The Big Heist

45* is all about the loopholes. And his approach is pretty simple: "I don't do anything your lawyers can't force my lawyers to try to talk me into doing."

He's spent his entire career (building whatever fortune he has) by reneging on his commitments and stiffing people for what he owes them.

Now he's in an office that's not very well constrained by law or regulation. The limits on the behavior of POTUS are mostly dependent on a tradition of self-restraint, which puts the emphasis on the honorability of the office holder.

It can't possibly come as news to find that "Honorability" is not the word likely to pop into anybody's mind when they hear the word "Trump".

Quinnipiac asked people what word first came to mind when they thought about Trump. https://t.co/ks0UauOs9O pic.twitter.com/HQ3bYWhD16

— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 10, 2017

And now we have even more evidence that nothing has changed with 45*.

The Atlantic:

Days before taking office, Donald Trump said his company would donate all profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury, part of an effort to avoid even the appearance of a conflict with the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

Now, however, the Trump Organization is telling Congress that determining exactly how much of its profits come from foreign governments is simply more trouble than it’s worth.

One more time, kids - this is not governance, this is a fucking robbery.

Are You Ready?

If you're not ready, then you'd best be gettin' ready because I think we'll eventually be told to accept Mike Pence as the guy who rides in and saves us from the clutches of Donald Trump, Evil Super-Genius.

WaPo:

BRUSSELS — Vice President Pence said Monday that he “fully supported” Michael Flynn’s ouster last week as national security adviser, setting himself firmly against the former general, who told untruths about his contacts with Russian officials.

“I was disappointed to learn that the facts that have been conveyed to me by Gen. Flynn were inaccurate,” Pence told reporters during a visit to NATO headquarters in his first public comments about a scandal that has rocked the young Trump administration.

Pence pushed for Flynn’s ouster after learning from The Washington Post that the national security adviser had been captured on tape speaking to Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak on the topic of sanctions. The conversation happened the day the Obama administration announced measures against Russia to retaliate for what U.S. intelligence services say was the Kremlin’s efforts to influence November’s presidential election. Flynn told Pence that he had not spoken about sanctions with Kislyak, an assertion Pence went on to repeat on television.

That performance looked like standard Mike Pence - serenely confident (to the point of condescension) that he'll handle all our troubles if we can just have a little faith in the Jesus-ey goodness of The Lord's America (ie: Mike Pence).

At this point, almost anything beats 45*, and Pence will have to do because the process only requires a few more steps before we're looking at President Rex Tillerson, and then we really are just another oil company with nuclear weapons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm under no illusion that Pence isn't another Daddy State fuck wearing a slightly different uniform. But at least I get the impression the guy has a sense of decency and honor about him where 45* has none.

Also gotta remember there's no provision in the Constitution for a do-over so there's no chance at a President Hillary in store for us. We have rules, and it's usual-and-customary in our little experiment in self-government that we do things by the fucking rules - not just the letter, but the spirit as well.  And the spirit of the law? Aye, there's the rub.

We have a guy in office who figured out how to exploit all the loop holes. Everything that's not spelled out in the words of the documents requires people to behave in an honorable way; to act in good faith in accordance with the spirit of the law; to not take unfair advantage.

45*'s built his whole thing on two simple premises:
1) If it doesn't say I can't do it, then that's my opportunity, and that's what I'll do.
2) And if it says I have to do it, then my opportunity is in not doing it until or unless somebody can force me to do it.

It's not that 45* is immoral - he's amoral. There's no Good and there's no Bad - there's only what works for him.

The guy has no soul and no honor.

Gone But Not Ever Really Gone

From HuffPo:

Tuesday night, during a televised town hall interview on CNN, Stygian homunculus and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was asked if he still planned to honor a pledge he made some months prior, in which he promised to support the eventual GOP nominee. As you might imagine, given Trump’s famous flexibility toward concepts such as “honor” and “promises,” the candidate answered that no, he had no intention of following that pledge’s directive, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “No, I don’t anymore.”

So now, everyone in the political universe is coming to grips with one of the most foreseeable events in the Western hemisphere finally coming to pass — Trump’s explicit abrogation of a contractual obligation he made with Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus. Now, the remaining competitors for the nomination — Ted Cruz and John Kasich — are slowly coming around to the notion that they might want to similarly withdraw their tacit offer of support for a candidate they have long despised. Perhaps the most shocking thing about this is that it’s only now that these men have decided to embark on a spree of thinking for themselves.

But the failure of this pledge should stun nobody. Priebus’ pledge was always a catastrophically dumb idea and its utter collapse was always just a matter of time. It was a bonehead gamble from the outset, tying the hands of the very people it was ostensibly designed to protect, and empowering a serial con artist to run roughshod over the Republican Party. It should end Priebus’ career.

Does anybody really expect anybody to "lose his job" over any of this? As in "clean out your desk and stay the hell away from the GOP"? That is (and should be) the reasonable expectation on the part of every normal person with a living thinking brain - because that's how it works for everybody with a real job - but that's not how it works for an Aristocracy.

Reince Priebus prob'ly won't stay in the Chair for very long after November 8th, but the guy's not gonna be sellin' shoes or baggin' groceries. The Wingnut Welfare System will kick in almost immediately to make sure he doesn't fall too far. He'll write his book, and he'll pop up in all the ususal places as "a contributor", and eventually, he'll land in some sweet little gig that one of the "Think Tanks" has had custom-made just for him - and it'll pay him plenty as long as he spins his work in favor of the Daddy Mega-Bucks Patron du jour.

Our "leaders" keep preaching "Accountability", but it doesn't apply to anyone with the right connections to Money & Power. When I start seeing a few dozen Political Leaders and Press Poodles and Military Brass and Wall Street Bosses (et al) "running onto their swords", then maybe I start to think we're getting back to where we need to be.

Until then, all bets are off.  Anything goes.  Guys like you set the tone, Mr Priebus - the populace isn't behaving in any way that isn't in line with the examples you and your guys put on display almost every day - so go ahead and bitch about "Moochers" and "Free Stuff" and "Lawlessness" and "the degradation of society", etc - but you'd best be looking to yourselves first.  This isn't terribly more complicated than Practice What You Preach - and in case you hadn't noticed, even the rubes are starting to figure it out.

You wanna be counted among the Nobility? (First, no, asshole - we don't do that here).

But yeah OK, Mr Priebus - here's the thing though: nobility carries some big-time baggage, not the least of which is a Code of Honor, and that code requires you to pay a very high price when you fail it.  You've brought shame and dishonor on this country, and on your fellows, and on yourself. You're now expected to pay that price so the rest of us can have a better chance to get back to living in a nation of laws, and not of despots who would place themselves above the law.

Do you get it?  Good.  Now do your duty and fuck off.