The bottom of the swamp.

The following article is from one of my favorite columnists, Will Bunch, who writes for my hometown paper.

"Novartis is a global pharmaceutical giant that’s headquartered in Switzerland, employs 126,000 people, and pulls in $50 billion a year making newfangled drugs, including the medication that ought to be handed out like candy to the American media in the hyperactive age of Donald Trump: Ritalin. But this icon of Big Pharma prefers to deal with politicians the old-fashioned way.

It buys them.

At least that’s the knock on Novartis in places like Greece — when a decade-long bribery scheme that involved two prime ministers and several cabinet members was described by a government official there as “the biggest scandal since the creation of the Greek state” — or China, where Novartis has been accused of paying doctors to prescribe its drugs, or Turkey, where Novartis is linked to a consulting firm that may have kicked back money to government officials.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should, because there’s growing evidence that Novartis used the same heavy-handed tactics to gain access and influence with the despotic ruler of a backwater banana republic called the United States of America.

It was revealed last week, in a bizarre fashion, that Novartis had paid President Trump’s lawyer and self-described “consigliere,” Michael Cohen, some $1.2 million over the course of 2017 in order to pick the brains of Cohen — taxi-medallion king, phone-threatener extraordinaire, and graduate of America’s Worst Law School™ — for high-level strategy on complex issues like drug-pricing policy.
Or maybe it was because Cohen is one of a handful of people who can speed dial Trump’s personal cellphone. If so, it was slightly depressing to learn that the White House can be bought so cheaply. AT&T, the world’s largest telecommunications firm, paid just $600,000 over roughly the same period of time for Cohen’s deep insights into the button-down mind of our current president, while Korean Aerospace cited the New York attorney’s skill in accounting as why it sent him a $150,000 check last fall, right after the Pentagon delayed a massive Air Force jet-trainer contract the firm is up for. You can draw your own conclusion about the $500,000 linked to a Russian oligarch. 

Those of us rooted in Philadelphia know that pay-to-pay politics is nothing new in America, and in fact our lawmakers and judges have worked hard to ensure that much of it is legal. Still, there’s something especially crass and unseemly about the way Team Trump does it. Big cash payments to an unskilled and sometimes thuggish  “fixer” so close to the president himself — an autocratic ruler who continues to profit from his own business while he runs the country and puts his daughter and son-in-law in a position of great power — is the kind of thing you used to read about in some laughable central Asian dictatorship, Whereverstan, but not the formerly exceptional  U.S. of A. The only thing we’re missing is a glorious military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue…wait, what?
Still, Cohen — and by extension, Trump — have managed to place a uniquely American stamp on our presidential corruption, by making the whole thing look like the lost episode of The Sopranos.

When the FBI recently raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room, Cohen — who has a long history of family and personal ties to suspected Russian organized-crime figures — put on a wild-patterned sports jacket that looked off the rack from Martin Scorsese’s prop room, and met his associates outside on the street while paparazzi snapped photos that looked like government surveillance shots. It was reported that — in addition to the big-name clients he did land — Cohen was rebuffed by at least one, Ford Motor Co., and one can only imagine his pitch to the executives in Detroit. “Hey, that’s a nice Explorer you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”

Welcome to the Bada Bing‘s new location on K Street.

The comic possibilities of Cohen’s racket shouldn’t obscure the fact that this is potentially a huge story, with Watergate-size implications. “Potentially” because there are still so many questions about the president’s lawyer and his consulting business, not least of which being how confidential business records ended up in the hands of Cohen’s worst enemy — attorney Michael Avenatti, representing purported Trump mistress and adult-film star Stormy Daniels.

But since Avenatti’s surprising scoop has been largely confirmed, there are now two important ways to look at this.

The most immediate concern is, quite simply: What did the president know about Essential Consultants LLC, a Delaware corporation, and when did he know it? Because consider some things we do know about the business of this shell company formed just as Trump was getting elected 45th president of the United States. Its cash inflows included more than a couple million dollars from powerful corporations seeking influence with the U.S. government. At other times, the cash outflows included the $130,000 intended to silence (and doing so quite badly) Stormy Daniels about her alleged Trump liaison, as well as a $1.6 million payout to a former Playboy model which everyone involved insists had nothing to do with the president, even as some pundits ask some very interesting questions.

Did Trump know which companies were hiring Cohen to influence him? Were monies from these influence-seekers somehow connected to the funds that seem to have directly benefited Trump, by solving problems in his personal life? If not, where did the money that paid off Stormy Daniels come from? The powers that be have made it almost impossible to prove the crime of political bribery in modern America. The wrong answers to these questions, though, could make the impossible suddenly seem possible, and raise serious doubts about the survival of Trump’s presidency.

But what if the dollars from Novartis, AT&T, et al, didn’t benefit Trump in any illegal way? What if Michael Cohen simply sold these large corporations a bill of goods, winning huge contracts for high-level access and insights that he then didn’t deliver. There’s a valid argument that what Cohen did after Trump’s surprise victory in November 2016 is no different from how other Trump insiders cashed in — what, for example, is the deal with Qatar paying Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski $500,000 a month? — and what close associates of both Democratic and Republican presidents or top Capitol Hill lawmakers have been doing for many decades. Under this scenario, the work of Essential Consultants is about as shocking as gambling in the back room of a Casablanca nightclub.
Politico’s Playbook, not surprisingly, spoke for the corrupt and contented classes the other day when it published this:

— YES, guys like Michael Cohen routinely get paid amounts like $1.2 million to offer insights about their boss or former boss. Yeah, it’s crazy. But many readers of this newsletter would not have their McMansion in McLean, their BMW, their membership at Army Navy, second homes in Delaware, cigar lockers and endless glasses of Pinot Noir at BLT Steak and Tosca if that kind of stuff didn’t happen. Newsflash: $1.2 million is not even a rounding error for massive corporations. (The smart companies route these deals through law firms.)

 First of all, why are wealthy fixers buying houses in Delaware, of all places? Second of all, both the cynicism expressed here, and the fact that few people are shocked by it, are in and of themselves … shocking. If what Michael Cohen did here is business as usual, and it may well have been, then why must Americans accept a level of business as usual that would look familiar to an Uzbek tinhorn dictator? Especially when it leads to outcomes that hurt everyday Americans.

How so? It’s hard not to notice the companies that hired Cohen got outcomes that were good for them and not for the public. Novartis hired Trump’s lawyer with a goal of keeping prices for prescription drugs artificially high, which is just what happened the other day when Trump broke his campaign promise for Medicare to negotiate with Big Phama. The AT&T lobbyist who hired Cohen got a private dinner with Trump’s FCC chairman Ajit Pai just a month later — and not long before Pai announced the commission was scrapping net neutrality, a cherished goal of Big Telecom.

If America wants to become an exceptional nation, let’s pass some exceptional laws that restrict this kind of influence peddling. Let’s pass a bill to make it clear that the “strategic consulting” performed by Cohen and his ilk is really just old-fashioned lobbying, that needs to be disclosed to the public. And when the new Congress takes its seats next January, it needs to launch an all-out war on big money in politics, including the unwinding of the Citizens United case, even if that requires a constitutional amendment. We don’t know yet what this scandal means for Trump, but we can do some things to prevent the Michael Cohens of the future. Bada bing, bada boom!" [Source]

Mr. Mueller, please hurry. The Sopranos was great on television and we loved it. I am just not true that we are quite ready for the real live version, Washington style. 

*Image from slate.com

Russian Bots and Devin Nunes are working overtime to protect the president. We the people just want the truth.

Those Russian bots are going to get their wish. The republicans in Washington decided to release a controversial and classified memo that seeks to make the investigators look bad and muddy the waters in the investigation of Mr. trump. The democrats have a memo as well, but the republican majority on the intel committee made sure that the democratic version was not released.

Don't you just love American democracy?

This all comes on a day when we learned of the ouster of Andrew McCabe from the FBI. The poor man was investigating Mr. trump, and that is a sure way to get removed from your job in Washington. 

From what we know trump really hated this guy, and he wanted him gone at all cost.


"NBC News is reporting that the day after FBI Director James Comey was fired, President Donald Trump called then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to complain that Comey was able to fly home on a government plane.

And during the call, he decided to take a shot at McCabe after the acting FBI chief said that while he hadn’t been asked to authorize the flight but would have if asked.

The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.
McCabe replied: “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone.

This NBC News story comes out just hours after it was reported that McCabe would be  stepping down from his post as deputy FBI director. While McCabe was apparently looking at leaving this spring, his departure comes weeks ahead of schedule and during a time when he’s clearly been in the crosshairs of the president."

Nothing pisses off Mr. trump like folks looking into his Russia connections. Whether it's golden showers or money laundering, we are learning more and more that there has to be some fire to go along with all all this smoke coming from Moscow.   

Of course, as is to be expected, the right-wingnuts are doing their best to protect Mr. trump. Devin Nunes is looking more and more like an individual who is doing his best to undermine democracy and the rule of law while he tries to protect Mr. trump. 

Adam Schiff had this to say:

“We have votes today to politicize the intelligence process. To prohibit the FBI and the department of justice from expressing their concerns to our committee and to the house and to selectively release to the public only the majority’s memo without the full facts. A very sad day I think in the history of this committee. As I said to my committee colleagues during this hearing, sadly, we can fully expect that the President of the United States will not put the national interests over his personal interests, but it is a sad day indeed when that is also true of our own committee because today this committee voted to put the president’s personal interests, perhaps their own political interests above the national interests in denying themselves, even the ability to hear from the department and the FBI.”

I suspect that we are now on an inexorable march to a constitutional crisis. 

Grab your popcorn.

*Pic from voanews.com




 

 

OPEN THREAD WEDNESDAY.

It's open thread Wednesday field hands, and I need your thoughts on a few things.

Do you believe republican senator Ron Johnson when he says that there is a "secret society" in the FBI that is trying to undermine the president and his administration?

Do you believe Mr. trump when he says that he is looking forward to talking to Robert Mueller  while under oath?

Do you think that Mr. trump would have commented on the Kentucky school shooting by now if the shooter was a Muslim?

Is it a good thing that the president of the United States might be calling Alex Jones on a regular basis?

Do you agree with Erykah Baduh's comments about Bill Cosby and Adolf Hitler?


Why do you think that right-wingnuts excuse the disgusting behavior of Donald trump but not Bill Clinton?


Finally, do you think that the Eagles will win the Super Bowl?

 

Who do you believe?

President trump has now called James Comey a liar, and he has volunteered to testify under oath to refute what James Comey said while he was under oath.

The question now is which one of these two men do you believe.

The president?

"There’s a high bar to accusing someone of committing a “lie,” and we don’t do it lightly.

A lie isn’t just a false statement. It’s a false statement whose speaker knows it’s false. In these instances, the president — or his administration — have clear reason to know otherwise. Reporters are understandably cautious about using the word — some never do, because it requires speculating on what someone is thinking. The cases we call "lies" are ones where we think it's fair to make that call: Trump is saying something that contradicts clear and widely published information that we have reason to think he's seen. This list also includes bullshit: speech that is — in its academic definition — "unconnected to a concern with the truth.

trump's words: "The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process."

Lie: Trump posted the above tweet just hours after FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers began testifying about Russian interference in the 2016 election in favor of Trump. Comey testified that the FBI came to believe that Russia was using “active measures” to hurt the Clinton campaign and help the Trump campaign.

“They wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her and help him,” Comey said. “Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was that he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much.”

Trump's tweet — and the video clip included with it — is a selective portion of the hearing where Nunes was asking Rogers if he had evidence Russia changed vote tallies in specific states.

Trump's words: “We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan,” Trump said during a news conference on Feb. 16.

Lie: Trump actually won 304 electoral votes, because two electors refused to cast their vote for him when the Electoral College met.

Several former presidents have also received more electoral votes than Trump. George H. W. Bush won with 426 electoral votes in 1988. Bill Clinton won 370 votes in 1992 and 379 in 1996, and Barack Obama won with 365 votes in 2008.

When a reporter at the news conference called Trump out for spreading false information, the president said, "Well, I was just given that information. I don’t know. I was just given…We had a very big margin."

Trump's words: Trump tweeted on Sunday, "While on FAKE NEWS @CNN, Bernie Sanders was cut off for using the term fake news to describe the network. They said technical difficulties!"

Senator Sanders was on CNN's Erin Burnett Out Front on Feb. 10, discussing Trump's travel ban and controversy surrounding National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, among other topics.

Lie: During the interview, Burnett showed Sanders a clip of Trump responding to a reporter's question following news that Flynn called the Russian ambassador to the US before the inauguration to discuss previously-imposed sanctions. In the clip, Trump says he has "not seen the report."

Burnett then asked Sanders if it's a problem that the president did not know about the report, in which Sanders criticized Trump for dismissing negative news as "fake news."

CNN PR tweeted a transcript of the interview, which reads:

Burnett: "He says he knows nothing about it, hasn't seen any of these reports. Is that a problem?"

Sanders: "Well, I don't know, maybe he was watching CNN fake news, what do you think?"

Burnett: "You don't buy it?"

Sanders: "That was a joke."

Burnett: "I know it was a joke. I'm saying, you don't buy what he said, obviously?"

Right after Burnett acknowledged that Sanders was joking when he called CNN "fake news," the audio cut out and CNN went to a commercial break. When the show returned, Burnett picked up her interview where they left off and Sanders went on to say it's "not a joke" when "you have a president who attacks people in the media who make critical remarks of him — which is what their jobs is — as providing 'fake news.'"

rump's words: Trump again claimed there was widespread voter fraud during the November election, this time telling senators “thousands” of people were bussed in from Massachusetts to vote in New Hampshire.

Trump made the unsubstantiated claims in a closed-door meeting with 10 senators Thursday to discuss his Supreme Court nomination, Neil Gorsuch, Politico reported.

Trump blamed “thousands” of people who were “brought in on buses” from Massachusetts to vote illegally in New Hampshire during the meeting, which was also reported by the Associated Press.

Lie: Officials at New Hampshire’s secretary of state office, US Attorney’s Office, and Massachusetts’ attorney general’s office told BuzzFeed News there was no evidence to support the president’s claim.

“We have not seen any evidence of busloads of out-of-state voters coming across the border to vote in New Hampshire elections,” David Scanlan, deputy secretary of state for New Hampshire, said. Read more here.

rump's words: Trump tweeted at 6:57 a.m., "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?"

At 8:17 a.m., Trump added, "Chris Cuomo, in this interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave 'service' in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!"

Blumenthal was interviewed on CNN Thursday morning, following his statement from the previous day, in which he said the president's nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Gorsuch, said Trump's recent attacks on the judiciary are "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Lie: Cuomo asked that exact question. His question to Blumenthal was, "What is your response to the president of the United States, who says you should not be believed because you misrepresented your military record in the past?" [Source]

There is lots more where that came from, but I think you get the picture.

James Comey?

James Brien Comey Jr. (born December 14, 1960) is an American lawyer who served as the seventh Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from September 2013 until May 2017.^[2] Comey has been a registered Republican for most of his life, but is now independent.

Comey was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from January 2002 to December 2003, and subsequently the United States Deputy Attorney General from December 2003 to August 2005 in the administration of President George W. Bush. Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to be the Special Counsel to head the grand jury investigation into the Plame affair after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself.

In August 2005, Comey left the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and became general counsel and senior vice president of Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland.^[3] In 2010, he became general counsel at Bridgewater Associates, based in Westport, Connecticut. In early 2013, he left Bridgewater to become a Senior Research Scholar and Hertog Fellow on National Security Law at Columbia Law School. He served on the Board of Directors of HSBC Holdings until July 2013.^[4]

In September 2013, Comey was appointed Director of the FBI by President Barack Obama.^[5] In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email controversy. His role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, particularly with regard to his public communications, was highly controversial.^[6] His decisions have been regarded by a number of analysts, including Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, to have likely cost Clinton the election.... [Source]

 

I think we have read enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

A president in crisis.

  Today we learned a couple of things:

1. There is absolutely no evidence that former president Obama tapped Mr. trump's phone.

2. The FBI is investigation collusion between some of the folks on team trump and the Russians.

Let's think about this for a minute. The current president --and the people around him-- are being investigated by the FBI for colluding with a foreign government that is hostile to America.

Be careful when you "drain the swamp",  because you never know what you will find at the bottom of it.

"Highlights from Monday's testimony:

• For the first time, Director Comey publicly confirmed the FBI is conducting an investigation into whether the Trump campaign "coordinated" with the Russian effort to influence the U.S. election.
• Comey debunked the Trump Tower wiretapping allegation.
• Comey noted that it is possible for people to collude with a foreign power without knowing it.
• Adm. Rogers, the NSA director, dismissed the notion that Britain's GCHQ intelligence service spied on Trump at Obama's direction."

Tonight trump couldn't wait to get out of Washington and hit the campaign trail. Yes, the campaign trial. We are damn near 100 days into his presidency and Mr. Orange Hair is still in campaign mode.    

He was getting all kinds of campaign love tonight. But rather than address the growing crisis surrounding his presidency,  he chose this particular forum to rip Colin Kaepernick of all people.

“And you know, your San Francisco quarterback,”...... “I’m sure nobody ever heard of him. I’m just reporting the news. There was an article today — I love to report the news and then they said I made a mistake, right? I said, ‘No, the people reporting the news made a mistake if it’s wrong.’ But there was an article today, it was reported that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that? I just saw that. I just saw that. I said if I remember that one I’m gonna report it to the people of the Kentucky. Because they like it when people actually stand for the American flag.” [Source]

Yes Donald, let's talk about an out of work quarterback while your administration goes to "hell in a handbasket." I am sure that your minions won't even notice.

*Pic from politicususa.com

The bizarre rantings of an American president.

         You can't make this stuff up. It's as if we are back to this birther stuff again.

The president of the United Stated accuses the former president of spying on him (calls him a very sick/bad person) without anything to back up his claim but the sick twisted theories floating in his own head.  He calls a meeting of his top advisors and one day later his press -secretary releases a statement that what the president dreamed up in his head is very "troubling" and that congress must investigate it.

The claim is so preposterous that the FBI wants it to be officially rejected by the department of justice.

Someone should tell our current president that the president of the United States just can't go around getting wiretaps on citizens. Maybe that's what he wants to do in his current position, but there is this little thing called the law that we all have to follow.

The scary thing about all of this is that trump has actually doubled down on his claim. And he and his surrogates have spent the last few hours trying to come up with some type of justification for his claim. But, as is to be expected, they can find none. Now they are stuck having to go out and defend their leader with nothing to back up his claim.

It's one thing, of course, if one lone man is going on these bizarre rants and showing signs of delusion, it's quite another to have others around him buying into his lunacy.

But what does that say about us as a people? That we value being close to power and tribalism over truth? It's quite sad if it's true. Unfortunately, it seems to be.

Just look at how elected republicans and various leaders are treating these latest declarations by the president. It's as if they all purposely have their heads stuck in the sand.  

I honestly can't blame them, though.

This is embarrassing for not only the republicans in Washington, but for all of us.


*Pic from newrepublic.com

The cowardly candidate.

For a guy who likes to tout open carry laws, candidate trump sure gets jumpy at the thought of a gun anywhere near him.

That protester that caused trump to go scurrying backstage with his secret service detail didn't have a gun, but trump's supporters sure thought he did, and they didn't realize that the poor guy only had a protest sign until they beat the crap out of him and yelled, "Gun!" 

This is the second time this campaign season that I saw coward trump running away from an imaginary threat. (Watch how the female candidate in the race reacts to the same kind of threat.) I just think that it's amazing how cowardly bullies can be when you expose them.

Of course trump was exposed as a coward a long time ago when he did everything in his power to get out of going to serve his country during the Vietnam War.  It's a past that the main stream media seems to have conveniently forgotten.

It's ironic, too, that all these militia groups have vowed to storm Washington if their guy loses. I just wonder if they realize that when the bullets start flying he will not be around to get their backs.

Finally, trump's other running mate. Jim Comey, declared tonight that there will be no more investigations into Hillary's e-mails, as most of the ones that they (the FBI) dug up from Weiner's laptop were duplicates. (That sound you hear is groans coming from camp trump.)  

Yes America, the Clinton e-mails investigation is over as far as the FBI is concerned. The folks in the Clinton camp are crying foul, because they believe that this entire episode might have cost them a countless number of votes.

Personally, I disagree. I said this when this story broke, and I think that it is worth repeating:This perception of the FBI backing trump might have energized Clinton's base, and it gave her campaign a boost that she never had prior to this entire sorry episode.

*Pic from rawstroy.com

 

Deplorable John.

     Yet another deplorable shows his true colors.

"WASHINGTON — A fanatical Donald Trump supporter, who was arrested by the FBI in Oregon this week after repeatedly threatening to kill President Barack Obama and federal agents, had multiple pipe bombs in his home, authorities alleged in court on Friday.

John Martin Roos, a 61-year-old from Oregon, has been charged with communication of a threat in interstate commerce, and additional charges are likely forthcoming. Roos first came onto the federal government’s radar after a “concerned citizen” brought Roos’ Facebook and Twitter postings to the FBI’s attention in February, according to an affidavit from Special Agent Jeffrey Gray. (Excerpts, below, from Roos’ postings contain explicit language.)

In one Jan. 31 Facebook post cited by the FBI, Roos referred to agents as “pussies” and wrote he would “snipe them with hunting rifles everywhere.” (Despite his threats to kill members of law enforcement, he also complained on Facebook earlier this month about the “liberal media ... slamming police.”) In a post in November that was also cited by the FBI, Roos spoke out against accepting refugees and threatened to kill Obama.

“Obama you goat fffing fudgepacker, the refugees are men of fighting age. Black lives matter! Sure we need someone to pick cotton and wash cars. Paris, burn diseased muslim neighborhoods to the ground and start over with human beings. Obama you are on a hit list,” he wrote in a post that appears to have been removed.

Beyond what was mentioned in the affidavit, Roos regularly posted on both Facebook and Twitter about his support for Trump and his hatred for Obama, who he called a “muslim faggot” and other derogatory terms. He indicated he wanted to kill Obama’s family and made other racist and sexist statements about Michelle Obama. He also made negative references to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, singer Beyonce, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and reporter Michelle Fields, and said he believed that the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was killed by Obama. He praised Ann Coulter and Stacey Dash, and posted several links to posts on Breitbart.com. 

He regularly posted about his support for Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate. In one post mentioned in court filings, Roos stated that he believed the establishment “is trying to steal the election” from Trump. “All hail Donald Trump, the savior of America,” he wrote on Christmas Eve. “I’ll bet he was born on Dec 25 just like Jesus.”

When two FBI special agents visited him in March, Roos allegedly acknowledged making the postings on social media, calling the threats a way he “blows off steam.” He said he didn’t intend to harm anyone, but also that he would “punch Obama in the nose” if he had the chance.

After a federal judge signed off on a search warrant, FBI agents searched Roos’ home, where he lives with a roommate. According to the affidavit they found “an AK-47 like firearm,” a rifle and shotgun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a .45 caliber Glock hidden under a couch cushion. Four pipe bombs were found in a white bucket next to Roos’ computer workstation. Another weapon was found underneath the floor mat of his truck." [Source]

I suppose that this is the new normal. These angry white men -led by their alt-right puppet masters,  are afraid, and they are lashing out in any way that they can. trump is their savior, and he is their only hope if America is to ever be like it used to be.  I just hope that others like  John Martin Roos  will not take matters into their own hands and try to force the issue.

Poor things. You really have to feel for them. For a time, it looked like trump was going to run away this thing. He had the big mo and the wind at his back. The press was cheering him on and giving him the benefit of the doubt at every turn because they wanted a "horse race". But now, thanks to a horrible Nixonian like debate performance, and stories like this, and, this, and this, and this and....well, you get the picture. It's looking like the trump train might end up like the one that crashed into the station in Hoboken a few days ago.

*Pic from abcnews.go.com