We Warned You. trump Is Getting Worse (w/ Update)

Update: Thanks again to Crooks & Liars promoting this blog via Mike's Blog Round Up, and many thanks to Tengrain choosing me for the Tuesday reads. Please take the time to read through here, and above all GET THE VOTE OUT FOR WARREN - yes, I chose a side - IN NEW HAMPSHIRE TODAY.

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We knew the Republicans were going to "vindicate" trump's Impeachment with an unqualified acquittal. What we didn't expect was that a number of Senators - Maine's Susan Collins in particular - would go with the excuse that "trump will learn from the experience to not do it again," that he will somehow be humbled by the public scandal and behave himself onward.

Nope.

trump is raging against Mitt Romney - the only Republican to actually vote in favor of ONE of the Impeachment articles - and trump's lackeys are openly plotting ways to hurt Mitt for that vote.

And there's all the stuff happening this weekend, filed under #FridayNightMassacre as his wrath flows out towards anyone who crossed him over his Ukraine shakedown. Via Nancy LeTourneau at Washington Monthly:

One of the people who was most undermined by Trump’s remarks was Senator Susan Collins, who said previously that Trump had learned his lesson from the impeachment process. She had to walk that one back almost immediately...

Based on Trump’s remarks at his celebration and at Thursday’s prayer breakfast, it is clear that attacking Romney will be front and center for the foreseeable future...

But Romney isn’t the only one. Trump is also planning to go after the staff who had the courage to testify against him.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a National Security Council aide who testified during House Democrats’ impeachment hearings — will be informed in the coming days, likely on Friday, by administration officials that he is being reassigned to a position at the Defense Department, taking a key figure from the investigation out of the White House.

Trump and his allies are considering doing more than just launching verbal fusillades at his perceived enemies over impeachment as the decision regarding Vindman shows. Some of the president’s aides are discussing whether to remove or reassign several administration officials who testified during the impeachment inquiry, according to aides and advisers who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans...

Just as CBS reported, the president is in the midst of putting heads on pikes to demonstrate what happens to those who cross him. The fact that so many Republican Senators caved to that kind of threat is shameful, but perhaps instructive of what the GOP has become...

Vindman was pushed out Friday... along with his twin brother who worked as a lawyer for the NSC, but who hadn't testified at all. Sondland, who had been a trump financial backer but testified about the Ukraine extortion to cover his own hide, is paying the price as well. And the reports are that half the NatSec staffing will get fired/removed because trump doesn't want to risk any further interference from them if he tries to extort more nations to help trump cheat at the 2020 elections.

In short: trump was always a vindictive prick, and remains so today.

The office of the Presidency never changes the character of the person entering that office: Professor Barber's work on that should be required reading for everyone in U.S. politics. trump's bullying narcissistic habits were not going to be moderated or tempered by the obligations of duty: If anything, those troubling traits are amplified past eleven on the dial.

The only way to stop trump's destructive habits is to vote him out of office.

It's up to us, America, to hold trump and the craven Republican lackeys to the rule of law in our nation.