Throwing Some Darts at the Board.

Approaching the 1.5 year mark in the Trump Administration, it is a good time to simply throw some darts at the board and comment on just a few of the ongoing episodes surrounding Trump Mania.

Watching the testimony of FBI Director Wray and Deputy AG Rosenstein before House oversight committee members is really depressing.  At a minimum, the recent DOJ IG report on the Clinton email investigation and some of the circumstances surrounding it expose a culture of corruption at the highest leadership levels in the DOJ and FBI.  Yet, judging from the post-report attitudes and remarks of Wray and Rosenstein, you would think that the report is simply another day at the office and business as usual.  Whether or not they are personally culpable in this abuse of power aside; I find their laissez faire attitudes regarding the IG’s findings as simply inexcusable.  If anything, these two guys should be the most outraged individuals in the room about this type of conduct.  They are the leaders of these entities who have been exposed as institutions of political bias and gross perversion of their assigned duties and responsibilities at the highest levels.  I cannot imagine how they can bring anything less than a scorched earth and clean the entire house strategy to the table when considering how to react to this type of revelation.  I have no trouble at all understanding the total frustration being exhibited by House members who are trying to get to the bottom of this cesspool.  If something as consequential as the IG report cannot create a “come to Jesus” moment for Wray and Rosenstein, I have serious doubts about their fitness for their current jobs.  But you know…an even larger question is this: Where the hell is Attorney General Jeff Sessions?

I continue to marvel at the ineptness of the Republican Party and its apparent inability to capitalize on the chaos we are seeing in the national Democratic Party.  Seasoned and even-tempered Democrats (I don’t “think” they are entirely extinct…yet) must be sitting back and grinning; thinking that even through this terrible slump their team is experiencing, they are still in the pennant race.  On the heels of the Democrats nominating self-proclaimed socialists for office and having their recognized leadership daily lurch further to the left, the Republicans in the House continue to fuss and feud like children in a sandbox.  It is really hard to be sympathetic towards President Trump when discussing childish behavior; he being the master of the art.  But in this case, one can easily understand his absolute, volcano erupting frustration with House Republicans as they quarrel amongst themselves on pressing issues such as immigration reform.  Given sole possession of the stage to perform a validation dance of reliability and effective governance, they instead put on their version of the Keystone Kops comedy routine.  The Republican Senate can be mind-numbingly stoic at times; but at least McConnell has his eye on the ball and when it comes to big moments (tax reform, SCOTUS appointees…), the man delivers.  Such clutch performances earn him some forgiveness for the dropped ball moments like failure of the Obamacare repeal vote (thank you, John McCain).  Whomever the House Republicans choose to replace Paul Ryan (the sooner, the better), here is hoping that they are a person of action and principle and very adept at herding cats.

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Speaking of SCOTUS…..most conservative journalists that I read seem to agree that any nominee off of President Trump’s top 25 list for Justice Kennedy’s replacement will be a marked improvement over Kennedy.  This is encouraging.  History has shown us repeatedly, as with Kennedy and Souter, that the person nominated to the Supreme Court does not always rule as expected.  It should be reassuring to any American that this new member should move the SCOTUS nearer to a body that does far less legislating from the bench and far more strict interpretation of our founding fathers’ writing.  In my humble and grossly unqualified opinion, this living document nonsense from the Left regarding the constitution is nothing more than a judicial end run around what they have failed to accomplish in the legislative arena.  The Legislative and Executive Branches of our government exist to accommodate the evolution of our nation and our society; therein lays your living document remedy.  Fundamental changes to our country’s legal and political foundation should be properly addressed by those entities; not by the Judicial Branch.  The perversion of this principle by the Left through their conscious utilization of rogue federal judges has been a cancer to our form of government for decades now and needs to cease.  When he leaves office, it is quite likely that President Trump’s greatest accomplishment will be the reversal of this disturbing trend by the placement of sound and reasoned federal judges throughout our judicial system.  This long-term investment by this President is one of the more surprising items of his unexpected election and has taken this nation off of a very dangerous path that it was traveling. 

On a final note, I want to offer just a word or two about civility.  The recent outrageous behavior of the Left exhibited through public harassment of certain conservative personalities is absolutely inexcusable.  That sentiment is validated by the condemnation (understated as it is) from Democratic leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Schumer.  The environment that has created this recent string of events has been brewing ever since November of 2016 and has apparently reached a boil.  That environment has been created and nurtured by liberals both in and out of government who have vested interests in creating and sustaining such a culture.  It has also been aided by the irresponsible and total abdication of journalistic ethics by the mainstream media.  But let there be no mistake about it; President Donald Trump bears a large portion of the blame for creating this type of uncivil environment.  He has been irresponsible and careless with his rhetoric ever since he first announced his candidacy for President.  When presented with the binary choice of civil or uncivil reaction to a provocation, he has more often than not chosen the uncivil course.  His public comments range from the inappropriate to the inaccurate to the vulgar to the flat out disgusting.  More than anyone else who is integrally involved in this devolution of public political conversation and behavior, President Trump holds the greatest potential to influence the direction it takes.  And even though I concede that his unconventional approach to politics and governing have no doubt led to many of the policy accomplishments which I heartily approve of, I continue to hope that as his term(s?) in office progress, his ability to rise above the chaos around him and grow into a more civilly -persuasive President becomes more apparent and more prominent in his execution of office.  Eventually, and inevitably, when one continues to pour gasoline on the fire; something of irredeemable value is going to get burned.