Why Cohen Matters

Cohen has maintained that Trump did know about the June, 2016 meeting between Manafort, Trump Jr., Kushner and the Russians.

Trump sent his response to Muller's questions last week. Apparently, they say that "to the best of his knowledge", Trump did not know about this meeting. He has previously been very firm in saying that he did not know about that meeting before it took place, including on Twitter.

And today - only after Trump has provided answers directly to Mueller on this issue - Cohen has entered a plea to providing misleading testimony to Congress.

Thoughts.

Case Management. Mueller is so far ahead of these people that it is scary - his management of this case is a masterpiece. 

I think he waited until Trump may have implicated himself by providing a written lie to the FBI regarding what he knew about the above noted meeting, before moving ahead to convict the person who will provide contrary evidence. 

If he had convicted Cohen sooner, Trump may not have offered the lie. This is not entrapment or baiting someone - Trump chose to answer as he did - he was free to tell the truth at any time, and was not coerced in any way.

It Was Trump's Meeting. It is inconceivable that Trump did not know about a meeting between his son, his son-in-law, and the head of his political campaign for the presidency of the United States - the three most powerful people in his campaign other than Trump himself - with anyone else during the campaign, especially the Russians. He knew.

Six Days in June. Trump Jr., heard about the meeting on June 3, 2016. The meeting was held six days later. What Mueller may actually know, but needs someone to provide evidence to prove, is what transpired during those six days.   

As noted here before, I think it is very likely that a tentative deal was hammered out in those six days. In short, if the Russians actually had evidence that would have destroyed Hillary Clinton and therefore handed the presidency to Trump, in return Trump would have relax sanctions on Russian that were imposed after they annexed Crimea, after he was elected. Such a deal would have been tantamount to treason.  

What happened in those days is the key to this entire sad episode, and it still remains to be revealed - "Six days in June" may soon become as important to US political history as the 18 missing minutes of tape recording was 45 years ago.

Hope. The other person who would know all of this is Hope Hicks. She is no doubt watching very carefully as Trump continues to fail to pardon Manafort, and the fact that as Manafort continued to lie to the FBI, they knew of every single lie as he told them.

Is she going to plead to obstruction to avoid prison and cooperate?  Has she already been cooperating for months? She does not want to spend the rest of her life in prison. 

Seth Rich. If the Russians did provide the leaks regarding Clinton to Wikileaks, as seems obvious now, then Seth Rich did not. Was he killed to throw off any investigation into the source of those leaks - that is, was he killed by the same people who stole the e-mails in the first place? 

And what do we make of Julian Assange's offer of $25 K for information leading to his killers? This offer reinforces the impression that he was the source, and further obscures the matter.

Trace the statements and assertions and their sources here...do you believe Trump, Assange and the Russians; or Mueller and the FBI?

Clinton. She was in Toronto recently with her despicable husband, getting ready to run again in 2020. She needs to go away.  

Canadian Political Ethics and Trump

I'm a Canadian. We have very well-defined ethical standards in my country when it comes to police investigations and politicians.

If an investigation is underway, politicians are expected to say NOTHING regarding the investigation to ensure that there is no chance that they may inadvertently affect its outcome. Politicians who do make such comments typically have to resign.

When the politicians themselves are in any way considered to be the subject of such an investigation, they must step aside for its duration. They may return to office afterward should they be cleared of any wrong-doing, but the rule is clear -  investigations are considered to be more important than any one person's career.

Consider this...

"While the disgusting Fake News is doing everything within their power not to report it that way, at least 3 major players are intimating that the Angry Mueller Gang of Dems is viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts & they will get relief. This is our Joseph McCarthy Era!"

And this...

"The Mueller Witch Hunt is a total disgrace. They are looking at supposedly stolen Crooked Hillary Clinton Emails (even though they don’t want to look at the DNC Server), but have no interest in the Emails that Hillary DELETED & acid washed AFTER getting a Congressional Subpoena!"

It goes on and on.

Trump's deranged Twitter tirades are simply unthinkable in a Canadian context. Anything like this would see demands for the immediate resignation of the author of such Tweets, with support for the person's resignation from across the political spectrum.

This is not a matter of "...vive la difference!" It is a matter of either having ethics, or of not having them at all.

Manafort Unflips!

Manafort has not been cooperating. He has been caught in a cavalcade of lies after promising the FBI that he would fully cooperate in return for a lenient sentence following his conviction before a jury of his peers on eight criminal charges.

What do we make of this?

Manafort obviously didn't know what Mueller knows, and did not know that Mueller was fully aware of when he was lying and when he was not. This is good - Mueller still has a leg up in terms of the evidence base that he has to work with.

Manafort also obviously never intended to cooperate. He was either promised a pardon by Trump, or more disconcerting, he has been the key actor is a filthy charade designed to draw out the investigation as long as possible, to allow its opponents to work to destroy it....or both. 

It seems that Manafort is still Trump's man, and that is very bad for the investigation as it no longer has its key witness.

As noted here repeatedly, Mueller needs one of the insiders to flip in order to fully prosecute any crimes coming out of the meeting between Manafort, Kushner and Trump Jr., and the Russians in June, 2016. Right now, he appears to have no one. 

Other than some charges and convictions of those who obstructed justice and of some Russians who worked to influence the last presidential election, this investigation may be over.

Again - where is Hope Hicks in all this?

This is 100% about Russian influence on this hall of power in the USA. Based on his last meeting with Putin, it is clear that Trump is deeply compromised. Putin is now making some very aggressive moves in Ukraine. Has he been assured that the USA won't lift a finger?

How deep is the rot here? 

I sense a tragedy unfolding.









 

The Great Unravel

How will it all unravel?

We have price bubbles in housing and stocks – at least.  Rising interest rates at the end of a business cycle will cause these bubbles to collapse. In fact, this process has probably already started.

What follows is what happens when these bubbles start to unravel, and this is what is about to happen…again.

Housing Prices:

Falling house prices causes speculators to panic. These people cannot be caught with losing investments because they likely do not live in their investment properties, and they have no intention of paying them off - they will sell/dump, and take whatever profits that have now – or they will get out whatever cash they can, while they are still able to do so. This will drive prices down even more.

Recent buyers will be in the red as prices fall. Most prices of recent buyers will be below the value of their deposit plus the mortgage. Those with variable rate mortgages will be in serious difficulty as their monthly mortgage payments will rise on homes that can only be sold at a loss. Some may even see the value of their homes drop below the value of the mortgage itself, meaning they have no equity in their homes at all.

This will spark even more selling – both on the part of owners who are in the red to avoid even deeper losses, and more so as a result of creditors panicking and foreclosing on mortgages before prices fall so far that they are in the red on the mortgage book as well.

Most homeowners will initially be fine in this scenario – the above situation may only affect a maximum of 5% of homeowners. But home prices reflect most recent sales not historic values, so the price action around these speculative and distress sales by variable mortgage/underwater owners will be enough to collapse the prices of everyone’s home by a significant margin. Prices in Toronto fell 30% from 1990 to 1996.

The biggest issue at this point in the bubble’s collapse will be what is evident in every single very collapsing bubble driven by rising interest rates – prices will be lower, but it does not matter how far prices fall, as there will be very few buyers as almost no one will have any money to buy, especially in Canada where we have never been more in debt. 

Housing Industry:    

The above price drop and drying up sales will devastate the entire housing industry. The unemployment rate rose from 4% to 12% in Toronto in 18 months from mid-1989 to the end of 1990 during the last major real estate collapse. Anyone employed by this sector will be at risk – builders and trades people; building materials producers; lenders and bankers; real estate agents; support staff. It could take years for employment in the sector to recover, and employment recovery will match price recovery – prices did not recover in Toronto after the last collapse for 12 years.

These are very good jobs. The hollowing-out of real estate sector employment will have a similarly devastating impact on the wider economy, affecting everything from clothes retailers, to coffee shop and restaurant owners and workers, to car salesmen and women. In this scenario, the collapse of the real estate sector becomes the driving force behind a general economic slowdown and recession.

But it gets worse. 

As noted, the first round of speculative and distress sales will drive down the value of every single property. This will catch even some people who are not recent buyers with variable rate mortgages or speculators, and will force even more distress sales. 

A key point - The initial price drop is not a one-time, time-limited thing. It sparks a vicious cycle of further price drops as buying dries up as those who still have money stay on the sidelines waiting for ever lower prices, and more and more people go underwater on their mortgages often becoming unemployed at the same time in the more general slow-down, forcing these people into ever more distress sales. With time this cycle subsides, but it could take years to get back to a virtuous cycle of price appreciation. 

Again…house prices in Toronto dropped for SIX STRAIGHT YEARS the last time this happened, and did not recover for 12 years.

The Stock Market:

When the stock market and equities bubble starts to burst, many people who have invested “on margin” face a call to pay up what they have borrowed. Investing on margin allows those who do this to borrow cash from their broker to buy many more times what their initial investment could have bought, searching for gains that are a multiple higher than could have been provided by just buying a given stock. 

But just as their gains could be many multiples higher, so can they suffer a multiple of losses. When prices drop, massive losses by people who invested on margin spark demands to repay their margin loans by their brokers, resulting in borrowers selling at distress prices – they often sell at any price they can get to pay their debt. At times, some brokers actually sell the stocks of those investors at a loss just to recoup their loans from these people.

So as with collapsing real estate bubbles, a collapsing equities bubble also sparks distress sales which drives falling prices even lower because these sales often swamp normal buying and drive prices of all equities down significantly as margin investment occurs throughout the market.

While some people will continue to buy while prices fall, falling stock prices usually freezes most investment. This drying up of buyers usually forces the market even lower as Fear takes over from Greed, and people decide to take profits and sell. As with the real estate vicious cycle, there is such a cycle in equity markets as well drive by the fear of losses, although it does not last as long.

Again, as with the real estate sector, a declining equities market drives increasing unemployment especially in the investment and banking sectors, and in the wider economy.  While not contributing as much to the general economic downturn, the employment effects on this industry are often far more severe than those even on the real estate sector.  Many people who lose their jobs in the investment and banking sector in a general stock market collapse and economic downturn never work in the sector again.

Government:

Governments do not plan for recessions. The above scenario will cause revenue to dry up while demands for government services increases as more and more people become unemployed. 

The result will be a massive increase in deficits, and a turn to austerity financing as governments slow or stop public sector hiring and wage growth, as well as cut program spending. Governments also usually take action to try to "Keynes" their way out of recessions by spending on things like infrastructure, driving deficits even higher, and central banks lower interest rates, reversing one of the primary causes of the recession in the first place.

Eventually, growth returns courtesy of private sector recovery, and public sector efforts, but by dropping rates and spending borrowed cash, governments and central banks inaugurate the start of the next great bubble…

Query – can we borrow and spend our way out of the next recession given how much we owe now?

The Problem with Tax Cuts to Utopia

It is all so simple! The Tax Cut Mantra says this - just cut taxes, grow the economy, use the new tax revenue to balance the budget, watch as the new economic growth dribbles down to the masses, and then live in Utopia!

We have been hearing this mantra for about 40 years now - at least since Ronald Reagan. How has this worked out?

Tax Cuts and Balanced Budgets: 

When Reagan came to office, the US Government debt was $988 Billion - 32% of GDP, and the deficit was $79 Billion. When he left office, the debt was $2,875 Trillion - 50% of GDP, and the deficit was $153 Billion.

Reagan famously cut taxes. Amongst proponents of the Tax Cut Mantra, what is almost never mentioned is that he almost tripled the National Debt, and he doubled the yearly budget deficit.

Bush Jr. also favoured massive tax cuts. When he came to office the US Government debt was $5.807 Trillion - 55% of GDP, and the deficit was actually a surplus of $128 Billion, courtesy of Clinton's tax increases. When Bush Jr. left office, the US Government Debt was $1.910 Trillion - 83% of GDP, and the deficit was $1.413 Trillion.

Like Reagan, Bush Jr. oversaw massive tax cuts. Amongst proponents of the Tax Cut Mantra, what is almost never mentioned is that he almost quadruped the National Debt in just eight years, and left the country with its largest budget deficit in its history. His presidency was a financial catastrophe.

Household Income:  

Welcome to the trickle down!  These tax cuts were supposed to benefit EVERYONE!  Look at this closely...

The income of the bottom 80% of income earners in the USA has been virtually stagnant for decades.

The income of the wealthy really started to take off in the early 1980s - with Reagan's tax cuts. The reason of this is simple - the majority of the tax cuts were to the income for the wealthy, therefor they are the ones who benefited from those same cuts.

What Happened?

In theory, tax cuts should benefit everyone and should work to grow the economy thereby having a positive effect on government finances. This obviously did not happen. Two things happened to frustrate this mantra.

First of all, which politicians cut taxes on cue, they did not retrain spending. Like politicians everywhere, the conservative politicians who cut taxes also never saw a new dollar in revenue that they did not want to spend. 

For example, Bush Jr.'s tax cuts were in the manner of $350 Billion a year, but he oversaw spending increases of about $900 Billion a year by the end of his time in office.  The problem here wasn't the necessarily the mantra - it was the people who were tasked with implementing it.

The other problem is the simple fact that the tax cuts were targeted at the wrong people - the rich, rather than everyone else. 

What we have learned from 40 years of tax cuts is that the rich do not work hard to build and economy for everyone - they work hard to build an economy for themselves. To benefit everyone, tax cuts have to be targeted at everyone. This should not have been difficult to figure out, and it really speaks more to how much influence the rich actually have on American politics.

Beware when politicians come calling promising tax cuts to Utopia!  The theory may be sound....but the politicians themselves most certainly are not.




BTW - this site is brilliant...

https://www.advisorperspectives.com

Melnyk and Ottawa

It may be that he just never had the money.  

Now that he has sued his partner, Melnyk's Lebreton Flats project is dead. In reality, it may be that it was never really alive.

Do you recall his rage when he was not granted the rights to a casino out in Stittsville? That was in mid, 2017. He was said to look "very dimly" on that decision. Recall that he won the Lebreton Flats bid in November, 2016.

Having a casino would have revitalized the facility he owns there - now called the Canadian Tire Centre, but something that would have become The White Elephant of Stittsville without a new raison d'etre. 

But one has to think there was more to this casino bid than just giving his facility a new lease on life. Casinos are cash cows...and it may be that Melnyk realized that he needed that new cash flow to be able to afford to do the Lebreton Flats development. If fact, I strongly suspect that without this, he was simply not going to be able to pay for the Lebreton Flats development, and that he has been looking for a way out ever since.

I think that Melnyk gave us a wee glimpse of what he was really thinking in his disastrous press conference in December of 2017. Do you remember this?

"What I’m saying is, I would never sell the team. (Moving) is always the possibility, with any franchise. If you open a grocery store and nobody comes, but one opens two blocks down and there’s a line outside, where are you going to have your store? Here, we’re fighting every day to sell a ticket. Honest to God. And when you get to the third round of the playoffs and you’re begging people to buy a ticket, something’s wrong with that picture. We’re just hoping that changes, that’s all."

And this?

"I’m not going to blow a lifetime of working hard to support a hockey team. It’s not going to happen,” Melnyk said. “We can do that. I can do LeBreton. I don’t need partners there....The banks are a big part of anything that you do in any business transaction. So yeah, I have it. The bigger question is whether I’m prepared to blow all that money that I made over many years in a different industry in a different country.”

The key points are in red. To his credit, the man was brutally honest with all of us.

To summarize - "I will consider moving this team if the situation warrants it, and I will not blow all my money on this team."

He has sued his partner alleging that his partner has a conflict of interest because they are building a large condo development close to Lebreton Flats. 

Is this a conflict, or would building more places for people to live near the new arena actually complement Lebreton Flats by providing a new source of season ticket holders? I think it is the second, and that Melnyk's lawsuit is a crock.

I wrote this after Melnyk's "December to Remember"....

https://mewetree.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-toronto-senators.html

Will we soon discover that this man has had quiet discussions with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the NHL about a move to Toronto? 

This needs to be said. The Ottawa Senators could not sell out in the playoffs. I know we all want to blame him, but in light of this, if you were Melnyk, what would you be thinking? 

Stay tuned.

Random Thoughts Friday!

Multiple random thoughts!!!

Mueller Probe - Trump has handed in his answers to Mueller's questions. Indictments and pending, but Muller may not act until any followup questions have been answered. We will hear soon that Hicks has not only flipped, but she has been a state witness gathering evidence against various actors for the FBI for months.

Ottawa and Melnyk - He has never had the money to do the Lebreton Flats development. Expect to hear about an attempt to move the team to Toronto, north of the 400 and 401 highways, soon. He will not own the team in 12 months.

Clinton Probe - Expect to hear some bombshell allegations against the Clinton Foundation soon. She will still run to be president again in 2020. Her daughter will also run for office.

Stock Markets - The massive stock buy-backs that held up the stock market until the early fall of this year, did start again in November, after the October financial results quiet season ended, but these have so far failed to lift the market. If the US Fed raises rates again in early December, expect a minor rise in stock prices in December, followed by a 30% drop in the first three months of 2019.

Pot Stocks - The real value of Canopy Growth is about $5 a share, down from the present $42 a share, and the real value of Aurora is about $0.75 a share, down from $8 a share. These companies have no profits, and essentially no international sales. They are a classic bubble.

Brexit - May will be forced to resign, and there will be another referendum - Brexit will lose in a landslide this time. Britain will have to come back to the European Union, cap-in-hand, to get the best deal they can to stay, as now that they have invoked Article 50 of the EU Treaty, they can only stay if all other EU members agree.

BC PR Referendum - The province of British Columbia is having a mail-in referendum on whether they should abandon the first-past-the-post electoral system, and adopt one of three versions of proportional representation. 

There have been two previous such referendums in the last 15 years, but not by mail-in ballot. This referendum will see only 35% - 40% participation by electors, with the winning version of PR will get only about 20% support. The NDP-Green coalition government will assert that this is sufficient support to change the entire electoral system - they will not succeed, and will be largely wiped out in the next election.

Redblacks - The Ottawa Redblacks will beat the Calgary Stampeders in the 106th Grey Cup, 42 - 35.

Cdn Banks - The long term debt of Cdn Banks will be downgraded by Moody's for the third time in three years within the next three months, mostly based on concerns about the levels of personal debt in Canada.

Saudi Arabia - President Trump will be censored by Congress, including Republicans, over his continued support for Salman in the face of evidence of his involvement in the murder of Khashoggi.  This will be the first clear clue to the world that the Republican Party is having second thoughts about Trump - a process that started with Manafort's flip. 

North Korea/Iran - Expect another missile launch and another nuclear test within the next three months, making a shambles of the Trump peace process. Expect serious internal revolts in North Korea as that system of repression finally starts to unravel. Also expect very significant civil unrest to erupt in Iran within three months, with the government losing control of whole districts of the country. 

Trudeau - He will be both Time Magazine's "Person Of The Year", and People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" for 2018. He will reveal that he dyes his hair.

"A Bicycle Built for Two" Funny Redux

Play on word jokes made up by my 7 year old daughter, assisted by my five year old son....


What do you call a bicycle with a doctor on the back?

A bicycle built for flu!

What do you call a bicycle with a Frenchman looking lost on the back?

A bicycle built for "Ou?"

What do you call a bicycle with a big cooking pot on the back?

A bicycle built for stew!

What do you call a bicycle with a toilet on the back?

A bicycle built for poo! (This one was my five year old son's contribution...of course!)

What do you call a bicycle with a bed on the back?

A bicycle built for snooze!

What do you call a bicycle with Donald Trump on the back?

A bicycle built for collude! (That one was mine.)

What do you call a bicycle with stinky cheese on the back?

A bicycle built for blue!

What do you call a bicycle with a cow on the back?

A bicycle built for "moo"!

What do you call a bicycle with a cage with an animal in it on the back?

A bicycle built for zoo!

What do you call a bicycle with the host of What's My Line and The Price is Right on the back?

A bicycle built for Drew! (Mine again.)

What do you call a bicycle with a baby on the back?

A bicycle built for "goo"!

What do you call a bicycle with a pirate ship on the back?

A bicycle built for crew!

What do you call a bicycle with a surf board on the back?

A bicycle built for dude!

What do you call a bicycle with lady singing on the back?

A bicycle built for tune!

What do you call a bicycle with a ghost on the back?

A bicycle made for "boo!"

What do you call a bicycle with a fox on it?

A bicycle made for "a-ooooo!!!"

What do you call a bicycle with a chef on it?

A bicycle made for food!

What do you call a bicycle with a witch on it?

A bicycle made for "hee, hee, hee!!!" (Trust me, it works!) 

What do you call a bicycle with a guy from Espanola with the last name Fowler on it?

A bicycle made for Stew! (Only about three people on Earth would get this one!)

What do you call a bicycle with a lady from a paper mache art class on the back?

A bicycle made for glue!

What do you call a bicycle with an owl on it?

A bicycle made for "who!"

What do you call a bicycle with beagle on the back?

A bicycle built for Snoop! (Ok...he is on the front.)

Collusion Pending

Maybe the only great thing about Trump's Tweets is that you occasionally get a glimpse of what is coming next.

Here he is on November 15th...

"The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t...

....care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!"

"The only “Collusion” is that of the Democrats with Russia and many others. Why didn’t the FBI take the Server from the DNC? They still don’t have it. Check out how biased Facebook, Google and Twitter are in favor of the Democrats. That’s the real Collusion!"

Trump's new Acting AG Whitaker, who is now running the Justice Department, has probably been given a briefing by Mueller about who Mueller plans to charge next, and this information has probably been passed on to Trump. The result was the flurry of Trump Tweets noted above.

I suspect that his son, or son-in-law, or more likely both of them are about to be indicted, I suspect for "Conspiracy against the USA."

We may soon learn whether Republican Senators put country before party.

Oh...agreed, the Clinton's need to be investigated as well. So why hasn't Trump, who actually runs the US Government, not directed that there be a second special investigator to look into the Clinton's corruption? Hmmm....who did Trump support politically before 2011, and what might such an investigation expose?

The Trump Doctrine of Politics - Why He Is Winning

Literally billions of people oppose Trump – tens of millions in his own country, and reams of people in the rest of the world.  And yet, as of today his approval rating is at re-election levels at 48%. The disapproval rating is 50%. But usually at the mid-point in any president’s term, their approval rating is often far worse. For example, at this point in his presidency, Obama’s approval rating was at 42%. 

Why is this man still so popular? 

If you ask the opposition – Democrats and CNN - he is the devil incarnate. He lies like no one before, literally blasting his relentless lies everywhere via Twitter; he divides, especially along the racial divide, and stokes the fires through his propaganda arm at Fox News; he embarrasses his countrymen overseas, cozying up to the likes of Putin and Kim Jong-un, while insulting the leaders of most of America’s major allies including Germany, France, Canada and the UK; he abuses his authority, skirting the constitution on the advice of some of the real vagabonds of American political life; he ignores American political traditions; he is shamelessly partisan, seemingly loving the political civil war in America; he is a total creep when it comes to women, being almost the poster boy for the "Me Too" movement.

So…why 48%?  What is the Trump Doctrine of Politics?

Since he came to power, Trump has done things!!!  

His presidency has been VERY active. Consider that he has done this….

He took on North Korea, getting them to the disarmament table in a way that no other president ever had or ever could.  His approach was bizarre, but the two countries are talking, and there is a real thaw between North and South Korea only sparked because of Trump’s approach.

He moved the embassy to Jerusalem, as promised by every recent president before him.

He cancelled the Iran deal, rightly noting that it only strengthen their support for terrorism. He is now pushing Iran harder than any president before him, clearly seeking regime change if they do not stop sponsoring terror.

He took NATO to task about their contributions to the collective defence – Obama did the same thing.

He is taking to task the Chinese and the remarkably unfair trade situation between the USA and that country.

He remade NAFTA, as promised.

He fired Comey, and now Sessions.

He cancelled the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in an effort to force China to join.

He abandoned the TPP, as promised.  

He strengthened Immigration enforcement, is cracking down on illegal immigrants and still plans to build a wall.

He moved forward one of the largest tax cuts in US history.

He tried to repeal Obamacare, and when that failed he did reduce some of its regulatory requirements.

He took the war more aggressively to ISIS…they no longer have a country.

He expanded the military.

He repealed reams of regulations, especially environmental ones.

He left the Paris Accord.

He ignores anything that is politically correct – often mocking its many “flavour of the day” precepts, to the delight of multiple millions who are tired of hearing how awful they are.

He has started to remake the court system into a Republican stronghold for generations to come.

He campaigned hard in the recent mid-terms, and effectively thwarted a Democratic Party sweep, dramatically reducing the damage to the Republican cause. The fact that the Republicans still hold the Senate means the campaign to convert the Judiciary to Republican can continue.

So what do we have? 

This man has done a massive amount of work that his base absolutely loves. Others hate what he has done, but one of the Trump Doctrine of Politics' precepts and strengths is the realization that Trump does not need everyone’s support to win, and as a result, he truly does not care about the opposition or what it thinks. His supporters focus on his results not his style, and unlike his opposition...he knows it.

Looking at and considering the above, one could say that The Trump Doctrine of Politics comes down to...

...Divert on Style while Advancing on Substance (DSAS).

There is no question that Trump’s outrages are calculated; the man is not an idiot, quite the opposite. He knows precisely what he is doing. With every lie and every outrageous utterance he diverts his opposition through style, then he moves in for the kill on substance. 

To be effective, opposition must be focused. The Democrats and their media propaganda arms like CNN seem to take the style bait every single time, and clamour like lost sheep as he runs rings around them on the things that matter – legislative change, foreign and economic policy, and remaking the judiciary. He is like a military leader who launches 12 feint attacks at points of no importance causing maximum chaos to his enemy, and while they are distracted he drives home at the point that really matters.

Can I say it?  

This crop of Democrats may be the most incompetent political opposition in the history of the USA. They stand for opposition to the style of the president and they stand seemingly for nothing else. Can anyone say what they would do if they were in power? And even on style, they are in many ways totally lost compared to Trump. On that…

…“Make America Great Again!”…so simple and so effective. If politics is about getting the message out, this guy is a genius.

What was Hillary’s mantra? Do you remember? 

Try “Hillary for America!”….so utterly narcissistic and so utterly ineffective. This is the mantra of a person who was and still is completely out of touch. Many people rankled at that mantra, as in “…have we not had enough of these people?” (No…she is going to run again.)

Those who hate the man need to deal with an essential reality - He won because she ran a terrible campaign and he ran a great one.

His complete dominance of the Democrats continues.

Trump has just come out in favour of Nancy Pelosi as the leader in the House of Representatives, saying he can work with her.  

Reality – he needs Pelosi - who has supported Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency since at least 2013 - in a strong position so that she can support Hillary’s next run. You see, Trump is already planning the next campaign, and he wants Hillary to be his opponent, because he knows he can beat her. 

Expect Trump to be very kind to her few remaining friends and very hard on her possible opponents in the weeks and months to come.

To conclude - the more the Democrats underestimate him and continue to focus on style not substance, the more he is guaranteed to keep winning where it matters.  

In normal times Trump would be a terrible candidate – this political battle has always been the Democrats to lose, and they keep losing right on cue. If they do not change their approach, and Mueller’s report and indictments to come do not destroy Trump’s presidency, he will likely be the president until 2024.

Mueller Probe and Justice

Trump probably acted too late. 

Whitaker has been made acting AG for the sole purpose of at least trying to limit what the probe will look at, especially Trump family finances.  This has come too late for Trump, as the final report is apparently being written, and Trump family finances are probably being looked at by the prosecutors in New York City with the help of Mr. Cohen. 

To "win this", Trump had to fire Sessions then grab control of the Mueller investigation months ago in order to block what it would find out, and save himself from having to endure the fallout from his final report. 

Now, after Mueller has indicted and/or got guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies (including four former Trump advisers), and showing that Russia clearly tried to influence that 2016 presidential election - collusion or not - this probe is probably not going anywhere other than forward.

Nonetheless, those who want it to continue will have to fight for it - American justice is in for a fight here unlike anything since Nixon. 

Which raises a question - where is Hope Hicks in all of this? Did she finally cooperate with the investigation? 

Along with Manafort and Cohen, Hicks is the key to understanding what happened when Manafort, Kushner and Trump Jr., met the Russians in June of 2016.  If there was collusion, it would have shown itself at that meeting, possibly involving a tentative deal (e.g. damaging information from Russia about Clinton in return for a relaxation of sanctions on Russia) that was negotiated in the six days before these people met, and after Trump Jr. found out that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton. As Trump's right hand and closest confidant at that time, Hicks would have been "in the know"...her evidence is crucial.

I suspect that we may be in for a few more surprises this month, including this...

...the revelation of Hicks' cooperation with Mueller....

....a Republican Senate abandoning a Republican president and standing for justice in opposition to shutting down the investigation...

....certain Right Wing media talking heads under investigation for participation in a conspiracy to obstruct justice....

....the New York AG issuing new indictments against certain Trump loyalists related to financial dealings.

Take heart - America learned much from Nixon. 

We are about to be reminded that American institutions and democratic traditions are stronger than any one individual, even the most powerful one. 

Sometimes justice actually does prevail.

Sessions No Longer In Session

On October 20th, I noted that there was a race on...

https://mewetree.blogspot.com/2018/10/trump-v-mueller-countdown-is-on.html

Trump has struck first.  

Sessions was fired yesterday, meaning that Mueller is now reporting to Matthew Whitaker. 

Recall, Sessions recused himself from any involvement with the Russia probe, meaning that Mueller reported to Rosenstein. With an acting AG who has not recused himself, Mueller now reports to that person.

The risk here is twofold.  

First, and obviously, that Mueller will be fired by Whitaker at Trump's request. What would follow would be the shutdown of the enquiry.

The second is that any report that Mueller issues, which goes to the Attorney General, will be kept private - there is no obligation to make it public.

I think Sessions/Rosenstein would have published it. Rosenstein is also surely finished; soon to follow Sessions.

What does American justice look like? 

Can it survive the machinations of the powerful? 

Many Republicans have insisted that the Mueller Probe has to move forward to its conclusion, following the evidence wherever it leads. Were they serious about this, or was this just political posturing before the mid-term elections?

We are about to find out the answer to these questions. 

American Justice has not faced a test like this since Nixon.


   

Bad Policies

Today’s Misguided Policy Ideas

1. Guaranteed Annual Income. This is posited as a “livable income”, that would theoretically keep everyone with at least enough money to live a lower middle class lifestyle. The problem – many people will not work if they are paid to stay home. To work at all, welfare has to be enough to just get by, thereby encouraging recipients to want to work. We already have a Guaranteed Annual Income…it is called “a job.”

2. The Human Resources Cloud. The plan is to put everyone who works into a cloud. When their specific services are needed, they will be pulled out of the cloud and employed, thereby providing them with work, and limiting the expenses of employers. This misses the human element of work – who do we work for and with, and how do we get along. Humans are not interchangeable. Example, pulling an extrovert out of the cloud to work with a passive-aggressive may not be too wise. We made a catastrophic error when we replaced long-service senior managers who knew everything about their area with generalists who only need abilities in the areas of finance, HR and horizontal linkages as part of New Public Management in the early 1990s. Having done serious damage to senior management, let’s not damage the employee cadre as well.

3. Public Debt. The Baby Boomers are retiring, meaning that we will have a population that is about 1/3 made up of retirees in the future instead of the 1/6 make-up that we have come to regard as normal. This means a generations-long drag on economic growth as the net income in society declines as Boomers retire and make less. Taking on massive public debt at the same time that your national income is declining is insane. We have done just that – individually, Canadians are now the most indebted people on earth - hold on!

4. Cannabis Regulation. Having legalized it, we are now massively over-regulating it. It can only be purchased in certain ways, such as from stores that need licenses that take up to a year to obtain – maybe. It can only be of a certain strength, from authorized growers and producers. It can only be marketed in a very limited way. The results of this will be that the illegal market will continue to dominate the industry, as their product will be cheaper, stronger and easier to get. We got the War on Drugs wrong…now we are getting the Legalization of Drugs wrong too.

5. Interest Rates. We kept rates too low for too long, and the results are housing and stock market bubbles. These will burst, causing massive economic havoc as those who are employed in the housing and finance sector lose their jobs, and everyone suffers. Head of the Bank of Canada, Poloz recently said, “Our assessment is that we're normalizing at exactly the right pace…,"as they slowly let rates rise again.  He is 7 years too late – and will blame everyone when this becomes obvious even to him. He is “The Central Banker Who Never Erred!”

6. Proportional Representation. This is about parties becoming sovereign instead of people. When you can only vote for a party, not a person, you will no longer be free, as political parties are not representative organizations – they represent party members and their interests, and no one else. Even hybrid models are deficient to the extent they do away with personal representation and replace it with PR. And PR will come one day as the proponents will never accept “no” in a referendum as they do not actually respect the will of the people – which is why the support PR in the first place. They want to replace the will of the people with the will of the party. For parties that cannot get elected, ranked ballots in a multi-party election is a better option – become everyone’s second choice and not only are you elected, you may be the government.

7. Social Media Presence as Political Power. Social Media is not power. It is group therapy mascaraing as something real. Rather than control anything, it is the participants in political social media campaigns who are controlled, as the damning lessons about our privacy from Google and Facebook plus the previous revelations from Mr. Snowden make clear. To influence power, you need to go directly to power – very few people have it, and without talking to directly to them those who would change the world are mostly irrelevant. This means that, rather than having a web page, you need to join and engage the parties and other mechanisms of the decision makers. 

But if you must have a web page....always add pictures of cute kittens to garner more attention.