Restoring "Normal Order"

I've been thinking about this for a bit and I've come up with a plan to reestablish some sanity and comity to the process of "staffing" the US Judicial System. The determination of the composition of the Judicial Branch is perhaps the highest prize in politics today, and we will continue to have election victories at ANY cost and an ineffectual Congress that shirks its checks and balances duties far into the future. Really, it all boils down to abortion, doesn't it? So thoughts on this?

1. The Senate Republicans and Democrats, regardless of who has the majority, must agree that the appointment of judges must be reasonable, fair, and equitable. McConnell has made clear that the president is a minor player in the process, so the Senate will be the determining factor as to who takes a seat on ANY bench.

2. The Senate rejects the Kavanaugh nomination outright and consents to the Merrick Garland nomination. Conservatives get their Gorsuch and Democrats get a very moderately liberal justice. But Garland is made senior to Gorsuch based on when he should have been confirmed.

3. The Senate agrees to fill current open seats at any federal level as follows: Seats will be filled five at a time to begin with. The power to nominate will rotate between the parties regardless of who has the majority or the White House. First the GOP nominates 5 jurists. The Senate has 90 days to vet and confirm. The non-nominating party gets one preemptory challenge per seat. Then the Democrats get the next 5 seats, and the same rules apply. For each 90 day cycle, the majority party gets one extra seat nomination and the president gets one extra seat nomination. In theory then, there can be as many as seven confirmations in a cycle, but the minority caucus, when the majority has the White House, will get at least 5 confirmations.

4. Once all vacancies are filled the process will return to "regular order" INCLUDING the ability for the minority to filibuster. The purpose of the filibuster is to prevent the seating of radical judges and force the president and the majority caucus to nominate and confirm moderately conservative or moderately liberal judges.

The Legacy Of Donald J. Trump

Russia is not our enemy in the classic, war-time sense, and therefore treason does not apply. Russia IS however our adversary in the same sense that the Mafia is the adversary of the FBI. Russia is a criminal state, run by criminals, and led by the biggest criminal of them all. Russia is no longer motivated by ideology; it is motivated by greed.

Trump has NEVER been motivated by ideology; he is motivated by greed--in the form of money but also in the form of fame and flattery.

What we have here is not "treason". What we have here is corruption, corruption at a level never before seen in the United States. Trump has been corrupt probably since he had money to work with. The list of his corrupt dealings is long and legendary, and much of it has been not only public, but documented. He's been working with Russians for decades. It's a symbiotic relationship wherein he needs them as a source of cash to finance his deals, and they need him to launder the tremendous amounts of cash the Russian mob has stolen from the Russian state and others.

In my opinion it is likely that Trump never thought of "treason" or "collusion" or even "conspiracy". I think it never occurred to him that accepting help from Russia to win the election was illegal, much less wrong. It was simply a means to his ends, getting richer and getting praise. It never occurred to him to refuse the Russians. It never occurred to him to report their solicitations to the FBI. And in the end, if Trump loses his presidency, it may well be not because of treason, but because of the seemingly lesser crimes of failing to report illegal activities that he was aware of AND covering up that failure.

Trump could have continued his sweet life of golden toilet seats eponymous brands and airplanes, models and prostitutes, spying on naked teens, grabbing pussy, using Russian money, and cheating the lesser minions out of their money until he keeled over from a Big Mac heart attack, and nobody would have thought any less of him than they have after years of reading about him in the scandal rags or watching him on TV. But he made the mistake of reaching too far, lusting for the fame of the US presidency, and now all the history, known and previously unknown, will eventually paint the portrait of a man corrupt inside and out, and THAT, if there is justice in this world, will become the lasting legacy of Donald J. Trump.