A Constitutional Crisis ............................................

"FIND THE LEAKER !!!" 

There is so much to write . So forgive me if looks so conviluded , but the whole newsmedia can't keep up with President Donald Trump . Every single day out of the blue comes something new that rips the previous news about what is going down at the White House . Its get crazier . The New York Times is divided after publishing an unprecedented, anonymous opinion piece by a senior Trump administration official that sent reporters scrambling to expose the author while the editorial board is desperately protecting the same person – but would the Gray Lady’s reporters name the anonymous author if given the chance?The Op-Ed, headlined  [ see New York Times op-ed ] “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” claimed Trump administration staffers are “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” For me this sounds VARY SUSPICIOUS , why would any  senior  administrator in the Trump cabal put something like this out anonymously , while it might be credible . I still am cautious  & not scrambling to believe any thing out of Washington D.C. these days . Pretty much The Op-Ed is simple fearmongering at best . Here is what a New York Times Opinion says " The piece essentially confirmed what many Americans had already feared, that this president is unfit to serve. It is a validation of the work of scores of journalists who, through meticulous reporting, have been raising alarm bells since the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency".  WELL , Its a PERFECT publicity stunt for Bob Woodward’s book describing revolt inside the Oval Office. Released just in time Frankly the way that the opinion piece attempts to balance “resistance” rhetoric with thoughts which might be expected from a Republican strikes me as contrived. It’s too clever... yet not nearly clever enough.” Assuming that “anonymous” is a real person (which is certainly possible) REMEMBER that the vary word  "Anonymous"  is a decentralized international hacktivist group that is widely known for its various DDOS cyber attacks against several governments including our own . The ultimatum appeared to play into the very concerns about the president's impulses raised by the essay's author. Trump has demanded that aides identify the leaker, according to two people familiar with the matter, though it was unclear how they might go about doing so. The two were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.The Mysterious Op-Ed. But could the current situation lead to a constitutional crisis? Yes, but we’re not quite there yet and if Mr. Trump thinks there are enough Republicans who will back him even if he flagrantly defies the law and congressional authority, he hasn’t acted on that impulse…  Where are the hearings into the rampant corruption in the Trump administration? Where are the hearings, even into the basic question who the hell is really making policy in the White House now?However, it takes more than a wayward president to precipitate a constitutional crisis, which involves an unresolved clash between branches of government or the unanswered flouting of constitutional rules. However this started way back when Obama was President , remember that  the Republican powers tried to shut the government down .  For Donald Trump everything reeks of a conspiracy .  Remember how the Republicans  tried to bring down Obama , Now  there is for certain forces at work that are trying to drag Trump and the whole nation down. I think it crosses both party lines , Democrat or Republican .  ONE has to wonder what is going down with the Mueller investigation . Now its taken a rather bizarre twist . While we have been bombarded with the Trump - Russian collusion story.Trump really didn’t need the Russians to fix the election. He needed only 63 million mostly white, working-class and middle-class voters sick and tired of being dumped on, overtaxed, overregulated and destroyed by Obama’s obsession with global warming, his war on coal and his trillion-dollar Obamacare. AS the theory goes the Russian meddling could only get crazier. We now have picked up on a Hillary- Russian collusion,  that Clinton campaign proactively sought dirt on (#)>>Trump from Russian government sources. They did it through cutouts. In April 2016, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias retained opposition research firm Fusion GPS to compile incriminating information on Trump. Fusion GPS in turn hired Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 operative with sources among Russian government officials. The result was the salacious dossier, whose sources included “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin.” Steele’s work was paid for by Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. That means a paid agent of the ( ***)>>Clinton campaign approached Russian officials for damaging material on Trump. I have to chuckle at this - remember that Mr. Trump was also calling on the Russians to  "hack into Hillary's server " the famed  " RUSSIA ARE YOU LISTENING "  rant during the 2016 (1.1)>>Campaign  . Now it appears to that the Russians may have been playing both sides of the political game . If as we are told to believe that Russia was working with Trump  , at the same time had been working with the Clinton's to get dirt on Trump at the same time . Some pundits and a fact-checkers asserted that the Clinton campaign never used Mr. Steele’s Russia charges. Perhaps While  Donald Trump has threatened he (1.2)>>"may have to get involved" after launching another attack on the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.Four days after his former campaign manager and former lawyer were convicted of fraud, the US president complained that special counsel Robert Mueller was "having a field day".Trump's embrace of the memo raised again the prospect that he could use it as justification to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, who is conducting the investigation, or Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller. Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including two involving hush-money payments to women that Cohen said were made “at the direction of a candidate,” referring to Trump. In a breathtaking string of events, within minutes Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty in another federal court on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud, creating fresh concerns for the president that Manafort might cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation.Warned Schumer, hours later: “He better not talk about pardons for Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, tonight or any time in the future."Trump, appearing late Tuesday at a rally in West Virginia, didn’t mention potential pardons. Yet in an interview on Monday, the president had told Reuters that he’s “totally allowed to be involved” in the investigation. “I could run it if I want," Trump said.

Kavanaugh. Further thoughts on Confermation. 

This was originaly posted on my Blog on July 15th , 2018 .

While a nominee to the Supreme Court who could have a profound effect on what's left of American democracy skates by across the capital.For the past 30 years - since the Supreme Court hopes of Robert Bork, nominated by Ronald Reagan, foundered due to the judge's controversial conservative legal writings and speeches - confirmation hearings have followed a predictable, scripted path. Senators from the opposing party attempt to pin down a nominee on hot-button political and legal issues that could make them less palatable to moderate senators and the public at large, while the would-be justice tries to be as vague and uncontroversial as possible Mr. Trump’s choice for the court, Judge Brett M. (2)>>Kavanaugh, has expressed strong support for executive power, hostility to administrative agencies and support for gun rights and religious freedom. Those are all conventional positions among conservative lawyers and judges. But there is one stance that sets Judge Kavanaugh apart, and it could not be more timely: his deep skepticism of the wisdom of forcing a sitting president to answer questions in criminal cases . Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to succeed Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, gave a speech last year in which he seemed to applaud former Chief Justice William Rehnquist for dissenting in(4)>>Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide. For Kavanaugh, the hours of dodging snares laid by Democratic senators boiled down to avoiding huge errors -- especially on the core issue of abortion that would risk the defection of a couple of Republican senators and jeopardize his route to the high court.   The comments, first reported by The Los Angeles Times, may be among one of the few times Kavanaugh has publicly commented on abortion rights, one of the most contentious issues surrounding his confirmation to the high court. Now, the right to an abortion is guaranteed to be central to the fight by congressional Democrats over the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh. While we might be jumping up and down over the abortion issue . The real issue is that Kavanaugh is Trump's chess piece to avoid prosecution, a 2009 article Kavanaugh wrote for the Minnesota Law Review that argued for Congress to pass a law exempting sitting presidents from “criminal prosecution and investigation.” As many observers have acknowledged, this position could have major implications on the outcome of the Russia investigation.   To fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, a vitriolic battle to keep the Senate from confirming Kavanaugh has began to take shape , but the Democrats just don't have enough gusto to prevent Kavanaugh from his seat .
NOTES AND COMMENTS: 

( ***)>>Clinton campaign approached Russian officials. HIllary and the Russians.
You’d think, given the thunderous outrage Democrats have expressed over allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the U.S. election, that Hillary Clinton would not be willing to accept money from foreign countries, including Russia, to spend on “encouraging people to organize, get involved, and run for office.”Most  of it all is that, at the same time they were using spurious Russian contacts to smear Trump's name, they were also launching the FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians in 2016. The most of it all is that, at the same time they were using spurious Russian contacts to smear Trump's name, they were also launching the FBI investigation into  allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians in 2016. Its sounds like a merry go round . Most certainly I think now that the Russians were playing both sides .  (#)>>Trump from Russian government sources. As it turned out, the Russian wanted to sell Americans a video, in which Trump in 2013 allegedly in a Moscow hotel with prostitutes. All that the intermediary businessman received is a 15-second video that shows a man talking to two women.Trump it, it was impossible to understand. American intelligence has not figured out whether there was any real Trump video with women of low social responsibility at all.For some time, the "informant" fed the Americans, who were eager to get back their "cyber weapons", with data about the alleged connections of Trump's partners with Russia in the context of the 2016 elections.The behavior of the agent from Russia more and more seemed suspicious to the NSA.Beginning with the fact that he quickly reduced the price from 10 million to one, continuing his unconcealed desire to pass on "compromising evidence", and ending with the criminal past of this person.(1.1)>>Campaign  . Some Trump surrogates suggested his comments were a joke, but the Manhattan mogul immediately doubled down on Twitter. “If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!,” he tweeted. (1)>>"may have to get involved".  The president’s pointed remarks came as he took the stage at a rally in Indiana in support of GOP Senate candidate Mike Braun, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly“All I can say is, our Justice Department and our FBI, at the top of each because inside they have incredible people, but our Justice Department and our FBI have to start doing their job and doing it right and doing it now because people are angry,” Trump said. “What’s happening is a disgrace. And at some point, I wanted to stay out, but at some point if it doesn’t straighten out properly, I want them to do their job, I will get involved and I’ll get in there if I have to.”He went on to say it was “disgraceful” and that “the whole world is watching.”He added, “And the whole world gets it and the whole world understands exactly what’s going on.” (2)>>Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh’s nomination is still controversial because of his past political work and the ongoing investigations into the Trump administration. With just three or four planned days of hearings and more than 440,000 public pages of records to base their questions on, Democrats are likely to try and get as much embarrassing and damaging information out of Kavanaugh as possible.  (4)>>Roe v. Wade. The New York Times’s Charlie Savage has obtained emails written by Kavanaugh when he worked in the George W. Bush administration that are highly relevant to Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and the fact that he is likely to be the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. These emails were provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by a lawyer working for Bush but deemed by that lawyer to be “committee confidential,” which means that the senators are allowed to see them but they are not supposed to discuss them publicly. Someone — presumably a Democratic senator — broke that confidentiality to make them public. What the emails show isn’t so much Kavanaugh’s secret beliefs, though they do highlight his dishonesty about one key question. More than that, they show what a farce this entire process has become.