Again: No Mueller, no taxes

From a recent Trump tweet:

There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!

That "gross mismanagement of forests" claim is highly debatable. I doubt that "pro-bidness" Republicans would ever countenance the regulation of logging and grazing, which is what "management" would entail. (Loggers remove the fire-resistant older trees and leave the more flammable smaller trees in high densities.)

Besides, Malibu is not a forest. Plenty of trees, yes -- but there's a whole lotta people in them thar hills. I've lived there; I know. It's not a place where you'll find loggers or grazing animals (aside from a couple of small ranches). It's a place where you're much more likely find Starbucks, schools, and celebrities. Trying to solve Malibu's problem with "forest management" is like trying to fix your SUV with a tuba.

Poor forest management is not the devil that whipped up that hell-storm. Climate change is the likelier culprit.

Universally, California officials' response has been that the real culprit behind intensifying wildfires is climate change.

As The Washington Post’s Angela Fritz wrote in July, a hotter-than average summer and dry winter have “led to tinder-dry vegetation,” in areas scorched by the Carr fire during Redding, California’s hottest July on record. “The energy release component, or how much fuel is available for the fire, is at the highest it has been around Redding since at least 1979,” Fritz wrote.

Trump threatens to rob California. Why bother to make such points? Getting involved in a science debate with Donald Trump is a game for losers. Trump believes in only those facts that suit his biases. He likes doing combat more than he likes doing reality.

For present purposes, the most important thing to point out is that Trump would never threaten to withhold federal funds from a red or purple state such as (say) Arizona. He targets California in this fashion because California is blue.

He also needs to smear Jerry Brown. Brown is too old to be a candidate in 2020, but he embodies the way Dems clean up Republican messes. He's a symbol. He inherited a seemingly-insurmountable $26 billion deficit and will leave the state with a more-than-tidy $11 billion surplus. That money will come in handy when Trump's tax plan wallops CA.

Those federal funds that Trump threatens to withhold are California funds. It's their money.

(I almost wrote "It's our money." You can take the boy out of the Golden State but...)

Why should Californians -- and New Yorkers, and other blue state wealth-producers -- tolerate this infuriating situation? The blue states produce wealth. The red staters (usually) take more from the federal coffers than they contribute. Red states are leeches.

The case for withholding taxes. Why should we blue staters accept as a president a man who is clearly a crook, a man who has been mobbed up for many years, a man who is clearly guilty of campaign finance violations in the payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, a man who lies incessantly, a man who flagrantly violates the emoluments clause each and ever day, a man who obviously colluded with a foreign adversary (and probably with more than one)?

We do not ask for an extra-Constitutional overthrow. All we ask for is a thorough, unimpeded investigation, followed by the indictment of the provably guilty. Everything done by the book.

We can no longer tolerate a criminal leader who uses his power to shut down a duly constituted investigation. Why should blue voters continue to fund an increasingly non-democratic, authoritarian government?

Trump's elevation of a truly disgusting and utterly corrupt crony -- a man clearly guilty of participation in a criminal enterprise -- should be beyond our ability to stomach. Whitaker is a fiend. A fiend. We cannot allow this crook to be in charge of the Justice Department. The guy even looks like the Kingpin in Daredevil. Trump has appointed him in contradiction of the Constitution (because the senate is not in recess).

We cannot allow Trump's criminal crony to be in charge of the investigation into Trump himself.

Congress can't do what needs to be done. Even if the new Congress were bluer than it actually will be, it still could not do the job. The muscle isn't there.

Never hope that any Republican will see reason. Never believe that Republicans are capable of compromise or honesty. They budge only when forced to budge. The Republicans are unbelievably corrupt, ruthless, dishonest, theocratic, brutal and power-drunk.

The Republican party has become a fascist party. You cannot debate a fascist.

The solution exists at the state level.

The blue staters need to demand a return to the Ethics in Government Act, which expired in 1999. This is the Act that gave us Ken Starr. Robert Mueller needs to be protected and given broader powers -- the exact same scope and leeway that Ken Starr exercised.

The only way to accomplish this goal is to shut off the money spigot.

It's our money. They fund their corruption and their wars with blue money.

No Mueller? No taxes.

That is power. And power is the only thing that those endlessly corrupt and conspiratorial Republican fascists understand.

To forestall further outrages, we need to demand a Constitutional amendment which will solve many of the structural problems besetting our democracy. In particular, we must demand an end to the electoral college and an end to the use of computers in the tabulation of the official vote. (Much else needs to be done, of course.)

We also need a law or amendment which would limit presidential pardon powers, thereby insuring that a president cannot pardon his way out of an investigation.

As things stand, we can no longer rely on the justice system. Disabuse yourselves of that delusion right now. The foxes guard the henhouse.

Why Mueller can't win. Even if Mueller were allowed to proceed unhindered, I do not place great hope in his efforts. Mueller exemplifies a familiar axiom: Generals lose because they know only how to fight the previous war. Mueller's big trick, learned from his days of fighting mobsters, is to put the squeeze on lower-level guys in order to get at the chieftains. But that trick won't work here. Flynn has not truly turned. Papadopoulos never turned.

Manafort, we now know, has not cooperated; he obviously is pinning his hopes on a pardon. There is controversy as to whether state charges can be brought against that crook. If that controversy reaches the Supreme Court, we know how Trump's court will rule.

Mueller cannot establish justice under these unfair rules.

Blinkered fools like Bill Palmer do the nation an enormous disservice by constantly dishing out over-optimistic codswallop like this.

But we do know this: Mueller has the full cooperation of Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen.

Those four names are the ace up Robert Mueller’s sleeve. He knows everything they know.

Jesus Christ, Bill! Haven't you read the news? Manafort is Johnny Tightlips. His cooperation is a damned joke.

The twitter feed offered by the Flynns, father and son, indicates that they are just as Alt Righty as ever. Michael Flynn Sr. is never going to admit that, as head of the DIA, he fell for a classic Russian honeypot.

So far, Gates' cooperation seems genuine, but his information hurt Manafort, not Trump. And Manafort is angling for a pardon, which brings us back to square one.

Only Cohen seems to be in a position to do genuine harm to Donald Trump; only Cohen seems to bear a genuine animus toward his former boss. So the question becomes: Does Cohen truly know where the bodies are buried?

Mueller can't do the job he needs to do under these rules.

The solution. We need to change the rules. And the only way to do that is to withhold Democratic funds.

And why not? Whitaker himself said in 2014 that the states have the right to overturn the ruling of the federal government, vis-a-vis Obamacare. To my red friends: You want to play the "states rights" game? Fine. Let's see you play it against the only states that produce money. Let's see what happens then.

To my blue friends: Withhold funds. Withhold sanction of this endlessly criminal antipresident and his assaults on our norms, our traditions, and our justice.

I do not believe in secession and I do not believe in war. And I know full well that those who dwell in leech states like Alabama and West Virginia think that they can get along without us. These resentment-filled rednecks are big on arrogance and low on the ability to produce wealth. You can't expect logic and realism from ill-educated people who watch wrestling on TV and who spend their spare time hunting for bigfoot and praying for the Rapture. These easily-gulled rubes will listen to any con artist who tells them whatever pleases their egos. They'll understand the depths of their nescience only when they find themselves living in a libertarian "utopia" without Social Security or Medicare.

But the red state leaders, the representatives in DC -- they know where the money comes from.

As ruthless and dishonest as they are, they understand that we ask only for justice and democracy. All we want is an unimpeded investigation. If the investigation clears Trump, so be it.

We know the impeachment threshold in the Senate. Nothing can happen to Trump if the evidence against him is not clear and indisputable. If there is no conclusive proof against him, he's safe. Thus, impeding the investigation is an admission of guilt.

Red state representatives may talk big, but they know in their hearts that a new Confederacy will have all the power and prosperity of Tajikistan or Belarus. (Remember, DC is locked between a blindingly pure Cobalt Blue state and an increasingly blue-ish purple state.) The red staters may hate us, but they cannot survive without us. They may speak defiantly, but I doubt that they truly want the entire American experiment to end. Turn off the blue state money spigot, and they will cave.

Trump isn't worth it. Defending corruption is not worth it.

My fellow "bluenecks": Do not fall into the trap of demanding some inane and unrealizable vision of progressive utopia. Personally, I will always want two parties. I will always want an ongoing dialogue between conservative and liberal values. Progs (especially purist progs) tend to piss me off as much as Republicans do. Longtime readers of this column will know that I've felt that way for years, and that I have devoted many a previous post to critiques of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (And I cannot stand Bernie Sanders.)

Blue voters must demand two things only: 1. An independent justice system in which a president cannot impede an investigation into his own deeds, and 2. A democracy that can't be rigged. The rest will take care of itself.

Taxation without representation is tyranny. Until democracy returns, pay no taxes.