THEY CALL IT MELLOW YELLOW, QUITE RIGHTLY

I’ve got a lot of miles on my odometer.  With luck, I’ll add a few more before I’m done.  A year ago, I would have argued that 1968 was the worst year in American politics during my lifetime.  But today brings news of a Rudy Giuliani sex tape.  OK, 2020, you win.    

Rudy’s been busy lately, so maybe he needed a release.  I won’t judge, as long as I don’t have to watch. 

And I’m paranoid enough, at this point, to wonder what other bad news the release of a Giuliani sex tape is calculated to cover up.  My sense now is that Team Trump is desperate.  They’re frantically playing 2016’s greatest hits, and seemingly not finding much traction.  He’s got his base, and he’s not getting much more. 

One reason why is that it’s becoming clear that, for Trump and his followers, cruelty is the point.  We know now that Donald Trump’s incessant interruptions of Joe Biden in the first presidential debate was a strategy, designed to rattle Biden into a stuttering spell.  That genius strategy was devised by Chris Christie.  Not only did the strategy fail – that debate may have been the point of no return for the Trump campaign – but Christie was rewarded by a few days in the ICU.  Karma?  I report, you decide.

During the Democratic primaries, Pete Buttigieg this:  “To be the kind of human being who would seek to turn someone against his own son, who would seek to weaponize a son against his own father, is an unbelievably dishonorable thing.”

And Rudy Giuliani said, “hold my beer.”  With the help of a Russian spy, he concocted this story.  Hunter Biden, who lived in California, decided to drop off three laptops at a roadside repair shop in Delaware.  And not pick them up.  And the repairman is legally blind, which must make his work challenging.  And the blind repairman keeps changing his story.  But never mind.  The blind repairman makes a copy of one of the hard drives, and gives it to Rudy Giuliani.  As one naturally would.  Rudy hangs onto it for a while, and shops it to Fox News.  Fox calls bullshit and says no thanks.  But luckily there was a bottom feeder who took the bait.  Take a bow, New York Post.  Your founder, Alexander Hamilton, would be proud.

I’d assumed there was no real end game to this latest exercise – just the usual attempt to sow confusion and discourage turnout.  But I’ve heard another theory, which aligns with the Chris Christie strategy for the first debate.  Put enough pressure on Hunter Biden, and he’ll crack – go back to using.  And if Hunter cracks, maybe Joe will too. 

Given the Trump gang’s track record, this explanation strikes me as plausible.  Not proven, but plausible. 

Or maybe it’s just a re-run of the 2016 October surprise.  Which is also plausible.  The Trump people pretend to be galaxy brain geniuses, but they look more like one trick ponies to me.  Trump has even taken to pleading with Bill Barr to pull a James Comey, and deliver a few last minute indictments of prominent Democrats. 

Barr, who’s been conspicuously silent since the Amy Coney Barret superspreader event, may be debating how badly he wants to tarnish his reputation.  Has he done enough to go down in history as worse than Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell, who actually served time in prison?  Or will it require one more audacious travesty of justice to secure his place in history?

But the weirdest thing about this story is that it has been thoroughly investigated multiple times – by Republicans – and who have failed to find any evidence of criminality.  Right wingers ask why Burisma appointed a guy like Hunter Biden, with no background in energy extraction, to their board.  They pose the question as though it were some kind of unsolved mystery, an ultimate gotcha.

But, my goodness, isn’t the answer obvious to anyone who knows what boards of directors do?  Companies want people on their boards of directors who can help them make more money.  They don’t go all in on one person; they appoint lots of people they hope will be rain makers.  Obviously, they wanted Hunter Biden because of his last name.  Whether he did them any favors or not – and there’s no clear evidence that he did – he was being paid for his potential as an influencer.  This is not mysterious.

And guess what?  It’s also not illegal.  If it were illegal, the Trumpian Empire would have indicted him by now.  They haven’t, which means they’ve got nothing.

Now, if you think the whole board of directors arrangement looks a little sketchy, you might be right.  But if you start pulling on that thread, you may have trouble finding a place to stop.  Whatever corners Hunter Biden may have cut, whatever legal loopholes he may have exploited?  All that is business as usual here in the USA.  And if you want to make an example of someone, maybe you should take a look at Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric (who has already been forced to testify before a grand jury investigating his business practices earlier this month).  Let’s prosecute them before we put the screws to Hunter Biden.

Oh, and also?  Donald Trump has a secret Chinese bank account.  And he paid more in taxes to China - $188,561 – than the $750 he paid to the United States treasury.  No wonder China could afford to build their Great Wall.