Trump has entered the Querencia Phase of his presidency

Notice that gas prices are going up, because you voted for Donald Trump

Hey Norton, at least pill prices are going down b/c of Trump.

Hey Norton, at least pill prices are going down b/c of Trump.

As a citizen, I detest the stench of corruption. As a journalist, I know corruption makes for very fertile investigative reporting. And as a student of history, I have learned that corruption often lays waste to the powerful.

That is why I am stunned by what is taking place today. Over the course of my life, I have never seen a level of corruption in the United States equal to that emanating from the Trump Administration. It is the ultimate threat to effective governance. It is morally repugnant and a repudiation of the very ideals of our democracy. It is the rot of power for sale.


Of all the current dangers to the norms of our democracy, and there are many, I worry most that we will become a nation that shrugs off corruption as business as usual. This is not to say that we haven’t had corruption in the past. But one thing that has marked this country from others is that, especially at the highest levels of government, our corruption (and our tolerance for it) has been comparatively very low.

The corruption that has already been proven is staggering. But with the latest revelations around slush funds, the money passing through Trump properties, this bizarre story of a “dirty ops” campaign against Obama Administration officials, the daily Pruitt perfidy (and so, so, so much more) one has a sense that we are seeing but the tip of the corruption iceberg. I have long felt that one reason why our global competitors and adversaries like China and Russia would falter was that the corruption that pulsates through their political systems is ultimately destabilizing. And now we are following down that same dangerous path.

I hear many on air and online invoke President Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” to mark his rank hypocrisy. But I suggest that those who care about this issue drop the “swamp” metaphor as a reference. It is too cute, too passive, and too esoteric for what is going on. This is about hardworking, law-abiding Americans being played for suckers. This is about the very idea of honest government becoming just another partisan divide. There are already many worrisome signs that this mindset is seeping into the candidacies of those seeking lower office.

In the end, however, I trust the American people will not sit idly by and allow the fleecing of their country to take place without a reckoning at the ballot box, and likely in the halls of justice.

Trump pledges to help Chinese phonemaker, declaring ‘too many jobs in China lost’

The president's conciliatory comment comes weeks after the Commerce Department penalized ZTE for violating a settlement with the U.S. government over illegal shipments to Iran and North Korea. As a result, the Trump administration barred U.S. firms for seven years from exporting parts to the company.

July 1, 1971: David Young and Egil “Bud” Krogh write a memo suggesting the formation of what later became called the "White House Plumbers" in response to the leak of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg.
August 21, 1971: Nixon's Enemies List is started by White House aides (though Nixon himself may not have been aware of it); to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."
September 3, 1971: "White House Plumbers" E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, and others break into the offices of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist Lewis Fielding looking for material that might discredit Ellsberg, under the direction of John Ehrlichman or his staff within the White House. This was the Plumbers' first major operation.[2]
By early 1972, the Plumbers, at this stage assigned to the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP), had become frustrated at the lack of additional assignments they were being asked to perform, and that any plans and proposals they suggested were being rejected by CRP. Liddy and Hunt took their complaints to the White House – most likely to Charles Colson – and requested that the White House start putting pressure on CRP to assign them new operations. It is likely that both Colson and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman did so, starting the train of events that led to the Watergate break-ins a few months later. This narrative was confirmed in the famous "Cancer on the Presidency" conversation between Nixon and White House Counsel John Dean on March 21, 1973.[3]
May 2, 1972: J. Edgar Hoover dies; L. Patrick Gray is appointed acting FBI director.[4]
June 17, 1972: The plumbers are arrested at 2:30 a.m. in the process of burglarizing and planting surveillance bugs in the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Building Complex.
June 20, 1972: Reportedly based on a tip from Deep Throat (associate director of the FBI, Mark Felt), Bob Woodward reports in the Washington Post that one of the burglars had E. Howard Hunt in his address book and possessed checks signed by Hunt, and that Hunt was connected to Charles Colson.
June 23, 1972: In the Oval Office, H.R. Haldeman recommends to President Nixon that they attempt to shut down the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in, by having CIA Director Richard Helms and Deputy Director Vernon A. Walters tell acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray to, "Stay the hell out of this". Haldeman expects Gray will then seek and take advice from Deputy FBI Director Mark Felt, and Felt will obey direction from the White House out of ambition. Nixon agrees and gives the order. [5] The conversation is recorded.
September 15, 1972: Hunt, Liddy, and the Watergate burglars are indicted by a federal grand jury.
November 7, 1972: Nixon re-elected, defeating George McGovern with the largest plurality of votes in American history.
January 8, 1973: Five defendants plead guilty as the burglary trial begins. Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. are convicted after the trial.
January 20, 1973: Nixon is inaugurated for his second term.
February 28, 1973: Confirmation hearings begin for confirming L. Patrick Gray as permanent Director of the FBI. During these hearings, Gray reveals that he had complied with an order from John Dean to provide daily updates on the Watergate investigation, and also that Dean had "probably lied" to FBI investigators.
March 17, 1973: Watergate burglar McCord writes a letter to Judge John Sirica, claiming that some of his testimony was perjured under pressure and that the burglary was not a CIA operation, but had involved other government officials, thereby leading the investigation to the White House.
April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with federal Watergate prosecutors.
April 27, 1973: L. Patrick Gray resigns after it comes to light that he destroyed files from E. Howard Hunt's safe. William Ruckelshaus is appointed as his replacement.
April 30, 1973: Senior White House administration officials Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Richard Kleindienst resign, and John Dean is fired.
May 17, 1973: The Senate Watergate Committee begins its nationally televised hearings.
May 19, 1973: Independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox appointed to oversee investigation into possible presidential impropriety.
June 3, 1973: John Dean tells Watergate investigators that he has discussed the cover-up with Nixon at least 35 times.
July 13, 1973: Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals that all conversations and telephone calls in Nixon’s office have been taped since 1971.
July 18, 1973: Nixon orders White House taping systems disconnected.
July 23, 1973: Nixon refuses to turn over presidential tapes to Senate Watergate Committee or the special prosecutor.
Vice President replaced:
October 10, 1973: Spiro Agnew resigns as Vice President of the United States due to corruption while he was the governor of Maryland.
October 12, 1973: Gerald Ford is nominated as Vice President under the 25th Amendment.
October 20, 1973: "Saturday Night Massacre" - Nixon orders Elliot Richardson and Ruckelshaus to fire special prosecutor Cox. They both refuse to comply and resign. Robert Bork considers resigning but carries out the order.
November 1, 1973: Leon Jaworski is appointed new special prosecutor.
November 17, 1973: Nixon delivers "I am not a crook" speech at a televised press conference at Disney World (Florida).
November 27, 1973: the Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Ford as Vice President.
December 6, 1973: the House votes 387 to 35 to confirm Ford as Vice President, and he takes the oath of office an hour after the vote.
January 28, 1974: Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleads guilty to perjury.
February 25, 1974: Nixon personal counsel Herbert Kalmbach pleads guilty to two charges of illegal campaign activities.
March 1, 1974: In an indictment against seven former presidential aides, delivered to Judge Sirica together with a sealed briefcase intended for the House Committee on the Judiciary, Nixon is named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
March 4, 1974: the "Watergate Seven" (Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson) are formally indicted.
March 18, 1974: Judge Sirica orders the grand jury's sealed report to be sent to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
April 5, 1974: Dwight Chapin convicted of lying to a grand jury.
April 7, 1974: Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, indicted on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.
April 16, 1974: Special Prosecutor Jaworski issues a subpoena for 64 White House tapes.
April 30, 1974: White House releases edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes, but the House Judiciary Committee insists the actual tapes must be turned over.
May 9, 1974: Impeachment hearings begin before the House Judiciary Committee.
June 15, 1974: Woodward and Bernstein's book All the President's Men is published by Simon & Schuster (ISBN 0-671-21781-X).
July 24, 1974: United States v. Nixon decided: Nixon is ordered to give up tapes to investigators.
Congress moves to impeach Nixon.
July 27 to July 30, 1974: House Judiciary Committee passes Articles of Impeachment.
Early August 1974: A previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972 (recorded a few days after the break-in) documenting Nixon and Haldeman formulating a plan to block investigations is released. This recording later became known as the "Smoking Gun".
Key Republican Senators tell Nixon that enough votes exist to convict him.
August 8, 1974: Nixon delivers his resignation speech in front of a nationally televised audience.
August 9, 1974: Nixon resigns from office. Gerald Ford becomes president.
September 8, 1974: President Ford ends the investigations by granting Nixon a pardon.
October 17, 1974: Ford testifies before Congress on the pardon, the first sitting president to testify before Congress since President Lincoln.
November 7, 1974: 94th Congress elected: Democratic Party picks up 5 Senate seats and 49 House seats. Many of the freshman congressmen are very young; the media dubs them "Watergate Babies".
December 31, 1974: As a result of Nixon administration abuses of privacy, Privacy Act of 1974 passes into law. Ford is persuaded to veto the bill by Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld; Congress overrides Ford's veto. (Note that the newly elected Congress had not taken office yet, this Congress was still the 93rd Congress.)
January 1, 1975: John N. Mitchell, John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury.
July 27, 1975: Church Committee, chaired by Frank Church, commences to investigate foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering activities.