Intensely Tumultuous Political Times Looming

Before I continue, I want to take this time to salute a great American hero, John McCain, who just passed away yesterday from cancer.  He devoted his life to public service, first as an Naval combat pilot in Vietnam, shot down and held as a POW for many years there and suffering terrible privation and torture.  Later, he entered politics and served with distinction in the United States Senate.  He ran for president twice, both times demonstrating the maturity and respect toward his adversaries that the current White House occupant sorely lacks.  I'll miss him...

Regardless of your political philosophy or what you may think about our current president, you should agree with me that the rest of this year will be loaded with passionate and divisive rhetoric coming from all sides of the national political landscape.  In a few days, Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, will begin his confirmation hearing in the Senate...there is fierce opposition from the Democrats, who fear that his seating will tilt the court to positions that are anti-women, anti-worker, anti-regulation, and anti-environment while protecting the president from being held legally accountable for any alleged misdeeds.  So yes, you can expect a lot of emotion flying about in the news over Kavanaugh alone.  But Robert Mueller's independent investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with them by the Trump campaign seems to be entering a period of cascading "flipping" of people like former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, National Enquirer CEO David Pecker, and Trump's personal and business financial chief Allen Weisselberg, who may have detailed knowledge to share about the president's role in various dealings that are being examined.  Trump, his attorney Giuliani, and his cheerleaders in the media like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are responding to it all by calling the investigation a witch hunt, the FBI and Department of Justice full of corruption, everything negative reported about him in the media being "fake news", and that Attorney General Sessions should be investigating Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, not Trump.  And so it all goes around, and this story about the two women being paid hush money to help Trump win the election, along with Michael Cohen alleging that his client directed him to break the law, is just ratcheting up the fervor.  You can hardly turn on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC and get coverage of the issues that Americans are concerned about...not that I'm complaining too much: after all, this is all news, too: still, other things are going on in the country and the world and it would be nice to hear a greater diversity of stories.  As for your reactions to all this, I just say believe what you want to believe...whether you're a follower of conventional journalism or Trumpworld's Orwellian alternative facts, I'm sure there's some media "pundit" out there willing and able to spoon-feed for you all the talking points you need to armor yourself with regardless of your perspective...

So what's going to go down with this Mueller investigation and will Trump fire Sessions after the 2018 midterm elections and then try to shut Mueller down?  By the end of 2018, we should have a clearer picture about what's in front of us...there are rumblings about a move to initiate impeachment should the Democrats take the House of Representatives, although the Senate would almost certainly never vote to convict and remove Trump (two thirds vote required there).  I've always said that the best scenario would be for Mueller to issue his final report and vindicate Trump of impeachable wrongdoing...this prolonged scandal business wasn't good for the country with Watergate and it isn't now, either.  Unfortunately, I sadly suspect that when everything does finally come out, our president is going to have some major problems on his hands.  No, I didn't vote for Trump and I think his character is repulsive, but he is my president and needs to tend to the nation's business...and, dang it, I agree with some of his policies.  As for Brett Kavanaugh, I like the guy and feel that in a less politically-charged time he would be more accepted.  Yes, he's a conservative: the conservative candidate won the presidential election and nominated him...my beef is that when we had a liberal president and a court vacancy, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to consider his nominee.  The Democrats in the Senate are still rightfully offended by that reprehensible action by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2016, but Kavanaugh shouldn't be treated the worse for it...