February 24, 2020--Jack: Trump's Head Fake

"At the risk of losing your appetite, for a moment make believe you're Trump."

Jack has the ability, though limited, to be playful. So I went along with him, thinking maybe this was one of those times. He hadn't called in a few weeks and I must admit, in a limited way, I missed hearing from him. 

"Proceed."

"Go back in time to maybe three years ago when Trump turned most of his attention to his reelection campaign."

"If you want to be historically correct," I said, "he began to think about his reelection the day after he was inaugurated. Maybe even right after taking the oath of office."

"Whatever," Jack said, "I imagine the first thing on his mind was to think about which Democrats would be running and who he wanted to run against. By then anyone paying attention could come up with a list of the 25 or so Democrats who were thinking about it or already running. That started even earlier than the Inauguration but on  Election Day right after the results were known and Trump was declared the winner."

"I agree with that. It's never too soon to be ambitious."

"So, again, make believe you're Trump and are psyching out the opposition. Thinking about who it might be easiest to defeat."

"You want me to come up with that? Who I think Trump wanted to run against?"

"Correct," Jack said, "I think it's a pretty easy one."

I thought for a few moments while he went to get another cup of coffee.

"OK. Of the major candidates, excluding people like Colorado senator Michael Bennet or Maryland congressman John Delaney, who had no chance whatsoever to win, easiest for Trump to beat--in his own mind--is, was Bernie the socialist."

"Exactly. I knew you were a smart boy."

"Get on with it," I said, "I don't have all day."

"So Trump zeros in on Bernie and thinks about how he can help bring about his nomination."

"That too is an easy one. Call Putin and tell him to get his boys to begin undermining Sanders' campaign."

"Wrong," Jack said, "He calls who the president of Ukraine was at that time and asks him to dig for dirt about Joe Biden, who back then everyone thought was going to be the nominee and the strongest Democrat. All the early polls had Biden with a wide lead. Including over Trump."

"I'm confused," I said, "You asked me to imagine what Trump was thinking and doing three or more years ago, but he didn't talk with the Ukraine president, Zelensky, until July 2019. Seven or eight months ago."

"You're so naive. If you want to be a convincing Trump you have to think outside the box and come up with stuff that no one yet is thinking about. For example, I'm sure Trump called the previous Ukrainian president, the one before Zelensky, and asked him to work on bringing down Biden. That president was such a crook that I'm sure he didn't require too much bribing."

"Please continue. This is going to take forever."

"It works. With Trump tweeting and making fun of Biden and whatever Fox News and the Ukrainians came up with, Biden's numbers began to come down and it looked like he wasn't going to be a real threat to Trump. But again, we began with me asking who you thought would be easiest to beat. The one Trump wanted to run against."

"Again, it feels as if we're going around in circles. Can you speed this up?"

"So most of the election coverage on cable news was devoted to Biden and his son, including the impeachment business, you remember that--the impeachment?"

I said, "It feels like that was ten years ago."

"There was very little about 'Crazy Bernie.' It was all about Biden and Trump. But what's really on Trump's mind is Bernie. The one he wants to run against, feeling he'd be the easiest to beat. All Trump would have to do is talk about his heart attack and how he's a communist."

"If I agree with any of this, I still don't know what Trump did to help Bernie win."

"For one thing he got his friends the Russians to do what they could to help Bernie get the nomination. We just learned about that late last week."

"True."

"Tell me what you make of that."

"What's the 'that'? I can't wait to hear the latest conspiracy theory."

"Why did Sanders sit on this information for at least month? For the first time a few days ago he disclosed he was briefed about the Russians helping with his campaign."

"I think I know what you're implying. So out with it."

"Maybe Bernie was happy getting the Russians' help."

"Inconceivable."

"So tell me why he didn't make it public immediately. And if you in your Trump impersonation wanted the Russians to do their thing to help Bernie, wouldn't you wink at your best friend Putin to arrange for that help for Bernie?"

I confessed, "My head is spinning."

"And so," Jack asked, "where do things stand now with the Democrats?"

"Meaning?"

"Who looks now like he has the clearest shot at the nomination?"

"After Nevada, likely Bernie."

"Just what you, if you were like Trump, would have wanted and would have done to help make it happen." He paused to catch his breath. He was all excited. 

"Like a head fake Trump made it look as if it was about Biden while in reality it was about Bernie. Trump helped bring Biden down and by doing so opened a lane for Bernie to secure the Democratic nomination. It was a Trump twofer."

Exhausted, I said, "Here's my final word--this could turn out for Trump to be a case of being careful about what you wish for. I think Bernie is going to turn out to be a formidable general election candidate. Maybe the strongest Democrat.  Which means he may be the best one positioned to defeat Trump."

Jack moaned, "I'll have to think about that."

February 4, 2020--Impeachment Post Mortem

As our president once so eloquently put it, "Who gives a shit about Ukraine?"

Other countries were on his shit list, but it turned out that Ukraine would wind up in the headlines and at the center of his impeachment, which will be resolved tomorrow when the Senate votes to find him not guilty of having committed high crimes and misdemeanors. 

He will have the boys over for a beer and then jump onboard Air Force One and head south and west on his exoneration tour.

It is likely to be nauseating so I recommend pulling the plug on your TV to block out MSNBC and CNN for at least a month. It will take more than that to recover.

While tuning out I suggest we force ourselves to do an impeachment forensic to ask how we got into this mess, especially how the Dems, sorry, screwed up and helped to bring it about. How we got snookered by Trump into impeaching him so he could take advantage of the foregone conclusion, knowing, as we should have, that the disposition would be that Trump would walk. 

Trump knew that, Mitch McConnell especially knew that, and even we knew that. 

It didn't take a neurosurgeon to add up how many votes the Democrats had (51) and that the Constitution stipulates two-thirds plus one senator (67) need to vote guilty to remove a president.

So what were we up to while seeking to find grounds to impeach and try Trump?

The usual--doing all we could to show how smart we are and how stupid the Republicans are. So by any rational measure we turned out to be clever and lost while the Republicans, not interested in rational measures, proved to be stupid and won. 

Great.

We knew that at most we'd get perhaps two Republicans to break ranks and that Mitch would get all but two from his caucus. (Though I suspect Susan Collins will vote with her colleagues to acquit Trump. Mitch in return will pay her off with a couple of more Zumwalt-class destroyers to be built at the Iron Works in Bath, Maine.)

Here's how Trump did it--

He knew Dems in the House had their eyes wide open, looking for something to grab onto, anything to launch the impeachment process. Trump knew that whatever they came up with for their Articles wouldn't matter. With Mitch fulminating and twisting arms, he'd easily defeat them in the Senate and remain in office. He was gambling that getting impeached, especially for something exotic like hanky-panky in Ukraine, would sound like a witch hunt to his fervent base and assure he would be exonerated and his favorability poll numbers, like Clinton's, would rise.

Nancy Pelosi knew Trump was setting a trap and for months resisted allowing her committee chairmen and women to begin an inquiry.

Her strategy was working until Trump dangled Ukraine in front of them.

Here's how that worked--

Trump learned that there was a whistle-blower report that outlined how Trump and his senior staff were attempting to blackmail the new president of Ukraine, holding up the delivery of already approved military equipment until President Zelensky announced that he was going to begin an investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden's allegedly corrupt dealings in Ukraine.

To ensnare the Democrats, who were eager to initiate their own investigation--this one into Trump--he declassified notes of a phone call with Zelensky in which he asked the Ukrainian president to do "us a favor, though" by looking into what the Bidens were up to.

In other words he got the impeachment process going by revealing the smoking gun at the outset. That was brilliant. He turned Watergate on its head by in effect confessing up front. This released him from needing to concentrate on every aspect of the prosecution's case and thus he was free to lash out unfettered.

The Democrats took that bait and Nancy Pelosi had no recourse but to allow the inquiry. 

The Democratic House managers were well prepared and presented an open-and-shut case. The only problem was that more than half the "jurors," all the Republicans in the House, had their minds already made up and his attacks on the process were unrelenting. (For the sake of fairness, virtually all the Democrats also had their minds made up before the inquiry began.)

So it became a reality show. Something about which Trump knows more than a little.

Again, none is this is arcane or difficult to figure out. The difference is that the Dems got lost in the details of the narrative and the evidence that they unearthed and wove into their Articles of Impeachment. The Republicans ignored the evidence and didn't challenge Trump's lawyers' lies. The GOP kept their eyes on the prize--again, winning. Feeling good about our virtue, many progressives assumed our familiar role as losers in these kinds of ugly confrontations.

As disturbing as it is, it is essential to do the forensics because if we are to rescue our country from Trump and his crowd, we need to know how this happened and how we became our own worst enemies. An all too familiar phenomenon.

January 28, 2020--Bolton's Bombshell

For some time, in defense of Trump as he moved toward impeachment, Republican senators who hold his fate in their hands have disparaged the Democrats' case, asserting that all their witnesses were one-off. 

These witnesses did not have direct contact with the president. Thus, what they knew and were testifying about was, in effect, hearsay, which they claimed, is not admissible in trials. Their testimony was based on what they heard second-hand from governmental colleagues and the people to whom they reported.

Putting aside the fact that the impeachment hearing underway in the Senate is not a civil nor criminal trial and has its own rules and procedures, including allowing what otherwise might be considered hearsay, there may be an opportunity that, if allowed by the GOP Senate caucus, would help move proceedings closer to the truth. The truth all senators, in their special impeachment oath, swore to follow.

"Bring us just one witness with direct exposure to Trump," Republican senators promised, "and we will listen to what she or he has to say.

Well, as of Monday night there is indisputably one such potential witness.

John Bolton, Trump's former National Security Adviser.

The New York Times reported that copies of Bolton's book about his time in the Trump White House are being circulated among senior staff who have been asked by Bolton's publisher to review it to see if any of it threatens national security. This is routine for any former staff member writing about his or her time serving in the administration.

Bolton claims there is nothing in the draft for the White House to be concerned about. But, more significant, the Times has obtained a leaked copy of the manuscript and it contains in-depth commentary about Trump's dealings with the Ukrainians. Dealings about which Bolton had extensive and direct access to Trump.  Specifically, Bolton writes that he witnessed Trump for months knowingly withhold congressionally-approved military aid the Ukrainians desperately needed to defend themselves against the invading Russians until President Zelensky agreed to open an investigation to gather "dirt" about his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son.

With Bolton's book in hand, Republicans can no longer assert that there is no one who can serve as a direct witness to Trump's impeachable behavior. To gather Bolton's evidence all they need to do is vote to have it available to the House impeachment managers, Trump's legal team, and the full Senate.

November 4, 2019--Stupid Is

Until Friday my favorite stupid thing was Trump releasing what he calls a "transcript" (which it isn't) of his July 25th "perfect" telephone call with Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelensky. In effect, a confession that he did indeed commit a crime when he tried to lure Zelensky into digging up dirt on the Bidens.

Next most stupid would be Trump reading the full 8-pager on TV in what he is calling a version of a Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chat. 

With a six-pack at my side, I'd want to soak up every word and nuance of the reading. Unless Trump redacted it further, it would underline its confessional nature. 

Next for Trump would be for him to actually shoot someone on Fifth Avenue (where, from a New Yorker's perspective, Trump will thankfully no longer be living) to see if he could get away with it. 

The answer to that one--yes he would.

Now, in a perverse bipartisan trope, Elizabeth Warren has done something almost equally stupid--at the end of last week she announced how she, if elected, would pay for her Medicare for All plan.

First, all 130 million who have private medical insurance would no longer be covered that way because if her proposal was enacted all would lose that coverage. How politically stupid is that? That the 130 million of us who have even far from perfect private insurance would trust the government to do a better job of providing medical insurance then, say, Aetna of Humana?

Then, continuing the stupid theme, she acknowledges that her plan would cost an additional $20.5 trillion. That's "trillion" with a "T."

This would double our current national debt since there is no way Congress would pass legislation to get billionaires and corporations to pay for it via dramatically increased taxes.

The plan put forth by Warren will likely derail her candidacy. Just as she was catching up with or passing Biden and Sanders in the polls, on Friday she dropped this plan, hoping it would slip by unnoticed. 

Quite the contrary--her plan, going forward, is how she will be characterized and mocked by Trump and her Democratic opponents. It's already happening. I can only imagine the nicknames Trump has in store for her.

What is it with Democrats that we are so prone to self-sabotage? Just as I was feeling better as Nancy Pelosi and the House moved the impeachment process into strategically smart higher gear, Warren does this. 

It could be politically even worse if her plan calls for free health care for undocumented immigrants. I can't yet bring myself to research that. It is already bad enough.

October 2, 2019--What's Up With Australia?

Before we could sit, John Allan said, "What's up with Australia?" His face with his new beard made him look cherubic. His eyes were as lively as I had seen for some time. He looked as if he had shed ten years since we had coffee with him just a few days ago.

"What's up with you?" I asked. 

"I was taking a shower and listening to NPR and they seemed to be talking about Australia. Is anything going on down there?" He was grinning and winking.

"I think I know what you're referring to," I said, "Trump."

"Right you are," John said, clapping his hands, now smiling playfully, "Remember George Papadopoulos? A low-level Trump operative who was stirring around looking for dirt about Hillary for the 2016 election? He somehow managed to meet with a high-level Australian diplomat in London who told him the Russians had stuff that could undermine Hillary's campaign. Including, I think, that the Ukrainians had their hands on a server that held thousands of her emails."

"I'm with you," I said, sliding into the booth.

"So, according to NPR Trump recently asked his cultural conservative pal, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, who rose to prominence by leading the effort to close Australia's borders to refuges and immigrants, Trump asked him if he would help Attorney General, Trump's poodle, Bill Barr, who was traveling the world to gather information about the origins of the Mueller probe."

"He can't give that up," Rona said, "Even though he dodged the Mueller bullet, he's still obsessed with it."

"He never can let go of anything, especially anything critical of him," John said. "Even the smallest things. But that's just the beginning of the breaking news. All afternoon on Monday, beginning about 4 o'clock, there was one bombshell after another. First, we learned that Rudy was subpoenaed by three House committees to turn over to them documents about his Ukraine-related dealings."

"Next," Rona said, "we heard that Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was on the line during Trump's call with Ukraine president Zelezney. The 'do-us-a-favor' call that may turn out to be the smoking gun that brings Trump down."

"Then," John said, "there was the breaking news that Barr is on an undisclosed worldwide trip to gather dirt about his own FBI and the CIA. Specifically what they did to undermine Trump and help bring about the Mueller investigation. Barr's in Italy now."

"From the look of him," I said, "he's spending most of his time in trattorias."

"Nasty, nasty," John said, enjoying every word and tidbit of news and gossip, "We could go on," he said.

"I think it's the beginning of the end," Rona said. She's not prone to be optimistic about these matters.

"That's why you're looking so energetic and youthful," I said to John, "It's not just your beard." 

"I got some sleep and woke up at two in the morning, not as usual to anxiasize, but to see if there was any new news since I had gone to bed."

Rona said, "Speaking of sleep, I heard from my sister that my brother-in-law, for the first time in more than two years, had a good night's sleep."

September 27,2019--Trump's "Though"

The president of Ukraine, Volodymrt Zelensky, had just poured his heart out to our president--Ukraine was in a hot war with Russia and needed the nearly $400 billion in military assistance the U.S. Congress had appropriated to help them defend themselves. 

Trump without a public explanation and without informing the Ukrainians had unilaterally suspended the transfer of those urgently needed weapon systems. 

Zelensky, in their July 25th phone call, told Trump about his country's desperate needs. 

Almost as a non sequitur, as if he hadn't been listening, Trump said, "I would like you to do us a favor, though."

Something about this gnawed at me. I couldn't for quite some time put a finger on it. It was not just about Ukraine's needs. It wasn't only about one president humbling himself before the more powerful one. Though that rankled. 

It was something about that tacked-on "though."

"Though" used that way is a version of "however."

"Though" from the dictionary--it indicates that "a factor qualifies or imposes restrictions on what was said previously."

In fact, that "though" reveals Trump was not listening. That to him the Ukrainian president was an afterthought.

That "though" revealed that Trump doesn't care about Ukraine. He doesn't care about the frantic Zelensky. That "though" shows Trump doesn't care about Russian threats. That "though" exposed as much as anything we have seen the past three years that Trump cares only about Trump. 

In spite of that, though, his end is approaching.