Trump's Growth Claims Empty

You'll recall that Donald Trump told us he could achieve a 4% growth rate in the economy, millions of jobs, and everyone would get a $4,000 raise if we passed his $1.5 trillion tax cut, and let him cut regulations all over the place.

Well, no one I know got that $4,000 raise. Nor did the millions of well-paying jobs materialize. But we did add trillions of debt to our country's balance sheet. And Trump's annual budget deficits are the largest in history. And yes, Trump and his Wall Street and Mar a Lago buddies all laughed their way to their banks with their millions in tax cuts paid for by you and me.

And now we find out that the 4% growth was never, and will never be achieved either. In fact, the economy is now slowing, the deficits are rising, and growth is now no larger than it was under Barack Obama, but Obama did it without Trump's debt.

Welcome the Fight With Trump

As expected, Mitch McConnell will block any attempt to make Robert Mueller's actual report public, opting instead to tie Senate Republicans to an active cover-up. This shouldn't surprise anyone, nor should it surprise anyone that Lindsey Graham and Trump are ready to wage a jihad against Democrats and Trump opponents over their support for the Mueller inquiry.

Democrats need to be ready for this, but not overact, because you can count upon Trump and Senate Republicans blowing this. As advertised, Trump has already overacted and signaled that he is ready again to wage war on Obamacare, months after the GOP lost the House over Trump and their opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Now feeling emboldened by his victory with the Mueller cover-up, Trump's worst impulses will be on full display between now and the 2020 election, which is fine.

If Trump, McConnell, and those vulnerable 2020 GOP Senators want to run on:
-The Mueller cover-up
-An ACA repeal
-An ongoing attack against people of color and women
-The fraud that is the GOP tax "reform"
-A resulting, sudden campaign to now cut Medicare and Social Security
-Their jihad against Democrats and Hillary Clinton, and
-Trump's actual record,
then let them. Democrats should be eager for that fight, and that campaign.

Let the federal attorneys and other jurisdictions deal with the Trump crime family in the interim. And for those of you who think the economy will save Trump by November 2020, I'll take that bet. If the Democrats argue those issues above effectively, and add in a little climate change, voting rights, and gun safety, I'm willing to wager that even a decent economy will not sway enough swing and independent voters for Trump to replicate his 2016 electoral map.

And by the way, Chuck Schumer should tell his friend Mitch that there will be no other business done in the Senate until the Mueller report is released.

Patrick Fitzgerald, Redux

We've seen this before, when Patrick Fitzgerald was unable to bag Karl Rove in the destruction of Valerie Plame's career. And now, after $30 million, a supposedly A-Team assemblage of prosecutors, reams of open-source reporting, and literally books of evidence on the subject, St. Robert Mueller was unable to find a single, chargeable count against anyone in the Trump campaign for collusion or conspiracy with the Russians to sway the 2016 election.

We're asked to believe that Putin and his gang did it all on their own. Right. Putin and the Russians did interfere in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf, and this outcome will only ensure they will successfully do so again for 2020.

When you live by the Mueller sword, you also die by that same sword, and Democrats and never-Trumpers now have to live with months of a jihad from Trump and the GOP against them, the media, and any political opponents. It'll force Democrats to do what they need to do anyway for 2020: mount a campaign against Trump, his record, and his tax cut, and no longer hold out for Christmas from Santa Mueller.

For the media, you can count on some pundits and hosts, especially the likes of Chuck Todd and all of CNN to scurry back and curry favor with Trump, to maintain access and avoid getting thrashed by an all-too-certain out of control narcissist and his minions.

Yes, Trump will be insufferable and even worse now, for months on end, but to the victors go the spoils. Since Day One, he's said "no collusion", and according to Mueller he was right all along. Worse yet, St. Robert found no evidence of obstruction, tampering with witnesses, or anything of a criminal nature with any of the interactions between Team Trump and the Russians, so those matters are now dead and buried.

We can count on Trump to overplay his new advantage against Democrats sooner rather than later, but at what cost to the democracy? By the time there is any reckoning, it could be too late for this country. But if the voters go along with that, then the outcome is theirs to wear, and not worth any further hand-wringing from folks like me.