Double Tap

"Leave no survivors!" Kegsbreath barked aloud
the crap no honest officer would think.
As if a US serviceman'd be proud
to murder sailors flailing in the drink.
Destroying evidence is always wrong--
like witness tampering--and this was both.
Loud coward who's intent on looking strong
blacked out on adolescent moral growth
Pariah Nation, strutting the world's stage;
dark parody of anything we'd been.
Apologists may point to Trump's old age;
historians are not acquiring him.
What his own Cabinet does in Trump's name,
belongs to him; he can't deflect the blame.

compromised III

Caligula 's got nothing on this clown
but Putin keeps deep files of kompromat.
The"Bubba" film clips show him going down,
and that's the least of what the Kremlin 's got.
Depravities he'd studied with Roy Cohn
when he was just a hormonal-addled lad
six decades later, he has made his own;
there's not a cell of Donald that's not bad.
Since Roy, Jeff Epstein'd been his only friend;
that set's now null, as empty as his soul.
He can't conceive a norm he mustn't bend;
where others look for love, he seeks control.
A lonely monster in his shit-hole world
unable to buy love, keeps buying girls.

Time's up

Dick's bargain with the Devil's due at last;
no cardiologist butts in, this time.
There's Hell to pay in earnest for his past
and nothing to extenuate his crime.
Unbounded by conventions, or constraints
contemptuous of morals, and of laws
Geneva, he dismissed as merely "quaint"
and tramples on our treaties, clause by clause.
One vote for Kamala can't expiate
his decades waging Class War from above.
Abe Lincoln's party's sold on Greed, and Hate.
despite the Scripture's stark command to love.
His sulfur stench may take years to dispel
For now, we're much relieved that he's in Hell.

blind Justice

The jury's charged; the prosecution rests;
they've demonstrated Trump knew what he did.
Key co-conspirators have all confessed;
intention's manifest in what they hid.
"Mens rea" can be devilish to prove;
a stringent test of prosecutors' art.
But jurors saw the evidence get moved;
defendant in this case just ain't that smart.
The jury 's spoken: "guilty on each charge"!
While sentencing's an independent stage,
for now, the felon must remain at large,
'til New York State can gild a plus-sized cage.
For one who dreamt he'd made himself a king,
The chants of"Lock Him Up!" have got to sting.

tissue of lies

"concealing assets" Giuliani's warned
"could be felonious" she emphasized.
Instructions from the bench are thick with scorn;
her honor's had her fill--and more--of lies.
Trump's never one to keep one set of books
his valuations rise and fall at whim.
An enterprise of flim-flam men, and crooks
whose factual mistakes all favor him.
Trump's legal team keep lawyers of their own
The system groans, o'erburdened with delay.
Each trusting he'll get blood out of a stone
A fool could see; they're never getting paid.
A former prosecutor, turned to crime
with no cards left, can only play for time.

Trump's end

Taveras flipped; obstruction's now overt;
destroying evidence is not okay.
Surveillance tapes, and electronic dirt,
persist when paper traces flush away.
Like Butterfield, it's IT workers know
where evidence of what's went down lies hid.
Those Oval Office tapes of long ago
Attest what Richard Nixon said, and did.
Conspirators must walk, or hang, as one;
game-theorists taught this much about crime.
One member breaks, the whole cabal is done;
the last to sing, will serve the hardest time.
I don't remember who it was who said:
that "two can keep a secret--if one's dead"

comeuppance

An asset valued low when it's for tax,
and high when bankers want a guarantee
has just one market worth, in point of fact
such double books incur a felony.
A lifetime stiffing those who'd done his work;
it's fitting maybe it should end this way.
The shameless woman nails the shameless jerk;
the only time the worker got her pay.
A life of crime took decades to get caught;
Roy Cohn scheps nachas from this gilded ass.
The inconvenient witness can be bought
and prosecution's rare for ruling class.
No court should take this felon at his word,
Letitia James is staunchly undeterred.

villainy

While Russian population's on the wane
minorities--by contrast--only rise.
So Putin's snatching toddlers in Ukraine
to man an empire their blood-kin despise.
A conscript's motivation's not the same
as theirs defending fam'ly, hearth, and home.
An army's compromised by its own shame
when staking claim to land that's not its own.
The Argentines have seen this play before;
adopted children rarely learn the truth.
Atrocious booty of a dirty war
when thugs appropriate opponents' youth.
Autocracy in its decrepit stage
pursues a policy of bygone age.

one for the books

The memoir some purport Trump means to write
divulging secrets to our detriment,
would be a joke, except that "our" far Right
derides the notion of Good Government.
These "patriots" exult in doing harm
without contrition or a pang of guilt.
As long as they can promenade their arms,
they'll smash what better generations built.
The military school Trump's parents thought
might drum morality into their son
could not deliver what cannot be bought;
he just liked dressing up with sword and gun.
To write a book's a most unlikely deed
for one who struggles pitifully to read.

Florida politics

Matt Gaetz discovered girls a little late;
his high-school years were spent with dolls, and toys.
When headlines blare "That Loser Got a Date"
his colleagues still presume that meant with boys.
Like Foley, Gaetz was smitten with a page
who copied documents, and scored good pot.
Untroubled that the lad was half his age
these later Humberts find pubescence "hot".

Without consent, relations are a crime;

each State enumerates who can't, or can.
Transporting juveniles across State lines,
or out of country violates that ban.
When even Trump disdains to take his calls

the prosecution's got Matt by the balls.

madness

Trump sneers the salary's beneath his grade
yet schemes incessantly to pocket more.
He squanders many times what he'd get paid,
and looks to profit in a civil war.
The golf-carts Secret Service have to rent
to guard him tee, and fairway, rough, and green
enrich him with a banned emolument;
that money's budgeted for DoD.
The Deficit Republicans decry
--when Democrats would give the poor a meal--
get no attention when Trump bleeds us dry.
as long as WallStreet's cut in on the deal.
Barr's DoJ won't send this perp to jail.
But no one doubts Trump's run clear off the rails.

untold

Sean Hannity prefers we never know
What Michael Cohen did to earn his fee;
to make an inconvenient woman go
away seems standard for his "Client Three".
A year's elapsed, the story's long grown cold
Sean's bought off anyone who's dared to dig
up stories he prefers remain untold
Confirming our suspicions; he's a pig.
No Secretary in Trump's Cabinet
can wield the influence Trump grants to Sean.
Whose peccadillos we're told to forget
the journalists get axed who will not fawn.
The cover-ups of cover-ups of crimes
keep Trumpty playing frantically for time.

niggling

The full report refutes Bill Barr's glib gloss;
the Special Counsel felt his hands were tied.
He had no writ to prosecute his boss,
despite strong evidence he'd bigly lied.
That Russia meddled's proven without doubt
but Putin might have done that on a whim.
As candidate, Trump didn't have the clout
to dictate KGB hitlist to him.
A race so close depended on a thread
as turnout was suppressed by foreign aid
Since Trump and Putin plainly were in bed,
who cares if Mueller can't prove Vlad got paid?
No SpecialCounsel could transcend his writ
when Mitch McConnell doesn't give a shit.

and loyalty towards none

The shock's exquisite on Trump's spray-tanned face;
November swept all Orange County Blue.
His name's a millstone in this midterm race
the House  now boasts a cyanotic hue.
When even Mitch McConnell won't defend
Trump's quid pro quo corruption in Ukraine,
The egoist who's never made a friend
finds few stands by him swirling down the drain.
Just Pence heels dog-like, orbiting his mass
Like Hillary adhering to her Bill.
His lips seem stapled to the orange ass
as if he has no independent will.
Pelosi's counting votes, and likes her odds;
Iconoclasts are faithless to false gods.

co-equal

The fabric of society could burst
as Trump transgresses every rule and norm.
He started bad, but day by day gets worse
and  makes no slightest effort to conform.
Dick Nixon hoped no statutes could apply
to anything the president had done.
Now Trumpty goads his minions to defy
the courts that must restrain their Chosen One.
John Roberts will be tarred by Limbaugh's base
presiding in the Senate as he must
if our republic's to survive this case,
we've got to hope this Justice will prove just.
When Trump feels free to lie, defraud, extort...
our Senate sits as court of last resort.


                 

self-dealing

Awarding contracts to his own resort
Trump grabs emoluments the law forbids.
Defying both the Congress and the courts,
to separate his interests from his kids'.
Both Foreign and Domestic, seizing both
he gives our Constitution zero heed.

You'd be a fool to think he'd keep his oath

to guard a Constitution he can't read.

This crime, Pelosi thinks, she can explain
to even Trumpty-Dumpty's basest base.
Fundraisers for his cause will feel the pain

as this drags into next November's race.
Infractions even Mitch strains to defend
tip this new nightmare back towards Nixon's end.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Bob Mueller's far too prudent to defy
internal guidelines of the DoJ.
But call him up! He'll gladly testify:
what Trump has perpetrated's not okay.
The SpecialCounsel still inspires some awe,
and even Donald understood he's "fucked".
Of all the ways he violates the law,
the unifying theme  is to obstruct.
McConnell plays defense, while Barr attacks;
each rationalization's more absurd.
They're unified in guarding Donald's back,
 their oaths of office were just empty words.
The factions that so worried Madison
close ranks regardless what "their" felon's done.

Scot-free

Self-serving pardons of conspirators
for selling missiles to our enemy
strange president, who'd served in a World War
now fought as hard for mis-placed loyalty.
By law, it's Congress gets to spend our funds.
'Though Reagan backed Somosa in this fight,
it's not OK to give deathsquads our guns;
it's not our job to stoke the global Right.
Our fulsome praise of George Bush41
implies critique of Trump, who's name's unsaid.
'Though Poppie dwarfed his cocaine-addled son,
he earns no halo just for being dead.
His cover-up of treason and high crimes
lies unexamined 'til the present times.

Autocrats united

Prince Bone-Saw's Putin's foremost fan and friend;
assassinating journalists' their lark.
Executives who serve their private ends
conspire to keep the public in the dark.
The age of Erdogan, and Trump, and Xi
is hostile to the public's need to know.
This darkest chapter of our history
evokes John Adams centuries ago.
Now, Trump's proposed a Pravda for TheStates
with editorials tuned to his eyes.
Pontificating "Trade Wars Make Us Great!"
rewriting news to promulgate his lies.
There's no way forward from our present mess
if Trump can meddle freely with our Press.

radio silence

Sean Hannity was "client number three"
in Cohen's practice, known around the world
for heading off a scandal--for a fee--
by paying off an inconvenient girl.
The "taint team" found that privilege applied
to this minority of Cohen's work.
These can't be cited proving who had lied
Khuzami's writ's for big fish, not this jerk.
Six months elapse, but there the story's stuck
no details are forthcoming at this time.
As if the Murdochs couldn't give a fuck;
they'll give no airtime to their own guy's crime.
Sean's scandal won't stay quashed; it's just deferred.
His ethics are no better than Trump's word.