Nothing in the recent political world has cheered me so much as Roger Stone's conviction!  Guilty, guilty, guilty!  On all seven counts.  By a jury of his Manhattan peers, who have intimate acquaintance with scum.   I'm so glad that the charges were filed there, instead of his winter base of South Florida.  Our jurors, I fear, might be more naïve, but New Yorkers know how deals go down and sent him straight down the river.

 

I've been waiting for this day for a very long time.  Since 1972, to be exact, he when exerted his evil influence as a young man here in Florida with CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President.  That president was Richard Nixon, and you all know how it eventually worked out.  But unlike a lot of top Nixonians, Roger didn't go to jail – nor did he heed the advice of the penitents who did go to penitentiaries.   Better he should have talked with John Dean and John Mitchell and others thrown to the wind by that slimy Republican president, but instead, Roger lurked in GOP darkness election after election, doing his best to do dirty tricks.

 

He did that again in 2016, this time against Hillary, and this time his chicanery finally caught up with him.  I'm still waiting for the public to catch up with his propensity for acronyms.  He was certainly part of the reason that arrogant young creeps dared to call their "committee" CREEP, but most people still don't understand that the "adult" Roger Stone was the primary reason for the recent Supreme Court decision that equated money with free speech.  The full name of that court filing was "Citizens United, Not Timid," and the media did Roger et al a great service by using only the first phrase.  Not that he ever requested kindness:  His juvenile vanity remains so lively that he probably wanted his acronym to be spelled out -- CUNT.

 

Young men such as Roger Stone never grow up, and the frat boy in them never dies, so I was disappointed that the judge in the case, a woman, delayed sentencing until February.  I'm sure he's scheming now about how to get out of the country, and if he does, remember that you heard it here first.  The sentence I would have imposed:  Roast in hell.  Starting now. 

 

AND THAT'S NOT ALL

 

I have more suspicions about Roger Stone.  That's all they are – suspicions – so I'm not swearing this on a Bible.  But I do suspect.

 

I served with his ex-wife, Ann Stone, on the board of the National Women's History Museum (NWHM) in Washington, about twenty years ago.  And yes, except for an online museum (much of which I created), it still does not exist.  Nor have I advocated for it in a long time, ever since I realized that respectable historians do not respect NWHM.  It does have new leadership, and there is a chance that this board may do better, but my limited energy no longer includes it.

 

Back then, though, our goal was to build a physical museum about the history of American women, and our first choice of location was the Old Post Office.  If you are acquainted with the nation's capital, you've seen it.  It's a magnificent Victorian building at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, and you know who lives just down the street at 1600.  But now the portion of the Old Post Office that is most historic – including its iconic clock tower, which is second only to the Washington Monument in height -- is leased to the Trump Organization.  I'm not saying that his ex-wife's interest in this property might have brought it to Roger's attention, but the dots could conceivably connect.

 

And now the First Kids are trying to sell the 60-year lease.  Eric Trump told the Wall Street Journal:  "People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, therefore we might be willing to sell."  Yeah, right, it's all generosity.  Since when have they ever done the right thing when it comes to "making so much money?"  People have been objecting for years that the family doesn't pay its fair share of taxes (or provide evidence that it does), but now we are to believe that they are magnanimously letting go of a profitable enterprise because "people are objecting?"  They are charitably foregoing the millions that, say, the Saudis spend when they buy out a whole floor of the hotel?

 

Instead of Eric's touching response to criticism, the lease's potential sale probably has more to do with what his dad calls "the phony emoluments clause."  Look it up: it's the Constitution's Article II, Section 1.  And the other relevant clause these days is Section 4: "The President…shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors."  I think there is a misdemeanor or a dozen, and Speaker Pelosi is following exactly the right path in methodically checking all of the pointing arrows.

 

But back to the hotel.  The Donald promised when he outbid everyone else that he intended to keep it forever; indeed, Ivanka said at the time that she hoped her 5-month-old daughter one day would run the hotel.  Now, in the very first year that the lease allows a sale, they have put out a glossy brochure for potential buyers.  My take on this?  Maybe they think they will lose the election.  Maybe they want to get the cash while the getting is good.  Let's hope.

 

THIS WILL BE ALL

 

If you are a regular reader, you know it's not like me to rage on about what's going on in Washington, but this bears on Roger Stone, so if you will bear with me, it will be the last blast for a while.  Again, I'm reminded of the Nixon days, when one domino fell after another throughout the summer of 1974.   Hubby got his Harvard PhD in June 1972, just a few days before the Watergate break-in.  As soon as we heard the news, we knew it had Tricky Dick's fingerprints all over it. 

 

It took two years, though, for officialdom to catch on, and I was at a meeting of Tampa NOW in August 1974 when that ignominious man reluctantly left the White Office.  He never apologized nor admitted guilt; he just had a sudden yen to return permanently to California.  I don't expect a resignation from the even more stubborn and stupid Current Occupant – nor do I want it.  I don't want a newly showered and shaved vice president to make the public once again forget the reality of GOP tricksters.  I want real democrats to win fair and square at the polls.

 

And I think that will happen, as the rats keep jumping off the sinking ship.  An amazing new stat:  Over 100 of the 241 Republicans who were in the US House at the beginning of the Trump administration will not be there at its end – a 40% turnover rate.  I'm so happy for true family values, as I'm sure that these career-ending guys (and yes, they are all guys, and white at that) are leaving Washington so they can spend more time with their families.

 

Finally, this took a bit of research, as the news item I saw used only job titles, not names, but its point was worth researching to provide veracity and context.  The point?  Several top advisors to the president now are convicted felons -- and none of them were merely burglars breaking into an opponent's headquarters as in 1972.  There may be more that I missed, but here's a handy half-dozen:

·      Paul Manafort, now serving time for tax and bank fraud; he held the high position of Trump's 2016 campaign chairman

·      Rick Gates, deputy to Manafort, who pled guilty to "conspiracy against the United States and making false statements"

·      George Papadopolus, who is on probation for perjury, yet thinks he's running for Congress to replace recently resigned California Democrat Katie Hill (and yes, someone should look deeper into the dirty trick that caused her to resign)

·      Michael Cohen, vice president of the Trump Organization and the president's personal lawyer, who is in prison on several counts of fraud, including paying off porn stars

·      Michael Flynn, very briefly the president's National Security Advisor, until he pled guilty to lying about his contacts with Russia

·      And of course, Roger Stone!

 

That's it.  I'll be back next week with something lovely from literature and/or history.

 

doris@dweatherford.com