Trump, from day one of his presidency, has been prodding and picking away at the sensitive exoskeleton of the Constitution.  But Mick Mulvaney’s blatant public announcement yesterday that the president did indeed attempt to coerce a foreign government to further his political interests,  well what you have there is the President of the United States clenching his fist and slugging Mr. Constitution right in the grapes.  We do have a constitutional crisis on our hands.  When the president of the county stands before us and proclaims Article Two of the Constitution gives him the right to do anything he wants, he has gouged the eyes out of the Constitution with an ice pick.  And yesterday Mulvaney didn’t stop the constitutional assault with that abuse of power and quid pro quo statement.  With nothing hesitant in his voice, he declared that the facility for the upcoming G7 conference that will host diplomats and staff from all over the world will be Trump’s own Doral Country Club. That is a  direct violation of the emoluments clause.  So bend over Mr. Constitution because here comes a Louisville Slugger straight up your patootie.

Gaslighting has been a favorite tactic for Trump.  Keep repeating something and pretty soon there will be people who start believing whatever was said.  And it’s pretty clear he is comfortable residing in chaos.  As we pass from one imbroglio to the next, it is easy to forget about all those that preceded.  But this political approach of shamelessly admitting to wrongdoing and somehow believing that makes it tolerable is something new, and frankly, alarming.  He is practically daring congress to impeach him on 25th Amendment grounds.  Publicly flaunting the law is not something a normal person does, and when you do that and you are the leader of a country, there is something wrong in your head.  It’s the kind of thing that labels a person a megalomaniac.

Of course without a critical psychological analysis it is impossible to make a judgment of competency.  But here is a read for you. Unfit for Office    It’s the very lengthly George Conway Atlantic article.  He makes the point that the President of the United States, particularly this president, is the most observable individual on the planet, and the general public should be able draw some observational conclusions.  The second half of the article (you will have to scroll down quite a ways) concerns narcissistic personality disorder.  Trump meets every criteria.  I don’t think this is mentioned in the article, but take note sometime how Trump claims ownership of the government.  It’s MY generals, MY military, MY economy, MY NASA, MY miners, MY farmers.  Even MY African American.  Yikes. Lest we all forget, it is OUR government.

We keep lowering and lowering the bar of acceptable conduct for this president.  Congressional Republicans have nearly placed the bar at ground level.  Jesus Christ most of you are attorneys. Wake up.  Go back and read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.  You of all people should be well enough informed to realize this is a constitutional crisis and start speaking out.  Do your job.

Republic Under Presidential Attack  

by Admiral W H McRaven.  Whether you are a veteran or not, this article should resonate.

Last week my wife and I had the good fortune  (in both the serendipitous sense as well as enough money in our bank account) to see the American musical Hamilton that was playing in Omaha.  Like everyone I left the theater overwhelmed by its genius.  But there were many people, I would have to believe, that were also left with the nagging thought of how shocked the historical figures represented on that stage would be to see  how the corruptive influence of the Trump administration has laid bare the fragility of the form of government they so painstakingly strove to establish.

Certainly there are instances of our founding father’s own moral missteps.  Hamilton had an affair with a married woman that he tried to cover up.  That episode essentially ended his political career. Franklin was a renowned womanizer and had a bastard child. The national shame of slavery was in common practice during their time.  But all took very seriously the business of governing, and in constructing the Constitution they were as careful as they imagined possible and necessary in setting up a framework that would deter presidential corruption and insure qualified people assumed the office.  Sadly we have found the Constitution is not sufficient to restrain a lawless president.  You would have to assume it was inconceivable to those who wrote it that such a dishonest man would rise to the office.

Trump has punctured the guardrails intended to constrain presidential power and behavior. Our founding fathers sought to create a government dedicated to the common good.  Trump has conducted his entire adult life with little concern for anything but his own profit or protection.  He is a proven cheat and he lies with impunity. With him, the only thing that matters is what you can make people believe.  Facts are not absolute- they have alternatives.

And from my viewpoint,, taking all his corruptive conduct and all that is morally and ethically objectionable about this president into consideration, what is most troubling about him is his unbridled propensity to lie.  It is the defining character flaw that makes him totally unfit to hold office.  My personal definitive test to determine if I can have a logical, informed conversation with a Trump supporter, (and yes, I have actually had a few  of those that have been mutually productive) is that fact.   If you firmly believe Trump does not lie, there is no point involving me in any kind of discussion with you.

If we are unable to confront the truth, we are pretty much in a hopeless situation.  If we are governed by a man with such disregard for the truth, a man that is supposed to provide direction and leadership, it is inevitable that people will start believing his lies, whether the man promoting them believes them or not.  And I actually believe that a lot of the fabrication that goes on in Trumps mind are things he somehow twists into his own private reality.

And this is what is so dangerous and what is starting to play out right now.  Trump is starting to spiral downward into a world where he desperately wants wild conspiracy theories to become real.  He is so used to making things up he is potentially placing people and the country in peril.  Our laws that are meant to keep people safe are being disregarded by the very man who is supposed to make sure they are enforced.  Anyone who disagrees with him is potentially a traitor.  Civil war will erupt should he be removed from office.  His recent twitter tirades are gaslighting rampages that reinforce his narcissism and unfortunately  in many instances potentially plant the seeds of violent thought in marginally rational people.   You can easily make the argument that Trump’s distorted view of things  are manufactured in a disturbed mind.  As difficult and objectionable as impeachment seems to be, congress has no choice but to proceed with it to prevent more executive abuse of power and make it clear it will not be tolerated, now or by future presidents.

I am certain of three things about Hamilton, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Monroe, Madison, Franklin, et al.  First, the chances of a President Trump ever happening in their time would have been extremely remote.  Second, If by some weird happenstance it did, articles of impeachment would have been initiated within a year of his inauguration.  And third, again if such an anomaly had occurred,  those men would have been shocked that all the drafts and revisions they made during the four months it took to finalize the Constitution somehow failed to check the abuse of power of the executive branch.  They would have summoned everyone for an emergency session of congress to patch, tweak, revise, and amend that document so that there would never again be such corruption and exploitation by a president of the United States.  Let us hope that at some point in the very near future congress will see to it that new constitutional and regulatory safeguards are established that clarify the intentions of our founding fathers.

Fun Fact:  Benjamin Franklin was the county’s first whistle blower

It has emerged that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is seriously considering President Trump’s recent offer to carpet bomb the Amazon Rain Forrest with state of the art incendiary explosives.  Though Bolosaro is renowned for rejecting any kind of foreign interference, it is widely known the two presidents have similar isolationist political agendas and mutually admire each other.  “I think President Trump’s intension is to create some sort of back fire to slow down all the wildfires going on, but if it doesn’t work out, all the better,”  Bolsonaro stated.

This latest proposal by President Trump to use military ordinance to mitigate natural disasters follows on the heels of his  recent suggestion to drop a nuclear bomb into the eye of hurricane Dorian.  “We have all these terrific bombs just laying around,” the president stated.  “Why not put them to good use?”  Asked if he was disappointed that his idea to nuke a hurricane was so universally rejected by his advisors, the president replied that that was a set back, but it was just  a matter of time before he had the “best people” in place who are in total agreement with his aggressive policy of bombing Mother Nature into submission.

Informed that President Trump would be filling his time playing golf now that he has temporarily postponed his participation in all governing responsibility, Washington legislators  quickly responded by initiating a special session of congress  in order to fund personal presidential expenses.   Expenses forTrump’s golfing excursions presently exceed 100 million dollars, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman  Chuck Grassley is confident the taxpayers are more than willing to provide an addition two hundred million in order to make America great again.

Asked how long the president might be lingering on the links, Senator Lindsey Graham said as long as it takes for the president to recover from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hurtful comments.  The senator also mentioned that a lengthily tour of all his golf courses and a review of  the fortune he has amassed that somehow escapes emoluments violations will be just the ticket to reset his governing  attention.

Reporters rushed to Speaker Pelosi to hear what she had to say about the the unexpected budgetary developments.  “I will be praying that the president can find the resolve and courage to quit cheating on the golf course,” was her only comment.  And with it, is it is expected the president will be playing golf at least till the end of the year.

While addressing his plans to cut the defense budget to procure border wall funding, President Trump said he is inclined to do away with the tradition of honoring the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia.   “I mean who is this guy anyway?” the president queried.  “We guard that thing day and night.  Why?  It’s not like he’s going anywhere.  It’s just an unnecessary expense.  If you think about it the best soldiers are the alive ones.   I especially like to watch them parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.   Frankly I don’t have much use for dead soldiers or captured ones.   I like winners. If you get captured or killed you’re just a loser.  Not good.  Not good for America.  Great soldiers are trained to avoid capture and getting shot.”

The president suggested the remains of the enshrined soldier should be exhumed and have his DNA analyzed.  “We have all this great technology now,” the president stated.  ” At least find out who this guy is.   We need a name.  I mean how stupid is it to guard something 24 hours a day that’s unknown.  Unknown!  Get some testing done and then we’ll see what happens.  Maybe he was a real hero.  If we find out he never got captured, then maybe we put on a real show for him.  With fireworks.  And a parade- down Pennsylvania Avenue!”

The president is confident the Unknown Soldier would send a grateful note of appreciation to the White House should he one day qualify for a Trump celebratory parade.

I don’t know about you but the public Cohen hearings were pretty much what I expected. There didn’t seem to be too many things revealed that we didn’t already know, or at least didn’t suspect the leader of the free world capable of doing in his past, marginally legal, exercises of freedom.  There was one glaring WTF moment for me though.   Who in the hell normally goes about strong-arming the administrators of educational institutions to  conceal personal academic records?  Who does that?

I have always wondered about Trump’s educational background.  He has asserted that he was a brilliant student who was admitted to the most prestigious schools and claims to always “have the best words.” That all seems discordant with mere observation.   His political rallies are excruciatingly painful for me to watch, always overflowing with disjointed dialog and blatant fabrication.  I can not imagine how anyone would be able to sit through that 2 hour CPAC speech he gave the other day.  For me exposure to a Trump speech, particularly an unscripted one, inconveniently reminds me of my childhood trip with my family to the Minneapolis Zoo, where we had the awkward experience of witnessing a large Kodiak bear perform a rather astonishingly acrobatic but nonetheless disturbing act of auto fellatio.  Realizing that image might be difficult to explain to his children or possibly traumatize us, my father quickly whisked us away and created distraction with  the promise of something much more interesting in the next enclosure.   That next enclosure for me nowadays is the next channel I hit with my TV remote whenever I am exposed to  a Trump political rally speech.

But now  I can’t help but wonder what his past teachers are thinking (although admittedly most are probably contemplating from a world of an unfathomable distance).   Do they feel remorse, like they might have had something to do with this mess?  Have some felt threatened, now that we know about the extreme measures the president will take to insure his SAT scores and grades are never revealed?  How insecure is this guy anyway?  When something that small bothers a man with power and money, you have to wonder what he is capable of doing in a true crisis.

From the short news clips of his time-tortured CPAC speech that I saw, it is obvious Trump is anticipating the worst, and is already setting up the next catchword that he will be gas lighting his followers with during future rallies. It is  a word he inserted into that contorted speech-  “bullshit.”  When the unflattering revelations start peeling away from the monumental number of upcoming investigations concerning him, that is the word the president will be expecting his adoring crowd to chant.  No doubt his die hard supporters will be more than happy to oblige.  Uncannily, for them there is never anything perplexing or embarrassing about a Trump political rally.  It is entertainment, a virtual one-man extreme circus, where the trapeze artist deliberately miscalculates, the fire-breather self immolates,  a large, omnivorous creature  auto-eroticizes, and the ringmaster orchestrates with clownish gestures and fantastical exhibitions of slight of hand.

Trump is probably a little desperate for a catchword, but I am not so sure” bullshit” isn’t a sound bite that won’t come back to bite him.  After all, look at what has become of the great dealmaker.  Where there was once a 25 billion dollar offer from congress for his border wall, he bewilderingly managed to negotiate the figure downward to somewhere between zero and 5 billion. The U.S. trade gap jumped to a 10 year high and the gap with China just broke the all time record.   Kim Jong Un teed up the president’s overture of love and gave it a swift kick in the balls.   To the president’s dismay the pipe dream of a Nobel Prize has vaporized.  Knowing his SAT score must have been so bad his college admittance likely hinged  on a generous parental donation to the university building fund, and now that there is nothing utilitarian about a chant of NO-BEL, NO-BEL, NO-BEL, might I offer this as a suggestion for a Trump catchword:  BOO-BY, BOO-BY, BOO-BY.

Perhaps a Prize Like This Might  Bolster the President’s Spirits