To understand the Trump-Russia scandal, I believe it is necessary to step way back and take the very long view. I'm not talking about going back to early 2016, or even the year before. Much farther.
I'm not going to make a claim in this post as to what happened and who did what. Rather, I'd like to present a hypothesis, a single interpretation of events, that may or may not be correct, but that is based on this long view.
Whatever did actually happen, it did involve, or somehow exclude, Donald Trump and a number of individuals with whom he has had long term relationships, and Vladimir Putin…
Scandal
It is very rare that I find myself yelling at the TV when Rachel Maddow is on. She is very good at historically contextualized nuanced well informed analyses. But when I watched a segment of last night's show (on the Internet, I have no cable) I was shocked to see that she missed something really important. If, that is, it is real.
In the segment below, she makes the point that there are two "clear through lines" in the whole Trump thing. One is the love of Russia and Putin by Trump, his unwavering stance that Russia and Putin can do no wrong. The other is the consistent "vehement antipathy…
When Secretary Clinton is elected President, barring more shenanigans on the part of Republicans like James Comey, she will take an oath of office, promising to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
Then, within a few days, she'll violate that oath by appointing one or more Republicans to important positions in the Federal Government.
(As an aside, I'm wondering, what is the mechanism for paying someone like James Comey for giving a helping hand to his party and violating his constitutional oath? Offshore accounts? Do the payments come later? How does that…
You all know what James Comey did. He sent a letter to Congress that will undoubtedly serve to change the vote distribution among the leasing candidates for president enough to possibly change the outcome of the United States election of the President of the United States.
Such an act is treasonous, and had a private citizen, especially a brown one or one with "Hussain" in his name, done something to affect the election to this degree, the FBI would be on that citizen like ugly on an ape. But, James Comey is the head of the FBI, he's white, male, and a Republican. Also, there is an argument…
I have no idea why so many smart people are saying that anything that happened over the last few days changes this election, or destroys the Republican Party. Pay attention, people. that is not what is happening.
The Republican Party has become the party that harbors racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, hate, politically expedient willful ignorance about all things science, classism, anything anti-PC, and dedicated service to the demands of the wealthiest Americans.
Most of that comes from the Tea Party the rest comes from the elite in the party. In this way, the Republican Party…