Still Saddlesore, But Ready To Get Back On The Trail

And now a word from our sponsor . . . . .





The Gadfly is back in the Blogger saddle.  Come one, come ye all.




----TFG

Fake Memories Borne of a Fake American

Umm... wait....what?  wtf??? ...

During a tense meeting at the White House in June, President Trump caught Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe off guard with a pointed remark.

“I remember Pearl Harbor,” the president said, referring to the surprise attack that propelled the United States into World War II. [Ed note: Trump was born in 1946.]

Trump then launched into a blistering critique of Japan’s economic policies, according to people familiar with the conversation. He railed against the U.S. trade deficit with Japan and urged Abe to negotiate a bilateral trade deal that is more favorable to U.S. exporters of beef and automobiles.

https://crooksandliars.com/2018/08/trump-japans-prime-minister-i-remember?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=1205

Born in 1946 and he "remembers" Pearl Harbor huh?

What is there to remember?

Everybody knows the fucking Germans bombed Pearl Harbor for fuck's sake (thank you for that history tidbit John Belushi):






Anyhow, that is quite the amazing feat by Drumpf, to claim to remember a seminal event in your nation's history as if you had been a cognizant eyewitness to it, even though it occurred a half dozen years before you were born.  In fact, it's one of those quintessentially Drumpfian feats - one that only the mind of a very stable genius, and the sire of the "best genes" that mankind has to offer, could so immaculately conjure up.

Maybe though...maybe, he was thinking of the movie "Pearl Harbor" with Ben Affleck, or that 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, or . . . .

. . . . Or perhaps he's just an impostrous vulgarian turncoat who has fraudulently acquired temporary possession of the United States of American people's White House and Presidency, meaning that he simply does not give a rat's fucking sphincter about this country, it's history, or it's future.  Nor does he give one flying fuck about any one individual in this country that isn't either making him money, making his spawn money, making Putin money, or bowing to his fetid fealty oath.  Has anyone stopped to think that that is why he finds it so cavalierly easy to just say something so patently ridiculous to another world leader in public like that?

C'mon folks -- can't you see the big picture here??

He's a fraud, and has been a fraud since --- well, for fucking ever.  Drumpf is the slap-chop guy, Liberace and the hell-roasted soul of Roy Cohn rolled up in to the festering orange bag of pus that we all know as Donald Fucking Trump.

Putin has some juicy shit on him.  Oh yes he does.

Believe it.

It's all going to come out.

It has to.

Mueller is tying up the loose ends of his pincer-like investigation and Drumpf knows it and he's fucking scared shitless, which has clearly been seen in his increasingly erratic and disgraceful public behavior the past several weeks.

Mueller's heat has transformed Drumpf in to a living, breath pressure cooker.

Something is about to blow - and when it does, The Gadfly doesn't want to hear any of you mother-fucking skeptics saying afterward, "but Gadfly, how could we have known?"  Umm, no - that ain't going to fly with the Gadfly.  Nosiree.

But we'll cross that bridge when it's time.

Nonetheless, hang on to your seats kids -  The Gadfly senses strong turbulence ahead.




----TFG

Umm . . . Let's Talk About Orange Yahweh's Hiring Practices...

Now that the stench of Trump's own corruption is getting the vampire-killing light of day that it has long been in need of, some may wonder how that corruption influences or reflects upon his administration as a whole.

Well, enough with the wondering - mkay?  There is no mystery as to why everything Drumpf touches turns to shit.  He has never possessed the chops or the personal integrity to be a hard-working, honest, merit-based, successful businessman, and so he turned to graft, which was much easier, and much more lucrative.

But remember when Trump loudly bragged that he only hired and surrounded himself with "the best" people? . . . remember that?  And his supporters cheered lustily?  Remember?  Apparently Drumpf was referring to these people:

Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/michael-flynn-guilty-russia-investigation.html


Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort is on trial right now for all manner of financial and political corruption.
https://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/in-paul-manafort-trial-gates-is-admitting-to-everything-1293322307517


Trump's HHS Secretary Tom Price - resigns in disgrace for corruption.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/145112/tom-price-corrupt-incompetent-even-trump-administration


Trump's EPA chief Scott Pruitt - resigns in disgrace for corruption.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/scott-pruitt-was-allowed-to-perpetrate-a-staggering-level-of-self-dealing.html


Trump's Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke currently being investigated for corruption.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/397740-interior-inspector-general-launches-investigation-into-zinke


Trump's Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has just been accused of stealing $120 million from business associates.
https://www.businessinsider.com/wilbur-ross-120-million-grift-allegations-in-bombshell-forbes-report-2018-8

That's not even counting the small army of former high-level staffers who have all departed under some murky or other ambiguous circumstances, and many of whom are currently caught up in the Mueller Russian collusion investigation.

Anyone detecting a pattern here folks?  Nothing stands out in the way of, oh.... a common theme perhaps?  Hello?  Hello . . is this thing on?

Draining the swamp The Gadfly's ass.

It astounds The Gadfly every fucking day just knowing that so many people bought blindly in to Drumpf's carnival barker con game.  But more than that - it scares the shit out of The Gadfly knowing that a sizable portion of that bunch (like the Hail Jeebus folk in the picture at the top of this post), believe sincerely, that all of that corruption is not only just dandy, but it also gives them cause to adore and revere the person responsible for that corruption even more profoundly - namely, their dear leader and living god, Donald J. Trump.

And that right there dear readers - is the very clinical definition of a cult:

cult

[kuhlt]

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

noun

1. a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.

Donald Trump and his people are not in any sense "the best" people that this country has to lead our nation.  In fact, the argument being made here, in this post, on the pages of this shitty little blog, is that they are actually the worst! people to be leading this nation.  Full stop.  And if you are supporting and enabling bad people to lead our nation, what does that make you?

You all know damn well what you need to do folks -- if you give a shit about your democracy and freedom that is.  So just go do it then . . . .

Resist.

Speak up.

Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote!    
Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote!




----TFG

Let's Dare Call It What It Is . . .

Remember folks - the question that The Gadfly has been asking for the past several months on the pages of this shitty little blog - the question of how deep?  As in, how deep does the ongoing onslaught of subterfuge of American democracy truly go?

Three events that have taken place in the past few days provide a fairly sobering answer to that question in The Gadfly's not-so-humble opinion.

Drumpf nominates Brett Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) seat being vacated by Anthony Kennedy.  Anthony Kennedy's son Justin Kennedy spent a decade working for the International Criminal Bank of Mobsters (ICBM), aka Deutsche Bank.  Deutsche Bank has a well known reputation of being the most favored "banking" institution of Russian money launderers.  While at Deutsche Bank, Kennedy the Junior signed off on loans of over $1 billion dollars to Donald Trump - at a time when no U.S. banks would do business with Trump because of his shady business deals background, and a well documented record of spectacular business failures.  Brett Kavanaugh clerked for Kennedy at the SCOTUS.  Kavanaugh has a paper trail of writings expressing his idea that a sitting President cannot be subpoenaed or indicted because the President "is the law,"  intimating that the President is the only citizen, in a country of 330 million citizens, to whom American laws and justice do not apply to - the President is a King, if you will.  But Hillary's emails - right?

There was another nomination.  Drumpf also nominated a guy named Brian Benczowki - for the position of Assistant Attorney General in charge of the DOJ's Criminal Division.  Benczowski was employed not long ago by another International ICBM called Alfa Bank.  Alfa Bank is owned by a cabal of Russian oligarchs who have close ties to - - gee, like you all don't know . . . but yeah, Vladimir Putin.  Guess who get's Rosenstein's job if he's fired?  Guess who then oversees Robert Mueller's investigation and can fire Mueller?

Following along ok dear readers?

Lastly - Trump has gone to Europe - to meet with American allies.  Remember kids - ally = good, not enemies, but our friends, mkay?

And so what does Trump do right off the bat, in a face to face meeting with the leaders of the countries who have pledged to fight by America's side if she were ever attacked?  He berates our allies, lies about their NATO commitments, blatantly disrespects the allied leaders with bullshit and an ignorant buffoon's grasp of history, and sneeringly accuses one of our staunchest allies Germany of being a "captive" of Russia because they buy natural gas from them.

Jeebus fuck.

If you need some help figuring out what is going on here:

Why would a president who stands accused of conspiring with Russia to win election want to nakedly adopt policies that suit Russia more than his own country and that are opposed by our allies? Why would he want to have a summit with the Russian leader? Why would he want to have a private meeting with no witnesses present with that Russian leader? An innocent man would avoid making himself look so clearly guilty and a guilty one would be more deceptive. Only a captured man would act like this.

And it’s getting silly how far people will go to avoid facing up to that simple fact.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/07/11/can-we-just-admit-that-trump-is-captured-by-the-russians/

When are the people of this country going to wake up and smell the fucking coffee scented roses and acknowledge what is going on right in front of all of our faces?

Donald Trump is selling this country down the river to a murdering, Borscht swilling Communist, ex-KGB (no, the KGB are not "fine") thug and a bunch of Russian oligarchs, and quite probably, a few American ones as well.

It is also pretty apparent that some members of the Republican party, primarily in the House, but maybe a few Senators as well, are more than just passive enablers of the Putin/Drumpf ham-fisted coup.

Here's the main point that The Gadfly is trying to convey - every citizen of this country is going to be put in to an extremely agonizing position of having to choose a side here pretty soon, if of course that they haven't already made that decision.

It's unfortunate.

It's inevitable.

Choose wisely.




----TFG

To Infinity And Beyond! . . . Ok, Maybe Only to Palm Beach, But Whatever...

Oh dear lord . . .

.@michaelkosta heads to a South Carolina Trump rally to learn more about Space Force. pic.twitter.com/VgYLggyx2H

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 1, 2018

https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1013406871582015488

While this clip aired on a Comedy Central show, the interviewees are NOT, The Gadfly is disturbed to tell you, paid actors.

These are real-life, dyed-in-the-wool, Red White & Blue Donald Trump supporters (allow that to sink in for a bit) who truly are of the belief that Trump is going to create some form of his very own federal agency, or "Space Force" as Trump himself called it, of Buzz Lightyear, Marvel Super Heroes-like American Astronuts (sic) to go out and conquer the galaxy under the colors of Old Glory and in the name of the baby Jeebus.

Sigh . . . . .

The Gadfly's favorite one was the lady who is convinced that NASA - NASA FOR FUCK SAKE!! . . . is conspiring to keep some mysterious, ambiguous truth from her and her tribe, and that The Great and Powerful Trump is going to send his "own stuff" in to outer space to get her that truth.  And she stated as such quite matter-of-factly, and without ever once cracking a smile.  Regrettably, this intellectual giant of a lady neglected to educate us on precisely what kind of "stuff" Mr. Trump was going to send in to space, suffice to say that as long as Kanye West, Ted Nugent and Rupert Murdoch are on the payload bill of laden for the one-way launch of that "stuff," The Gadfly won't protest too much at all.  Nor did she bother to opine as to what it is that she believed this mystical "truth" to be that Donald Trump's "stuff" was going to find for her, and what they intend to do with it when they find it.

And please -- don't get The Gadfly (who has a 30 year career in IT) started on the doofus, who when he was asked to describe what he believed Trump's "Space Force" to be, this clown argle-bargled some clueless, Homer Simpson crockery about how it's like a "cloud computer," you know, kinda' like "I-Tunes." Umm - no numbnuts - it's really not, and The Gadfly will spare all you dear readers the droll details of that discussion for another day mkay?

Honestly though -- Fucking Yikes! with these people, huh?  And as such, to whit, the plaintive lamentations of Civility! do ring hollow in The Gadfly's ears.

After viewing that video, The Gadfly is utterly convinced that if this country somehow manages to survive this unenlightened period of it's short (comparatively to other world democracies) democratic history, it will have been mostly due to a hair-raising yet amazing escape from the lumbering clutches of Main Street "Idiocracy" - which also happens to be the name of a very funny, and now quite obviously, prophetic movie.  If you have not seen "Idiocracy", do yourself a favor, go rent it on Netflix or Amazon, have your favorite mind altering substance handy, and watch it - at least twice. Then take a good, hard look around yourself and ponder your destiny.



----TFG

Sweet Democracy, 'Yonder Lies Your Destiny - Through That Deepest of Swamps...

America --  Meet the swamp (and the creatures that lurk within):

The circumstances of Justice Kennedy’s resignation must be investigated by the Senate Judiciary Committee before any replacement is considered. The Constitution does not give Trump the power to use underhanded means to induce Supreme Court resignations.https://t.co/S6m5oLg9mV

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) June 30, 2018

It's quite mind-boggling when you actually sit down and calmly and methodically analyze the big picture implications of what it is that appears to be transpiring here, prompting this to be the latest revelation that has had The Gadfly, for several months now, sincerely questioning the depth (how deep?) of the high treachery that outwardly appears to be going on in our nation.

And believe The Gadfly when he tells you folks - this Drumpf/Kennedy connection story is no fucking coincidence here.  The Gadfly can damn well guarantee you that anything that ever, EVER! financially benefited Donald Trump undeservedly, has been anything and everything but a coincidence.

So let's review mkay?:

Donald Trump, at a time when American banks were refusing the risk of doing business with him, received $1 billion (yes - that's a BILLION, as in 1000 millions) in loans from the notoriously shady international investment bank Deutsche Bank.  Deutsche Bank is considered by many financial fraud experts to the be "Bank" of choice for international, chiefly Russian, money launderers.

Every $1 billion dollars of those loans was signed off on by an executive at Deutsche Bank by the name of Justin Kennedy.

Justin Kennedy is the son of US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Or at least Kennedy was a SCOTUS justice as of a couple of days ago.

For as it happens, Justice Kennedy resigned suddenly and without notice a couple of days ago and just as word of this interesting connection was slowly being revealed in the wider press.

Kennedy's impromptu exit thus allows Donald Trump the opportunity to put forth yet a second SCOTUS nominee, and after the Merrick Garland, Neil Gorsuch ratfuckery by Mitch McConnell.

Donald Trump is currently under criminal investigation by United States Federal and State national security and law enforcement authorities for a virtual myriad of nefarious financial and possibly treasonous political activities.

Now - before we go any further.  Allow The Gadfly a moment to play some good old-fashioned Devil's Advocate here with you dear readers:

In the highlighted section above, replace the name 'Donald Trump' in the trio of instances where it appears with the name of Hillary Clinton.  Now then - next, replace the name 'Mitch McConnell' with that of Nancy Pelosi.

Here - The Gadfly will help you.  If you followed the instructions correctly, your modified highlighted section should now look exactly like this:

Hillary Clinton, at a time when American banks were refusing the risk of doing business with her, received $1 billion (yes - that's a BILLION, as in 1000 millions) in loans from the notoriously shady international investment bank Deutsche Bank.

Every $1 billion dollars of those loans was signed off on by an executive at Deutsche Bank by the name of Justin Kennedy.

Justin Kennedy is the son of US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Or at least Kennedy was a SCOTUS justice as of a couple of days ago.

For as it happens, Justice Kennedy resigned suddenly and without notice a couple of days ago and just as word of this interesting connection was slowly being revealed in the wider press.

Kennedy's impromptu exit thus allows Hillary Clinton the opportunity to put forth yet a second SCOTUS nominee, and after the Merrick Garland, Neil Gorsuch ratfuckery by Nancy Pelosi.

Hillary Clinton is currently under criminal investigation by United States Federal and State national security and law enforcement authorities for a virtual myriad of nefarious financial and possibly treasonous political activities.

Now, just on it's face dear readers - Let's make-believe that Hillary Clinton were President right now (no tittering please), and that the wording in the now modified section was a pretty accurate depiction of what was presently going on within a hypothetical President Clinton's presidency . . . . . . do any of you truly believe that the conservative right in this country would not be frothing at the mouth berserk, and unleashing absolutely guttural, screaming demands for Hillary Clinton's literal head on a platter?

And do any of you honestly think that a whole lot of these Trump conservatives would not be openly threatening to take up matters in to their own god-fearin', good citizen hands in order to bring about some of that old-fashioned, Red, White & Blue, conservative justice for Mrs. Clinton?

Y'all better wake up folks - because that is the reality of the situation that we are dealing with here.

The simple fact of the matter is this:  none of this ends well for any of us, if the evidence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is still actively gathering, is unconstitutionally prevented from being expediently and judiciously presented directly to the American people, thus allowing the opportunity for each and every one of us Americans to make up our own minds, based on that evidence, as to what we believe to be the truth, and to what each one of us believes what it is that we see occurring before our very own eyes.

Capisce?





----TFG

The Unmistakable Stench Of Desperation In The Form Of Fantastic Lies

Un-fucking-believable . . .

The Democrats are making a strong push to abolish ICE, one of the smartest, toughest and most spirited law enforcement groups of men and women that I have ever seen. I have watched ICE liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13 & clean out the toughest of situations. They are great!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2018

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1013016168377081856

″I have watched ICE liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13...″

Drumpf actually tweeted that out to the American public this morning.

To which The Gadfly would promptly reply:

Name one. Name one single American "town" that was so firmly under the control of MS-13, that it required The President of The United States to deploy federal government law enforcement personnel in to the town, and like the cavalry in the old western movies, "liberate" the poor beleaguered townspeople from the evil bad guys. Just one. Name just one town that ICE liberated from MS-13. Name that town, and allow the rest of us Americans and the press to confer with the people of this "liberated" town and get their side of what would most certainly be an incredible story.

Jeebus fucking kripes. This is the kind of juvenile and mindless bullshit that Drumpf's followers credulously ingest and willfully swallow, every goddamn day, with nary an iota of critical thinking or analyzing.

But this *pResident compounds his lies on a daily basis. He has to. He lies so often and so egregiously that he has to continue manufacturing multiple layers of lies in order to provide cover for all of the previous lies he has spewed.

This MS-13 lie is reminiscent of the one he routinely told on the 2016 campaign trail claiming that he personally witnessed Muslim Americans publicly cheering and dancing in the streets when the WTC towers were attacked on 9/11. It never happened of course, and Drumpf apparently was the only American on the entire fucking east coast to come forward and claim to have been a witness to what assuredly would have been a very unsettling spectacle.

Seriously though folks - what measure of character of an individual is it that compels them to tell these kinds of lies? It certainly cannot be the kind of character that possesses any moral or social value. But when you consider the position Drumpf holds as leader of the most militarily powerful country on the planet, and then consider the kinds of lies he tells, it is clear that like history's previous fascist madmen, he lies like he does out of pure instinct to maintain his grip on power. He lies because nothing is more sacred to him than that power. And it is precisely that kind of liar, extensively documented history has shown, who is a palpable and imminent threat to democracy and a free people.

If The Gadfly is wrong with that assessment - please feel free to explain how so.



----TFG

We Have Seen The Swamp, And They Are Most Definitely Drumpf . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Regarding the sudden, shocking retirement of conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The Gadfly finds this tidbit in a NYT article pretty fucking interesting:

But they had a connection, one Mr. Trump was quick to note in the moments after his first address to Congress in February 2017. As he made his way out of the chamber, Mr. Trump paused to chat with the justice.

“Say hello to your boy,” Mr. Trump said. “Special guy.”

Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Justice Kennedy’s son, Justin. The younger Mr. Kennedy spent more than a decade at Deutsche Bank, eventually rising to become the bank’s global head of real estate capital markets, and he worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people with knowledge of his role.

During Mr. Kennedy’s tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trump’s most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/us/politics/trump-anthony-kennedy-retirement.html

That was in the context of what, if any form of direct relationship Trump and Kennedy had among themselves.

Basically, as it turns out, Anthony Kennedy's son was a former, decade-long executive at the German-owned investment bank Deutsche Bank.  While at Deutsche Bank, the younger Kennedy hooked up with Drumpf's flim-flam organization and eventually became Drumpf's leading lender to the tune of a cool $billion - this at at time when American-based banks were refusing to do business with Drumpf because they knew he was a duplicitous con-artist with a well-documented history of unscrupulous business dealings.

Deutsche Bank is currently in investigator's cross-hairs in conjunction with various state and federal investigations of suspicious financial activity related to Drumpf and others in his orbit, and possibly even being tied in to the Russian collusion shenanigans.

Check this out - this is a somewhat jagged timeline of Robert Mueller's interest in and eventual subpoena of Deutsche Bank records involving banking transactions with Drumpf's Damien "The Omen" looking-like son-in-law Jared Kushner:

If anyone out there believes that Jared Kusnher's finances are clear and separate from, and beyond the influence of Donald Trump's tiny-fingered grasp, you really need to just go stick your head in the nearest toilet and flush repeatedly.

Just makes you wonder -- and as The Gadfly has been asking for many months now -- how deep does it go?  How deep does the ratfucking subterfuge of our American democracy truly go?

The Gadfly is pretty certain that a former USMC combat veteran who goes by the name of Robert Swan Mueller III is going to give us all the answer to that question pretty goddamn soon -- and when he does, unlike The Gadfly, a whole lot of people in this country are going to be mighty fucking shocked.



----TFG

When They Lie About Children . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

The Gadfly is seeing a barrage of right wing internet memes being passed around on social media like a crack pipe, that lamely attempt, and miserably fail, to justify Drumpf's family separation policy at the border.  The justification that they are peddling is, "oh look," we found news footage of Obama and Hillary Clinton both talking tough about enforcing illegal immigration policies . . . both sides do it - weeeeeeeeeee!

As usual with these guys, it is all uninformed, not very well thought out, mostly duplicitous horse twaddle.

There is a clearly delineated difference between publicly stated policy that is delivered on the campaign trail, and what the policy actually being implemented by a ruling government on the ground is.  You don't need to be a fucking nuclear physicist to understand that dichotomy.

More importantly here though is, why have Drumpf and his lackeys been brazenly and shamelessly lying to the American people's faces about their policy for the past week?  Lying as in twisting themselves in to impossibly convoluted, pretzel knots kind of lying.

First they claimed it wasn't happening.  Then they blamed it on a 20 year old court case that is still being adjudicated.  Next they said it was a law created by Democrats.  And when it was pointed out to them that no such law exists, they then just outright issued public denials that the inhumane policy even existed at all.

And yet, today, after the horror of their actions has pretty much blown up in their stupid, disgusting faces, Drumpf signs one of his hallowed "executive orders" reversing the very policy, HIS ADMINISTRATION'S POLICY!! that they just spent a solid fucking week claiming did not exist.  Voila!

Lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies . . . . . .

These people are professionally pathological liars and con-artists.  And right now, sane, decent Americans need to ask themselves the most glaringly obvious question -- if Donald Trump and his people will lie about the health and welfare of defenseless, helpless children whom they have consciously and deliberately taken away from their parents, what won't they lie about?

Any high level Trumpers who have had a hand in this policy - their political careers aren't worth dog shit now.  They will forever be associated with the stench of Drumpf and this degenerate episode.

And as for these people . . .

. . . . [The Gadfly does a slow burn] . . . . providing Trump's comrade Putin doesn't ratfuck our electoral process again, they are going to find out just how much of a minority voice that they truly are come November.






----TFG

Is There Omerta Among Rodents?.... We Are About To Find Out

 

[ click pic to enlarge ]

The vermin are restless.

By MJ Lee, Kara Scannell and Gloria Borger, CNN

Updated 5:48 PM ET, Tue June 19, 2018

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen has signaled to friends that he is "willing to give" investigators information on the President if that's what they are looking for, and is planning on hiring a new lawyer to handle a possible indictment from federal prosecutors.

"He knows a lot of things about the President and he's not averse to talking in the right situation," one of Cohen's New York friends who is in touch with him told CNN. "If they want information on Trump, he's willing to give it."

Cohen is planning to hire Guy Petrillo, a former chief of the criminal division of the US attorney's office in Manhattan and an experienced trial lawyer, a source familiar confirmed. The source said all the paperwork and retainer may not have been finalized just yet.

The shift in legal strategy and signals of potential cooperation with investigators come as Cohen feels increasingly isolated from the President, whom he has been famously loyal to for more than a decade. Last week, CNN reported Cohen has indicated a willingness to cooperate to alleviate pressure on himself and his family.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/19/politics/michael-cohen-criminal-lawyer-guy-petrillo/index.html

If Cohen says he is "willing to give" info to investigators about Trump for the right plea deal, then that clearly signifies that he has knowledge and corroborating, likely documented evidence that would be very, very damaging to Drumpf, and quite probably to others in Drumpf's empire.

Two crucial points need to be noted here.

Cohen full well knows that Robert Mueller and his investigators have possession of the mother lode of 15 months of investigative information and evidence on his own criminal chicanery in their possession, and that he is fucked for it six ways from Sunday.

Secondly - Michael Cohen is 52 years old.  He has a wife and kids, and no doubt, in his mind, he has got to be thinking to himself - "am I 20 years fucked or maybe just 5 or 6 years fucked?" That is a critically enormous difference considering Cohen's age and family status.

And so the obviously pivotal question then becomes - where is Michael Cohen's loyalty most dedicated? Is it to Donald Trump? Or is that loyalty significantly more beholden to his wife, his children, and to the quality of his own life for the remaining time that he walks on this earth?

Do you see where The Gadfly is going with this folks?  It's pretty goddamn unmistakable what the next chapter in this very sordid saga is.

As such - now is the time to keep a careful watch on Drumpf's behavior and actions. If he is convinced that his long-time "fixer" attorney is going to spill his ever-loving guts to Mueller about Drumpf's illicit activities and assorted other moral transgressions, then we have officially arrived at that inevitable cornered rat time -- and this rat is a big, fat, orange, devious one with nasty sharp teeth and, who it must be pointed out, has his pudgy little finger hovering over the big, red nuclear button.

Keep that in mind as the coming constitutional crisis begins to evolve more steadily and intensifies, as it must do considering the reality that we are facing as regards to Drumpf's own loyalty questions and standing.

That's all.




----TFG