Trump Is To Democrats As Lucy Is To Charlie Brown.

In the comic strip "Peanuts," the child character Lucy lures Charlie Brown into practicing a football kickoff by holding it upright on the ground and then pulling it away just as he takes a running kick, landing flat on his back.

A running theme over the years of the strip (which was also a TV show and numerous products over the years) is Lucy repeating the same cruel trick on Charlie over and over. Even though he resists and should know better, he still lets himself be talked into trying to kick the ball, and invariably Lucy yanks it away at the last moment and Charlie Brown lands flat on his back.

Like So.

Trump does the same thing with the Democratic Congressional leadership, periodically luring them into "negotiating" with him, and then pulling the rug out from under them. He even does it to the politicians of his own party in Congress. For example, Republicans in Congress have more than once been misled to believe he agreed to something, only to have them land flat on their backs when he double-crossed them. (This is one of his techniques for establishing interpersonal dominance. He insults, abuses, disrespects people and makes them eat it. Then he'll switch to feeding them superlative compliments, which only puts them in a state of anxious fear of displeasing him. He treats people like abused dogs, and it works.)

Trump just did it again to the Democratic Congressional poohbahs, suckering them into a meeting allegedly to strike a deal to fund "infrastructure," tempting bait to Democratic politicians. (Perhaps irresistible bait.) This even though Trump has previously floated bogus "infrastructure" deals. The last time he used that con man teaser in his carnival barker mode he kept yelling $1.7 TRILLION!" Only it was really only $200 billion in imaginary Federal spending and the rest magically coughed up by the states and private businesses. Absurd. And I'm sure HE knew it was absurd.

So the Democrats were doubly foolish to take the bait. But they did, duly trooping over to the White House at King Trump's invitation to be his duped stooges once again.

And what happened? Trump stomped out of the meeting after only 5 (or 3, accounts vary) minutes. Trump demanded an end to "these phony investigations" or else no deals with the Democrats, ever. He spoke those words in a display of pique in front of the media that he staged immediately after he stormed out of the meeting in a snit. The media was summoned to the Rose Garden of the White House while Trump was in the "meeting." A podium had already been prepared in the Garden, with a sign announcing "No Collusion," a slogan Trump has repeated hundreds of times in denial of secretly working with Russia to win election. 

Extortionate tactics and psychologically disorienting maneuvers are standard operating procedures for Trump.

And just what "investigations" did he mean? All of them, of course. But that includes not just the investigations by the various House of Representative committees (now controlled by Democrats), but also New York State investigations (again, by Democratic politicians) and various investigations by U.S. attorneys as mentioned in the Mueller Report. Those aren't under Democratic Party control.

Trump has been defying House oversight by refusing to allow any executive branch officials to testify or turn over documents. There are currently tug-of-war battles going on between the House and the Trump regime to get Robert Mueller to testify, to get Trump's former lawyer Don McGahn to testify, to get the IRS to turn over Trump's tax returns, and more.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has barred the IRS (Internal Revenue Service, the tax-collecting arm of the U.S. government) from turning over Trump's tax returns. This despite the face that even the IRS's own legal staff says it is illegal for the IRS to refuse to hand over Trump's tax returns to Congress as has been demanded by the House Ways and Means Committee. Mnuchin uses as his excuse to defy the plain language of the law giving Congress this authority that the Congress has no "legitimate legislative interest." (The IRS is part of Treasury.)

The law is quite clear. Congress can obtain any tax returns it requests. It's not up to the Treasury Secretary to decide on the "legitimacy" of the requests.

Oh, and you should know: Mnuchin is an unconvicted felon who is only where he is thanks to Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, who currently wants to be president. Mnuchin controlled a California bank, OneWest, when Harris was California state Attorney General. Her office's staff uncovered 1,000 cases of mortgage foreclosure FRAUD by Mnuchin's bank, and estimated another 1,000 cases existed. She ignored their findings and brought no charges whatsoever. (Entirely coincidentally, Mnuchin donated money to her political campaign committee.) 

So in terms of corruption, ethics, and moral standards, once again we see that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between these two competing factions of the ruling political elite. Think of them as rival criminal gangs, which is fundamentally what they are.

King Trump. There is indeed Method to His Madness.