CNN's Jim Acosta reported Thursday that he'd received an ominous text from a “top House Republican who supports the president” and “is in a national security role up on Capitol Hill.” The text, in response to the sudden resignation by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, warned "the wheels may be coming off” the Trump administration. May be?
Let's be clear: Mattis's departure isn't a resignation. It is a blistering protest. A stinging public rebuke of the Unites States president--his Commander-in-Chief--by a four-star Marine Corps general who served his country admirably and honorably for fifty years.
It was without any shred of ambiguity Mattis finally telling Trump, 'You're a moron....and I'm outta here.'
There's no doubt Mattis's resignation letter was intended as a harsh slap to a president he believes is woefully ignorant of geopolitics and lacking the intelligence, temperament, discipline and strategic thinking required of the job. A president who's consistently undermined America's allies while emboldening its enemies.
"My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about
both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and
informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues," Mattis said.
In his closing sentence Mattis made clear what he thought of Trump:
"I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform."
He did not mention his boss.
Mattis is now the third former general to jump off the Trumptanic, following former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and most recently White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. It is the latest in an unprecedented legion of senior-level departures which have included former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (who's reportedly called Trump a "fucking moron").
The proverbial shit is hitting the fan.
The investigation into Russian collusion by special counsel Robert Mueller is intensifying, creating a existential crisis for Trump in every aspect of his personal, political and business life. The president is fending off bi-partisan condemnation over his sudden and unilateral decision-by-tweet to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. The government is on the verge of a shutdown over the budget. The stock market is crashing. And the daily White House chaos is so dizzying it'll make your head spin, believe me.
At the most perilous time in his presidency, Trump is increasing isolated, rapidly becoming the "I alone" president he once bragged he was. The adults are gone. The guardrails are off. Forget the wheels...we're now scraping the road on rims here. And there's a sociopath madman driving us off a cliff.
It's a BIGLY shitshow, and it's only gonna get worse unless Republicans join Democrats next year to remove this malignant disease before it totally destroys our Democracy.
The Ostroy Report is an aggressive voice for Democrats, the progressive agenda and serves as a watchdog of the Republican Party and President Trump.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Stick a Fork in Trump. It's Over
Not even two years into Donald Trump's presidency, every aspect of his personal, political and business life is currently under massive Federal criminal investigation. Let that sink in for a moment.
Trump's family, Foundation (which was dissolved Tuesday morning by the New York Attorney General), business, campaign, inauguration, transition and administration are all facing the long arm of the law.
Trump's house of cards is crumbling. Finally.
Trump's demise has been long overdue. We've longed for it from the early days of his reprehensible birther campaign against Barack Obama, to his June 2015 'Mexicans are rapists' explosion into the race, to his relentless attacks since on civility, decency, humanity, the rule of law, our democracy and everything America stands for.
Throughout his entire life Trump has escaped accountability. Born with a silver spoon, he was handed everything by his rich daddy. He then spent decades at the helm of his grossly over-hyped 'real-estate development empire' (in reality just a small licensing business which threw it's name on everything including office buildings, hotels, casinos, airplanes, steaks, vodka, water, games, mortgages and magazines"...virtually all of which have been bankrupted and shut). It is a 40+ year-old family-run enterprise that, as we're now learning, more resembles a crime family. And The Donald answered to no one.
Until now.
Trump now has special counsel Robert Mueller, NY's Southern District, attorneys general in NY, DC, Virginia and elsewhere hot on his trail and a Nancy Pelosi-led House about to subpoena and investigate the shit out of him. For the first time in his life, when Trump barks "JUMP!" he's hearing "sit down and shut the fuck up." If his relentless manic, desperate"WITCH HUNT! HOAX! NO COLLUSION!" tweet-storms are an indication, it's driving him insane. As the one person who knows more than anyone the extent of his High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Trump surely knows the end is near.
If you think Tuesday's dissolution of the Foundation doesn't signal the beginning of Trump's presidency ultimately dissolving...I have some time-shares in Trump Hotel Moscow to sell ya...
Trump's family, Foundation (which was dissolved Tuesday morning by the New York Attorney General), business, campaign, inauguration, transition and administration are all facing the long arm of the law.
Trump's house of cards is crumbling. Finally.
Trump's demise has been long overdue. We've longed for it from the early days of his reprehensible birther campaign against Barack Obama, to his June 2015 'Mexicans are rapists' explosion into the race, to his relentless attacks since on civility, decency, humanity, the rule of law, our democracy and everything America stands for.
Throughout his entire life Trump has escaped accountability. Born with a silver spoon, he was handed everything by his rich daddy. He then spent decades at the helm of his grossly over-hyped 'real-estate development empire' (in reality just a small licensing business which threw it's name on everything including office buildings, hotels, casinos, airplanes, steaks, vodka, water, games, mortgages and magazines"...virtually all of which have been bankrupted and shut). It is a 40+ year-old family-run enterprise that, as we're now learning, more resembles a crime family. And The Donald answered to no one.
Until now.
Trump now has special counsel Robert Mueller, NY's Southern District, attorneys general in NY, DC, Virginia and elsewhere hot on his trail and a Nancy Pelosi-led House about to subpoena and investigate the shit out of him. For the first time in his life, when Trump barks "JUMP!" he's hearing "sit down and shut the fuck up." If his relentless manic, desperate"WITCH HUNT! HOAX! NO COLLUSION!" tweet-storms are an indication, it's driving him insane. As the one person who knows more than anyone the extent of his High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Trump surely knows the end is near.
If you think Tuesday's dissolution of the Foundation doesn't signal the beginning of Trump's presidency ultimately dissolving...I have some time-shares in Trump Hotel Moscow to sell ya...
Monday, December 10, 2018
Re-Election? Trump Won't Even Finish His Current Term
I laugh when I hear pundits talking about Donald Trump's re-election campaign, as if he's going to last that long. Let me make it very clear: Trump will resign sometime in 2019. I guarantee it.
Trump, and at least one of his children, is in some very, very serious trouble. When you factor in the scale of his High Crimes and Misdemeanors, as well as his position in government, he is perhaps the most crooked, corrupt politician in American history.
Some context is important here. Let's recap the two biggest presidential scandals of the last five decades. Richard Nixon left office disgraced by Watergate. He wasn't impeached but would've been (and likely indicted as well) had he not cut a deal to resign on August 9, 1974 in his second year of his second term. He threw his presidency in the toilet over a cheap, 3rd-rate break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and then obstructed justice in a bone-headed cover-up.
Bill Clinton was impeached in December 1998 by the Republican-controlled House, but the GOP Senate couldn't muster enough of the 2/3's vote they needed to remove him from office. Clinton's impeachment was all about perjury. Lying about sex. Period. Clinton's biggest crime? He was, literally, an unapologetic horn-dog who simply wanted to get off.
Which brings us to Trump who, as we learned conclusively in court filings last week by Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, is a felon. A soon-to-be unindicted co-conspirator who directed his former lawyer-fixer-legbreaker Michael Cohen to commit campaign finance violations twice in paying off porn-star Stormy Daniels and former Playmate Karen McDougal just weeks before the 2016 election.
To be sure, Trump wanted to get off too (the list of his sordid sexual conquests is quite long), but more importantly he wanted to influence the outcome of the presidential election. And that's the difference between his transgressions and those of his randy predecessors.
What we have yet to learn conclusively from special counsel Robert Mueller is whether or not Trump conspired with Russia to steal the election, and the extent of that conspiracy. But we will. And soon enough. If anyone out there still doesn't believe this, I have a building on 5th Avenue called Individual-1 Tower to sell you.
The extent of that collusion/conspiracy appears likely to conclude that Trump, the 45th president of the United States of America, is a Russian puppet. A kompromised agent of an enemy state. A traitor.
Trump's political and legal troubles aren't about a blowjob or a picked lock and a busted filing cabinet. They're about the betrayal of America on the highest possible levels of government. Of threatening our national security. Of corrupting our free and fair elections, the bedrock of our democracy.
As such, Trump, facing a bloodthirsty Democrat House come January, is a virtual lock for impeachment. Oh sure, Reps. Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, who'll be taking over the House Judiciary & Intelligence Committees respectively, are downplaying the "I" word for optics' sake. But they're as horny for this as a sailor on weekend leave.
Which is why Trump won't make it to 2020.
Trump knows more than anyone what he did. He knows the extent of his crimes and the depths of his treason. He knows the involvement of his equally amoral, corrupt kids. His GPS is set to "Mueller" and so he knows exactly where the steely prosecutor is headed. Which is why he tweets "NO COLLUSION!" and "WITCH HUNT" non-stop, hoping that somehow the Founding Fathers will come back to life and make Twitter the overriding Constitutional power.
One day soon the world will know beyond a reasonable doubt what The Manchurian President has done. And what his kids have done. And when that time comes, his heretofore enablers in the Republican Party will abandon him en masse. It'll finally be the point where they face the binary choice of him or me. And then the "I alone" president will get his wish. He'll be isolated, alone and with no one to defend and protect him.
Trump is foolish if he thinks the Supreme Court will ultimately protect him. As previous decisions involving both Nixon and Clinton demonstrate, the Court has made it abundantly clear that no one is above the law. Not even the president.
Trump will then be facing his own choice of stay and fight (visiting Jr. and possibly Eric, Ivanka and son-in-law Jared "I love Saudi Arabia!" Kushner in prison) and face impeachment, indictment and possible imprisonment one day, or take a Nixon-like deal and walk. If he's lucky to be offered such a generous exit.
Which makes the discussion of his re-election in 2020 truly laughable...
Trump, and at least one of his children, is in some very, very serious trouble. When you factor in the scale of his High Crimes and Misdemeanors, as well as his position in government, he is perhaps the most crooked, corrupt politician in American history.
Some context is important here. Let's recap the two biggest presidential scandals of the last five decades. Richard Nixon left office disgraced by Watergate. He wasn't impeached but would've been (and likely indicted as well) had he not cut a deal to resign on August 9, 1974 in his second year of his second term. He threw his presidency in the toilet over a cheap, 3rd-rate break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and then obstructed justice in a bone-headed cover-up.
Bill Clinton was impeached in December 1998 by the Republican-controlled House, but the GOP Senate couldn't muster enough of the 2/3's vote they needed to remove him from office. Clinton's impeachment was all about perjury. Lying about sex. Period. Clinton's biggest crime? He was, literally, an unapologetic horn-dog who simply wanted to get off.
Which brings us to Trump who, as we learned conclusively in court filings last week by Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, is a felon. A soon-to-be unindicted co-conspirator who directed his former lawyer-fixer-legbreaker Michael Cohen to commit campaign finance violations twice in paying off porn-star Stormy Daniels and former Playmate Karen McDougal just weeks before the 2016 election.
To be sure, Trump wanted to get off too (the list of his sordid sexual conquests is quite long), but more importantly he wanted to influence the outcome of the presidential election. And that's the difference between his transgressions and those of his randy predecessors.
What we have yet to learn conclusively from special counsel Robert Mueller is whether or not Trump conspired with Russia to steal the election, and the extent of that conspiracy. But we will. And soon enough. If anyone out there still doesn't believe this, I have a building on 5th Avenue called Individual-1 Tower to sell you.
The extent of that collusion/conspiracy appears likely to conclude that Trump, the 45th president of the United States of America, is a Russian puppet. A kompromised agent of an enemy state. A traitor.
Trump's political and legal troubles aren't about a blowjob or a picked lock and a busted filing cabinet. They're about the betrayal of America on the highest possible levels of government. Of threatening our national security. Of corrupting our free and fair elections, the bedrock of our democracy.
As such, Trump, facing a bloodthirsty Democrat House come January, is a virtual lock for impeachment. Oh sure, Reps. Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, who'll be taking over the House Judiciary & Intelligence Committees respectively, are downplaying the "I" word for optics' sake. But they're as horny for this as a sailor on weekend leave.
Which is why Trump won't make it to 2020.
Trump knows more than anyone what he did. He knows the extent of his crimes and the depths of his treason. He knows the involvement of his equally amoral, corrupt kids. His GPS is set to "Mueller" and so he knows exactly where the steely prosecutor is headed. Which is why he tweets "NO COLLUSION!" and "WITCH HUNT" non-stop, hoping that somehow the Founding Fathers will come back to life and make Twitter the overriding Constitutional power.
One day soon the world will know beyond a reasonable doubt what The Manchurian President has done. And what his kids have done. And when that time comes, his heretofore enablers in the Republican Party will abandon him en masse. It'll finally be the point where they face the binary choice of him or me. And then the "I alone" president will get his wish. He'll be isolated, alone and with no one to defend and protect him.
Trump is foolish if he thinks the Supreme Court will ultimately protect him. As previous decisions involving both Nixon and Clinton demonstrate, the Court has made it abundantly clear that no one is above the law. Not even the president.
Trump will then be facing his own choice of stay and fight (visiting Jr. and possibly Eric, Ivanka and son-in-law Jared "I love Saudi Arabia!" Kushner in prison) and face impeachment, indictment and possible imprisonment one day, or take a Nixon-like deal and walk. If he's lucky to be offered such a generous exit.
Which makes the discussion of his re-election in 2020 truly laughable...
Friday, December 07, 2018
An Open Letter to Daddy From Ivanka, Eric & Donnie Jr
Dear Daddy:
The boys nominated me to write this on our behalf because everyone knows I'm your favorite child (sorry Tiff!) and Donnie thinks I'm a better writer than he is... and Eric, well....anyway...
So, we're mad daddy! Really mad! We'd be crying, but we don't have tear-ducts or human-like emotions (just like you daddy!)...so...anyway...
...We had everything. Money, fame, power. We could lie, cheat and steal. No one cared. Uncle Mikey always took care of everything. Then you had to make everything messy-messy by running for president. And then throwing poor Uncle Mikey under the bus. Now look at us. Mueller knows everything. We're ruined! Likely going to jail. And our very classy Trump brand is worthless. I think we hate you!
Why did you do this to us? You never even wanted to be president. You always told us you hate all those dirty, lazy, blue-collar "little people" and just wanted all the free publicity we'd get so we could make more money (we love money!). And you'd get so much attention (we know how much you loooove attention, daddy!). But you never even thought you'd win. You promised us you wouldn't win. You gave us and mommy...I mean Melanie...your word. You lied to us! Do you remember how upset Melanie was on Election Night? It was so upsetting. I almost cried again.
We are so mad at you (I'm stomping my feet right now!). We put up with all your warts all these years. I never said one word when you'd awkwardly and inappropriately put your hands all over me and tell people like Howard Stern you'd date me if I wasn't your daughter. How could you say that! How could you say you'd only date me not marry me! I felt so unappreciated!
And all those times you called Eric "stupid" and called him and Donnie "losers." All of this was so unfair. We just took it all. We never said anything back to you (ok, I do remember the boys always yelling "Stop it daddy...we're not stupid losers!").
So what do we do now? What does our big strong tough incredibly physically-fit handsome "counter-puncher" do now to save us all? Do we hire someone to "take care of things" the way Uncle Mikey used to (wink wink...oh shit, my mascara's running...). Do we tell Corey to have Mueller's legs broken? Have Uncle Vlad poison someone? Get Uncle "M" to bone-saw the shit out of...oops...sorry...I forgot we're not supposed to ever talk about that!
Just please do something, daddy, and do it fast! We're very scared. Time is running out. Donnie's already planning how he's going to escape from prison. This is bad. Very, very bad.
Sincerely,
Your favorite child Ivanka (who's ass you really need to stop touching, ok?) & the los...I mean boys.
The boys nominated me to write this on our behalf because everyone knows I'm your favorite child (sorry Tiff!) and Donnie thinks I'm a better writer than he is... and Eric, well....anyway...
So, we're mad daddy! Really mad! We'd be crying, but we don't have tear-ducts or human-like emotions (just like you daddy!)...so...anyway...
...We had everything. Money, fame, power. We could lie, cheat and steal. No one cared. Uncle Mikey always took care of everything. Then you had to make everything messy-messy by running for president. And then throwing poor Uncle Mikey under the bus. Now look at us. Mueller knows everything. We're ruined! Likely going to jail. And our very classy Trump brand is worthless. I think we hate you!
Why did you do this to us? You never even wanted to be president. You always told us you hate all those dirty, lazy, blue-collar "little people" and just wanted all the free publicity we'd get so we could make more money (we love money!). And you'd get so much attention (we know how much you loooove attention, daddy!). But you never even thought you'd win. You promised us you wouldn't win. You gave us and mommy...I mean Melanie...your word. You lied to us! Do you remember how upset Melanie was on Election Night? It was so upsetting. I almost cried again.
We are so mad at you (I'm stomping my feet right now!). We put up with all your warts all these years. I never said one word when you'd awkwardly and inappropriately put your hands all over me and tell people like Howard Stern you'd date me if I wasn't your daughter. How could you say that! How could you say you'd only date me not marry me! I felt so unappreciated!
And all those times you called Eric "stupid" and called him and Donnie "losers." All of this was so unfair. We just took it all. We never said anything back to you (ok, I do remember the boys always yelling "Stop it daddy...we're not stupid losers!").
So what do we do now? What does our big strong tough incredibly physically-fit handsome "counter-puncher" do now to save us all? Do we hire someone to "take care of things" the way Uncle Mikey used to (wink wink...oh shit, my mascara's running...). Do we tell Corey to have Mueller's legs broken? Have Uncle Vlad poison someone? Get Uncle "M" to bone-saw the shit out of...oops...sorry...I forgot we're not supposed to ever talk about that!
Just please do something, daddy, and do it fast! We're very scared. Time is running out. Donnie's already planning how he's going to escape from prison. This is bad. Very, very bad.
Sincerely,
Your favorite child Ivanka (who's ass you really need to stop touching, ok?) & the los...I mean boys.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)