December 23, 2020: Lame Duck Don Heads for Mar-a-Lago and the Links

 

12/23/20: Hark, what light from yonder White House window breaks? It is a light in the president’s private quarters. 

Mr. Trump is up early, packing for a getaway to Mar-a-Lago, his first in weeks, and likely a sign that he knows in his orange heart he’s going to be ousted from office four years sooner than he dreamed.

 

____________________ 

“Everyone depends on our elected representatives to protect our elections from foreign interference based on the facts.” 

Judge Amy Berman Jackson

____________________

  

For the good of the country, let’s hope (as even some of his aides have been predicting) that he heads for Florida and decides never to come back. Let Trump clump around his private golf courses for the next 27 days, shooting at least eighteen more rounds of golf, if his bone spurs don’t flare up. 

Should he manage that herculean feat, he could brag about completing 334 trips around the links, or one more than Mr. Obama played in two full terms. 

He could tout his stamina!

 

* 

WE ALL REMEMBER the president talking about the “War on Christmas,” and how liberals were making it impossible to drape tinsel and wish all our friends, regardless of religion, “Merry Christmas.” 

Trump decides, just hours before jetting off for Mar-a-Lago (where I think we can assume none of his fat cat friends will be worrying about how to afford presents for their children or avoid getting evicted as money runs out), that he will poke out one of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s eyes. After months of negotiations, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican Grinch Club in the Senate had hit upon a compromise bill. They would finally get relief to struggling Americans in the shape of $600 checks, whereas Mitch had originally insisted on giving everyone coal in their stockings, and checks for $0. 

(Cash that, MAGA fans!) 

The Democrats held on as long as they could, calling for bigger checks; but Mitch was immovable. So a compromise was reached.

 

Then Trump decided to throw fellow Republicans under the bus. He wasn’t going to sign a bill with shitty little checks going out to struggling millions. He wanted bigger checks – kind of like the Democrats had been insisting all along. 

“HOW DOES $2,000 PER PERSON SOUND!!!” the Art of the Deal president suddenly shouted. 

Speaker of the House Pelosi immediately announced that she was for the bigger checks and had been (which is true) all along.

 

* 

THE PRESIDENT wasn’t done poking people in the face. Before hopping aboard Air Force One he found time to jab Lady Justice in the eye. 

First, he pardoned two more accomplices in the 2016 effort to get Russia to help him win his current job. Paul Manafort was awarded a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Roger Stone, who never spent a minute in jail, got a similar card and shall be forever free, assuming, of course, he can curb his felonious tendencies. Charles Kushner, Jared’s dad, also received the pardon blessing. 

So, this blogger tried to puzzle it out. This trio has 35 felonies between them, give or take any I missed. The older Kushner leads with 18. Manafort has 10; but to be fair, he should hold the lead, having admitted in court that ten other felonies he had been charged with, but had been saved from conviction by a lone jury holdout, he did commit. Stone is a laggard with seven. But he may see a pardon as a green light to go out and sin no more than before, which is often. 

We would be remiss if we failed to note that all three earned at least one felony for witness tampering or witness intimidation.

Manafort gets an early Christmas present.

 

I know members of the Trump cult don’t get it; but screwing with witnesses destroys one of the pillars of justice. 

We’ll let Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who heard the case against Stone, explain why it matters. Here, she is speaking in reference to the 2016 election, during which both Stone and Manafort (not to mention Papadopoulos, Flynn, Cohen, Gates, Zwaan, Nader, and several others) consorted with Russians. 

The judge chastises Mr. Stone, 

Everyone depends on our elected representatives to protect our elections from foreign interference based on the facts. No one knows where the threat is going to come from next time or whose side they’re going to be on, and for that reason the dismay and disgust at the defendant’s belligerence should transcend party. 

 

Now we know. 

Stone could afford to be belligerent. He knew he need not show remorse. He knew where he stood with the president. A pardon was his if he made sure not to implicate Trump in any of his crimes.

 

* 

MR. TRUMP plans to hang at his Florida estate until after New Year, and stay busy tweeting about how he was robbed of a second term. 

As for millions of the people he was elected to serve – who stand on the precipice of ruin, as their last savings disappear – they can twist in the wind. 

Any relief package is now stalled.