UP TO HIS ASS IN DIRTY MONEY

We lead with our strengths – all of us. When you take on a challenge, you enlist your go-to strengths. You don’t have to think about which strengths to enlist because your hard-wired, survival motivated reptile brain does it for you.

Muhammad Ali’s long, powerful left jab kept his opponents at a distance where they could inflict the least amount of damage, while he waited for his opportunity to strike like a cobra. When age took its toll, robbing him of his famous foot speed, the left jab needed to be more impenetrable than ever.

His survival depended on it, and well past his prime, his core weapon kept him in the ring and allowed him to continue saying: “I am the greatest!”

We can all see in “high def” that whatever skills the businessman−turned reality tv star—turned candidate may have once possessed, they have eroded. This aging fighter appears to be down to only one trusted weapon − the Big Insult.

The Big Insult: Low-Energy Jeb, Lyin’ Ted, and Little Marco proved to be a devastating punch when landed squarely on the chins of Republican rivals. They not only landed, they stuck. He successfully branded them with simplistic, easy to grasp, bumper sticker messages, paving the way for his championship-winning Big Insult – Crooked Hillary.

But for Trump, those were the good old days. He had nothing to lose. Hillary wins the election and he wins the opportunity to build his crown jewel, Trump Tower Moscow, and take his newly expanded fan base to his next lucrative tv venture.

Now his days are dark. Impeachment is closing in. Despite the protection of his loyal, corrupt attorney general, the Southern District of New York is closing in. The Manhattan D.A., Cyrus Vance is relentlessly closing in. Last week the courts began ruling against him.

With his very survival at stake, he is a desperate man, and it shows. He has taken the Big Insult to a new level – a much lower level.

His latest Big Insult bumper sticker messages:

“Democrats are running a BULLSHIT IMPEACHMENT.”

“Biden understood how to KISS BARACK OBAMA’S ASS.”

If you happen to be a remaining Trump supporter, these messages are meant for you. He wants to excite you as only he can. He wants to remind you that when it comes to offending normal Americans, nobody does it better – the influence on your children and grandchildren be damned!

So, I have a recommendation for the presidential candidates.

When the question is asked: Why did we abandon the Kurds and help restore ISIS to please the despot in Turkey?

Simply answer: Because Trump is up to his ass in dirty money.

When the question is asked: Why are we making it easier for our enemy leader of Russia to reclaim Ukraine?

Just answer: Because Trump is up to his ass in dirty money.

And when the question is asked: Why are we sending our men and women to defend Saudi Arabia?

Just answer: Because Trump is up to his ass in dirty money.

Dear Joe, Bernie, Liz, Kamala, Pete, Beto, Amy, Cory, Julian, Andrew, Tulsi, and Tom, I strongly urge you to drop the delicate, long winded approach and adopt this very Trumpish bumper sticker message that will successfully brand him as the Criminal President.

Of course, each of you should do it your way, in your voice – your own personal version of the Ali jab.

Nancy Pelosi will thank you for the support, and the American people will thank for your courage and clarity.

One of you will win the prize, and by virtue of your election, will begin the process of truly Making America Great Again. Being delicate won’t get you there.

Bruce Coltin

Ex-Marketing Guy

Surviving Trump Two Minutes at a Time

ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT OF "TRUMP: THE FINAL SEASON"

It is wrong to enjoy the suffering of others. I admit that.

But I, for one, feel comfortable making the occasional exception and I hope you do too. The Destroyer of American Democracy and his sidekicks, who have intentionally darkened our days for the past three years are currently in full panic mode and if you don’t admit to finding that satisfying, you are failing our central mission of surviving Trump.

You can tell me all you want that you have no interest in seeing Barr, Pence, Pompeo, and Giuliani in orange jumpsuits, but I will not believe you. “Ukrainegate” is glowing on Trump’s henchmen like the red dye that explodes in the money bag when the bank robbers are making their getaway.

Have you caught any of their stuttering, contradictory, self-incriminating attempts to explain themselves? It can be hard keeping a story straight when their boss keeps changing the story. Comical! Just comical!

We were warned by pundits from both parties that impeachment by the Democratic House would result in four more years of Donald Trump. We were told that impeachment would play into Trump’s hands, casting him as the underdog, being persecuted by the angry, radical left.

Impeachment would solidify the Trump base and alienate independent voters. Democrats, intent on winning the White House, keeping the House of Representatives, and possibly taking the Senate, had no real alternative than to be patient and work strategically to win in 2020.

This conventional wisdom was so two-weeks ago!

Madam Speaker had ordered her troops to hold their fire until she gave the order. For that, she was attacked from inside her ranks as being cowardly, or incompetent, or corrupt. But she knew what they did not. She knew that getting too far ahead of public opinion would end in certain failure.

And now, thanks to the frighteningly unhinged, unpresidential behavior (yes, even more unhinged and more unpresidential than we were used to) of Donald Trump, public opinion has gone from a murmur to a scream faster than Republicans learned how to spell Benghazi.

Prior to Madam Speaker’s announcement that made the impeachment inquiry (not actual impeachment) official, only 40% of the American public were for the impeachment inquiry, while 51% were opposed.

After she made it official, 51% voiced their support for an impeachment inquiry, while 44% opposed. 

Less than two weeks ago, 37% supported actual impeachment and removal from office, while 57% were opposed.

But the latest numbers tell a stunningly different story. Right now, 46% support actual impeachment and removal from office, while 45% oppose.

Have you spotted the trend?

Next week will bring more whistleblower news, more releases of phone and text message conversations, more subpoenas, more witness testimonies, more venomous tweets, more proof of crimes and coverups, and of course more attacks on the Constitution by the President of the United States, and by his deranged personal attorney, his corrupt attorney general, his spineless secretary of state, and his lying vice president.

And what will next week’s poll numbers tell us about the growing popularity of impeachment? I think they will tell us that the Trump Show’s ratings are plummeting fast.

He will suffer the indignity of impeachment by the House, forever branding his presidency, inflicting merciless suffering on his fragile ego until his final days on earth.

We can’t bet that, regardless of the damning evidence that surfaces, Senate Republicans will come out of hiding and do the right thing, but believe me − they too will glow with the red dye of complicity long after the Trump Show is cancelled on November 3, 2020.

I will enjoy watching their clumsy, futile grabbing for redemption.  

Bruce Coltin

Surviving Trump Two Minutes at a Time

WELCOME TO REPUDIATION NATION! (FUELED BY TRUMP)

He believes he can repeat the perverse miracle of 2016. In fact, he is counting on it, because he has no other strategy. He has always been a one-trick pony.

He thinks he won the presidency because he was smarter than everyone else. In fact, he won it because he had an unpopular opponent, help from Russia, the spectacular blunder of James Comey, and the off-the-charts enthusiasm of angry white, blue collar men.

There were those in his inner circle who might tell him the truth – that the world has moved on and he has not. As far as we can tell, they have all been fired. Delivering the painful truth to Donald Trump is a well-understood political death wish.

No more McMaster. No more Mattis. No more Kelly. No more Tillerson. No more Gary Cohn, who failed to convince his boss that tariffs and trade wars are bad for farmers, bad for manufacturers, and bad for consumers.

Now there is no one left to say:

Mr. President, this might be considered unpresidential.

Mr. President, this appears to be bad strategy.

Mr. President, with all due respect, this is stupid.

And I think it is a very safe bet that there is nobody left inside the presidential bubble to say:

Mr. President, you are losing.

In mid-June, Trump’s internal pollsters gave him the news that he was losing to Joe Biden by double digits in his three most important states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where he beat Hillary Clinton by razor thin margins, giving him the Electoral College votes that were supposed to be hers.

And to make it worse, those poll results were leaked to the press. Trump then did what Trump does. He angrily threw sand from his sandbox. He denied that the poll results existed, then he called them fake polls, then he said he never trusted polls anyway. And then of course, he fired several of the pollsters.

He now has what he always wanted – the unfettered freedom to be himself, surrounded only by people who nod approval or remain silent.

So Trump gets to have his tweet storms and his rallies, delighting his base with his favorite hits: Obama was a failure, Hillary was a crook, immigrants are dangerous, Democrats are un-American, outspoken congresswomen of color are treasonous, and our economy is the best it has ever been.

We can see with our own eyes that his base eats it up and begs for more. We can absolutely rely on the fact that the Trump base will show up at the polls in 2020 and vote for him again, if he keeps them fed with white racist battle cries, while celebrating them as the real Americans.

Meanwhile, all of us are subjected to a daily barrage of assaults designed to wear us down, make us sick, and paralyze us with fear – to the absolute delight of the Donald Trump Fan Club.

And there is no one left to tell him that membership in his fan club is already maxed out, and that Repudiation Nation (that’s us!) grows larger and more energized with every racist tweet, every grotesque rally, every attack on environmental protection, every mass murder inspired by a thinly disguised hate message, and now every mention of the word: recession.

We should not be intimidated by his pornographic lounge act.

We should all take a deep breath and remind ourselves that Repudiation Nation showed its clout in the 2018 midterms, by flipping a whopping 41 seats in the House of Representatives. That big Blue Wave was led by high black voter turnout in the cities and high white (mainly women) voter turnout in the suburbs – both of which were lacking in 2016.

In 2020, that combination will win everywhere in the U.S., except for the deep red states, where Republicans greatly outnumber Democrats. But, in blue and purple states, when Democratic enthusiasm is high, that combination wins − even when Republican enthusiasm is just as high!

So, I am happy to tell you (yet again) that Donald Trump will not win re-election.

But there is really no reason for you to believe me.

Months before the 2016 election, a little-known political analyst, Rachel Bitecofer did what no major pollster or analyst had come close to doing. She predicted the 41-seat flip in the House, and she did it by predicting the exact districts that would be flipped. 

Her predictions were based on a model that she developed.

You may remember that as the 2018 midterms grew closer, analysts began replacing predictions of a Blue Wave to more of a blue trickle. Perhaps Democrats would win the House, but it would be by a small majority. Democratic optimism began evaporating. But Rachel did not budge from her wave prediction.

So, I think we should listen to what her model tells her about the 2020 election. Although the election is still over a year away, with the all-important primaries yet to take place, Rachel Bitecofer has already made her prediction – not about who will be the nominee, but about which party will win the election.

Let me say that again. She is predicting the outcome of the presidential election without knowing which Democratic challenger will be facing off against Donald Trump.

According to her model − the same model that predicted the 2018 midterm election with pinpoint accuracy − the Democratic candidate will win the election with at least 278 Electoral College votes. Trump will win at least 197, and there are 4 toss-up states.

But the critically important industrial states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are not in her toss-up category. They are part of the 278. Trump still thinks he can win them, but he can’t. 

The Donald Trump Fan Club will be loud and confident up until the very last critical votes are counted, but Repudiation Nation will put an end to Godzilla.

Don’t be fooled by the con man’s bluster, which will remain loud, relentless, and unnerving. 

Just breathe, live, and keep committing random acts of sanity.

You’ve already taken two minutes out of your day to read this post, so why not take another few minutes to let Rachel Bitecofer tell you in her own words why you should sleep better.

It worked for me.


Bruce Coltin
Surviving Trump Two Minutes at a Time

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE BARACK OBAMA?

Where have you gone Barack Obama?

A nation turns its fearful eyes to you, woo, woo, woo.

During his acceptance speech in 2008, Barack Obama reached out to the supporters of John McCain, and said this: "I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too."

Oh, those were the days!

Barack Obama will not be the Democratic nominee in 2020, and I don’t know who will be, but until he or she pulls the sword from the stone, we have Madam Speaker. And, she is on a mission.

As the interim leader of the Democratic Party, she has chosen to go for the gold, which happens to be winning back the White House and the Senate and increasing her majority in the House. If played correctly, this is within reach. She can taste it, and more importantly, she knows how to do it.

Madam Speaker knew from the beginning that she would be fighting a holy war, and to win, she would need a clear and simple strategy. Thankfully, the uncensored, unchecked Donald Trump has ramped up his spouting of clear and simple fear mongering.

You have to admit that (unless you become too nauseated to watch) there is nothing like viewing a few highlights from a Trump rally to bang home the reality that you can fill a stadium with humans, while keeping it empty of humanity.

I want more Trump rallies. Seriously, I do.

I want their exquisite ugliness displayed, recorded, and weaponized so that every Democrat on the 2020 ballot, from top to bottom, from presidential nominee to  mayoral candidate, can say to their opponent: If you have not condemned Trump, then this collection of rabid “Lock her up! Send her home” lowlifes is your vision of America.

In 2016,138 million of us voted. But the story of the 2016 presidential election is about those who chose to stay home. Every voter group underperformed, except for one – the mostly white, mostly male, mostly older, and completely angry segment of society that gave us Trump and his Charlottesville regime.

But it was not millions or even hundreds of thousands of stay-at-homers that tipped the election to Trump. It was a mere 77,000 votes in three states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin - that Hillary and most political pundits believed were solidly in the Clinton column.

Collectively, less than 1% of voters in these three states handed Donald Trump 46 Electoral College votes, giving him 306 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 232. Had those 46 votes gone to Clinton, she would have won the electoral college 278 to 260.

So how do Democrats recapture those 46 Electoral College votes needed to flip and then fumigate the White House? First by nominating a candidate who resonates with black voters in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee and with white college educated women in the neighboring suburbs.

When that Democratic candidate finally emerges from the pack, she or he will be selling America-for-all, while Donald Trump will continue selling fear, hatred, and lies with every ounce of his being. 

Fortunately for all of us, the Democrat will not be venturing into the battlground states alone.

Barack Obama, the greatest campaigner of the modern age, and the man living inside Donald Trump’s deteriorating brain will reintroduce himself to the American public.

We will see him and hear him when the time is right and where it matters most, and he will implore every single one of us, with that familiar combination of power and elegance, to:

Make America

America Again!

In the meantime, my fellow Trump survivors, do not panic! The noise will continue and will grow even louder and more menacing. And as it does, Madam Speaker will quietly and firmly remind her army: Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes!


Bruce Coltin
Surviving Trump Two Minutes at a Time

WATCHING THE TRUMP-REPUBLICAN SLOW-MOTION CAR CRASH

From the moment he got his hands on the car keys, he has been taking us on a terrifying ride. All around me, I see people who are frightened to death that the ride will go on for five and a half more years, careening out of control, mowing down the monuments and institutions built and maintained by good and great men and women he couldn’t be bothered to read about.

As we helplessly watch from the sidelines, we wonder how much wreckage will be discovered when the rescue team and the cleanup crew are finally sent in. It will be a while before we know the full extent of the damage.

There are those who believe that each day of reckless unpredictability, at the hands of a madman, confirms their belief that the world has spun irretrievably out of control. Intelligent bystanders are understandably distraught. I get it.

We are all suffering from Trump-induced: What will he do next? syndrome. Trump taunts us with his assurance that he will remain in the White House short of actually shooting someone on Fifth Avenue.

Being exempt from all rules and laws is central to his reality.

But reality is not like real estate. Trump does not own it, even if he thinks he does. It is reality that the electorate today is not what it was on election day 2016 and will steadily continue its demographic shift beyond election day 2020.

At eye level, this sea change is barely visible, so Trump can’t or won’t see it, and there is certainly no hint of it at Mar-a-Lago. The browning of America is happening every day, as we move closer to becoming a majority-minority country by 2045.

Had Black voters turned out in Obama numbers, Trump would not be president. Black voters were highly motivated to turn out at the polls and elect the first Black president, and they were highly motivated to turn out in record numbers to defeat the despicable Roy Moore in deep red Alabama. They will be equally motivated to show up, in record numbers, and cast votes against the man who is maniacally dedicated to erasing the Obama presidency.

For Trump’s presidency, Charlottesville is an indelible stain. The President of the United States stood before the cameras and essentially announced to white supremacists: Don’t worry guys. I’ve got your back. Donald Trump will not just be running against the Democratic candidate. He will be pressed to run away from David Duke, the KKK, and the tiki torch bigots, but he will not find the will to disavow the racist thugs who view him as their savior.

It is surprising to some that the electorate has gotten younger − surprising due to the reality that young people do not exercise their right to vote.

But this group, which used to remain silent on election day, dramatically broke their silence in the 2018 midterms, contributing to the Democrats’ landslide victory. Who knew that growing up with the fear of being shot to death in their school room would turn into political action, which I think of as the Parkland Affect − articulate, fed-up, young leaders on a mission, traveling the country and wielding the power of social media to register voters and hold NRA-fueled politicians accountable.

In the most recent survey, taken by the Pew Research Center, those born between 1981 and 1996 identified with or leaned toward Democrats by a 27-point margin, 59% to 32%. They could not be making it any clearer that the reality of gun violence, climate change, and destruction of the environment − which appear to be invisible to the Trump-Republican business club − are bad for their generation.

Many white college-educated women woke up to the 2016 election results with shock, horror, and remorse − especially the ones who voiced their dissatisfaction with Hillary by sitting out the election or by showing up and casting a protest vote, knowing that Hillary would win anyway.  

Today, as the Pew survey tells us, 56% of all women voters identify or lean Democratic, while only 37% identify or lean Republican. That 56% is up 4 percentage points since 2015. Republicans’ current all-out attack on Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights will turbo charge that trend and further guarantee the voter enthusiasm missing in 2016.

The same survey found that 48% of men identify with or lean Republican, while 44% identify or lean Democratic. That number hasn’t budged since 2014. The exclusive club, known as the Republican Party, continues to re-enforce its brand as old, white, and male, leaving it perfectly positioned for the presidential campaign of 1952.

But Trump does have an unshakably loyal base of supporters, and the most unshakable and most powerful segment of that base are white evangelical Christians. But here’s the problem: according to the Public Religion Institute, evangelical Christians have dropped from about 21% of the population in 2008 to 15% this year, with “younger and better-educated members becoming the most likely to leave the faith.”  

What is the obvious reality? Young people will vote Democratic unless the Party stops listening to them. If the Party truly gives them a seat at the table − a table they will eventually own − the small tent Republican Party will soon be able to downsize to a much smaller tent.

Meanwhile, the stonewalling of House subpoenas will run out of gas in the courts, Robert Mueller will testify publicly, and all the other investigations into every corner of the Trump criminal enterprise will continue to reveal the unvarnished truth to every open American mind.

And this, my friends, is how the joy ride ends in 2020. No, he will not go quietly. He will of course be the victim of conspiratorial forces led by angry Hillary lovers, operating within a rigged system. He will troll the next president. He may sue everyone. He may threaten a comeback. Fox News will keep alive his alternative reality.

And as the sun comes up, we will begin the process of sweeping the broken glass from the streets and sidewalks, scrubbing off the graffiti, and putting the stop signs back where they belong.

And we will breathe, just breathe.

THE TRAIN TO THE PRESIDENCY

In the days before the 2016 election, some big political bombs dropped on the Hillary Clinton campaign – Russians, Wikileaks, and Comey. But still most people and almost all pundits believed that her victory was inevitable. And why on earth was the Trump campaign wasting their time and resources on reliably blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin?

What a bunch of amateurs! Those states were so in the Democratic bag that even Hillary wasn’t bothering with them.

However, there were a few pundits, most notably filmmaker, Michael Moore and former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, who warned us that we should in fact worry about those battle fields where the Red Army was showing up and the Blue Army was not.

They warned us that Hillary had not been listening to angry blue-collar voters, who were losing the jobs, the security, and most of all the respect that had made the party of FDR their political home for generations.

The 2016 election came down to 77,744 votes in three states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

When the dust settled, Trump won Pennsylvania by 0.7 percentage points (44,292 votes), Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22,748 votes), and Michigan by 0.2 points (10,704 votes).

If Clinton had won all three states, she would have won the Electoral College 278 to 260.

She would have won those states if black voters had showed up in Obama numbers.

She would have won those states if so many white suburban women had not stayed home on election day or had not cast protest votes.

She would have won those states if white blue-collar voters who had voted for Obama had not felt so abandoned by the political establishment that they saw nothing to lose by voting for a wrecking ball.

In March of 2016, a tone-deaf Hillary Clinton, answered a question about her energy policy by saying, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Perhaps that was not the best way to win the support of those who had become losers in the new economy.

News reporters sat down and spoke with unemployed coal miners and their families, who were running low on money, hope, and dignity. Hillary tried but failed to undo the damage.

All Donald Trump needed to do was to declare himself their champion, promising to stop the “war on coal,” and bring back those jobs – as only he could. At every such opportunity, Donald Trump had an empty promise ready to go.

Michael Moore said this:

Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant, because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting. And it’s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump. He is the human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for, the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.

By the time 2018 election campaigns came along, most 2016 wrong-way voters and stay-at-home voters realized that they had made a colossal mistake. On the campaign trail, Trump tried to sell caravan craziness, while Democrats pushed health care sanity. Republicans countered by trying to tell us that by dismantling Obamacare, they would make health care better than ever.

In congressional districts across the nation, the right Democratic candidates stepped forward – candidates, ranging from radically progressive to traditionally moderate, and right for their districts, and in essence said:

Do not listen to the Republican noise. They are desperate, out of ideas, and are owned by a narcissistic demagogue. They are peddling fear of immigrants and they are counting on you to buy it. But I know this district. I know the factories that are still closing, the middle-class jobs that are not coming back, the medical bills that are no longer covered.

And, the map flipped Blue in record numbers.

Now, the race for 2020 is underway, and it is possible that we will have as many as twenty-five or twenty-six contenders by the start of the debate season at the end of June. Many of you are worried that having too many contenders will result in handing the nomination to a candidate who will lose to Trump. I do not agree. I am happy to see so many quality job applicants, and I will be excited to see how each one of them performs on the debate stage.

At this point, I would not hazard a guess as to who the nominee will be, nor do I think there is a best fit for the times, based on race or gender. But I do think that the eventual winner will be the man or woman who genuinely understands the significance of this iconic story:

When FDR’s funeral train made its way along its route, greeted by large somber crowds, a man who was noticeably sobbing was asked:

Did you know the president?                                                                             

The sobbing man replied:

No, I didn’t know him, but he knew me.

        

I predict that after our ordeal of surviving Trump, the next President of the United States will be someone who knows that the coal miner is us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

MUELLERS HERE, MUELLERS THERE, MUELLERS, MUELLERS EVERYWHERE!

Remember when your ex-friend told you that Donald Trump was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers? If you thought Trump was unintelligent, it was because you were failing to see his long game.

There certainly are chess players in this surreal drama where we now live, but none of them are named Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin is playing chess. Kim Jong-un is playing chess, and thankfully, Robert Mueller has been playing chess from the moment he was appointed special counsel.

Remember when we were afraid Donald Trump would fire Robert Mueller? Or that he would order Rod Rosenstein to do the dirty job? Remember when he tried so hard to discredit the Mueller team by branding them as 17 angry Democrats, even though most are registered Republicans?

It seems like ages ago that Matthew Whitaker would either fire Mueller or clip his wings by defunding the investigation or limiting its scope. It seems like years ago that William Barr would stop the investigation in its tracks by declaring it out of bounds the very moment he was sworn in as attorney general.

But that was yesterday, and this plot never pauses long enough for the audience to take a breath.

To his small credit, Donald Trump has always been afraid of Robert Mueller, but this is not fear based on deductive reasoning. In his heart, Donald Trump knows that he is incapable of comprehending the use of strategy. He is intellectually limited to instinctive moves. He knows to fear Mueller like a cocky hyena knows to fear a relentless lion, sensing that he is being stalked by a superior predator.

He smells it. And now, he shows it. We can see it in his eyes and hear it in his devolving speech.

Mueller did what Trump would never be able to imagine, because it does not exist in Trump’s universe. Mueller made himself dispensable. He did this by making more Muellers.

In a simultaneous chess exhibition, a superior chess player, or grandmaster, will play as many as 40 or 50 opponents at one time, by moving from one chess board to the next after making a move.

Now imagine that instead of a grandmaster, the lone player is one who cannot think beyond the immediate present. And imagine that his opponents are sharing information amongst themselves to help them prepare for their next moves.

At one table sits the Southern District of New York, nicknamed the Sovereign District of New York because of their reputation of independence, relentlessness, and track record in taking down high-profile criminals.

Sharing the next table are the Attorney General for the State of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney. A presidential pardon works for federal crimes, but not for state crimes. Do you think that career white collar criminals like Donald Trump and Paul Manafort cheat on their federal tax returns but not on their state tax returns? Is it likely that the Trump Organization and the Trump family meticulously operated within state and local laws? Look no further than to the Trump Foundation and Trump University for the answer to that question.

Now, as Michael Cohen and the future witnesses named by Cohen, lead to more House investigations by more U.S. attorneys, more attorneys general, and more district attorneys who will take their places in the most important chess tournament that has ever taken place – important legally, politically, and morally.

And what are the stakes?

Well, let’s start with the future of the Trump presidency, the survival of the Trump business empire, the freedom of Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. When lawbreaking is allowed to become your privileged routine, you don’t do less of it. In fact, you stop giving it a second thought.

What is giving them a second thought are those sealed indictments that await Mueller’s decision to unseal them – at the time of his choosing. They are all part of Mueller’s unrevealed long game.

Donald Trump is feeling his powerlessness. His rambling two-hour speech at CPAC smelled of desperation. His failures on the world stage have shattered his “Only I can fix it.” myth, just when he needed it the most.

Publicly referring to Apple’s Tim Cook as Tim Apple is just another poetic reminder that the man who went to such great lengths to conceal his grades and S.A.T. scores is as ill prepared to handle the escalating chess attacks as he was to assume the lofty position that he never really wanted.

Just think! Instead of taking second prize, he could have had Trump Tower Moscow. As the man himself would say, Sad! Very SAD!

OPERATION GODZILLA

Donald Trump knows how to play offense, and he is good at it. He learned early-on that if he fought dirty, and never let up, and ignored all of the rules, others would step back and let him have his way. If they didn’t, he would sue them.

The heart of the Trump offense is not strategy. The man who famously does not read is not a student of George Washington, or Ulysses Grant, or Ike, who at war was the hero of D-Day and at peace, mobilized the wheels and gears of government to revolutionize our infrastructure by creating the interstate highway system.

The heart of the Trump offense is simple. It is loudness – overwhelming and unrelenting loudness, battle tested to drown out the voices of perceived adversaries. Up against non-stop loudness, the reasonable and the rational have wound up battered and bloodied.

And that might explain why so many of my fellow anti-Trumpers are noticeably lacking in optimism, in spite of the great Blue Wave that placed the people’s House in the hands of the Democrats. The Mueller investigation, though richly productive, continues to be quiet – too quiet if you have been nervously biting your nails, waiting for the big takedown.

Now, Democrats are running the committees, and they too have been nerve-rattling quiet and way too reasonable and rational to give hope to many that are waiting and praying for a Democracy-loving King Kong to arrive on the scene and save us from the godless Godzilla.

To those of you looking for Kong, please believe me:

The game has changed.

Six Democrats, possessing different styles, different skills and different super powers – brand new super powers – will soon have him cornered, and we will begin watching him take the blows in real time. Finally, he will have to play defense like his presidency and the future of his adult children depend on it.

A foreign government is not supposed to help elect a president of the United States, but Russia did exactly that. Devin Nunez, the now former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, did back flips to convince us that our real enemies were our own intelligence agencies, and that these deep state, Obama agents were out to frame the innocent POTUS.

Nunez made sure that witnesses, called before his committee, were handled gently. In fact, witnesses called before all House committees were handled gently, if they were called at all. For Devin Nunez and his committee counterparts, protecting America was replaced with protecting Trump. This heist took place, while the one man who could have stopped it, Paul Ryan, stood silently and impotently at the door.

Now Paul Ryan is out and Madam Speaker is in.

His speakership will be defined by his feeble excuses for not using his voice.

She, on the other hand, took the gavel, not simply as a person who fought for her job and was clever and savvy enough to win it, but as one filled with the belief of her appointment with destiny.

Devin Nunez is out and Adam Schiff is in.

While Nunez publicly trashed the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Constitution, Schiff, the ranking member, could only watch the charade and call it out in the press. Setting the record straight earned him the Trump tweet-name, Little Adam Schitt.

Now, Little Adam Schitt is chairman, and real investigations are about to begin. New witnesses will be called. Old witnesses will be recalled. Subpoenas will be issued. The story of: What did the president know about Russia and when did he know it? is about to unfold before our eyes.

And there will be more – a lot more.

Ranking members, Jerry Nadler on the Judiciary Committee, Richard Neal on Ways and Means, and Maxine Waters on Financial Services could only watch the Republican charade and call it out. Soon they will start calling witnesses. Corrupt cabinet members, abandonment of Puerto Rico, immigration, family separation, money laundering, campaign violations, possible criminal behavior by Don Jr., Ivanka, and Jared, and the pursuit of Trump’s tax returns will all be getting a long awaited dose of daylight.

And, that first sustained blast of daylight will take place on February 7th, when Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, grants former Trump fixer, Michael Cohen the opportunity to come clean, as all of us watch. Michael Cohen is on his way to a three-year prison term. He branded himself as Trump’s go-to hatchet man, once boasting “I would do anything to protect Mr. Trump.” He would like to change both his prison sentence and his public image.

In fact, he hopes that loudly serving the crime boss’s head on a platter will make him the hero of this story. Grateful though we may be, history will not be so kind, regardless of the secrets he might reveal.

The real heroes, like Mueller, will be strategic, focused, and unflappable.

For Adam Schiff, Richard Neal, Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, and Elijah Cummings, the tone has been set and probably much of their agendas. They will go after the truth, while being goaded by committee Republicans (like the rabid Jim Jordan) to lose their tempers, to appear overzealous and vindictive, but they are unlikely to take the bait.

And Godzilla will do everything he can think of to drown them out, to stomp on them and their hearings.

But they have been preparing for their moment for what must seem like an eternity, and they understand that history is watching.

Of course, nobody understands that more than Madam Speaker, who wields a very big gavel and is not afraid to use it.