at a time when there is an ongoing investigation into possible collusion between members of the Trump team and the Russian government.

I admit I have never been a fan of President Trump. Nevertheless, until now, I assumed any wrongdoing during the recent campaign was likely limited to his aides, in particular General Michael J. Flynn and Paul Manafort. Now, harkening back to Watergate once more, I fear the question becomes: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”

It is possible that Mr. Trump knew nothing about any questionable activities. This affair may simply boil down to political incompetence. Yet the dark clouds hanging over the White House daily grow. I believe Senator Flake said it best yesterday morning: “I’ve spent the last several hours trying to find an acceptable rationale for the timing of Comey’s firing. I just can’t do it.”

Millions of your constituents surely concur and the black cloud over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue must be dissipated. Only an independent prosecutor, an Archibald Cox or Leon Jaworski type, or very powerful Senate investigative efforts can put serious doubts to rest. The rule of law has been upheld before, with the impeachment of President Nixon and investigation into President Clinton’s reprehensible behavior. It is time for the proud Republican Party to act. Senator McConnell, you will either go down in history as a wise leader or a craven, political coward.

You seem inclined to trace the latter path.

The American people call on you for answers. Why does Mr. Trump so adamantly insist the whole Russian story is “a hoax?” Why did foreign intelligence agencies warn U.S. counter-parts if there was nothing to fear in this matter? Why would the White House act so slowly in firing General Flynn once they knew he lied about lucrative Russian connections unless President Trump knew about and signed off on same? If “there’s no there, there,” as the White House still insists, why, just as Director Comey was asking for increased resources to expand the investigation, with news sources reporting there are multiple grand juries impaneled, why then was Mr. Comey fired? Indeed, what story does General Flynn have to tell, as hinted at by his lawyer, if he can be granted immunity?

If President Trump has done nothing wrong, we need to know. It will be a relief if that proves true. If serious criminal activity took place during the 2016 campaign, and if a spreading cover-up is underway, we also need to know.

Faith in democracy is at stake.

Senator Portman and Senator Brown, I ask you to adopt the most principled stands. I ask you, Senator Graham, to work diligently to get to the bottom of this mystery. I know you support the President’s decision to fire Director Comey. I have grave reservations; but I respect the stands you have taken on many issues and trust you will continue to do what you believe is best for this country.

There may be little to this Russian story in the end. Or we may face a “grave constitutional crisis” as Senator Durbin has said. It will be up to all of you to insure that if the latter is the case, that crisis is met with wisdom.

Sincerely,

John J. Viall