The Justice Dept. today shredded any pretense that it isn't in the back pocket of Donald Trump by overturning its own federal prosecutors' recommendation that Roger Stone, Trump's buddy, get up to nine years in the slammer for lying to Congress and witness tampering.

Roger StoneRoger Stone

And all it took was a tweet from the master.

Though CNN called the Justice Dept's reversal a "stunning and politically charged move," it's pretty much par for the course following AG Bill Barr's dismissal of the Mueller Report as much ado about nothing.

Stone's conviction flowed from allegations made by Bob Mueller's epic exposure of corruption and collusion in the White House.

The Justice Dept.'s pandering to Trump followed a tweet in which he whined that the seven-to-nine year recommended jail time for Stone was a "horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!"

The partisan Justice Dept. is just another sign on the American road to becoming a Banana Republic.

But say this for bananas; at least they possess some thick skin, unlike members of the Trump administration band of sycophants. Donald says, "Jump," They respond, "How high?"

Trump unbound is Trump unhinged. In the aftermath of the acquittal in the Senate, the president has political cover to wreak even more havoc in Washington and on the Constitution.

The Economist columnist "Lexington" summed things up nicely in the Feb 8th-14th issue of the magazine:

"Mr. Trump's sometimes comical strangeness long made the fears of despotism he stirred seem overblown. But think of authoritarianism as a corrosive process, not a dictatorial end-state, and they no longer do.

He has never looked more threatening to American democracy. And thanks to Senate Republicans, with one laudable exception, it has never looked more vulnerable to him."

As the Democratic candidates for president fail to inspire a broader base than their core supporters, Lexington's laudable exception, Mitt Romney, is looking pretty good these days as somebody who could restore morality to the White House.

Goldman Sachs is no friend of Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, But the investment bank is providing the Vermont Senator with fuel to fire up his campaign against the billionaires and one-percenters.

The investment bank reports that the richest one percent of Americans controls more than half (56 percent) of the equities owned by US households. That's up from 46 percent three decades ago.

Since 1990, those super-haves have bought a net $1.2T in company stock, while the rest of all have unloaded more than $1T, according to a Feb. 10 report in the Financial Times.

Goldman Sachs' analysts expect the gravy train to roll on as US economic growth and rising stock prices make the rich even richer and Bernie's supporters angrier.