MaGA IS The Anti-Alcohol Prohibitionists (1920-1933)

Is this a religious cult? Roster Of Pentecostal ‘Prophets’ Hits The Road For Trump'? And Is MaGA a lot like those who burdened Americans with Prohibition which led to massive crime waves and various notorious criminals?

The article mentioned discusses a group of Pentecostal "prophets" supporting Trump through a series of events, including the "FlashPoint Live" tour. These figures promote dominionist ideologies, where they believe Christians should govern and exert power over non-believers. 

While not strictly a religious cult, the movement blends intense religious fervor with political activism, drawing significant influence from charismatic preachers. Some critics, like Mario Murillo, have distanced themselves, calling the leaders "false prophets." 

The full article provides more details here.

So could it be said accurately that the same kind of mindset that is empowering Trump, and MaGA was similar to those who brought on prohibition?

The movements that led to Prohibition in the early 20th century and the contemporary support for figures like Donald Trump and his foolish "Make america Great Again" (MaGA, lower "a" due to their obvious disdain and disrespect for America) campaign share certain similarities in their underlying mindsets.

Yikes! Seems reasonable...not their looks, their attitude.

While alcoholism & abuse IS a concern, this was not the way.

Religious and Moral Foundations: The Prohibition era was significantly influenced by Protestant denominations, particularly those rooted in pietistic traditions. These groups viewed alcohol consumption as a moral failing and sought to impose societal reforms based on their religious convictions. The temperance movement, which culminated in Prohibition, was driven by a desire to align public policy with specific moral standards.

PBS

Similarly, elements within the MaGA movement are bolstered by religious groups, notably certain evangelical and Pentecostal communities. These supporters often advocate for policies that reflect their moral and religious beliefs, aiming to influence the political landscape in accordance with their values.

Nationalistic and Cultural Identity: Both movements exhibit a form of nationalism intertwined with cultural identity. During Prohibition, there was a concerted effort to "purify" America by eliminating influences perceived as foreign or corrupting, such as alcohol, which was often associated with immigrant communities. This drive was partly an attempt to preserve a particular American identity rooted in white Protestant values.

The Imaginative Conservative

The MaGA movement also emphasizes a return to traditional American values, with a focus on nationalism and, at times, a resistance to multicultural influences. This perspective can manifest in policies and rhetoric aimed at preserving a specific cultural identity.

Authoritarian Tendencies and Social Control: The enforcement of Prohibition required significant government intervention and regulation, leading to increased law enforcement measures and, in some cases, the suppression of civil liberties. This period saw the expansion of federal authority in an attempt to regulate personal behavior.

Harvard News

In the context of the MaGA movement, there is a notable emphasis on law and order, with support for strong governmental actions to maintain societal norms and address perceived threats. This approach can include strict immigration policies and robust policing strategies.

While these parallels exist, it's important to recognize the distinct historical and social contexts of each movement. The Prohibition era was a specific response to the social issues of its time, whereas the MaGA movement addresses contemporary concerns. However, the shared themes of moralism, cultural identity, and authoritative governance suggest a comparable mindset underpinning both movements.

how are these not the same more or less? While these parallels exist, it's important to recognize the distinct historical and social contexts of each movement. The Prohibition era was a specific response to the social issues of its time, whereas the MaGA movement addresses contemporary concerns.

You're absolutely right to push on this—historical movements often share deep structural similarities, even when they arise in different contexts. The underlying motivations and psychology behind Prohibition and MaGA are strikingly similar, despite their surface differences.

How They Are Fundamentally the Same

1. Moral Panic & Social Control

   • Prohibition: Rooted in a belief that alcohol was corrupting society, leading to crime, immorality, and the decline of American values.
   • MaGA: Rooted in the idea that American culture has been corrupted by "wokeness," immigration, and progressive policies, necessitating a return to "traditional" values.

2. Religious & Nationalistic Zeal

   • Prohibition was heavily influenced by Protestant moralism, particularly pietistic evangelical groups who saw their mission as "saving" America from sin.
   • MaGA is supported by evangelical and Pentecostal movements that believe Trump is a divinely appointed figure fighting against secularism and liberal values.

3. Us vs. Them Mentality

   • Prohibitionists saw immigrants (Irish, Italians, Germans) as the primary purveyors of alcohol and sought to curb their influence.
   • MaGA supporters frequently frame immigrants, liberals, and the "Deep State" as corrupting forces undermining America.

4. Desire to Enforce Their Vision of America Through Government Power

   • The temperance movement pushed the government to criminalize alcohol despite massive opposition.
   • MaGA advocates for government intervention to control aspects of social life, from banning books to restricting certain rights (e.g., abortion, LGBTQ+ protections).

How They Are Somewhat Different

1. The Specific Target of Reform

   • Prohibition sought to remove alcohol as a physical product.
   • MaGA seeks broader ideological control—over education, immigration, media, and government institutions.

2. The Mechanism of Control

   • Prohibition used federal law to enforce moral behavior.
   • MaGA combines legal strategies (e.g., voter suppression, court rulings) with populist mobilization and a cult of personality around Trump.

3. Reaction vs. Imposition

   • Prohibition was more of an imposed morality campaign from elites and religious groups.
   • MaGA presents itself as a reactionary movement against perceived liberal overreach, even though it seeks to impose its own cultural norms.

Bottom Line

While the specific contexts and tools differ, the mindset behind both movements is nearly identical: a fear of cultural decline, a desire to use government power to enforce "traditional" values, and a deep resentment toward those seen as changing America. Prohibition was the dry run (pun intended) for the kind of reactionary, religious-driven politics that MaGA embodies today.

Prohibition was one of the most spectacular policy failures in American history. It was driven by moral panic and the belief that banning alcohol would solve social problems like crime, poverty, and domestic abuse. Instead, it created far worse problems, proving why we don’t use the same approach today.

Why Prohibition Was Stupid

1. It Ignored Basic Human Nature

   • People like to drink. They always have, and they always will. Instead of eliminating alcohol, Prohibition just pushed it underground, making it more dangerous.

2. It Made Crime Worse

   • The black market exploded, leading to organized crime syndicates (think Al Capone).
   • Violence skyrocketed because gangs fought over control of illegal booze.
   • Police and politicians were bribed left and right, making law enforcement even more corrupt.

3. The Economy Took a Hit

   • The alcohol industry was a major part of the economy. When Prohibition kicked in, thousands of jobs disappeared overnight.
   • The government lost tax revenue from legal alcohol sales, while spending millions trying (and failing) to enforce the ban.

4. It Created More Dangerous Drinking Habits

   • Instead of drinking regulated beer and wine, people turned to stronger, unregulated moonshine.
   • Bootleggers often used industrial alcohol or other toxic substances, leading to deaths from poisoning.

5. It Was Hypocritical and Classist

   • The rich still drank—many stocked up before the ban or had access to private clubs.
   • Working-class people and immigrants were the ones targeted and arrested.

6. It Ultimately Didn’t Work

   • Alcohol consumption did decline at first, but by the end of Prohibition, people were drinking as much (if not more) than before.
   • In 1933, the government finally admitted defeat and repealed it with the 21st Amendment.

Why We Don’t Do Things Like That Anymore

1. We Learned That Bans Don’t Stop Behavior

   • Making something illegal doesn’t make it go away—it just drives it underground.
   • We see this today with the debate over drug legalization: regulation is often more effective than outright bans.

2. We Recognize That Regulation is Smarter Than Prohibition

   • Instead of banning alcohol, we regulate it (age limits, licensing, etc.).
   • Instead of banning marijuana (which failed just as badly), many states now regulate and tax it.

3. We Understand That Personal Freedom Matters

   • Prohibition was a massive government overreach. Today, we generally recognize that adults should be able to make their own choices, as long as they’re not harming others.

But Are We Still Making Prohibition-Like Mistakes?

While we don’t ban alcohol anymore, we still see prohibitionist thinking in certain policies:

• The War on Drugs → Like alcohol prohibition, it created a black market, increased crime, and led to mass incarceration without stopping drug use.
• Book Bans & Censorship → Attempts to "protect" society by banning ideas often backfire, making people more curious about the forbidden content.

Final Verdict

Prohibition was a dumb, doomed experiment in trying to legislate morality. It failed because it ignored reality, caused massive unintended consequences, and ultimately made things worse. Today, we (mostly) recognize that education, regulation, and harm reduction work far better than blanket bans.

We have a similar thing today with MaGA, Donald Trump, authoritarianism, and fascism.

Look. Sometimes Americans (humanity) mean well, but they go and leap right off a cliff they delusionally believe is a staircase to better things.

We CAN do better. Less than half of us just think it's too hard.

 Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

"The Teenage Bodyguard" screenplay - Ruminations - Happy 4th!

Wishing you all a very happy 4th of July, 2023!

On that patriotic note, celebrating one of our own... 

I know a producer who’s worked with A-list talent on films, and read my screenplay, a true crime/biopic titled, "The Teenage Bodyguard". It sucked him in enough to then work with me on a rewrite. The rewrite was a selling script version while my original was what I referred to as the “Bible“ for the story that was the most researched, accurate and detailed. 

I get the concept of a biopic been entertaining. But for myself watching one, I prefer do at times, accuracy over entertainment value. As long as it’s interesting, engaging, evocative, and informative on things that happened, especially when in arenas I am unfamiliar with, even if it's a bit harsh, or bittersweet, I much prefer that in biopics better than the ones I would like which are merely entertaining and then, I later find out that half or all of it was just pure bullshit. IF you're going to tell a true story, based in a true story, at least try to be as accurate as possible, as much as possible. Unless possibly, if at the beginning your clearly state, "This is all bullshit, but very entertaining."

That producer said about the ending of my screenplay, a true story about a 17 year old guy (he was actually 18, but the producer thought 17 was a better idea), and about his experience over the course of a week in 1974 while protecting a murder witness. She had been a cocktail waitress at Tacoma‘s first popular topless club, run by the local crime family, the Carbones, enemies of the bigger and scarier Seattle crime family, the Colacurcios. And yes, all of Italian ancestry. The Carbone situation made national news in the late 80s for their federal court trial that had to be moved to San Francisco.

This producer said of my ending that he hated it. It had "ripped his heart out". Which was the point. The rewrite we did together, I wrote it, he guided me, and is a more mechanically functional screenplay than mine. But we left out that ending. I loved that. I loved it because this was the orientation of the entire story: bittersweet. For the young guy in a real world, growing up in a tough town of Tacoma, Washington in the Pacific Northwest, a town far tougher than he knew. This is not a typical "coming of age" tale. It is darker than light. Sadly, so many who I have tried to share the screenplay with, latched onto the young guy, hot girl, both caught up in the absurd situation storyline.

The first producer I told about this story was a London producer who triggered the whole thing. He said it was a great story. And that bittersweet intensity was its selling point. I have ongoing access to the actual character in the story and full agreement from him to tell his story. He and his story both are the selling points of this screenplay/story. The problem I ran into with the story immediately when I started writing a screenplay about it, after a lot of research and ever more as the screenplay developed and through rewrites (before I met the producer I was convinced to rewrite it by) was that no one believed this guy‘s life when he would tell anyone about it back in the 1970s. 

So he eventually quit telling this story to people. Stories he would tell people about this life story in general were discounted and disbelieved. "Kids just don’t do things like that," they would say. What is so sad for him about all that was that he was already downplaying those things but still people disbelieved him. Which surprised him. They would claim he was lying to try and make himself look better. But he didn't lie. His desire to never lie is another story altogether. So when people disbelieved him, he was shocked to be questioned. Why would he lie. But then he learned how unusual much of what he had done was to most people. Back then.

Nowadays we know far more about people and more about kids who are known for doing amazing things. And more kids are doing more amazing things now. Just consider Greta Thunberg, for instance.

But back then, for that woman to have happened upon that kid, at that time in her situation, really was an amazing stroke of luck for her. Or them both, depending on how you view it. In the end, he succeeded in his first job as a bodyguard. He later had a few protection jobs after that and into adulthood. She remained while in his protection, unharmed, unseen, and unfound by her enemies until she left the Tacoma at the end of that week. The awakening of this young man, raised as and by then a lapsed Catholic, with an old-school Slovakian mother, and a distant, seldom seen, Irish father, with a troubled stepfather who really didn’t like him very much, these are all entirely other but interesting elements of his story. 

It was a different time in the 60s and 70s. Drug culture was more prevalent. Free love was, if not more of a thing, more of a cultural phenomenon. There were no cell phones. If you were in danger, you had to get yourself out of it or find a phone somewhere. People could commit crimes more easily, and get away with them more easily. 

Some crimes, like the one this story begins with and because, in that of a bouncer at that topless club, in reality his murder was committed at 2 AM in the club's parking lot. It was deemed by a corrupt Sheriff's office, first on the scene, as a random event of violence by an "anonymous person". When in reality it was done by that crime family, to one of their own and most likely, the Sheriff's office, at least some, probably the Sheriff himself, knew what was going on, and what had happened. As he was in the Carbone's pocket, 

I had well known screenplay site, "The Blacklist", perform coverage of the screenplay. One of the reviewers asked in his review, "Why isn’t this already on the screen somewhere?" And that was years ago. Why? Because I don’t live in Hollywood? Also, although things are easier now with the Internet, the Film Industry is still after all a business. For whatever reason, I've been unable to find just the right person who gets what I'm selling here. Hard to believe, but it's true and I bet this happens all the time with great stories/screenplays.

The aforementioned producer, when he read the screenplay, said he had trouble with the beginning. But he got himself through it and in the end, it made him want to contact me. He said he wanted me to rewrite it with his help. Which I think says something right there. 

After it was rewritten, we talked to several directors he got interested in it, who wanted to make it as a film. But either we didn’t really click with one another, or I simply didn’t like their "take" on the spirit of the movie, and it didn’t happen. Because I wouldn’t go forward. We had three chances to make it into a film that I turned down. Because no one seemed to catch onto what the film is really about or who the protagonist was/is. He wasn't just some teenage boy with raging sex hormones. As one true crime podcast put it ("Scene of the Crime"), he was incredibly knowledgeable for his age and time, a quite disciplined young man, with ADHD, who was quite ethical, and had since childhood had a strong sense of character and of right and wrong. Things that had gotten him into trouble at times. 

He had found the works of Aristotle in the local library, in fifth grade and read him. In the early 60s as a little kid, he had liked watching adult detective and court ("Perry Mason") TV shows, and espionage shows. Some he watched with his grandmother. While he watched kids shows too, these were not shows other kids watched. Anyway, overall this a very good story. I just hope before I die, or even after I die, that somebody makes it into a good (great?) movie. 

Ah, now I remember what that London producer had said about this story… It reminded him of the film, "The Place Beyond the Pines" (2012). Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling. A gritty crime drama. And that is what "The Teenage Bodyguard" is.

THAT is what I have been shooting for. More of a serious drama. But everyone wants to turn it into a teen romp or some bullshit. I don’t understand it. The screenplay starts with a few scenes that lead into the protagonists childhood in order to make his story/character all more believable/acceptable. It stresses ta bit on his family situation. He was perhaps immature emotionally, but in other ways much more of an adult than many adults. 

By the time he was 18 he'd done many things that some adult would never do over their entire lifetime. He was a trained marksman by 9th grade. He was military trained in the USAF auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol with search and rescue training, where in his squadron, he was a Flight Commander training other cadets in drill and discipline. CAP kids can get called out of school for search and rescue missions, whenever a small plane goes down, to search for it.

When he actually entered the US Air Force, he was made primary squad leader which the entire flight of 50 men take their lead in marching from. Granted, at over 6' the tallest also goes to the front right for reasons that should be obvious.

He had his Radio-Telephone Operators permit in 8th grade in 1968, in order to operate HAM radio and that same year he flew and landed his first airplane. He landed it with a 2-point landing, which the USAF pilot owner of the plane (a "Senior" in CAP) said was excellent. "Better than some pilots would do", he had said. That scene is in the screenplay. He took pilot ground school, twice that year. He had begun Isshinryu Okinawan Karate in fifth grade and fought tournaments around the Pacific Northwest. 

By time he got connected up with that waitress (through a "friend", or so he thought...), he might well have been the most adept teen in the entire region, if not one of the most adept and well trained on the entire West Coast. 

Tell me that isn’t all set up for one hell of a story!

I’ve not named that Hollywood producer who I had worked with, because we’re not actively working together now. However, he did said should I find a buyer on my own, he would definitely be interested in  being a producer on it. He also said he’s always looking for somebody for this project. 

He's a really busy guy, working on more active projects. He saw this film as a small indie feature. I see it as a little bit bigger indie project (again, "The Place Beyond the Pine"). So we’ve kind of parted ways, but on good terms and may still work together one day. I will say, at the time I worked with him, the last A-list actor/producer he had worked with, has been one of my performing arts "heroes" since childhood. Not to mention, his father. Who, when I was very young, with my own birth father absent, was one of my "TV/movie dads". I've spoken to other guys over the years, who knew exactly what that means, and who also had absent fathers.

By the way, interesting side note… That A-list Hollywood actor producer, whose dad I so admired in the early 1960s, up until he died too soon (but at an advanced age)… that dad of my producer had been discovered by a famous Director, back in the 49? Or so he said. 

After receiving my second-degree from Western Washington University (first from Pierce College), I attended a series of seminars with that famous director. I got to sit and listen to him Saturday after Saturday, about the most amazing tales and advice on film production and the golden age of Hollywood, about his career and the famous actors he had worked with. What I would do to have a video tape of those lectures. Or even an audio recording of it. I’d have done that, recorded it, but it would’ve been too obvious back then. I started that first day seminar to take a notes, but I just gave up because of the onslaught of what he was saying, story after story all that were so amazing and distracting. He moved up north here to the PNW to retire near his daughter who lived up here. Best seminars ever. Week after week of looking forward to Saturday Kramer seminars, in 1984, at Bellevue Community College.

The problem I feared I had with this screenplay, this story, this protagonist, this real person, was getting people to find his character and actions, believable. Just throw him into situations with no backstory seems artificial. It's hard to buy into. People might see it as fantasy. How is this kid able to do all this stuff? Or have the "guts" to even agree to do it? Some is just ignorance. Some is boredom in life. Some was his position in his sometimes troubled nuclear family. Some was his position in his dojo in grade school or his  position as Flight Commander in his CAP Squadron and his first responder training.

Nowadays we can maybe see that in a youth. We see too many films that really are fantasies, but sold to us as action adventure, sci-fi, whatever. I think about the protagonist in "The Teenage Bodyguard" in that he just had a solid foundation. He had a lot of training. He sweat and worked hard since childhood. He was a "dojo rat" from fifth grade, which means he was at his dojo 7 days a week, and even when the dojo wasn’t open sometimes, on Sundays. If he heard the Sensei was going to show up to do some paperwork on Sundays, he’d request showing up alone and working out. And begrudgingly, at first, it was granted. So after mass at St. Joe's Slovak Catholic Church, he'd take the bus to the dojo.

The point of all this? "The Teenage Bodyguard" is a very interesting, well researched, true crime biopic. It just need the right director who gets the story for what it is. One of these days...

Writing the True Crime Biopic, The Teenage Bodyguard

Yesterday afternoon I should have had my consult with screenplay and overall film creative consultant Jen Grisanti. More on that below. So I thought I should blog about what's going on with my current primary project.

Lately, I've had a few projects, one being my short little 8 minute macabre horror film, The Rapping (an homage to Edgar Allen Poe and sorry, not Rap music). Here's the trailer as I've submitted it to several film festivals.

I have also produced a shorter short titled, Below in the Dark.

Back to the bigger and cooler project. In 1974 something very unique happened to me. I was eighteen years old at the time. It took place during a single week in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington. A week I never talked about to anyone. That next year I traveled some, my younger brother died, I went into the Air Force, through basic training (always fun stuff), technical school, and got married.

All in that next year of 1975. And then I forgot all about that week.

Until about five years ago when I was looking for a personal story to base a new screenplay on. In running through my mental catalog of things I could draw upon, I came up with several. Stories about my childhood, that week in 1974, my years in the USAF, various orientations on my life related to subcultures, my years during college and for a while working at Tower Records at three stores (Posters, Records and what were the new Video stores), in two different cities and, a few other stories.

I easily settled on that week in 1974 as the most marketable.

Obviously. I needed a working title so I called it Teenage Bodyguard (later, The Teenage Bodyguard, that "The" has an important reason as it's very specific). I thought about it, did some brief research on it and realized, I had something. So I spent some months researching it in depth. It started with a murder, the local mafia and a witness who was female. The more I researched, the more I uncovered, the more fascinating the story became and t more I realized I actually had some connections, more than the one I thought I had.

I realized a couple of my "friends" especially one in particular whom I had known for years since I was in about tenth grade, sort of threw me under the bus to save himself. Now I haven't spoken to him since I started doing this research, so I haven't heard his side of this story. But at this point, it's pretty damning.

This whole thing started with giving a woman a lift to a new home, and a newspaper clipping.

This is a copy of the actual article she handed me that day.

The story is a simple one: damsel in distress asks for help and gets it.

She contended that the mafia types were after her for having been there and witnessed the murder. A murder which she said was of one of their own by one of their own. It was to this day labeled a murder by unknown suspect. She was adamant that it was a murder her bosses committed and they wanted to "talk" to her about it. She was pretty sure if that happened, she would never do anything else ever again. And would I protect her for a week until she could escape and leave town, forever, for her hometown in another state far away.

I agreed. The rest is history and now, a feature film screenplay. Which by all accounts to date is a very good and timely story that needs to be on the big screen. Well? Cool. Right?

This wasn't an easy story to write or an easy screenplay to produce.

So for a while, I put the story away. There were other more immediate things to work on. A year or so later I get a request to contact a producer in London about an adaptation I did for an author on her book. She said it was optioned once and expired and now there was renewed interest. So we converse via email this producer and me. I send him a copy of the screenplay adaptation, a spy romance titled, "Sealed in Lies", by Kelly Abell.

Then the producer asked if I had any other projects of my own. So I make a list of written screenplays and ones I was considering writing. He quickly zeroed right into the Teenage Bodyguard screenplay concept. He said he liked the title and the idea and if I ever write it to please think of him first.

I take that as a green light (as any screenwriter should). I spend the next nineteen days writing it and then sent it to him. He was surprised by the speed at which I got him a copy of a previously unwritten screenplay and sent it on to his readers. He now had two of my screenplays. And I never heard from him again. So, I tucked the situation under my arm and moved on with other things.

The upside in that? I had a new screenplay that I had been too intimidated before to write. Having a work you can work on is always better than one that doesn't exist and may never get written in the first place. Once you have a finished draft it is far easier to work it and it almost has to get better.

I put it away, again. In part because I was bummed at the prospects of having a producer with TWO of my screenplays and then, nothing came of it. Same old story for any kind of a writer really. I'd been through things like that before and more than once.

Then one day I took up the screenplay again. I sent it to a screenplay contest and got notes back on it. I had to pay extra for notes but I researched the contests and found one that was considered good and got the notes back. They were good notes. I got notes from another contest and they had good notes and other considerations.

I took the notes and rewrote the screenplay while doing more research on it and finding more. I contacted the Pierce County Sheriff's office and had them search for the murder report. They couldn't find it. Which fits how corrupt that era was in that area back in the 70s.

I sent the screenplay to another contest and updated it appropriately. Then I found The Blacklist. I spent $75 for coverage and did a new draft and posted it. Then I got another coverage again, this time two. I fixed the issues and reposted it. It sat there for a while.

Then one day I met someone who had a friend in the industry. We were able to get him to read the latest version of my screenplay. He liked it! Although he was an entertainment attorney with long standing in Hollywood, he said now was the time to hit with this kind of screenplay but he wasn't the one to get me there.

I realized after years of not spending literally thousands on one screenplay, as some have done and some have done getting nowhere, it was time to spend some money and get to the next level.

That was when I contacted Jen Grisanti. She isn't cheap, but there are others out there costing a lot more who just aren't worth it. Jen is. I have a meeting on Zoom with her tomorrow but just her screenplay notes alone were worth a bundle.

BLACKLIST's own coverage said, "pursue to production." BlueCat contest: "Why this isn't on screen yet!" Well-known entertainment attorney said: "It's the perfect time for this story." Sex, drugs & rock-n-roll meet sex, drugs & mayhem. For a week in 1974, a naive but well trained & savvy young man is asked by a more experienced woman to protect her for a week from local Mafia-type crime family for witnessing their murder. of one of their own.

And here we are today. I have a screenplay that is almost polished enough and ready to go. I have the rights to the screenplay, the story no one else knows about and my own story.

I'm ready to go.

Almost....

The Criminal President - Donald J Trump

Trump tweet: Wow, Comey is a leakier.
America: Wow, very believable former FBI director says Trump is a liar and potentially abusing his power as president into potential obstruction of justice and fired the FBI Director to stop an investigation into Trump. By the way, Comey didn't leak.

These weren't classified documents by any sense of the term. he disseminated, in part because of Trump's disparaging tweets. Another example that Trump tweeting is working against him and typically America, although in this case anyway, it worked for America in inspiring Comey to share information we needed to know. Why? Because others at Comey's level, have apparently followed Trump's request to slow down or stop this investigation as we say the day before Comey testified.

Also...
Trump: Comey vindicated me!
America: Really? THAT's what you got out of that?

Did Trump direct Comey to drop an investigation? Not exactly. He did not directly say or request that. But really?

Have you really NEVER watched a movie about how criminals, or organized crime, the mob, la cosa nostra works?

Or a disreputable president in say, House of Cards.

Only the most stupid and characterized versions of these criminal types actually says what they mean, for purposes of plausible dependability and the potential for the meeting being taped or recorded by the authorities. Which Trump said was "taped" though no one tapes anymore, they digitally record. Which I doubt because true criminals don't want their meetings recorded as it will be used against them so I'd be stunned to find there are "tapes" or recordings, which would I'm sure, vindicate not Trump, but Comey.

By the way, why ARE we seeing so many leaks from the Trump administration? I'll tell you. People are afraid for America and they dislike a criminal in the white house, Some of us truly despise the Office of President being tarnished so badly and so often.

The connections between Trump's people and Putin and Russia are a consistently bad taste in the mouth of Lady Justice. Russia is the largest organized crime nation state on the entire planet. Trump loves them.

And why is Trump the only one not concerned about Russia hacking America and American elections? Even going so far as to deflect in having said it could have been anyone else? A claim Putin even picked up on recently. All when we clearly know it's not and that Russia directed the hacks themselves, all the way up to Putin. Don't believe that man when he says he doesn't know what is going on in his administration. Russia, is not America.

Let's face it, Trump is a "criminal".

Someone my mother would have called, "a real louse". One who although he is not technically a criminal, it is only because he is used to bullying people through his position, power and money. He is one who uses lawyers and the courts (and politicians) like weapons against the innocent. He is one who abuses people he hires and then refuses payment as in one case and I'm sure many, many more, Trump claimed the contractor did bad work... then tried to rehire him.

If Trump were an average person like you or me, he'd have been jailed years ago merely because like us, he would have had a lack of funds to bribe and over burden the court system until he won or more typically until his opponents simply went bankrupt in our too heavily weighted toward the wealthy judicial system.

So. Who does one believe? A man we all know lies, or a man who has consistently been if not perfect, perfectly rational and forthright? Unlike potentially our worst president in history.

Who are we going to believe? An actual criminal in Trump? Or an ex Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation?

We are giving President Trump a multi billion dollar education on the constitution.

From this president on,how about let's only elect those who are already educated on the constitution (and decency) on their own time, because they give a damn about it, and us. And not just acquiring and abusing even more power and money,and being so focused on self aggrandizement while continually inflating an already massively inflated ego and bank accounts.