Warmongering Republicans Should Take A Page From Maxine Waters' Trump Playbook.

The silence of the Republican lambs in Congress is deafening. Here we have a fringe lunatic in charge at the White House, according to 35 psychiatrists who effectively said again last Thursday that Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead. Yet, the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to enable his madness with great aplomb as if this stark naked emperor is wearing royal robes.

Perhaps our last hope for decency and real American patriotism to prevail over the partisan interests of the Republican Party was dashed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (Rep-S.C.), who recently announced that he is now “all in” with Trump.

Ostensibly, all it took for Graham to forget that he was at complete odds with some of the lunatics now running the asylum on Capitol Hill, regarding the appointment to the Oval Office of a likely treasonous money-launderer in collusion with Russia, was for Trump to begin to “bomb the shit” out of some terrorist folks over in the Middle East. If ever we needed evidence that nothing gets Republicans more stoked and cohesive than warmongering, this is it.

Graham is now on record in full praise and worship of Trump for sending a letter to the Iranian Ayatollah telling him to “knock it off” and for bombing an ISIS stronghold in Afghanistan with the Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB). Indeed, Graham is filled with awesome wonder at Trump’s tough-talking, Wyatt Erp stance against the renegade Cowboy outlaw Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Forget that Trump’s guns on the USS Carl Vinson were, through sheer incompetence and miscommunication, heading in the opposite direction of the “O.K. Corral.” Those are mere details in unbridled sycophantic ballyhooing.

Graham is embarrassingly oblivious, it would appear, to the prospect that such tactical maneuvers by Trump are likely distractions from the storm clouds that are still threatening his administration in the FBI’s “Russiagate” investigations and the fact that Trump’s approval ratings had dipped to a historic 37 percent low for any new president in U.S. history.

“I am like the happiest dude in America right now,” Graham declared in a recent FOX & Friends interview. “We’ve got a president and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years. In 80 days he’s done more to correct the world, President Trump, than Obama did in eight years.”

Really? Not according to several reports that list the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency as the worst on record for any president in history. If anything, the Trump that Graham despised prior to the elections has only got worse since. So much so, in fact, that it took a six-part installment from the L.A Times editorial board just to detail “the magnitude of this train wreck” masquerading as a presidency on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Indeed, what has Trump actually accomplished as his first 100 days in office draws to a close on Sunday? Despite his sly maneuverings to bypass those pesky laws of governance — you know, the Constitution — there will likely be no Muslim ban, no federal funding obstructions for sanctuary cities, no repeal of ObamaCare, no border wall.

If shoving the awful neo-confederate Neil Gorsuch through to the U.S. Supreme Court via Trump’s Congressional boot-lickers constitutes “success,” perhaps Republicans should raise the bar a tad. If Trump’s success is defined by the “historic number” of executive orders he has signed — essentially to undo the progress made in the Obama presidency on such critical global issues as climate change — the very least they could do is to get the count right. They didn’t — Trump’s White House staff is that incompetent.

"This is the most failed first 100 days of any president," said historian Douglas Brinkley, whom CNN once described as the most authoritative living resource in terms of knowledge on the presidency. "To be as low as he is in the polls, in the 30s, while the FBI director is on television saying they launched an investigation into your ties with Russia, I don't know how it can get much worse."

Maybe, we shouldn’t put that out into the universe.

In any event, if Trump is considered more “presidential” because he drops bombs in strategic places at opportune times to distract attention and distort the narrative about his failing presidency, what would stop his inner narcissist from trying to score more brownie points when his approval rating dips again to new lows? What’s more, intelligence sources suggest that arrests are imminent within Trump’s camp in the FBI investigations on Russian interference in our elections. In Trump’s world, it’s show time.

Speaking of which, on Wednesday, all 100 U.S. Senators were summoned to the White House for a classified briefing on North Korea by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While such administration officials routinely address members of Congress on foreign policy matters, it is quite unusual for the entire Senate to be summoned to meet with all four officials. Such moves usually portend war, not the “dog and pony” show it turned out to be with no new revelations that had not already been gleaned from the media. Quite sensibly, it seems, Bernie Sanders didn’t bother to show up.

Meanwhile, BBC headlines advised that the U.S. was “ready to bring Kim Jong-un to his senses,” and the head of U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris seemed to be bracing for a preemptive strike with the implication that North Korea would try to attack the U.S. as soon as it has the military capabilities. This is the kind of boy-who-cried-wolf disservice and brinkmanship to which the public has been subjected since Trump took office — with only a handful of people still willing to speak truth to power.

Indeed, where is the ethical, seemingly incorruptible Graham? The Graham who valiantly said days before the Iowa caucuses, “He [Trump] doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for...I’d rather lose without Donald Trump than try to win with him. I wish he would leave the party. I don’t care if he runs as an independent. If we lose the 2016 election, so be it.”

Where is the loyal American patriot, Graham? The Graham who declared, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

When Things Don’t Add Up, Follow The Money

Perhaps, it is time to take a closer look at the ties between Graham and Syria.

Indeed, I revisited some old 2013 reports dating back to when Saudi Arabia became seriously vested in toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to gain control of Damascus; when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud to lead the effort; when Bandar, in turn, through Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir received early support from Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to lobby the Obama Administration to get more involved in Syria — essentially to give the Saudis leverage.

Bandar is, arguably, the most effective Machiavellian politician in modern memory with clear links to 9/11 events. Yet, he has courted U.S. officials, including Graham and McCain, in opulent locations in cities like Istanbul. In fact, reports indicate that it wasn’t long after one such meeting in Sept. 2012 that McCain began extolling Bandar’s praises.

Bandar fell from grace as Saudi intelligence chief in Apr. 2014 when it became clear that his “lobbyists” could not deliver an American war in Syria. Instead of bombing Assad after he launched a chemical attack against his own people outside Damascus in 2013, Obama sought a diplomatic solution involving the U.N., and Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef took overall control of Saudi Arabia's Syria policy.

Noteworthy is the fact that one month after Trump’s inauguration, when tensions remained high between McCain, Graham and Trump, McCain visited Bin Nayef in Saudi Arabia to discuss “a number of issues of common concern.” Immediately following was a secret trip to Syria — “to assess dynamic conditions on the ground in Syria and Iraq,” according to McCain’s spokeswoman.

Which all sounds quite official. However, whose interests does McCain really represent in the Syrian conflict — the U.S. or Saudi Arabia? There is clear evidence that he is receiving money from the Saudi Arabian government by way of his non-profit McCain Institute Foundation — at least $1 million in 2014, according to documents filed with the I.R.S.

McCain and Graham are simpatico on foreign policy. They have an extremely tight personal bond. They travel together, make appearances together. Could Graham’s sudden, exuberant 180-degree turn toward Trump over his recent bombing of a Syrian airstrip and the urgency to send 5,000 to 6,000 more American troops on the ground in Syria be because of Saudi influence?

At this point Graham’s pronouncements on Syria should raise eyebrows — if not alarms.

Maxine Waters Is The Rosa Parks Of Our Time

Perhaps warmongering Republicans should take a page from Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-Calif.) Trump playbook — and note that her goal is to lock him up.

Waters is the Rosa Parks of our time. Inasmuch as Parks’ simple act of protest in refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger galvanized a civil rights revolution and spurred the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation, so too is Waters’ principled resistance to Trump, inspiring and emboldening grassroots activists and millennials — perhaps, even scientists — to stand up against a president who is unfit to lead, not just this country but the world.

Serving in Congress since 1991, Waters doggedly reminds us that there is nothing normal about the Trump presidency. She maintains that her stance is not for mere obstruction. She is no Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Waters believes that credible investigations will prove the illegitimacy of the Trump presidency and lead to his impeachment.

“There are those of you who keep talking about how he’s going to pivot, that he’s going to become presidential, when is that going to happen?” Waters responded recently, after being challenged that her stance may not be in the best interest of her constituents, the Democratic Party, or the country.

“I think he’s dangerous. I think he’s not a credible leader of this country. I think he’s treated our allies badly. I think others from across the sea are looking at us and saying ‘What’s wrong with us, and with the man who treats his allies this badly, and with the man who changes his mind from day to day, with a man who often does not know what he’s talking about?’ He cannot be trusted. And even though you may not think it is in the best interest of my constituents, I think it is in the best interests of my constituents to get rid of him.”

"We're fighting for democracy. We're fighting for America,” Waters had previously expounded on the Congressional floor. “We're saying to those who say they're patriotic, but they turn a blind eye to the destruction he is about to cause to this country, ‘You are not nearly as patriotic as we are.’"

Indeed, as Trump ramps up the rhetoric with North Korea, Syria, China, or whomever his enemy du jour may be, do we really need to remind our so-called Congressional representatives that we have no business initiating war as a cover for Trump’s failing presidency?

The realities and sacrifices of war will never be fully understood by a “draft dodger,” whose own children have never served a day in the military; who brags about eating the "most beautiful" chocolate cake during the Syrian missile strike decision; who derided a Muslim Gold Star family for recognizing that he has "sacrificed nothing and no one”; who thinks a Purple Heart — awarded to someone wounded or killed in battle — is a prize worthy of “tremendous congratulations” at a photo-op instead of heartfelt gratitude; and who refuses to accept responsibility that the buck stops at his door when poorly executed military operations he has authorized fail and result in the death of elite fighters like U.S. Navy SEAL Ryan Owens.

America sends its sons and daughters into hostile territories, asking them to risk life and limb for freedom and love of country. They are not pawns in Trump’s reality TV show. Those supporting Trump in another travesty of war based on questionable military intelligence will not get off as lightly as did George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, et al.

This time, we are woke.

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