by John Lawrence
One of the Uncle Remus stories written in 1880 was about Brer Rabbit and the tar baby. It aptly applies to Brer Trump who's mired in a trap and being closed in on by both the Right and the Left. Patriotic Americans of whatever stripe are incensed that Brer Fox in the form of Putin has performed the equivalent of rape by interfering in the American election. How dare he? Trump took the bait and professed admiration for Brer Fox because he just wants to make Russia great again. So they have a lot in common. Now Trump can't extricate himself from the Tar Baby.
While not necessarily wanting to impugn Donald Trump, the US military-industrial complex is fanning the flames of Russia's purported interference in the US election because they want to justify the immense military expenditures by creating another Cold War with Russia. They need Russia for an enemy and to have Russia as a friend defeats their purpose of justifying more and more money for themselves. After all if Peace broke out, the military budget might be reduced and so many Americans would be unemployed.
I experienced this first hand when I worked in the military-industrial complex. Whenever a Presidential election came up, we were encouraged to vote Republican because a Democrat in the White House might decrease the military budget leading to a RIF (Reduction in Force). That meant that people would lose their jobs. Quelle horreur! But no worries. Trump increased the Offense budget by $54 billion. Trump's increase is more than the entire Russian military budget, some of which, I suppose, is spent on hackers. But for all the money spent on the military-industrial-intelligence complex, the American public should demand better hackers. We've been outhacked by the Russians!
The Left has sensed an opportunity to keep Brer Trump mired in the Tar Baby the way the Right mired Brer Hillary with Benghazi and her emails. When the smoke settled, there was nothing to these allegations, but they sure got people riled up about Hillary's supposedly nefarious, underhanded activities. Well now it's Brer Trump's turn with the Tar Baby. Let's see if he can extricate himself from this one. Any contact with any Russian by any member of his administration will be looked on with suspicion. There is no such thing as just passing the time of day by having a conversation with some person if he or she happens to be Russian. They're all spies, of course, and they report directly to Putin who usually laughs outrageously as he elicits all the confidential and Top Secret information from his army of spies.
What we do know at this point is that Brer Trump can't ask to be thrown in the briar patch as Brer Rabbit convinced Brer Fox so to do. Of course, the briar patch is just where Brer Rabbit wanted to be, but he convinced Brer Fox that this would be a scenario worse than death. The plot thickens as the Left tightens the noose around Brer Trump's neck. He will be so mired in tar that he'll never get anything done much less get his pick, Gorsuch, confirmed on the Supreme Court. But Mitch McConnell intends to use the "nuclear option" if he doesn't have Democrats voting with the Republicans. And right now he doesn't have enough Democratic votes to reach the totally arbitrary magic number of 60. You see majority rule simply does not apply when it comes to the US Senate.
So what will McConnell do? He'll just change the rules so that only 51 are needed. Just think if Obama had been bold enough to do the same thing, Obamacare could have been Medicare-For-All instead of the abortion of health care that Obamacare represents. But the Dems thought they had to play nice and the Repubs convinced them that, if they used the nuclear option, all hell would break loose. It would have been the end of the world as we know it. Now the Repubs just casually say they'll go ahead and do it just to get Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. The Repubs don't hesitate to use any means at their disposal to get what they want. But they convince the Dems that they have to play nice and get the Repubs on board. So Obamacare was watered down with the result that there is no cost containment and pharmaceutical corporations can charge whatever they want for life saving drugs. Martin Shkreli raised the price of Daraprim 5000% thereby becoming the poster boy for corporate greed.
It seems that Brer Putin with his meager military budget one twentieth the size of the US military-industrial complex budget has managed to outsmart the FBI, the CIA and the NSA. He even convinced FBI Director Comey to come out and support Trump by getting him to make an announcement about Hillary's emails a few days before the election, thereby reminding us of what a scoundrel she is. Of course anyone who mentions the fact that maybe, instead of a renewed Cold War, the US and Russia should become friends and gang up on a common enemy - terrorism - is already suspected of being a Russian dupe, one who has become converted to the Russian line by Russian propaganda. If only they weren't so good at that!
Brer Donald got himself stuck to the Tar Baby when he started talking about being friends with Putin.
"Ahem!" said Brer Rabbit loudly, wondering if the Tar Baby were deaf. "I said 'HOW ARE YOU THIS MORNING?"
The Tar Baby said nothing. Brer Fox curled up into a ball to hide his laugher. His plan was working perfectly!
"Are you deaf or just rude?" demanded Brer Rabbit, losing his temper. "I can't stand folks that are stuck up! You take off that hat and say 'Howdy-do' or I'm going to give you such a lickin'!"
The Tar Baby just sat in the middle of the road looking as cute as a button and saying nothing at all. Brer Fox rolled over and over under the bushes, fit to bust because he didn't dare laugh out loud.
"I'll learn ya!" Brer Rabbit yelled. He took a swing at the cute little Tar Baby and his paw got stuck in the tar.
"Lemme go or I'll hit you again," shouted Brer Rabbit. The Tar Baby, she said nothing.
"Fine! Be that way," said Brer Rabbit, swinging at the Tar Baby with his free paw. Now both his paws were stuck in the tar, and Brer Fox danced with glee behind the bushes.
"I'm gonna kick the stuffin' out of you," Brer Rabbit said and pounced on the Tar Baby with both feet. They sank deep into the Tar Baby. Brer Rabbit was so furious he head-butted the cute little creature until he was completely covered with tar and unable to move.
Well along came Brer Michael Flynn and Brer Trump say to him, "Hey there, Brer Flynn, can you get me unstuck from this Tar Baby?" Michael Flynn say, "I'll try, Brer Trump." So he start pullin' and haulin' and before you know it, Brer Flynn hisself was stuck to the Tar Baby too. "How come you stuck, Brer Flynn?" say Brer Trump. "I talked to a Russian," reply Brer Flynn, "and now you have to give me immunity." "I can't give you immunity, Brer Flynn. You stuck to the tar baby too!"
So all these guys had conversations with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. He seems grandfatherly enough, but he really is a notorious Russian spy hell bent on destroying America. You shake hands with him and some Russian dirt will rub off on you. Ooooh. Yuck.
So what is Brer Donald's "briar patch"? Brer Donald did his best to distract the American public by tweeting about his wires being tapped. This consumed the news media which was off in a different direction now searching for something more sensational than Rex Tillerson being honored by Vladimir Putin. This distraction about the tapped wires took the spotlight off Trump's Russian connection. But some Congressmen and women still wanted to investigate. That's what Congress does best: investigations. Instead of fiddling like Nero while Rome burned, Congress investigates while America falls apart.
The moral of the story: Brer Donald can't find a safe briar patch to hide in and will be mired in the Tar Baby for the duration. Some day hopefully long after Brer Donald is safely out of office and his hand is off the nuclear trigger, the dust will clear and it will come out that there was nothing nefarious about him and Brer Flynn and Brer Tillerson and all the other members of his campaign, transition team and administration talking to the Russians and Brer Kislyak can get on with the business of trying to prevent another Cold War.
