Cicero's Songs

It is a basic contention of this blog that Donald J Trump is not fit for office. A crooked real estate developer with a dubious past and highly questionable finances. he has systematically lied his way into financial or other advantage. His personal qualities include vulgarity, sexual assault allegations and fraudulent statements on almost every subject.  He lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes. He has, of course, been under criminal investigation practically since before he took the oath of office. The indictment of some of closest advisers is just the beginning. His track record suggests that in due course there is no action he will not take, whether illegal or unconstitutional in order to derail his own inevitable impeachment and the indictments that must surely follow the successful investigation of Robert Mueller into his connections with Russia. However, all of that is a matter for the American people.  It is also a matter for the American people...

On August 9th 1974 Gerald Ford took the oath of office to become president of the United States. In his brief speech he said: " My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over... Our  Constitution  works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men." 43 years later, the American Republic is being tested in a way it has never been tested in the 241 years since the declaration of independence.  It is not just that Donald Trump is a vulgar, boorish, lecher . It is not just that he has consistently lied about his businesses and has consistently used mafia levels of intimidation and fraudulent promises in order to cheat his way out of trouble . It is not just that his absurd self-regard renders him utterly unfit for any public office. It is not even that Trump was over three million votes behind in the popular vote. There are three intersecting crises in America today. They are economic, political, and constitutional. The United States is no l...

OK so there has been a breakthrough apparently... But the breakthrough is not that a framework agreement to start substantive talks is kinda, sorta, done, maybe... It is that now the UK public knows that the leaders of the "Leave" campaign were a bunch of charlatans.  David Davis took "hapless" to new lows with his "my dog ate my homework" explanation of why -in fact- no impact assessments of the single most important economic policy change in 60 years, were made. Whether you choose to believe or disbelieve the shifty excrescence is a matter for you, because its all the same to the Secretary of State as to whether you believe him or not. Meanwhile the refusal of the Conservatives to recognise that Ireland is a separate and sovereign state, and that therefore of course the UK has a land border with the EU, nearly brought the whole process to a shuddering halt. In fact that actions of the DUP have now, for the first time brought the departure of Nort...