DUMPING TRUMP

There are two legal ways a President can be removed from office, and at the moment it appears as if neither of them is viable.

The first is through impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.

It takes but a simple majority in the House to impeach, but for that to happen, at least some Republicans would have to join all Democrats. That might be fairly easy, if only because a number of Republicans don't think Trump is going far enough to obtain the proper results.

Impeachment is therefore possible.

Conviction in the Senate, on the other hand, is pretty much out of the question, because it takes a two-thirds vote to get the job done. Trump was impeached twice in his first term, and survived both trials in the Senate. And that was when Democrats held the majority. Which is no longer the case.

The other method of removing a President is through the 25th Amendment.

To start that process, the Vice President and a majority of the principle officers in the executive branch must submit in writing to the leaders of both houses of Congress their opinion that the President is unable to perform his duties.

If the President objects to that characterization of his ability to rule, Congress must decide the matter. It would take a two-thirds vote of both houses to make a removal stick, placing the Vice President in the role of Acting President.

The former VP could then appoint someone to take over his previous job, and a simple majority of both houses would make that person Vice President. Oddly, the one sitting behind the resolute desk would remain only Acting President.

(Or so says Section 4 of the Amendment. But in Section 1, removal, death, or resignation of the President makes the VP President, not Acting President. Only in Section 4, where Congress is called on to make the determination, is the former VP stuck as Acting President until the end of the term. This appears to be a glitch in the Amendment.)

In the case of Donald Trump, I think the matter is moot. If you listen to the over-the-top declarations of admiration produced by individuals assembled for a cabinet meeting, it boggles the mind these sycophantic tools could turn on him en masse and make a damning declaration to Congress concerning his fitness for duty.

To be clear, the obstacle in both methods of removing Trump is personified by the members of the political party the man currently controls. The majority of them appear to support Trump. Certainly most of them want to demonstrate loyalty to the guy, if only because they know failing to do so would almost certainly result in their being "primaried" at the time of their next reelection attempt. Many of them seem to value their political careers above that of their oaths of office.

(Or something else may be happening. See TWO BECOMES THREE.)

It is likely (and traditional) that the coming midterm election will remake the calculation of party majority in the House. And maybe in the Senate, too.

That would make it even easier to impeach, but getting to two-thirds in the Senate for a conviction would still be a sweaty uphill trek.

So for the time being I think we're stuck with a president who may be going too far.

Or, for some Republicans, not far enough...

FUZZY MEMORIES

Sometimes my memory shifts and wobbles a bit, as I attempt to reconstruct the fluctuations of my life. I recently had a chance to note some of this fractured reality when I revisited my imagined version of an old movie called International House. (Paramount, 1933)

The occasion was the question of whether a faked scene from the movie had been used to pump up interest in the film on the occasion of an earthquake in Long Beach, California, which occurred during production of the movie on March 10th, 1933.

The scene is available on YouTube. If you Google W.C. Fields and Long Beach earthquake, you'll find a link. Comments on the video are sparse, but mainly it's folks debating whether the footage is real or faked.

(For a better quality version of the newsreel, click the GettyImages link in favor of the YouTube version.)

I thought I knew the answer (about the film), because I had seen the movie years ago and remembered key points about it—but I was wrong.

About the key points, I mean.

In the fake scene, W. C. Fields is telling Stu Erwin: "You might have saved my life. What can I do for you?"

Erwin indicates his fiancee, says, "Take us to Shanghai."

Right about the time Fields says "for you," the image starts shaking, a chandelier begins to sway, and a lamp slowly falls over.

And I was thinking: This scene isn't in the actual film. It can't be. Because it's taking place inside the titular International House hotel, which is supposed to be located in Shanghai, China.

So why would Erwin want to go to Shanghai if they're already in Shanghai?

But I was wrong about that.

I just watched the film again, and it is made clear the hotel in question is not in Shanghai, but at least one long day's drive away through the desert. The hotel is said to be in Wu Hu, China.

Now, I remembered the drive there somewhat clearly. The car belongs to Thomas Nash, an old China hand and employee of American Electric. He's going to the International House because a Chinese scientist there (Dr. Wong) has just invented what he calls Radioscope.

(It's a kind of super-duper television that Wong describes like this: "I can materialize anything, anywhere, at any time. Radioscope needs no broadcast station. No carrier waves ...no electrical transmission." Sort of like the purported psychic ability called "remote viewing.")

Big money will be made, and Erwin has been dispatched to bid on the contraption.

He's not alone: A young blonde chick is riding along, also eager to get to Wu Hu. She tells Erwin: "Wong's invention will make millionaires and I intend doing the same."

Erwin: "You mean you're going to marry a millionaire?"

Blonde: "I never marry anything else."

In my memory of this scene (the car is broken down in the desert), the characters get into an argument and Erwin says something like: "Who do you think you are, Peggy Hopkins Joyce?"

A point that went right over my head, followed by her even more inexplicable reply: "Why yes, I am Peggy Hopkins Joyce."

I'm sorry, who?

To be accurate, though, Erwin actually says: "I wouldn't enjoy a minute of this trip even if you were Peggy Hopkins Joyce."

And she says: "I am Peggy Hopkins Joyce."

You may still be shaking your head. Google the name and you'll find out what everybody in the movie theater already knew. Joyce was a Broadway chlorine famous for latching onto millionaires. Which is why her character is headed to Wu Hu.

It's also why there's a movie called International House.

See, the whole goofy thing is a vehicle for Joyce. She even gets top billing, above W.C. Fields and everybody else (Stu Erwin, Edgar Pangborn, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Bela Lugosi, along with a host of others who appear via Radioscope, including Rudy Vallee, Stoopnagle and Budd ["Stoopnocracy is Peachy"], and Cab Calloway [singing "Reefer Man"]; Baby Rose Marie sings a torch song with a raspy jazz voice that always makes me want to clear my throat).

(All the Radioscope scenes come up randomly as Dr. Wong tries to tune in to a six-day bicycle race in New York City. The weird thing about Radioscope is that the folks you locate are also aware of you watching them. Rudy Vallee is annoyed by Fields's comments on his performance; later, a warship is sunk when Fields shoots it with his pistol.)

Another twisted moment lodged sideways in memory: W.C. Fields upsets some woman, causing her to ask: "How do you sleep at night?"

He says: "On my right side, with my mouth wide open."

Something of a fabrication—in the movie, there was no angry woman. Fields (Professor Henry R. Quail) drops onto the hotel roof garden in his autogyro (turns out he's looking for Kansas City, but a stupendous load of Monte Blanco beer has sent him astray). Dr. Wong thinks he's the American representative come to bid on his invention. He asks: "Where will you sleep tonight?" (He's concerned, because Fiends has no reservation.) And Fields says: "On my right side with my mouth open. Wide open."

I sort of get the quote right, but scramble the setup. It's unsettling. What else am I getting wrong about, you know, everything?

So, what about the scene faked for the newsreel?

Again, I was wrong. The scene is in the film. But not in the location depicted in the newsreel clip. Instead of the actual location (an elevator, where Fields drives his little car [The Spirit of South Brooklyn]), the fake scene takes place in the lobby of the hotel. After Fields lands his autogyro, a ramp unfolds from the belly of the aircraft and a tiny car rolls out (for side trips, Fields tells Dr. Wong).

Then the fabricated quake: The camera quivers, the chandelier swings, a lamp falls down. The lamp's shade drops to the floor, but Erwin grabs the lamp itself and lines it up on the edge of the table. Where it refuses to move an inch after he lets it go. In an actual quake, it would have rolled off onto the floor.

Erwin says: "What's the matter?"

Somebody answers: "Earthquake."

But notice this: Nobody in the scene has any trouble standing up. Nobody sways. Nobody stretches out their arms to maintain their balance. The Long Beach quake was short (about ten seconds) but very powerful; massive damage and substantial death.

The newsreel clip was clearly faked—though I've seen it in documentaries depicted as legit. Years later, Fields and director Edward Sutherland owned up to the hoax.

Folks comment on the YouTube version, pro and con. Some people are hung up: How can the clip be a fake if the quake was real?

When you have little to go on, you have to make the most of it. Did some people see the car move? (Nobody seems confused by having a car inside the lobby of the hotel.)

Having the camera move is trivial. So is getting a chandelier to sway. So is shoving a lamp over.

Oddly, the actual location of the scene could have made for a more exciting fake.

Stu Erwin and his fiancee are in an elevator. They call out to Fields, who's being chased around the hotel in his little car by Bela Lugosi and his band of thugs. (Fields has Lugosi's ex-wife with him [Joyce]; Lugosi is homicidally jealous.) After the car takes refuge in the elevator, Erwin runs behind it to hit the button to close the door. Not much room left in there.

A simple, compact scene: Erwin, the car (with Fields and Joyce inside) and Erwin's on-again/off-again fiancee. No chandelier, no lamp to rig. But it could have made for a great pretend earthquake: hidden prop guy shakes the car, while the actors bounce back and forth between the car and the walls of the elevator.

No perplexed confusion ("What's going on?"), just concentrated terror!

For the record, the rest of the scene:

Safe in the elevator, Fields pops his head up through the fabric roof of the car, says: "Young man, you just saved my life. Now what can I do for you?"

Erwin: "Take us to Shanghai."

Fields: "I'll drop you off on my way to Kansas City."

I think there's a good chance no one will ever see those people again.

TRUMP'S THIRD TERM

Donald Trump says he won't rule out running for a third term as president. He knows there's something called the 22nd Amendment that prevents this action, but he says there are ways around it.

And maybe there are, but I would suggest such tricks and work-arounds would only be available to a president who was wildly popular.

And who would be willing to call the man "wildly popular" these days, as Trump's billionaire buddy Elon Musk rampages through government offices with a blood-clogged chainsaw.

Or after yesterday—AKA "Liberation Day"—when Trump announced across-the-board worldwide tariffs (including those levied on several unpopulated island territories), which will likely have the effect of tanking not only the American economy, but that of the world as well.

At closing bell today, Wall Street markets were down five or six percent, just from the news of the initial tariffs. The future will almost certainly bring retaliatory tariffs placed on US goods headed overseas, followed by Trump's counter retaliatory moves beyond that, and so on, tit for tat until the light of the universe sputters and goes out.

Wildly popular? Yeah, good luck with that.

As a result, Trump is stuck with the actual wording of the 22nd Amendment. No tricks allowed. No weird circumventions. No Hail Mary passes aimed at a distant goal line.

He can't run as JD Vance's VP in 2028, then take over after the election when Vance obligingly steps aside (citing some sort of beard emergency, I would imagine), because the person running for VP has to be legally qualified to be president, and Trump would not be.

(Besides, this plan assumes the very unlikely event of Vance getting elected.)

But even if the Vance thing worked, Trump would be cut off halfway through a full term and a new election would have to be called. Probably.

The 22nd Amendment imposes a slightly less than ten-year limit on total presidential terms. In fact, it could be more like six: If you served just one day more than two years of someone else's presidency, you can only be elected president one time on your own hook.

But there's another problem, a problem of Trump's own manufacture:

According to vast volumes of blather emitted from Trump's very blabby mouth-hole, the man was elected president in 2020, after which some Deep-State hocus-pocus ensued and his perfectly legal presidential term got yanked out from under him and bestowed upon Joe Biden, who was—according to Trump—a massively unqualified fellow.

Outrage! Perfidy! Pure, unadulterated stinkiness!

But here's the thing: If Trump was elected in 2020, that would have been the second time for him—and that's the limit, according to the 22nd Amendment: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

That means that what we have going on right now, with Elon Musk's metaphorically blood-drenched antics and Donald Trump's hideously destructive Reign of Tariffs, is actually Trump's third term.

(Remember, the Amendment doesn't talk about serving two terms, just getting elected twice.)

Shouldn't Trump be impeached and convicted of violating the 22nd Amendment on Day One? Well, if you believe his Stop-the-Steal rhetoric, I guess the answer would have to be yes.

Either that, or Trump needs to come clean and state clearly for all time that he was absolutely not elected president in 2020.

And if that were to happen, I guess he wouldn't be able to keep praising the thugs who beat up cops at the Capitol on Jan 6. All of a sudden those guys are not heroes and patriots but slow-thinking doofusses who happened to possess brains soft enough to allow Donald Trump to press his lying fingerprints onto their smooth gray surfaces.

Hey, let the screaming begin!