Has Roger Stone Pulled His Last Dirty Trick?

To the chagrin of most Democrats, myself included, it appears the Mueller investigation will not be finished in time for the mid-term elections.  The thinking is that while there is no law, historically the Justice Department has not released information that may sway an election one way or the other.  However, it’s not unprecedented that they do so.  You will recall James Comey did a number on Hillary Clinton just prior the 2016 election.  Comey feared that if he did not make it known there were more emails, he would be accused of favoring Hillary.  He made a political decision to ignore the unwritten rule.  Mueller will not do that because he will not be swayed by politics. Trump has at least until February or March after the new Congress is sworn in to be exposed as an illegitimate President. Oh well.  While it would be nice for the news to come before the mid-terms, that means there will only be a blue wave instead of a tsunami. 

THAT BEING said, there may be time for one more Friday afternoon of indictments before the mid-terms; maybe 3 or 4 new indictments (witches), adding to already over 30 indictments.  My money is on Roger Stone and his associates as the next ones to make the perp walk.  It’s ironic that the Netflix documentary about Roger Stone’s life was entitled, Get Me Roger Stone.  After fifty years of his sleazy, dirty political tricks, it’s about damn time somebody got Roger Stone!  Stone’s specialty is political cheating by any means necessary.  He was Richard Nixon’s political trickster and bag man.  In fact, he loved Nixon so much, he got a tattoo of Nixon’s face on his back. 

AFTER STONE’S hero, Nixon, bit the dust, he went into the lobbying business with none other than Paul Manafort and Charles Black, whose clients included such fine third world dictators as Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and others.  An example of his campaign work is the infamous Willie Horton ad that killed Dukasis in his Presidential bid. During the Gore/Bush recount in Florida, Stone organized the Brooks Brothers riot of Republicans protesting against the recount.  It has not been proven, but Terry McAuliffe accused Stone of forging the document showing that George W. Bush had not fulfilled his service obligations, which led to CBS reporting this and Dan Rather’s reputation being nearly destroyed.

 STONE’S CLIENTS read like a who’s who in Republican politics.  The number of dirty tricks attributed to him is too long to list and most are not appropriate to print in this newspaper.  Stone always manages to deny and lie his way out of responsibility for these acts.  Trump/Stone, two peas in a pod.

STONE AND Donald Trump have been long-time friends.  In the 1990’s Stone worked for Donald Trump as a lobbyist for his gaming casinos.  In 2000, Stone served as campaign manager for Trump in his failed run for President on the Reform Party’s ticket.  It has been said that was another Stone dirty trick.  It was to sideline Pat Buchanan to help George W. Bush win the nomination. Thereafter, Stone encouraged Trump to run for President again 2016.  Stone was Trump’s earliest campaign advisor in 2015 but left by August, 2015, claiming he quit and Trump claiming he was fired.  Regardless, he continued to campaign for Trump.  During the campaign, Ted Cruz accused Stone of planting a story that he had five extra marital affairs.  Cruz said, Stone is “pulling Trump’s strings.  He planned Trump’s campaign and he is his henchman and dirty trickster.”  During the campaign, both CNN and MSNBC refused to allow Stone on their network due to seriously nasty and bigoted tweets about television personalities. 

STONE IN his zeal to elect Trump, threatened Republican delegates to the National Convention that if they opposed Trump, he would publicly release their hotel room number.  When the gold star father, Khizr Khan spoke at the Democratic Convention, Stone accused Khan of sympathizing with the enemy. 

ROGER STONE’S tweets before the release of Hillary and Podesta’s emails indicated he knew it was going to happen.  Stone has denied this.  However, he has since admitted that he had personal contact with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and with a person claiming to be Gucifer 2.0, whom the intelligence services say was the persona used by the Russian military hackers.

IN MY opinion, I think Stone, with Trump’s blessing, left the campaign in order for Stone to get “down and dirty” to do whatever necessary to help Trump, including colluding with Russian operatives.  By pretending not to be a part of the campaign, Trump had deniability.  Remember, Stone and Manafort were former business partners, Manafort had close ties to the Kremlin, and Manafort showed up out of nowhere and became Trump’s campaign manager.  Coincidence?  I don’t know why it would be.

I DON’T SEE how Stone is going to talk his way out of this one.  Finally, Roger Rabbit is out of tricks!

No One is Above the Law!

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war going on.  No, not the farcical airstrikes on Syria, but the war against the truth, i.e. James Comey.  Trump, the Republican National Committee, and the FOX network have colluded to undermine this man of integrity and professionalism.  Comey is honorable, ethical and a moral man who has served his country for over thirty- one (31) years.  That’s what you do when you’re guilty as sin.  You shoot the messenger!  You call the messenger an “untruthful slim ball,” and “slippery,” among other things. You call the highest law enforcement agency in our country a “den of thieves” and “low lifes.”

TRUMP HAS taken extraordinary measures to undermine James Comey.  He and the Republican National Committee have created a website called LyingComey.com. This is unprecedented by a political party who represents all Republican elected officials and their candidates.  It appears to be a desperate gamble on their part and it proves that Trump and the Republican Party are one and the same.

TRUMP, HIS staff, and the talking heads at Fox have not presented one piece of evidence that Trump is innocent.  Instead, these Trumpsters are maligning a man who has had a stellar reputation in all facets of his life.  Trump, on the other hand, has a reputation of being a liar, a serial adultery, possesses no class, a self-admitted sexual assaulter of women, loves chaos, and lacks ethics in his personal and business life. Comey’s account of what happened in the meeting with Trump and Trump’s crass denials boils down to this.  If you were on a jury, who would you believe?

LAST YEAR I wrote that James Comey should be fired for re-opening Hillary Clinton’s email case on the eve of the election.  It is normal to want retaliation for a person whom you felt had thrown the election in favor of someone despicable.  Besides, what else was I to think?  Comey was a life-time Republican!  However, I have since listened to Comey’s explanation and find it credible and truthful.  Besides the fact, Comey would have been drawn and quartered by these same people had he with-held this information.  A month later I wrote that Comey was a victim of a ‘Power Predator,’ namely Donald Trump.  Still, I find myself day dreaming about what our country would be like today had there never been Russian interference in our election and Comey had not erred in releasing the information.  Just think!  We could sleep sound at night.

NO COLLUSION?  Two weeks-ago Trump released that Mueller had stated to his lawyers that Trump was not a ‘target’ of the Russia investigation, but a ‘subject.’  There’s not a hair’s difference in those terms but some saw it as a vindication of Trump and called for celebration.  Perhaps that’s what you would think if you get all your news from the Trump (FOX) network.  The fact is Mueller never said Trump was cleared of Russian collusion in our election.

IN FACT, this past week it appears that Mueller may have everything he needs to prove collusion between Trump’s campaign and probably Trump himself.  The FBI raided the office of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney and “fixer.”  Cohen is the one who paid off all Trump’s women and he knows where all the bodies are buried, so-to-speak.  Also, it has been reported, yet another allegation in the Steele dossier was proven to be true.  In the Steele dossier he said Michael Cohen visited Prague and met with Putin allies to figure out how to provide undeniable cash payments to the Russian hackers.  Cohen and Trump have vehemently denied Cohen had ever been to Prague, using Cohen’s passport as proof.  Turns out, you can go into Prague through Germany without a passport.  It has been reported that Mueller has found proof this trip DID happen. If he has, it’s all over but Trump’s shouting.

Breaking New!  I interrupt this column to tell you that Trump filed a Motion with the New York court Sunday night to keep the Justice Department from viewing and possessing the documents retrieved from the raid on Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, and that he (Trump) be allowed to take possession of them.  He is citing attorney/client privilege.   One can only assume these documents reveal a level of financial fraud and sleaze we cannot imagine.

REMEMBER, “No one is above the law!” Cue up that Jaws theme again! “dun, dun dunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun.”

Trump Republicans: It's Okay to Admit You Made a Mistake

As an opinion writer for the Monroe County Reporter for nearly three years, I know my audience. I know the majority of you are Republicans and that you voted for Trump. I have many friends who fall into that category. I know my audience is smart and discerning. This free advice is for you.

If you have pledged your troth to Donald Trump, I'd like to tell you it's time to leave him. During my years as a family law paralegal, I saw many clients holding on to bad marriages because they didn't want to admit they made a mistake. They were looking for something and they believed the promises. They did not want to believe their spouse was having an affair with someone else. They did not want to give up their hopes and dreams. Deep down, these clients feared losing their identity. They knew the “handwriting was on the wall” but did not want to read it.

He's a gonner. Cut your losses! Trump has not fulfilled on a single promise he made to you. You dreamed you would be living in a utopia if Trump was President. Trump loves only himself and is having an affair with Russia. You will not lose your identity as a Republican; you won't turn into a lib-tard. You are showing your true patriotism and love of country. And, the “handwriting is on the wall,” or in this case, on the White House stationery-- “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.” (wrong!)

That was in the official notes of the oval office meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and the Ambassador. (No wonder they were so happy). This leaves little doubt as to why Comey was fired, to stop the Russia investigation. After Trump fired Comey, he sent all his staff, including Vice-President Pence, to lie to the American people that Comey was fired because of how he treated Hillary Clinton and a scathing report from the Assistant Attorney General. The next morning, Trump threatened Comey in a tweet. The next day, Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that he did fire Comey because of the Russia thing. This, coupled with the notes of what he said to the Russians, sure sounds like obstruction of justice to me.

Then there's General Flynn... Trump's strange obsession with General Flynn! We now know that Trump and his transition staff knew about Flynn's relationship to Russia BEFORE he appointed him National Security Adviser. Trump knowingly allowed a Russian agent to be privy to our nation's highest classified information. Just prior to being appointed National Security Adviser, Turkey paid Flynn $500 thousand to represent their interests with Trump. Trump's a good actor, showing surprise and blaming Obama when it became public. Trump's willful decision to hire General Flynn who would be unable to pass security for employment with Seven-ll, gives us great insight into his judgment. That can mean one thing—Trump doesn't give a hoot about our national security. That infidelity to our country alone is enough to separate yourself from him.

Trump loves him some Putin and that remains the biggest mystery of all. His campaign staff and now members of his White House Staff had 18 conversations with Russians in the last seven months of the campaign. Why? I would like to know how many conversations they had with our allies such as Great Britain, Germany, France, and Canada in that same period. My guess is zip.

The cold hard truth you must face is that Trump is seriously flawed, and is missing the switch that tells him right from wrong. While he may be an excellent real estate developer, he knows nothing about how our government works or governing this country. You would not call an electrician to fix your plumbing. As a life long self-employed business man, Trump does not know how to work as a team. He has never had to take advice. As a real estate developer, you can make all your own decisions. If you make the wrong one, you can file bankruptcy and start over. As President, you have to weigh your decisions carefully because everybody's everything is at stake. We have already learned that Trump is a “knee jerk” reactor. Most importantly the people that surround him must be experienced and capable, because a President can't know or do everything himself. And, the people you hire must be of the highest integrity and character. He has not surrounded himself with those people.

The chaos and complete incompetency of the Trump Presidency will not get any better. Our country will not survive with new scandals every day and people being fired as routine. Whether they be sins of omission or commission, the result is the same. A telling sign was the admission by his staff that in order to accommodate Trump's very short attention span, they must place all reports and memos on one page. Further, they have to insert his name as many times as possible, to hold his interest to read that one page. I find it embarrassing to our nation that the foreign Heads of State on his over-seas trip were told to keep their speeches short to accommodate Trump. He has publicly stated that he does not read his daily security briefings. “They bore me.”

So, it's okay to admit you made a mistake. If you can't separate yourself from Trump due to a

misplaced sense of loyalty, then you should do it for the children's sake.

On Monday, Memorial Day, I will be in Alma, Georgia where George will be delivering the keynote speech for the Memorial Day Observance for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I hope you have a great holiday weekend, but please take time to honor our veterans who sacrificed ALL for our great nation.