Corruption: Once More With Feeling

 It has been my position that the single most consistent line of attack against Trump should be his corruption. Everything that he does can likely be tied back to some interest - usually including himself - that profits from his actions. Recently, he decided to pay a French company $1,000,000,000 to cede their lease to a wind farm off the East Coast. Why? Why would the US government deprive a private company the opportunity to build a wind farm? There is the usual Republican friendliness to petrochemical companies, but this seems so obviously self-defeating. When it all comes out, I would bet dollars to doughnuts that there is money changing hands under the table.

In Iran, we now have pretty compelling circumstantial evidence that Trump and the people around him are conducting insider trading around futures markets. Krugman is being little - it has to be said - shrill in calling this treason, but it sure as hell seems like a crime. I don't think he engaged in this very unpopular war simply to make a buck, but once begun and especially since it started going poorly, he has done what he always does, which is to find a way to personally benefit from the destruction that he and his policies caused.

Perhaps the reason why the oil shock from Trump's War has been somewhat muted is because markets aren't necessarily following the TACO rule so much as not wanting to invest in an obviously rigged market. Trump has now said we are negotiating with Iran. Iran says this is bullshit. There is some evidence that Trump's new timeline of five days is just to get Marines in theater, but not attack until markets close on Friday. 

I remain guardedly optimistic that Trump's corruption and incompetence will undo him. Fraud doesn't work in the long run, and the man is the walking personification of fraud. When his hold on power is wrested away from him, the creatures that have gorged themselves at this trough of corruption and self-dealing might be surprised that he did not pardon them on the way out. 

The challenge for whomever restores American democracy will be to hold those who have violated the public trust accountable, despite the inevitable caterwauling about "lawfare" from Fox and Fiends. Trump was prosecuted because he's broken the law. This has given Republicans cover for when Trump demands spurious investigations into his opponents, based on political malice. There needs to be a Truth and Reconciliation committee, only without the reconciliation. 

Someone said that the 48th president of the United States (unless it's Vance because of the actuarial table) will spend an entire term cleaning up Trump's mess. That process has to start by driving the money changers from the temple.