BARR, SHIELD AND SWORD

Trump has a plan to de-legitimize anyone around him that poses a threat, the FBI, the Justice department, Inspectors Generals, and his perceived enemies.  Trump is using the Justice Department to look into Obama, determining what he knew and when he knew about Michael Flynn.  Remember, Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn because Flynn was dirty, and Obama had fired him from his administration.  Fox conspiracy theorists are drumbeating “Obama-gate”.  Now Barr is about to get involved in the research for something incriminating about how Obama’s FBI and CIA handled it.  I wonder what Barr is going to investigate?  You can bet the theories all come from Trump TV and will be amplified without evidence or some distorted email or taking statements out of context.  After all, it’s election season and the laser light shines bright.

Barr shields Trump in the Muller probe by lying about its conclusion, and protects him in the impeachment probe by refusing to yield to subpoenas.  Barr protects him from oversight by refusing to comply with requests for documents.  Refuses congressional subpoenas for witnesses and shields him from revealing his taxes to the New York  DA, in a legitimate criminal investigation. 

The sword is the obvious, the bully pulpit used to spew the president’s lies, as he lies about his enemies and uses every corner of each department to garner some use in his re-election campaign.  It’s obvious Trump has found his Roy Cohn.

The truth is, over 85,000 Americans died and the virus did not magically go away in April like Trump proclaimed in March. A Bloomberg News study found an increase in cases are up by 40% in counties where meat packing plants are located vs 19% additional cases nationally in one week.  Mobility cases in surrounding counties will eventually have raging numbers.  Most packing plants are in rural areas with a lack of medical infrastructure.  Trump’s use of the Defense Procurement Act was used to kill meatpacking employees and not to try to fix the public health crisis is an enigma.  On May 8^th, again he said, “the virus will magically go away”. Trump thinks he can use a Jedi mind trick to convince his followers everything is OK.

It appears the Trump administration is going after those who outed Flynn in the intelligence department.  These were career employees doing their jobs, and by having the appointed Trump ally give over these names to the Justice Department.  These employees have been unmasked from the Muller report, in order for Barr and Trump to attempt to paint the Obama administration as corrupt.  The acting Intelligence chief Richard Grenell is the official unmasking these employees for political purposes. This is a raw and blatant politicization of both departments.  Congressman Devan Nunes (R) from California, sitting on the House Intelligence committee, would normally bristle and shame anyone that would use the authority to unmask and called it an abusive of power in the past, and now crickets. This is a corruption of the intelligence department.

I don’t get the idea that Flynn is not corrupt, when you look at what he did vs to what he pleaded to.  He attempted kidnapping a cleric to Turkey, he was paid by the Turkish government and did not register as an agent, he lied to the FBI about the contacts with the Russian foreign minister about reducing sanctions prior to Trump’s inauguration, and he lied to Pence.  All these other crimes were swept under the rug with a plea bargain, even though there was adequate evidence to prosecute him on all the other crimes.  Barr’s interdiction was deemed a miscarriage of justice by 2000 former Justice department employees.

ROMNEY SLAM

During the Senate hearing a day after Trump’s lies, Dr. Fauci contradicted Trump’s claims and he attempted to set the record straight.  The doctor stated that moving too soon would risks a broad outbreak.  Romney stated that testing is “nothing to celebrate and went on to say Korea had the first case on the same day, and on March 6^th they had 140,000 tests performed and the United States had only 2,000 tests at that time.  We have over 85,000 deaths and Korea has only 256 to date.  In a recent poll, Trump only had a 37% of the country’s trust, when it came to the virus. 67% did not trust him.  This does not instill any consumer confidence, especially when he urges re-opening as the way forward.  Trump’s aspirational and wishful thinking creates this uncertainty, especially when he drives wedges between the federal and the state’s guidelines.  The only thing that will make the uncertainty subside is testing availability to everyone and a vaccine. 

THE ECONOMY

The grocery prices had the largest increase in 50 years last month.  Not since 1974 have grocery prices increases as fast.  This may only be the precursor to additional shortages plowed in fields and the spilling and wasting of other foodstuffs at the same time as price rises.  This can be attributed to the disruption in the supply chain.  Schools, restaurants, tourist destinations, and airlines are all cutting back on food and thus, a glut in their markets. 

The excess demand is on the grocery stores. They run out of product because the supply chain has broken and the demand shifted to the stores, without the modified supply chain to compensate.  This should only be temporary in a normal economy, however the individuals that earn less than $40,000 are hit hardest by the virus and use a disproportionate amount on food.  Therefore they are the first to reduce consumption.  Unless there are labor shortages, the adjustments to the supply chain should return to equilibrium.

Last year the administration had a 1 trillion dollar debt in a booming economy and instead of paying off debt, he borrowed and paid his friends with a tax cut for the 1% and stock buybacks to make the stock market go up.  This year he is heading for a 3 trillion dollar debt.

Small businesses are failing at a rate approaching the Great Depression.  Last month 10,000 small businesses failed or declared bankruptcy.  This amount is rising and will continue to be higher next month.

There will be food kitchens and food pantries for the food insecure.  These will be augmented when the USDA begins the purchase of crops and re-distribution to the food banks.  Basic staples include cheese, potatoes and any other crop become excess.  This is a public health crisis that was ignored, until it became both a public health crisis and an economic crisis that could have been avoided, with swift and focused leadership and the reliance on the medical experts, not wishful thinking.

What will the next big distraction from the current morass, that will be used by this man-child president to have his followers praise his new laser light show?