Crunch Point

‘Will Putin and Trump Save Us?’ He Asked Sardonically

By Bryan Zepp Jamieson

Well, folks, we’re at the Crunch Point, I think.

If in the next few days, we have an electronic meltdown in which the Internet, power grid, and banking system all shut down, then it’s safe to assume that Vladimir Putin just declared—and probably won—World War III against the United States.

Yes, I’m absolutely serious. The events of the past 48 hours have convinced me that we are right at the edge of a major war (e-W 1?), a domestic coup d’état, or just a general swirling chaos that might be the worst option of the three.

Obviously, I hope to hell I’m wrong. Maybe by next week I’ll be saying, “Well, saner heads prevailed”, or perhaps we’ll still be in a period of tense crisis and we’re all still waiting for the hammer to fall.

If you haven’t heard, several things occurred all at once, and that leaves me gravely concerned.

Israel has been slaughtering Palestinian protesters along their Green Wall, and as is usually the case, Israel is deploying first-world military weaponry against people armed with rocks and knives. Israel is also believed to have conducted a bombing raid in Syria. They claim they are stopping Iranian encroachment. In the meantime, the Russian-backed Assad regime conducted a gas attack that killed at least 40 and injured dozens more, mostly women and children. The attack was so vicious, and such an egregious violation of international law, that Trump actually criticized Vladimir Putin by name for his complicity in the gas attack. This is about like Pinnochio biting Giuseppe. Trump went on to promise a strong reaction within 48 hours, and Putin, in turn, promised ‘grave repercussions’ should Trump bomb Syria.

There’s only two reasons Putin would piss on Trump’s head like this. Either he has decided his puppet has so marginalized himself that he’s of no particular use any more, or he’s prepared for war with the US, and thinks he can win it. Since he can’t win a conventional military war, it means he has something else in mind.

And Netanyahu is behaving like a mad dog who has slipped his leash. He’s behaving like he thinks neither of the superpowers can rein him in.

The other crisis erupted today. The FBI raided the offices and domicile of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, and seized his records relating to Trump and the Russians. This wasn’t done by Mueller’s office; according to the Guardian, “Stephen Ryan, a lawyer for Cohen, released a statement that said: ‘Today the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients.’ He did not name Trump.”

It’s very rare for police to seize client’s records from his lawyer. Usually attorney-client privilege invalidates the legal standing of any such records, making them inadmissible. The only exception is if there is prima facie evidence of conspiracy between the lawyer and client; in this case, that would be Cohen and the President of the United States. The materials seized include documents relating to Trump’s relationship with the Russians, and the Stormy Daniels thing, although the latter is just a side show.

Trump called it “an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.” In effect, he has declared a state of war between the US and the FBI, and presumably the Southern District of New York.”

That’s scary. Trump usually engages in hyperbole, and usually doesn’t mean most of the shit he says anyway, but in this case his back is obviously against the wall. The offices of the probes, both at the state and federal level, have strong evidence of conspiracy involving a nation America may be at war with next week. Trump maybe be facing more than conspiracy, RICO charges, fraud and emoluments clause violations; he may be facing charges of sedition, and even treason.

We have a dangerous cowardly sociopath who has his back against the wall, which makes him extremely dangerous.

We have a dangerous determined sociopath who clearly thinks he has us by the balls and is ready to make his move. That makes him extremely dangerous.

And we’re caught between the two.

We may get through this OK, but I doubt that after this week, the world will ever be the same again.