A DARK CLOUD HANGS OVER TRUMP'S AMERICA ... THE RULE OF LAW IS BECOMING WILDLY CORRUPT AND EVEN NON-EXISTENT

A few thoughts from my friend Patrick McAleenan ...

A hypothetical - Let's say there's a man named Donny, who is suspected of murder... and Donny is allowed to appoint the district attorney who will prosecute his case. He searches around for a DA he thinks will be the right man for the job... and one prospect stands out. Donny finds a prospect named Billy who has written an unsolicited 19 page letter that is highly critical of the case against Donny, so Donny appoints Billy to be his prosecutor. As prosecutor, Billy announces that he's reviewed the case and determined that there isn't enough evidence against Donny to indict him and declines to prosecute... and then Billy allows Donny to see ALL of the evidence against him and allows Donny to decide what evidence the public can or can't see. 

This is what the rule of law looks like under Donny. Somewhere between wildly corrupt and non existent.

Here's the point. Donald Trump has surrounded himself with several increasingly corrupt political forces in America. First we have a political party, the GOP, that is more interested in operating like a racketeering gang, focused on protecting parliamentary corruption while ignoring the general buffoonery coming out of the White House. They believe their only role today is to protect Donald Trump, while promoting the interests of the mega-rich in America. They have turned a blind eye to Russian meddling in our elections, and have chosen to downplay a string of indictments, trials and prison sentences that were a product of a broader cover up designed to protect the criminality coming out of the Trump White House. 

The Republican Party is so far gone they continue to ignore what our nation's intelligence agencies have told us since Day One: Russia meddled in our elections, with the goal of using social media to create division, sow hate, and rile up conservatives and independents so that they would go out and vote for Donald Trump (or at least vote against Hillary Clinton).

(Russia's goals here are quite clear. They want a geo-strategic shift that includes reducing the U.S. presence and stature around the world, which includes breaking up long-standing western alliances and institutions. Simply put, Putin's long game hinges on American decline, and Donald Trump is obliging him.)

And let's not forget the cackling conservative media machine that operates like a propaganda arm of Trump's White House. From Fox Entertainment to the assorted right-wing media clown shows, our airwaves and social media platforms are flooded with all kinds of lies and misinformation about both the Trump White House, and anyone who happens to disagree with the right-wing noise machine's twisted interpretation of events.

Then we have Attorney General William Barr, who made it clear long ago that he thought Mueller's investigation was bogus. Now AG Barr (in his 4-page summary report) and the GOP are arguing there is no need for the general public to have access to the thousand page Mueller Report because AG Barr's reading of the report tells him - surprise, surprise - that the president and his team are not guilty of anything. 

One thing's clear after reading AG Barr's summary of the Mueller Report: No one is going to confuse him with being a constitutional scholar, or a learned student of literature. He's a party hack who did the job Trump hired for, plain and simple. 

AG Barr will go down as a punchline in American history, and deservedly so (Richard Nixon's lawyer, John Dean, believes AG Barr is hiding something 'fairly ugly').

My friend Patrick is correct. With Congressional Republicans acting like racketeers and common thugs, AG Barr running interference on the Mueller Report, and a right-wing propaganda machine that would make Goebbels proud, the rule of law under Trump is moving somewhere between "wildly corrupt and non-existent." Worse, it could be argued that congressional Republicans have become little more than Praetorian Guards, focused on protecting Donald Trump, even if that means corrupting the checks and balancing role that our Founders intended Congress to play.  

And America is worse for all of it. 

MAGA? Hardly. The world is laughing at us and our Idiot Prince. 

They're also afraid, and drawing some scary comparisons.

Sigh ...

- Mark