Categories
Political

Trump didn’t collude with Russia because Trump didn’t want to win in 2016

Robert Mueller released his final report to current AG William Barr who then, in a surprisingly short period of time, released a four-page summary of the findings.

The two points of the investigation were: did Trump or his campaign collude with the Russian government to effect the 2016 election; did Trump commit obstruction attempting to influence the Russian investigation. Mueller seemingly punted on the obstruction charge, but did reach a conclusion about the Russian collusion: Trump and his campaign did not actively conspire with the Russian government in order to win the election.

Categories
Government

Trump and Republicans are counting on Democratic empathy and compassion

Neither Trump nor Congressional Republicans would continue with the shutdown debacle except for one thing: they’re counting on Democratic empathy and compassion.

They assume that, at some point, Congressional Democrats won’t be able to ignore the hardships federal employees are enduring by not getting their regular paychecks. They’re counting on Congressional Democrats being concerned about the average citizens who are as equally impacted. They believe they can ‘hold the line’ because Democrats are empathetic and compassionate.

And they are correct:  Democrats do care about the people.

Categories
Government

No National Emergency but the faux crises and shutdown continues

Trump did not declare a national emergency last night. I strongly suspect he had planned to, though. After all, the staging was there.

A prime time Oval Office formal speech. The President, grave and solemn as he sets the stage for an emergency declaration.  Days of hints (in order to bolster the audience numbers). Minions out and about ponderously declaiming how everything is going to hell on the southern border.

I suspect the networks also bet on his declaring a national emergency. If they knew he was just going to dish out the usual, they wouldn’t have given up their ad revenue.