So, you’re watching the cable TV news. The on-air team smell blood in the water. Hard evidence keeps mounting that whatever drawer you put the Mueller Report into, Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine is impeachable on steroids. The really astute talking heads — the Malcolm Nances, the Natasha Bertrands, the Nancy Wheeler’s, the Lawrence Tribes, the Glenn Kirschners — they have no qualms about letting their moral outrage rage. Donald Trump isn’t some ordinary republican potus playing the executive over-reach card, he’s their end product brought horrifyingly to life.

Trump is republican corruption on steroids and too many taco bowls. He’s old, Christian white-guy-racism projected onto electronic billboards that reach across whole zip codes.

He’s a mash up of greed and cynicism and ignorance that every republican must have envied because they’ve all worked so hard to mimic it.

And then there’s his undying devotion to Vladimir Putin.

In the storytelling trade, that’s a set-up you can’t go away from. There’s no satisfying twist that will suddenly make a hero out of Trump. In our menu of choices — A) Trump’s completely innocent, B) Trump’s kinda innocent-kinda guilty, or C) Trump’s completely guilty, “Trump’s completely guilty” is absolutely one of the possibilities.

And yet — as the MSM and its pundits “pick through the bones of last week’s news” — that’s the one possibility they refuse to entertain.

It’s true. They’ll concede the middle easily (cos who knows until all the facts are out). But the middle isn’t as fuzzy as they wish it was. When the only ongoing defense against truly perilous charges is “it’s a hoax!”, you don’t have a defense. We all agree (even Trump’s supporeters FFS!) — Trump’s not innocent. So — let’s remove that empty pot from the table please.

That means Trump must be KINDA guilty at least.

But therein lies the problem — KINDA guilty? That sounds like things we used to call guilty are being normalized.

I keep going back to this fact: Fusion GPS was hired — famously now — to do oppo research on Donald Trump (hired originally by the Washington Free Beacon — Jeb Bush supporters). As Fusion’s co-founder Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, when they did their due diligence before formally commencing their oppo work, they found so much evidence that Trump had laundered Russian mob money through his failed Atlantic City casinos (a red flag itself since who goes broke running a casino?) that they hired Christopher Steele whose Russian contacts were the best in the West.

There should be no question that Trump is a criminal many times over. He was a criminal before he ran for president and his whole campaign — and presidency — have been literal crimes, too. Trump violated his oath of office even as he spoke it; he was knowingly and aggressively violating the emoluments clause.

The Rule Of Law doesn’t have grey areas. It either is or isn’t. Same as Integrity. Once one steps into a traitor’s shoes, those shoes become permanent fixtures on your feet.

I cannot count the hours I have spent either half-listening to or half-watching TV cable news pundits describe actions that — were they to remove them from a president doing them — they’d call ‘TREASONOUS” at the top of their voices. But their normalcy bias blinders are bolted so tightly to their heads — perhaps it’s cut off all the circulation.

They’re like the character in a joke we liked a lot on the bus going to grade school. Guy sees dog shit on the ground. But he’s not sure so he picks it up. Sniffs it. Tastes it even. Yup. It’s dog shit. He puts it back down — glad as hell he didn’t step in it.

How many times and in how many ways does one have to describe treason, traitors and treachery before one is willing to say “Yeah — there might be treason afoot here”?

How many notes from a meeting with Putin does Trump have to destroy before we allow there might be something a wee bit “unkosher” going on?

Technically, “treason” requires a state of war to “be”. We’re in a State of War — make no mistake. There aren’t any bombs or bullets (not here in America but ask Ukraine if that’s true; ask the Kurds — our abandoning our ally benefited one person above all others: Vlad Putin) but then, New Wars will be fought with Information across Cyber networks. Exactly like the war we’re engaged in now.

We will come to see in time that we’ve been living through World War Three. It ain’t just Russia after all that’s firing upon us.

And we aren’t Russia’s only target. And the war Putin’s waging goes back to how the Cold War ended — and his desire to undo the dismantling of the Soviet Union. For reference — the people who took part in the 14th century’s Hundred Years War (it actually lasted 116 years) had no idea that’s what they were involved in. Even as that war rolled through their lives, destroying them, they had no idea they were part of anything historical.

Donald Trump is a traitor. It’s a stone cold fact. He’s done everything except confess it himself. To go back to my earlier metaphor — he put on those shoes. When TV cable news shows turn from reporting a story about just how much of a traitor Trump is to a story about Trump’s re-election plans, they forget Trump’s even wearing shoes. Never mind Treason Shoes.

But he IS wearing them. That same presidential candidate they now glibly discuss — how much money he’s raised, where his base is strongest — is the exact same traitor they were apoplectic about two minutes ago. He didn’t stop being that guy just because THEY changed the subject.

When Donald Trump & his entourage of co-conspirators showed up to take in Game Five of the World Series the other night, he got booed BECAUSE HE’S A TRAITOR.

Everyone chanting “Lock Him Up” is chanting that because they’ve seen enough, heard enough to know — Donald Trump should not be potus for another second longer. BECAUSE HE’S A TRAITOR.

The internet went justifiably bonkers after Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski disapprovingly lectured America on not wanting traitors showing up & ruining their entertainment. Escapism is hard enough to come by in Donald Trump’s America. It’s infuriating to think he feels compelled to take over that space too.

Our TV punditry needs to get it through their heads: it’s dog shit. DON’T pick it up. DON’T sniff it — and whatever you do, DON’T EAT IT.

Trump is a traitor. It’s the only fact that really matters.