And it’s only February.
But the Russians are all in for Bernie because they too see him as the perfect foil for the president. And if anyone should know socialism, it’s the Russians.
Vladimir Putin knows how to play our president perfectly. All he needs to do is flatter, feign some morality, play hardball with the satellite countries, continue to tell the president that, no, he didn’t meddle in the 2016 election, and be the bestest autocrat he can be. Oh, and Putin continues to use social media to disrupt a disruptible president, by continuing the story that it was the meddling Ukrainians in 2016. But that’s only if you believe that some country actually interfered in the election, which our president doesn’t, because Trump is convinced that lending any credence to that theory undercuts what he believes to be a false narrative that he didn’t actually win the popular vote. And besides; Putin said it didn’t happen. So it must not have happened, right?
Yes, I really typed those words. Such times we live in.
Now that said president is feeling much better after being roasted by the Mueller Report and impeached, he’s turning on the charm by invoking the constitution – not the United States Constitution of course – and stating that he can pretty much do whatever he wants and can’t be touched legally. The Supreme Court will have a decision about this in June. It will be a key test of the separation of powers. And mark my words: When the court rules against the president in any of the cases, he will angrily question why “his Judges” are against him.
As for the pardons, yes, they are within his power and given that other presidents have pardoned some single celled creatures in the past, I’m not going to argue with the power to pardon. The problem is that the president has made this a personal issue. He’s pardoning people because they are pretty good people (despite being crooks) and because they were prosecuted by the Justice Department, which the president believes to be full of people who don’t like him, or they have ties to the people who looked at evidence and decided that Donald Trump needed to face some consequences. And everybody knows that people who cite Roy Cohn as their guiding star don’t ever need to face no stinkin’ consequences.
And the campaign? I’m going to reserve any judgments or predictions until after Super Tuesday. Right now, the press is anointing Bernie as the nominee, but we have many more states to go and we’ll have some candidates dropping out of the race. The big question is where do their supporters go? Do the lefties all go to Sanders? Do the moderates all go to Klubichar or Biden? Has Bloomberg convinced the voters that despite his record on crime and women, that he is the best to run against the president (who seems to be more frightened of Bloomberg than anyone else)? It’s messy. but remember that primary campaigns are usually messy.
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