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Even before four journalists and one publishing staffer were murdered yesterday afternoon in Maryland, it was a terrible week in America—all because of the noxious and corrupt Trump regime, which includes the majority of people in the United States Congress.

It was only a couple of nights ago that Donald J. Trump, the likely illegitimate president of the United States, described the media for the umpteenth time as “the enemy of the people,” so you’d be forgiven for wondering if the grudge-carrying, violent misogynist charged with murdering employees of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis was inspired by the grudge-carrying, violence-inciting misogynist who occupies the Oval Office. The truth is, we’ll probably never know.

But the fact that so many of us leapt to that conclusion tells you just how toxic our political environment has become, yet how inured we are to its poison. It's just what is.

What we do know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is that the violent, corrupt, authoritarian regime that seized the executive branch in 2016 with the help of a foreign adversary is being protected in its psychopathic debauchery by the other two branches of government, the legislative and the judiciary.

Now, it wasn't Trump who corrupted Congress and the courts; the corruption already in place in those hallowed halls helped make possible his election. And I don’t mean to suggest that every member of Congress and the Supreme Court is corrupt—just every representative and senator who has hitched his or her star to Trump’s power train, plus Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (and perhaps a couple of others on that highest of benches).

In three Supreme Court decisions designed to destroy any vestige of the First Amendment in its widely understood form, old Swing-Vote Kennedy swung with the wrecking ball, handing the super-wealthy and right-wing Christian zealots (both Trump's domestic patrons) resounding victories at the expense of women, Muslims, and working people of all colors and creeds.

As if that didn't add up to a fragrant bouquet to the odious Trump,

Kennedy gave the Kremlinite in the Oval a big wet kiss with the announcement that he would step down from the bench next month, allowing Trump to nominate a new justice just ahead of the midterm elections.

Lest you think that's all just politics, The New York Times stepped up yesterday to remind us that, when no other bank would lend to the bankruptcy-prone Trump for his cheesy real-estate ventures, Deutschebank, where one Justin Kennedy held a senior role, lent Trump $1 billion—yeah, billion with a “B”—so Trump could populate the world with hideous monuments to himself. Justin Kennedy happens to be Justice Anthony Kennedy’s son. One hand washes the other, if ya know what I mean.

The day after the elder Kennedy gave Trump the gift of his departure, a hearing on Capitol Hill erupted into threats against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the special counsel investigation of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election—which seems to be on course to connect a lot of dots between the Trump campaign, Russian oligarchs, and other agents of the Russian government. Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee are peeved that, despite their obvious alliance with the likely illegitimate president, the Justice Department refuses to divulge every jot and tittle of the evidence it has collected in its investigation of the quisling from Queens who now has his finger on the nuclear button. The Republican majorities on other committees have behaved similarly. The rumor mill tells us that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will likely issue his report in August, just before campaign season.

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And so the American people are being shown displays of authoritarian dominance: The tearing of babies from their asylum-seeking mothers. The president's taunting of the press at campaign rallies. Strings of tweets deriding a black member of Congress as a “low-IQ individual.” A demand for stringent work requirements for people so broke they need government assistance in buying food. The targeting of former government employees by current government employees.

This week, as CBS News was conducting an interview with a former spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in his home, two inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security (of which ICE is a part) knocked on his door, ostensibly to investigate a leak of which he’s been accused. (James Schwab, the former spokesperson, resigned rather than corroborate a lie told by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s warning to her community of an impending ICE raid resulted in the scattering of 800 criminal immigrants throughout the area. Schwab is now being accused of having tipped her off, which he says he did not do.)

When asked by CBS News reporter Jamie Yuccas whether he felt that the knock on the door that took place during their interview was an intimidation tactic, Schwab replied “absolutely.” Think about that. If those DHS agents intentionally timed their visit to take place during Schwab’s interview—three months after he resigned—that means they’re surveilling him. That they knocked while cameras were rolling was meant to send a message. “And this is why people won’t come out and speak against the government,” Schwab said.

On the same day, the White House announced an upcoming tête-à-tête between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his favorite client, Donald Trump, who defied the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence services by reiterating his claim that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 election.

As the dog days of summer roll on, each week will bring more and greater horrors. You can bet on it. The question that remains is whether the American people will decide to rescue their nation from the tiny, filthy hands of the charlatan who is bent on stealing it from them.