The Rape of the Constitution

Dateline 2030:

Following Donald Trump’s rape and murder of the US Constitution in 2024, the former United States experienced a major convulsion. The reformed country — “Trump Nation” — consisted of most of the eastern half of the old US, plus many of the states which had formed the old Midwest and the South. The more liberal West Coast refused to go along and became ‘Pacifica,’ while a handful of defiantly independent New England states such as Maine declared themselves sovereign entities. Trump Nation was a mirror of his original political base, predominantly and unabashedly white, with only hand-picked blacks like Herman Cain encouraged to stay. Non-white black and brown people were driven out of their homes by gun-toting white men brandishing flaming torches, and told to find new addresses in another country. Asians tended to drift away north and west.

Using his customary frightful bullying bluster, Trump forced the Supreme Court and the military to swear allegiance to him, and once he had done that, he said he didn’t need Congress anymore. Hillary Clinton was thrown into jail in Alexandria, VA, while Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn were all pardoned. On July 4th, he declared himself President for Life.

After the Mueller Report was buried, critics such as Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler and Elijah Cummings were politically neutered, and with his enemies in jail, Trump began to feel like his old self. His new security force, the Jackals, was headed by Devin Nunes and Stephen Miller. Soon the Jackals eradicated all those government employees deemed not loyal enough to Trump, leaving a lean apparatus perfectly suited to autocracy. A new national flag was created — a modified Confederate flag emblazoned with a large gold ‘T’ — and walls were erected on the borders with Mexico, Canada, Pacifica and those feisty New England states.

George Conway, Kellyanne Conway’s husband, left her and started a marijuana law firm and plantation in Oregon. San Francisco became the new center of global international relations, joining old and establishing new trade, defense, climate change and human rights treaties and agreements, while Trump Nation pursued an ardent, anachronistic  isolationism. Seattle became the new world nexus of computer software, multilingualism and book shops — featuring real books. Pacifica began to look like the “Ecotopia” of the 1975 novel, a sort of haven of democracy and green living. (As well as the common cannabis use and relaxed attitudes on sex imagined in Callenbach’s book.)  Temperatures in Trump Nation are climbing faster than earlier scientific predictions, while Pacifica is stabilizing, with signs of dropping, thanks to earnest green efforts, an abundance of trees and an embrace of science. Maine and the ‘Live Free or Die’ states enjoy robust gains in fishing, due to alliances with Canada as northern Atlantic fish stocks improve, signaling a bigger gain in the ability to feed their own than the baked and fried southern and midwest states. In the traditional cattle-raising and farming states like Kansas, Iowa and Texas, crops wither and livestock die from the heat. Some see the diminution and taint of drinking water as a real concern, but only a few worry about that.

Trump nationalized all the TV and online new organizations, forming one big propaganda machine run by Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Sanders and Steve Bannon. Fox News became the backbone of the new TrumpTV, where the president is featured 24/7. The brains, manpower and passion for an independent free press fled Washington DC and New York City, and formed in Boston, where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the mayor. (Independent newspapers flourish in Pacifica.)

Trump dissolved Congress with a great deal of pomp & circumstance, including a big military parade through downtown Washington DC. His fourth wife, the hot former NRA babe Dana Loesch (below), administered the Trumpian Oath of Office in front of the largest crowd ever assembled to witness a presidential inauguration.

Donald Trump had never been so happy. He was President for Life and was the star of the biggest reality TV show on earth. His children each owned 10% of Trump Nation, and he played golf with the world’s other great leaders: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Nicolás Maduro, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Xi Jingping. Trump was fat and happy, and no one could stop him.

 

 

The Perils of Butina

The Russians are expert in gathering and implementing intelligence. Masters of manipulation. Most of history’s greatest chess champions came from Russia; does that suggest something? They can even transform vulnerable Americans into unwitting Russian spies, or if not “spies,” carefully crafted pipelines of info known as “intelligence assets.”  Often these assets, these people, are identified as having weaknesses (gambling, kinky sex, need for flattery) that could be exploited, a future chess piece that does not even know they are part of this pipeline, delivering knowledge that Russians see value in, even if the duped American does not. Some Americans are overly proud that they are too smart to become duped by Russians…

Not enough is said about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s past as a spy. He grew up in the KGB, Russia’s infinitely assiduous national security force, where his specialty was counter-intelligence. As the tumult of East Germany and then the Russian coup of ’91 shook the ground, he shifted into politics, hitching his wagon to winners, which led to Moscow. There he rose in power via escalating presidential staff positions, and then in ’98 became director of the FSB, the KGB’s spawn.

He became Russia’s president on the last day of 1999, and immediately decreed that his successor would not be prosecuted for corruption charges. (He is nicely attuned to Trump, as you can see.) Much of Mother Russia’s vast oil, gas and mineral resources were looted by cronies of Moscow’s powerful, and there’s no doubt Putin’s own bank accounts expanded. The details of those secrets, similar to the perceived protection of Trump’s financial secrets, are probably secured deep within the fortress by the Moskva River in the Kremlin. He has been president for twenty years and runs the largest country in the world with a very sure and aggressive hand. Putin looks at the world map like the classic Hasbro board game Risk, and he has been successful in building his empire in Europe and elsewhere. He is always watching, thinking, planning, maneuvering. After all his experience (and accompli$hment) he is basically a spy, one who likes to be in charge. We need to look into Trump’s taxes — we must follow the money — to learn more of the extent of Putin’s influence over the patsy sitting at the poker table.

 

We Must Impeach Trump

President Donald Trump must be impeached. To not begin the process is to allow Trump to get away with it, to get away with the rampant corruption and abuses of power listed in Mueller’s report. The impeachment process begins with an investigation by Congress, called for completely, convincingly and overwhelmingly now that the Mueller report has been placed in Americans’ hands. The damning evidential revelations of lying, forcing others to lie, his crystal clear efforts to obstruct the investigation into him and his campaign, the eagerness to get a leg-up from Russia, and his utter contempt for the rule of law all laid bare by the report, are as loud an endorsement to impeach as a July 4th marching band.

Some say impeachment can’t win. Some say that the House might well draft articles of impeachment, pat themselves on the back and send them to the Senate for trial, where the tribal kool-aid cult of Senate Republicans will acquit the defendant. I contend that energizing Congress to begin the process is a significant kind of success, sending an indelible signal to the reptiles in the Trump Administration that the era of lawlessness with impunity is ending. Forging the base and barrel of the impeachment cannon sends a shot across the bow, a very arresting and dangerous signal that impeachment and removal is a very clear and present danger to his presidency. Congress has been bullied away from its oversight duties, but throwing a punch at the bully — they never expect it — scares the ogre and changes the relationship.

Since impeachment’s first phase is investigation, I bet that the House would turn up more concrete evidence of Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors, injecting a virtuous viagra into American public opinion. More than half the country knows without a shred of doubt already that Trump is corrupt to his core and poses a terrifying risk to American democracy. An impeachment investigation that reveals more loathsome and unpatriotic behavior could more than tip the scales of opinion for the immediate removal of this unfit man from the presidency. (Many more in his administration deserve impeachment and removal.) Politicians live and die by the polls, and many Republican congressmen are up for reelection soon — the GOP may decide that this mindless, destructive zombie loyalty to Trump is political suicide. He’s had his tumultuous time and now his time is up.

The United States of America has suffered a nearly fatal blow to its respectability and gravitas overseas — remember that the UN General Assembly laughed at Trump — as well as the pounding our national security and intelligence apparatus has taken, from Trump’s spurious, bullying insults to completely unqualified sycophants receiving security clearances. Increases in short-term money have flowed to fatcats while long-term the air, water and land gets more dangerously polluted for our children and grandchildren, as regulations that protect us were torn down by Trump’s friends. The dumbest and most delusional one in the Jacuzzi with Putin, Xi and Kim, Trump’s smile is the biggest, no surprise as he’s the prey. Black-hearted people like Sarah Sanders, Kellyanne Conway and the maltrumpian spinners smile into the camera and lie effortlessly, protecting the president from the piercing of a free press pursuing its mandate of uncovering facts; the world’s free press, among which the US should stand tallest, has also been wounded horribly, as autocrats stomp on the right for people to know the truth.

As a surgeon uses his or her skill to further the quality of life of patients, we must remove this cancerous blight, and then encourage healing.