Enough

This is not designed to be an update or rebuttal to January's "State of the Union" address.

But the flurry of news items, information, accusations and leaks to the media make it almost impossible to read or watch news for any length of time without being exposed to the all-consuming subject of the Trump Administration and the campaign that preceded it.

It's not enough that an investigation about the Trump campaign and potential association with Russians (and other bad actors) who wished to influence the outcome of the 2016 election began BEFORE THIS PRESIDENT EVEN TOOK OFFICE....

It's not enough that, in addition to somewhere around twenty women who accused this man of sexual misconduct of varying types prior to the election, we have since learned of at least two women who were paid to maintain their silence....

It's not enough that this president appointed two avowed opponents of protecting our environment and natural resources are currently in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior....

It's not enough that the White House and Cabinet are staffed with people who can't satisfy their petulant boss despite their best intentions to serve their country, or are there to enrich themselves with first-class travel and excesses of office....

It's not enough that a tweeted accusation against someone who injured the President in some way turns into an actual executive order, as the Administration's order of a review of the U.S. Postal Service and its contracts (not named but specifically aimed at Amazon.com, a favorite target of the President's in recent days)....

It's not enough to tweet about pending missile strikes and other military action WITHOUT CONSULTING THE LEADERS OF OUR MILITARY OR OUR ALLIES....

It's not enough to not only parrot what's said on Fox News but also to tweet promotional announcements about upcoming programming on that channel....

No.

We have a President who seems to think it's permissible to decry actions taken by the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorneys in the course of ongoing investigations of wrongdoing on many fronts.  And that it may be permissible to fire those responsible for green-lighting specific acts designed to seize compromising and potentially incriminating materials.  And that it's acceptable to say that these actions are "an attack on our country," when they're simply an affront to him and those closest to him.

We have enough sustained threat of the firing of more key people involved in these investigations that members of Congress are rapidly assembling bipartisan legislation designed to prevent the President from firing the Special Counsel who's charged with investigating all of this.

We have civil litigation pending against the President of the United States regarding alleged past sexual affairs and his efforts to ensure that these affairs would stay private.

The Speaker of the House announced a couple of days ago that he plans to retire from public service later in the year.  If you're constitutionally aware, you already know that the Speaker is third in the line of succession to the Presidency.  So perhaps that's his way of expressing that he does not want to be in that line of succession.

The FBI Director whom the President fired about a year ago is about to release a memoir in which he states that the President conducted himself much like a Mafia boss, as this former Director prosecuted many mob figures in his career in the Justice Department.

Finally, we have a President who, despite claiming for months that he was eager for the chance to meet with and be interviewed by the Special Counsel, will now not do so, as the negotiations regarding the timing and conditions of such an interview have broken down, according to media accounts.  Correspondingly, it was also leaked that the Special Counsel is prepared to move forward on completing a report that outlines four distinct areas in which the President would be accused of obstruction of justice.

All of that barely scratches the surface of what we're facing as a country.  Our democracy has a gift for self-correcting to a great extent, and it appears that there will be a "blue wave" in this year's mid-term elections that will shift the balance of power in Washington to some degree.

What happens between now and then will define where we go from here.




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