Election Wins and Losses, & Sessions Replacement Seriously Threatens Mueller’s Investigation

I don’t know about you, but I am getting emotionally exhausted! At least we have a break from the incessant political ads for a while!!

So it was a relatively predictable but still somewhat disappointing election, with no huge blue wave despite massive turnout, due to increased opposition turnout. At least Democrats regained control of the House as predicted, with the final numbers not in yet from nearly a dozen close races. Several key Democratic losses in the Senate are disappointing but not that surprising given the location of some of the Democratic incumbents in very red states, with at this point a possible net of up to three seats gained by Republicans, including an extremely narrow win in Florida, for which a recount is certain. The Texas Senate race was also pretty close but still no cigar, although the trend is encouraging, and we are sure to hear more from Beto O’Rourke. The narrow losses by black candidates for governor in Georgia and Florida are also very disappointing but not shocking, with a probable recount in Florida and possible but less likely runoff in Georgia. In fact, Trump’s blitz of fear-mongering campaigning over the last few weeks was probably responsible for many of these Republican wins. The result in the Senate will be to make it easier for Trump to confirm judges and anyone else he wants, with the couple of moderate Republicans who were previously potential swing votes having less influence going forward. With the loss of mostly moderate incumbent candidates both from resignations and the election, both congressional houses are poised to become even more polarized, if that is even possible! At least Democrats were also able to retake the governor’s office in the important Midwest states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. It was no surprise that in Trump’s contentious post-election press conference, he downplayed the possibly crippling loss of the House to the point of declaring a “very close to complete victory”!! He actually claimed it was better to lose control of the House than retain it by just a couple of seats!! The Ministry of Truth (i.e. propaganda) in Orwell‘s 1984 would be envious!

Meanwhile, sending a shudder through the country, Trump lost no time at all in booting out AG Jeff Sessions the day after the election, as he has been longing to do for many months, although as usual, the coward-in-chief left the dirty work to his chief of staff to do by phone. In an obviously preplanned move, Sessions has been replaced by his own chief of staff, Trump loyalist Matt Whitaker, as acting AG. Although his actual qualifications are highly questionable, as are his ethics (having been a paid advisory board member of a company which was shut down by the FTC as a scam), the obvious real reason he got this job is that he has been a vocal public critic of the Mueller investigation. This is producing a lot of negative reaction, but it is unlikely that Trump will be forced to reconsider this appointment. Now he will be overseeing Mueller, taking that responsibility away from Rod Rosenstein, and will get to approve or deny all indictments, subpoenas and other important actions by the special counsel, allowing him to stifle or limit the investigation however he wishes. Beyond that critical function, he will be able to report back to the White House everything that is going on in the investigation, however inappropriate that would be.  And if he is still in place when the final report is issued, he would be the one to determine its fate, potentially able to bury all or parts of it out of sight of both Congress and the public! Of course, that would incite a national furor (except among Trump’s numerous cult supporters), but unfortunately I would not be shocked if the asshole occupying the oval office and his enablers would figure out a way to figuratively get away with murder.

We also just suffered the latest mass shooting in a California nightclub by a disturbed former marine who legally owned a gun, with the deaths of 12 mostly young people plus the shooter. What can one say? It has long been obvious that our Republican leaders will not lift a finger to protect us from REAL dangers like assault weapons, only bogus ones like the Central American refugee caravan!