No Congress For Old Men

Mueller Time

Man, it was painful watching a 74-year-old American hero caught up in the cross-fire of the Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill today.

Robert Mueller will be 75-years old on August 7th, is a decorated Marine, winning the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Vietnam.  He gave it his best, trying to remain objective, nonpartisan, and in his lane, but looked tired as he fumbled and bumbled his way trying to recall the most detailed facts from his 448-page report.

Mueller was an assistant United States attorney; a United States attorney; United States assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division; a homicide prosecutor in Washington, D.C.; acting United States deputy attorney general; and director of the FBI. Mueller was also a partner at the D.C. law firm WilmerHale before being appointed as special counsel.  – Wikipedia

DisUnited States of America

We are stunned that the country can’t come together after the facts – yes facts – show that the Russian military attacked our nation during the 2016 Presidential election “in a sweeping and systematic fashion.”  That the Trump campaign had several contacts with individuals with ties to the Russian government, welcomed them and expected to benefit from them politically.

One of those contacts, included the campaign manager of a United States presidential campaign,  Paul Manafort,  handing over internal polling data in key swing states to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian business associate with ties to Russian intelligence.  Hollywood can’t make this shit up, folks.

Nevertheless, the special counsel could not “establish that the president was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference.”

Those are the facts.  It was not a hoax.  

Full disclosure: We were repulsed by Hillary and couldn’t and didn’t vote for.   We do regret our ABC (Anybody But Clinton) strategy but as California voter ours didn’t matter.  Neither did we vote for Trump.   

Useful Idjits At Best

Come on, folks, at best the Trump campaign was a “corp of useful idiots” of the Russian military and the GRU, its intelligence unit, and benefitted politically from their help. This included Twitter ‘bots and campaign rallies for Trump sponsored by the GRU and IRA, among other things.

The Cover-UP Is Always Worse

President Trump then tried to cover-up these actions, including his attempt to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, which would land any ordinary American citizen, other than the POTUS, in the Federal pen.   If you don’t believe us ask the 1000 other bipartisan former federal prosecutors.

We are stunned by charges that reaching our conclusion, based on these established facts, and condemning a Russian military attack on America – albeit without tanks and battleships- and its acquiescence is deemed partisan.  WTF has happened to our country?

Impeachment 

We don’t think Robert Mueller’s Congressional testimony today will move the needle much on impeachment.  We traded out of our impeachment shares at a small profit, which was very disappointing as at one point we were up over 100 percent.

We do note the President’s approval ratings average only about 5 points above the level, which supports his impeachment in the latest polls.

In our wildest imagination, we never thought, the White House would turn the Department of Justice into POTUS’ own personal attorney office.  As a trader, we accept reality, and we move on to the next trade.

Bad Moon Rising

Unfortunately, the country and world can’t move on to the next trade.

Trump, not being held accountable only emboldens him, moves him to the next level of his delusion of grandeur, makes a mockery of the U.S. Constitution, and further endangers the world with POTUS’ impulse-driven, self-interested staccato policy ejaculations.

Every racist tweet and fascismo racist rally, such as the “send her back” North Carolina rally last week,  takes our country to a much darker place. 

So far, America (not so much the farm belt) and the world, has in general, been relatively lucky.  That is not going to last.

Take a look at the two headlines and connect the dots, folks.

Donald Trump told Chinese president Xi Jinping last month that the US would tone down criticism of Beijing’s approach to Hong Kong following massive protests in the territory in order to revive trade talks with China. The US president made the commitment when the two leaders met at the G20 summit in Osaka, according to several people familiar with the meeting. One person said Mr Trump made a similar pledge in a phone call with Mr Xi ahead of the G20 summit.  – FT, July 9th

dot, dot, dot…….

The Chinese military has said that it can be deployed to Hong Kong to maintain social order at the request of the city’s government, adding that  Sunday’s siegeof the mainland government’s liaison office in the city was intolerable. – SCMP, July 24th

Will Xi now try to put Taiwan on the table as part of a trade deal that makes Trump look like a winner before the election?

Nothing surprises us anymore, nor should it surprise you.

Trump does everything for Trump and will sell anyone and everyone down the river.  That may be a bit of our partisanship surfacing, as do think the POTUS is an absolute disaster,  but also believe if a machine-learned algorithm based on data of Trump’s actions were constructed, it would confirm our priors.  It is possible thatPutin and Xi have that algo as they play him.

2020 Presidential Elections

The Russians are coming again in the 2020 presidential election,

…and are doing it as we sit here — Robert Mueller, July 24th

Probably, so too are the Chinese, the Iranians, and North Korean, and god knows, who else.  They will be more sophisticated this time, loaded with deep fake videos, hacks, ‘bots, and whatever you can and can’t imagine. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hey, did my congressman really say that? Is that really President Donald Trump on that video, or am I being duped?

New technology on the internet lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they’ve never said. Republicans and Democrats predict this high-tech way of putting words in someone’s mouth will become the latest weapon in disinformation wars against the United States and other Western democracies.  – TPM

Where is the panic?  Where is the outrage?

Just imagine, the Wendell Willkie 1940 campaign meeting with individuals from the Imperial government of Japan hoping for a new administration to go easy on them as they ran rampant through Asia?   No, we are not comparing 1940 Japan with 2016 Russia, or are we?

What if John Kerry’s campaign manager passed on internal polling data on voting in Ohio (if Kerry won Ohio, he wins the presidency), to some North Korean government-backed political hackers during the 2004 campaign?   Would that be OK and turn into a partisan food fight?

Are we now just frogs enjoying the hot jacuzzi as it reaches a dangerous boiling point?

A bill to protect the 2020 election sits and will die on the Senate majority leader’s desk.  History will not look kindly on the senior Senator from Kentucky.

Upshot

Nevertheless, the special counsel Rober Mueller did testify under oath today that:

1. the Russians hack of the 2016 election was “not a hoax;” 
2. the investigation was “not a witch hunt;“
3. the Russians are still up to their old tricks “as we sit here;”
4. he could not “criminally indict POTUS due to a 2000 Department of Justice opinion.”

The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.  – Department of Justice

An asinine opinion at that.

By the way, wasn’t that Attorney General, Janet Reno, who handed down that opinion in October 2000,  a bit conflicted as her president had just been impeached less than 21 months earlier?  Just askin’?

We wait for our Oskar Schindler friends on Wall Street to have their come-to-Jesus moment.

God Bless Help America.