Counting the Days until Impeachment

The impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1999

During most of 2017 I was enraged by the dt presidency.  It shouldn't be happening.

I was angry that the 2016 election had been stolen by: 

• James Comey playing up the Clinton emails
• voter intimidation and disenrollment in certain states
• Russian bots posing as Americans and posting lies about Hillary Rodham Clinton on Facebook and Twitter
• Other lies targeting right-wing voters
• Bill Clinton's mistake of talking to Attorney General Loretta Lynch

All of the above is still true, but now there are other deceptive measures to add to the list:

• Facebook selling data to Cambridge Analytica
• Facebook sending employees to CA to help this Steve-Bannon-based group target voters 
• Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels in October 2016 to keep her from telling her story on "Good Morning America."

The president and his campaign have broken so many laws and told so many lies that it's just a matter of time until the House impeaches him.

Here are some others who agree with me:
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-impeachment-just-matter-time-after-more-4-million-sign-petition-tom-807814

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-midterms-could-set-trump-on-a-path-toward-impeachment/


I'm not worried any more.  The need to attend a demonstration calling for his impeachment is over. Yes, this administration continues to damage the nation in many ways every day, but the end is in sight. 

Mid-term elections are coming up in seven months, and all indications are that afterward there will be enough votes in the House to impeach dt.

The investigation into Russian collusion in the election continues apace, and eventually Mueller will calmly state, "Checkmate."

A falling stock market will trigger Trump's fall even if the Congress doesn't act.

Trump and his White House have shrunk in my eyes to a source of entertainment.  Shocking new words or actions emerge every day. It's almost fun to see the latest ludicrous developments.

"Honey, I shrank the president," someone tweeted after Karen McDougal told her story to 60 Minutes about her ten-month affair with dt.

He's shrinking more every day.  

I'm no longer angry at him or obsessed by him--just saddened by the whole sordid mess.

Stephanie Clifford Rules!

The 45th president is being "hoist on his own petard"--or whatever--by Stephanie Clifford.

I'm liking Stephanie more with everything I learn about her.  As Matt Flegenheimer, Rebecca R. Ruiz, and Katie Van Syckle write in today's New York Times:

"...for most of her professional life, Ms. Clifford has been a woman in control of her own narrative in a field where that can be uncommon."

"It is she, some in Washington now joke, and not the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who could topple Mr. Trump."

I love Wikipedia's explicit definition of what it means to be hoist on one's own petard:

Shakespeare's phrase, "hoist with his own petard," is an idiom that means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap", implying that one could be lifted (blown) upward by one's own bomb, or in other words, be foiled by one's own plan.

dt has definitely fallen into his own trap.  In his attempt to silence this accomplished woman, he has defamed her.  He has said she lied.  But she got a good lawyer, who figured out that dt didn't even sign the nondisclosure agreement.  So it's not an agreement.  She is suing dt to be released from the supposed contract asking her not to speak about the one sexual encounter she had with him.

In the course of that lawsuit, dt will probably be required to testify under oath.  He will probably lie, and a lie could cause him to be impeached, just as Bill Clinton was. 

On the one occasion Stephanie agreed to have sex with him, he had trapped her.  After he invited her on a date on July 13, 2006, she arrived at his hotel room to find him wearing only pajama bottoms.  This encounter occurred at a celebrity golf tournament near South Lake Tahoe.

How many women has dt assaulted or exploited?  No one knows.

But he ran into one woman who knows how to handle men like him, and she may well be the trigger that ends his presidency.

The abuser becomes prey.  

As several news commentators are pointing out, dt has not made a single tweet against Clifford.  He's afraid of her.  

Read the brief biography of Stephanie Clifford written by Flegenheimer, Ruiz, and Van Syckle, cited above: "Porn Star Suing Trump Is Known for Her Ambition: 'She's the Boss.'"

She grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and originally thought she might become a veterinarian, a writer, or a journalist.  

She now owns her own business and tours nationally doing "adult entertainment"--which should be known as entertainment for males whose mental and emotional growth got stuck in their teens.

She connects "her professional journey to the lives of service workers... the dishwasher, the cashier or the bus driver," note the authors of the NYT  article.

Go Stephanie!