BAD PRESIDENT

In a TV interview a few days ago President Trump speculated about getting impeached. He predicted the stock market would crash and a lot of people would become poor as a result. But he wasn't worried.

How could they impeach him, he wanted to know, when he's doing a great job?

I'm pretty sure he wasn't being ironic. He actually thinks he's doing a great job. Sure, not a lot has gotten done in Congress, but that's their fault. Nothing to do with him. Buried, apparently, is the quaint notion the Great Negotiator was going to take Congress by the neck and wring from those nutty guys and gals a mountain of much needed legislation.

Forget about that: The president is doing fine, and he knows it.

Which is why he's perplexed by the preponderance of bad news coming from a
Google search of "Trump." The hell's going on? Surely he's a better president than that. Gotta be more of that damned Fake News!

Trump is getting mighty tired of this unpatriotic nonsense. Looks like it's time the press took the hint and mended their evil ways. Or else!

The president, like the rest of us, is a human being. As such, he knows what he knows and he can't be wrong.

Unlike most of us, he's in a position of power. He can make things happen to create a desired effect, to force into place what he thinks reality really is, to produce the America we actually live in, if it were portrayed honestly by the press.

With that in mind, he has a warning for social media: You're treading on dangerous ground. "You can't do that to people," he said.

(By "people" I think he means "me, Donald Trump.")

The new normal, already in progress: You can't report the truth about people if by doing so you make them look bad. Especially if the people are rich and powerful and vindictive as hell.

(No way can the president consider the possibility the press makes him look bad because he actually is bad. That would require a superhuman effort of self examination. And nobody wants to do that.)

So far, we've got the war of words. What's next? Shutting down newspapers? Censoring the Internet? Torching the First Amendment?

The problem is, Trump is not as blameless as he maintains. He very likely knew of the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time, even if he didn't attend either it or the strategy meeting before it—and he helped orchestrate the cover-up after the fact. He very likely suggested FBI director James Comey give a pass to Michael Flynn, then fired him when he wouldn't—and lied about it. And according to Michael Cohen, the president ordered his long-time fixer to pay off several problematical women, violating campaign finance laws in the process—and lied about it afterward.

This stuff is not likely to go away cleanly.

Trump is also worried about upcoming midterm elections. He told a gathering of evangelicals if the Democrats take control of Congress they're going to undo everything he's done, and do it violently. He used the term "violent" several times, and compared the Demos to Antifa, the anti-fascist movement.

(It seems Trump is always on the lookout to mitigate any threat to American fascists.)

What does he want evangelicals to do? Step up their prayers calling for the return of Jesus and the end of the world as we know it? (Before the Democrats can get their dirty-commie hands on it.)

Should the world continue to soldier on despite all fervent wishes, Trump and his pals are working hard to lock America into a new conservative attitude. A virtual crap-load of right-wing federal judges is heading to a judicial bench near you—young men who will be making decisions for this country long after Trump has waddled off the scene.

Not so easy for the Dems to walk that back.

Win or lose the midterms—not to mention 2020—Donald Trump may already have gobbled up the future of America.

Earlier this year I mentioned a Trump supporter's comment that any attempt to impeach the president—no matter what criminal outrage the guy perpetrates—would trigger a revolution in this country.

No question, that would absolutely be a disaster for America.

But here's the nightmare calculation we need to make: Would it be a worse disaster than keeping the man on the job? What if the idiot is just getting warmed up?

Maybe this could work: Impeach the president—and make it look like an accident.

PERJURY TRAP

There was this movie directed by Otto Preminger (I'm pretty sure) wherein a middle-aged woman was very cagey about revealing the exact date of her birth. Then, one fateful day, when she was surrounded by her dearest (ready-to-pounce) friends, she was asked by a government official to state her birthday for the record. She fainted.

Maybe Donald Trump could try that with Mueller.

Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, says he thinks Mueller is trying to get the president in a "perjury trap," a situation where Trump's answer is at odds with someone else's answer—and Mueller will believe the other person.

And charge Trump with perjury.

Here's how it could work. Mueller will ask a question like: Did the president ask James Comey to go easy on Flynn?

Comey says he did, but Trump denies it.

Giuliani thinks Mueller will believe his old friend and past colleague Comey over Trump. Because they're pals, see? And not because Comey is known to be a straight shooter and Trump demonstrates himself to be a profligate liar on just about every occasion.

Or does he?

Trump, and something like half the population of the country, seem to think there is no blizzard of lies coming out of the White House (and Trump in particular). Even so, the Washington Post has compiled a list of over four thousand lies and exaggerations with Trump's name on 'em. And the rate is accelerating as matters heat up in the special counsel's office.

Is this some kind of illusion, like the blue/gold dress deal?

For example, here's a pungent can of worms: Recently, a piece of tape from a Trump rally surfaced where he promised the following week he would be delivering a major speech about the Clintons and their nefarious doings. He said this shortly before the infamous Trump Tower meeting between his son (and others) and Russian nationals, the meeting that promised dirt on Hillary.

Far as I know, Trump never made that anti-Clinton speech.

(On the other hand, a lot of what he says just disappears into the maelstrom.)

But at that rally Trump really seemed to be drooling at the thought of coming into some nasty dirt on the Clintons. How could that be? He has always maintained he was unaware of the upcoming meeting at Trump Tower, in fact, not really so sure what happened in there even after it was over. Something about adoptions of Russian children?

(Russia suspended the adoption of their children by Americans in retaliation for Obama-era sanctions placed on Russia for their Crimea grab and other stuff. Their biggest hope for Trump's election was for him to relieve those sanctions, which would allow adoptions to resume (among other things). Giving the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary could help make this happen. That's the link.)

Now, with Michael Cohen's plea deal, we might get more information on what Trump knew and when he knew it. Giuliani is feverishly laying the groundwork for undercutting anything Cohen might say about anything, calling the man a known liar. (Though he has in the past touted his honesty!)

Meanwhile, Trump has nothing but praise for his one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort, the man taking the hit in court and refusing to "break" and make up stories about the president.

(All stories detrimental to Trump are made up—it's the cornerstone of the concept of Fake News.)

Cohen is operating outside the beneficial sphere of presidential pity. His lawyer says he would refuse a pardon by Trump, though I'm guessing that's partly sour grapes—none seems in the offing. But Cohen is also operating under the constraints of legal jeopardy; any lie to prosecutors could destroy whatever deal he's managed to cut.

Trump has so far kept himself out of oath territory, so nothing he says carries any judicial weight. Giuliani is fighting hard to prevent the man from raising his right hand in front of anybody.

Working against him is Trump's ballooning ego. He knows he can game Mueller. All he has to do is get into a room with the special counsel so he can work his special magic.

Maybe there's something to this bizarre bit of confidence. My theory: pheromones.

The author and historian H.G. Wells was a toad of a man, but always had lots of female admirers. It was a mystery. Somerset Maugham asked one of Well's lovers what his appeal was. She said his skin smelled amazing.

The miracle of body-odor chemistry!

Is this the answer to Trump's success, in business as well as in politics? Does the expression "press the flesh" have special meaning in his case? Is this why he seems to spend hours shaking the hands of folks like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un?

Is he marking his territory?

Hell, maybe Trump is right. Screw Giuliani! The president needs to get Mueller in a room, shake the man's hand a couple dozen times, let his orange skin exude that enchanting cheeseburger scent. Two or three hours of close contact—and our long, national nightmare could be over.

Mueller will close the investigation, declare the president clean as a whistle, and fade into history's dead zone. (Maybe go back to sending out emails threatening to jail me for not accepting that Nigerian deal.)

All because Trump ran to embrace the perjury trap.

TRUMP'S FREUDIAN PETTICOAT

Going back to the press conference after the Helsinki meeting between President Trump and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin: Trump famously tossed the US intelligence services under the tram to remind us Putin was very forceful in his denial Russia hacked our 2016 election.

"I will tell you this," I believe is how Trump put it, "I don't see why it would be Russia."

Putin stared straight ahead.

Based on this performance, we'd have to conclude either Trump didn't read the indictment of the Russian intelligence officers, or he failed to understand it. Mistakes made by the Russians led directly to the Moscow building where this all took place, but Trump was apparently not convinced.

(Presidential motto: Don't confuse me with the facts.)

Later, safely back in this country, Trump stumbled through a written statement revealing his belated support for the CIA and others. Turns out, he'd planned to let Putin have it with both barrels, but misspoke in Helsinki. He'd meant to say "wouldn't" instead of "would."

He explained all this with little emotional affect.

But if this is what really happened—a Freudian slip of historic magnitude, the sort of verbal mishap that empires live or die from—a volatile blowhard like Trump would have raged at the unfairness of losing an opportunity to stick it to Putin in public. He'd be couch-jumping and scenery chomping to reveal his profound disappointment. You could expect a bully like Trump to be downright scary!

Yet he chose this moment to be calm and subdued and reasonable, in short, to be "presidential."

(Trump portrays himself in "presidential mode" at some rallies, marching back and forth like that old-time mechanical bear in the arcade shooting game—blast the bear, he'd spin around and stagger in the opposite direction until hit again.)

It's not clear if even Trump expected to be believed, because this convenient, Monday-morning explanation is not very likely. Coming after everything he'd said before, the "would" made perfect sense.

On the other hand, if he'd been pointing out how every country in the world hacked our election, it might make sense to say Russia was likely to be on that list as well—with their crime nicely diluted. Everybody does it, why not them?

Not what happened, though.

Trump likes to point out he's tougher on Russia than anybody. But as I recall it, he first said that before he bothered to institute sanctions that Congress had authorized much earlier.

By now, Russia should probably be buried beneath sanctions triggered by a variety of actions: the election hacking, the annexation of Crimea, interference in Ukraine, the poisoning of ex-spies in Great Britain, their deadly support of the Assad regime in Syria.

Maybe it's time for Trump to reverse directions violently, to stop sucking up to Putin (because he gets so much criticism for that), and make one of those catastrophic blunders that start world wars.

Pretty sure he has it in him.

ON THE SPECTRUM

Based on what he says and does and how he comports himself in public—especially at political rallies—President Trump appears to be on a spectrum that runs from stupid to mentally ill.

For starters, it seems Trump is so stupid he actually thinks he's smart—which, let's give the man credit, is championship-level stupidity.

He often says he is a "very stable genius." I'm pretty sure no genuine genius would ever find himself saying something as bizarre as that.

The question is, has crazy been taken off the table, following his test for dementia?

Of course not, for two reasons. First, there's lots of mental pitfalls in the soggy arena of the brain besides early (or not so early) dementia.

Second, how do we know he really passed that test?

The doctor who evaluated it made his glowing statement to the press, and right after that he was nominated by Trump to be the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sure, his appointment immediately collapsed under the weight of stories of misconduct, but maybe a deal had been struck.

Can we be certain he didn't agree to fudge the results for a shot at running the VA? After all, Trump is the Dealmaker-in-Chief. And the doc can't say anything now without implicating himself in a sleazy episode of corruption.

Plus, doctor-patient confidentiality would probably kick in at some point.

In the past I've mentioned Trump's "no collusion and everybody knows it" nonsense. Is that statement indicative more of stupid or crazy?

The people in Trump's life no doubt back him up (to his face, at least) about the lack of collusion. Is Trump stupid enough to extrapolate this small sample to universal coverage? "Everybody" includes a crapload of people.

Or is he in the depths of a paranoid fantasy of persecution? Everybody knows he's innocent but they pursue him anyway—because they're sick!

Stupid or crazy, it makes a difference.

If the country elected a gold-plated stupid-head, I guess we'll just have to take our lumps and be more careful next time.

But if the man is a certifiable lunatic, he can't be president. It's far too dangerous for this country and for the world. Don't forget, the man has access to nuclear launch codes, with little or no oversight.

(Consider this: We'll never know what went on in that meeting with Putin—a result of no oversight, at Trump's insistence.)

The Air Force officers who spend their days underground in missile silos have to be vigorously vetted, first by the FBI to make sure they are not security risks, then by psychologists to make sure they can be trusted to have their mitts on the launch keys.

But the man who can order that officer to turn the key is never vetted by anybody; he's just elected.

(In this case, elected by 80,000 voters in three states—while losing the nationwide popular vote by three million: That's how Trump "crushed" Hillary.)

This country is probably long overdue for establishing stricter requirements for a presidential candidate than that he or she be born in the US at least thirty-five years ago.

Democracy is supposed to weed out the monsters. But what if the voters of this (and every other country) are also on the spectrum?

After all, they're only human.

Which is hardly ever a good thing.

SPITTING ON THE SIDEWALK

Another black man has been shot dead by white cops, this time a guy with a gun who ran away and wouldn't stop when called upon to do so.

Some black people protest. They know this is murder, because they know that man with the gun was no threat to anybody. (They know this because they just know, okay?)

This is a familiar story that has little chance of ever ending. The Black Lives Matter folks have taken a stand: They're against it.

And I presume they'd like it to stop happening. They get folks into the streets demanding that it stop happening. But they stop there.

As far as I know, the BLM people have refused to offer any useful advice to black men.

I find this odd.

Here's a metaphor to demonstrate what I mean:

Suppose there was something wrong with the electrical grid in this country—every time a black man spat on the sidewalk there was a chance he might get electrocuted. Something about the unique chemical makeup of his saliva, let's say.

BLM would likely protest, pointing out the electrical grid was put in place by white men, starting with Thomas Edison. They might suspect this particular and bizarre defect—killing black men when they spat on the sidewalk—was somehow engineered into the system on purpose.

They would undoubtedly call for a redesign of the system, to make it safe.

But if the pattern for this lethal problem is the same as in the matter of white cops shooting black men in the streets, the BLM folks might not offer the most effective advice to mitigate the problem while waiting for action on a new electric grid.

Specifically: They might not suggest that in the meantime black men should refrain from spitting on the sidewalk—on account of it's so freaking dangerous!

But why wouldn't they say anything? Because it seems to put the burden of a solution on the black man? Because it sounds a lot like "blaming the victim"?

They might instead attack the electrical engineers for devising this problem. Or dispute the notion there is something in the spit of black men that triggers the effect. (Maybe the grid can "see" when a black man is about to spit. That's not impossible, right?)

In the case of white cops shooting black guys, one overlooked common denominator is the fact the black men were committing crimes when the incident began. In no case did the accused cooperate in his arrest. They all fought back, or resisted, or ran away.

Note: I'm not saying their actions justified getting shot to death.

But their decision to resist absolutely got things started, forcing the cops into what I call Part Two arrest mode. Bad things happen in Part Two. Mistakes can be made, things can get out of hand, and so forth.

It's a matter of physicality, and in the physical world one thing leads to another. The cops simply don't have the tools to handle these situations safely.

So why don't the BLM folks advise black guys to stop committing crimes? Or, having already committed the crime, why don't they suggest black men cooperate in the arrest, rather than resist, fight, or run from the cops?

Why risk getting killed?

And it doesn't matter if the black guy thinks he's being unfairly singled out, or is convinced his actions don't constitute a crime. By making the decision to arrest the fellow, the cop is putting his career on the line.

Let him do that.

If the arrest turns out to be petty or bogus or racially motivated, let the system be the judge. These days the system is very sensitive to such matters.

Cops can lose their jobs over this stuff. Let 'em!

Why doesn't BLM say these things? It's almost as if they want there to be fresh faces on the Big Board of Martyrs.

But that position can only be useful if they're planning a complete overhaul of the justice system, perhaps one that ties the hands of cops when it comes to crimes committed by black folks.

That doesn't have much chance of succeeding.

And you can't just get rid of all racist cops. In almost all these cases, racism can only be inferred, not demonstrated. As long as black guys commit crimes and refuse to be arrested, the inevitable will ensue.

Until cops carry phasers, set permanently on stun. Will that day ever come?