Cliffhanger: Trump Presidency Season Finale

[hazard]

It's time for the end of season 2 of the Trump Presidency, and wow, were there some twists and turns over the year.  But now, the cliffhangers keep piling on.  It's like Trump saw the season 1 ender for Twin Peaks, and thought hey, I can do more cliffhangers than that.  And then he told Theresa May, "You call that a shambles?  I can show you a better shambles, I'm the most shambolic person I know, believe me."

Key highlights of this week's episode:

• Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, will be out after this season, gave a great Farewell Monologue, where he blamed everyone else for not cooperating, and how his leadership has ballooned the federal budget deficit to $1 trillion.  Guy still looks good though, I think he's doing a David Caruso with his "retirement".

Classic Republican style that, blaming everybody else for their own failures.

Paul, my friend, you and your party held the national executive and legislative branch for two years now, and a large number of states all of the state executive, legislative and judicial branches. How the fuck did you not manage to do more?

Interior Secretary and man under ethics investigation Ryan Zinke announce his surprise retirement from government.  Just like Game of Thrones, once you get to know these characters, they're gone.

Arrests for corruption pending, but possibly not going to happen until the Trump Administration series concludes.

A federal judge in Texas struck down the entire Obamacare law, sending the health care markets into a tailspin.  No one really knows what will happen this time, as the verdict seems prima facie dumb, but we have a new conservative majority on the Supreme Court.  Will we have health care?  Will some of you die?  No time to find out now, because...

Sucks to be Texan. But last I checked Texas is massively Republican so... I'm just going to point and laugh.

Michael Flynn was scheduled to be sentenced for lying to the FBI and both sides said "no jail time, please."  Then the judge threw this out the window, talked about how General Flynn arguably disrespected what the flag stood for.  He asked the prosecutor if Flynn could have been charged with treason; the prosecutor wasn't sure, and asked to look up the statute!  (Spoilers: no it's impossible, there's no statute it's in the Constitution).  But we flew well past the "courtroom actually considers treason charges for respected general who served as National Security Adviser" waterline...

You see, the thing is, if you swear an oath to protect a country, it tends to be a bad idea to break that oath, especially if you keep trading on that time you publicly spend upholding that oath. For some reason people find it weighs more than never having sworn that oath and doing the same things that would've broken that oath.

The U.S. Congress shows a rare bipartisan chops, by passing a criminal justice reform bill to reduce sentences (First Step Act) and a huge Farm Bill.  Hemp is now legal!  It looks like we can finally get along and work together.  Until...

Wait, a Republican Congress actually makes a sensible decision? Hell must be freezing. Or the Democrats have started blackmailing like the Republicans have been doing for oh, more than a decade now.

After Trump promised to take credit for a government shutdown, we all thought that Congress would just pass a 6 week bill to fund the government.  But Trump is not having it, and threatened to veto and shut it all down unless he gets $5 billion to pay for part of his border wall.  Will they or won't they -- will the government shut down for good?

Congress will overrule him. The Democrats will probably successfully blame him and the Republicans.

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker asked for an informal opinion on whether he could oversee the Special Counsel.  They said that he should recuse himself, informally.  He said, OK, I guess I'm not going to ask for a formal opinion and I'm totally going to oversee the Special Counsel.

Obstruction of Justice charges now pending.

No I'm not saying he's going to get charged. I'm saying that any sensible Justice Department will now have a form letter ready to charge the AAG Matt Whitaker where they only need to fill in the dates and the reference numbers.

Robert Mueller looks to be in the final stages of charging Roger Stone of lying to Congress.  Will he flip?  Sexy spy Maria Butina did flip -- but is she a double-flipper?  Leaked court filings suggest that Mueller's not taking any chances, leaving a gag order in place.  Sexy redheads with gags... uh, moving on.

And no tears were shed. Also Labster? Remember that she last guy she had a relation with is currently being charged for being a Russian spy and I think she'll hang him out to dry. You sure you want to get involved with that?

The Interior Department moved to open all of the North Shore of Alaska to oil drilling.  Public comment is now open.  Will they listen to the public?  (Spoilers: no)

Unless the public says 'great idea.'

Trump announced to the Defense Department (and incidentally the rest of the world at the same time) on Twitter that the U.S. would withdraw all soldiers from Syria.  Vlad and Bashir gave two thumbs up.

In other news, everybody has long since realized that under Trump at least the USA is a terrible ally. Alternative arrangements are being considered.

This would explain why Vlad gave a thumbs up.

Trump directed DoD to come up with a plan to remove all troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.

DoD plan: Leave ehm there for at least another decade to root out terrorists.

What?

Defense Secretary Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, the last of the so-called "adults in the room", resigned in protest.  Obviously upset about military withdrawals, he penned a letter saying in essence that he believes in alliances and using our military to protect others through partnerships instead of authoritarian intimidation.  He resigned because Mr. Trump does not share those values.

The only surprise in this is that Mattis resigned without arranging things ahead of time.

With the government in freefall, will Trump head to Mar-a-Lago tomorrow to vacation with unpaid Secret Service protecting him?  Find out tomorrow!

I'm sure it'll be a terrible accident when Trump falls from the airplane because he toyed with the loading ramp and the Secret Service agents were in the break room enjoying their unpaid leave.