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Michael Cohen Warned Us In February 2019

Of all of Donald Trump’s henchmen, Michael Cohen is the only one that seems to have had a personal reckoning and has admitted his mistake of ever dealing with Trump. His closing speech in February 2019, before they took him off to prison for a brief time, is an honest assessment of the situation.

“I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before you today.”
– Michael Cohen, Closing speech to the Senate – February 2019

Which is all at once spooky, insightful and clairvoyant. As of late, Trump repeatedly states that if he loses the 2020 election that it is all “rigged.”  What a mess we are in!

I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.
– Michael Cohen, – from his book Disloyal

UPDATE: June 13, 2023

Fascism seems to just keep gaining strength is the United States.

Earlier Tuesday in Florida, Trump was arrested in a historic arraignment in a Miami federal courthouse where he pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges.

Trump is the first former president to face federal charges and was arrested and booked alongside his aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta.

This indictment comes just months after Trump was charged by a Manhattan grand jury in a separate hush-money case.

CNN, Trump pleads not guilty in historic federal indictment

It is time that a brave judge simply locks him up in a jail until the trials begin.

UPDATE: September 21, 2022

And here we are, more than two years later, and Michael Cohen’s prediction has proved to be correct.  Not only  was there never a peaceful transition of power, but the shenanigans continue at an even higher decibel.  We do not hear much from Michael Cohen these days, but he probably sleeps just fine at night. It is hard to find tranquility without truth and a clear conscience.

When he gave his testimony before Congress in February of 2019 it was an interesting view into some really basic psychology that every parent knows. Michael Cohen, no longer the glib, brazen New York lawyer who fixes legal woes for rich folk, appeared humbled, calm and sober. One could only surmise that he had conversations with his family and his wife, which may have made have made him change his tune.  In the final Senate hearing, Michael Cohen’s entire body language changed, and unlike many on the stand who twitched and blinked in odd ways, anyone in the room could see that Cohen was confessing the truth. His eerie prediction evidently fell on the deaf ears of the Republicans.  But then again, I sort of feel that the adults left the room somewhere around 2015.

Today, Michael Cohen is probably saying “I told you so” to the people who will listen.

UPDATE: August 27, 2023

“After surrendering on Thursday at an Atlanta jail to be booked on state felony charges alleging his involvement in a criminal conspiracy to void the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump sat for a mug shot in which he scowls like a psychopath out of a Stanley Kubrick film.”
Politico

I was hoping they would just lock the guy up in jail in a group-cell with other dangerous criminals. Michael Cohen’s predictions and assessments were correct.

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Please do not pray for the President – It Creeps Him Out

“Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing that you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!”
– Donald Trump’s letter to The Honorable Nancy Pelosi – 12/18/2019

We live in such strange times and this letter to the Speaker of the House by the President Trump is just another example. That the President gets so irritated about Nancy Pelosi’s Catholicism and her daily prayer is actually sort of funny. It reminds me a bit of the final scene in the movie The Princess Bride in which the Spaniard states over and over again in the final duel “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” After about the fifth time the Count, who Inigo Montoya is about to kill yells “STOP SAYING THAT!” Donald Trump is just like the Count. “STOP PRAYING FOR ME! IT’S CREEPING ME OUT!”

Speaker Pelosi has gotten under his skin and Trump just cannot take it anymore. It may be Trump’s downfall in the end, and hopefully the Evangelicals that voted for him should be aghast. Questioning the ritual and power of prayer. How un-Christian. How un-American.

My bumper sticker for those “fly-over” states.

Please do not pray for the President – It Creeps Him Out

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Sunday, September 29, 2019 – News, Opinions & Gossip

It is Sunday, September 29, 2019. I find it incredibly odd after reading the Sunday Chronicle “Fast and furious threat unlike Trump has faced before” by Julie Pace and Zeke Miller, that the journalism about President Trump and his arm twisting of the President of Ukraine and resulting whistle blower complaint and impending impeachment is often not about the facts but opinion and whether there is political momentum for impeachment. Editors and journalists should do themselves a favor and have the op-eds on the op-ed page and not on the front page masquerading as news. Opinion has bubbled up. This is sloppy journalism.

What would be better is not to assume that the reader is well-versed in civics and the Constitution of The United States of America, and rather explain exactly what laws the president may have broken. This would reinforce that we are still a nation of laws and not merely a place of perpetual gossip, where people can get away with crimes due to their position.

“The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

— U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 4

Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Seems like public opinion has nothing to do with this case. Just let Congress investigate and have the the chips fall where they may.

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Zorba the Greek and Thugs, Leeches, Shouting and Playing Piano in the Lobby

“ Mr. Fintiklis, 39, declined to comment, but he has made several notable — and provocative — appearances at the hotel in recent days. On one evening, following a verbal confrontation with Trump employees, he and his entourage of about a dozen people retired to the lobby and had pizza delivered from a restaurant on the property. Then Mr. Fintiklis played music from “Zorba the Greek” on the lobby’s baby grand piano while his friends sang along.”

From N.Y. Times – Thugs, Leeches, Shouting and Shoving at Trump Hotel in Panama (March 3, 2018)

This story in the Sunday N.Y. Times seems like the perfect material for either a documentary or a piece of historical fiction. We are at a point where in the world of politics, reality is stranger than fiction. Imagine Mr. Orestes Fintiklis, a young millionaire in a tussle with Trump and he uses art (playing a song in the hotel lobby) as a way to state his position. If this was a proposed screenplay it would never make the cut – too unbelievable. I like the fact that this really rich guy takes pleasure in playing the piano and singing songs from the mid-twentieth century. Imagine the party eating probably Dominoes pizza in the lobby hanging around the piano singing songs while the security in military garb and armed with AK 47s stood guard. What a bizarre scene.

Perhaps the movie would be called Orestes the Cypriate.