It is about time. The U.S has always undermined democracy in Central America in favor of U.S.

corporate interests there. Democracy and communism were both perceived as threats to corporate profits. It is in time we recognized that stable governments and economies south of the border are in our best interests. Not to mention the fact that our values supposedly support democracy and human rights.

The Trump coverup no one is talking about: The emperor has no money.

E. J. Dionne points out that Trump has no control over the purse strings, and that severely limits his power to negotiate anything with the Democratic House.

"From the moment Trump, Pelosi and Schumer announced their convergence on a $2 trillion infrastructure plan last month, Mulvaney began sabotaging it. “Is it difficult to pass any infrastructure bill in this environment, let alone a $2 trillion one, in this environment? Absolutely,” Mulvaney said.

He was far from alone because the entire Republican leadership in Congress is now part of the Knuckledraggers Caucus. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly signaled that he had absolutely no interest in a big infrastructure plan if it required rolling back any part of the GOP’s 2017 corporate tax cut.

Democrats argue that because business is clamoring for infrastructure, it would make sense to ask business to foot part of the bill. They have suggested raising the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from the 21 percent enshrined in the 2017 law and pulling back on some of its other provisions.

No way, say the Republicans. A “nonstarter,” declared McConnell. Faced with the choice of bridges collapsing in a heap or reining in the tax giveaways, the bridges don’t have much of a chance.

Note that the meeting Trump sabotaged was about how to finance the plan. He had no way of coming up with anything constructive because, for all of his bravado, he is totally under the thumb of Congress’s conservative ideologues. His tantrum was part of the coverup no one is talking about: The emperor has no money."

The nation should thank Justin Amash.

from Eugne Robinson's column in this morning's Washington Post.

Justin Amash finally said out loud what many other Republicans know but will only whisper: “President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment.” Amash’s party may never forgive him. His nation ought to thank him...Amash wrote in a series of tweets that he reached his conclusion “only after having read Mueller’s redacted report carefully and completely, having read or watched pertinent statements and testimony, and having discussed this matter with my staff, who thoroughly reviewed materials and provided me with further analysis.”

That sounds like the sort of thing we pay elected officials and their staff members to do. But Amash wrote that few of his colleagues “even read Mueller’s report; their minds were made up based on partisan affiliation.”

That’s actually a key point. Anyone who reads the 448-page report can see, as Amash concludes, that Attorney General William P. Barr — in his four-page summary, his congressional testimony and other statements — “intended to mislead the public” about Mueller’s findings. Barr apparently “hopes people will not notice” his deception, Amash said . Busted

...In the Mueller report, Amash finds “multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice.” Impeachment, Amash noted, “does not even require probable cause that a crime .?.?. has been committed,” but simply that an official “has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt, or otherwise dishonorable conduct.” Trump does all of the above, all of the time

...But here is a line from Amash’s tweetstorm that Democrats should reflect on: “While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-may-never-forgive-justin-amash-the-nation-should-thank-him/2019/05/20/5cd89f30-7b3f-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html?utm_term=.490b91814200

Robert Mueller Failed To Do His Duty

I am beginning to doubt my initial support of Mueller's decisions in how he handled the case. This article in the Post makes some excellent observations on that score.

...by delaying the question of Trump’s interview until month 19 of his tenure, Mueller allowed Trump to run out the clock — a grave tactical error. And second, in an investigation of this public import, getting “substantial evidence” but not the word of the president himself fails to fulfill the special responsibility of a special counsel. In a run-of-the-mill criminal case, a prosecutor’s decision to bypass questioning a difficult figure might make sense; when we are seeking to learn whether a presidential candidate worked with a hostile foreign power to win an election, the public deserves to have that candidate answer questions under oath...

Finally, some of Mueller’s other decisions should be publicly debated. His determination not to bring campaign finance charges against Trump Jr. for soliciting foreign assistance to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been blasted by one of the foremost election law experts, as it turned on a curious view that Mueller could not prove the value of the assistance Russians dangled in front of Trump Jr., and that a prosecution for solicitation of foreign election assistance raised “First Amendment concerns”...

Most important, Mueller’s decision not to also bring charges against Trump Jr. — a private citizen, not protected by any Justice Department policy against prosecution — for conspiring with WikiLeaks (either as a violation of campaign finance laws or other statutes) remains a mystery given the extensive evidence of direct interactions between Trump Jr. and the WikiLeaks team. It is this Mueller decision — which enabled Trump’s “no collusion” boast — that merits the greatest scrutiny in the days ahead.

Little-known story about the Watergate break-in: Trump Isn't first to be vexed by confidant's spouse

"In psychology circles, there’s an unofficial concept called “the Martha Mitchell effect.” It’s the tendency to diagnose someone as mentally ill simply because the story they tell is so bizarre, without checking whether the bizarre story is in fact true.

That’s what happened to Martha Mitchell, the outspoken wife of President Richard M. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell. She was dismissed as “crazy” for her wild claims about the Nixon administration and issued a public ultimatum to her husband to choose her or the president."

George Mitchell was Nixon's Attorney General and re-election campaign manager. His wife, Martha Mitchell was nicknamed "the Mouth from the South" by press for her frequent controversial political comments to the media. When Nixon's "plumbers" were arrested while breaking into Democratic Party's headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, John Mitchell realized that his wife knew one of them and could connect him to Nixon. He phoned his wife's bodyguard and ordered him to prevent his wife from making any phone calls or speaking to the press. Having just heard the news about the break-in, she was already on the phone with UPI's Helen Thomas. The bodyguard ripped the phone off the wall and kept her confined and sedated in the hotel room for several days. The Nixon administration subsequently leaked rumors that Mitchell was mentally ill and an alcoholic to limit her credibility. John Mitchell did resign as a result, although he continued to stand by Nixon and was indicted as a Watergate co-conspirator. The ending to Marths's story is a sad one though. She died a few years later of cancer at the age of 57, "desperately ill and without friends and without funds" according to her lawyer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/03/21/im-political-prisoner-how-martha-mitchell-became-george-conway-nixon-era/?utm_term=.fbc70d1674c8

President Trump is entering his terrible twos

Dana Millibank has figured it all out:

He shuts down the government, maybe for “years.” He wants a wall that is “transparent,” then concrete, then slatted, then steel. One moment he’s leaving Syria, the next he isn’t. He’s watching too much TV and yelling at everyone.

This is all to be expected. President Trump is entering his terrible twos.

The Trump presidency turns two this month, and though we often hear the mantra “this is not normal,” what the president is doing actually is normal. For a 2-year-old.

If you want to understand this White House, turn off Wolf Blitzer and pick up Benjamin Spock. The ninth edition of the late pediatrician’s famous guide, first published in 1946, tells us all we need to know about this presidency as it approaches its second birthday:

“This can be a physically exhausting and trying time.”

The 2-year-old “has a hard time making up his mind, and then he wants to change it,” his “understanding of the world is still so limited,” and “he becomes bolder and more daring in his experiments.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-is-entering-his-terrible-twos/2019/01/07/d6b4c7e0-12bf-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html?utm_term=.3fd8eb87f5fb