Response to To Deepen the Pain and Antagonism

(See: Just Above Sunset: To Deepen the Pain and Antagonism)

If you think about it, the fact that Donald Trump, in claiming "It was a complete and total exoneration!”, directly stole the word from Robert Mueller’s phrase that specifically says his report “does not exonerate him”, might in normal times be a source of world-wide hilarity that could have had us mocking the president for a good week or so, but I guess it’s the exposure to two or three years of relentless Trumpyisms that has finally eroded our appreciation of the man’s incidental ironies.

In other words, the next two years — or, God help us, six — will be even less fun than we had previously anticipated.

Okay, so now the war begins, the war between, on one side, Trump’s TV “sock puppet army”, and on the other, anyone of either party (or neither), disturbed enough by all those things on David Frum’s wonderful list of Trumpian offenses against the nation, to seek out measures to take against a president that they see as “Enemy of America”.

Do I accept Barr’s findings?

As for punting on obstruction of Justice, it does seem strange that they all didn't see his firing of Comey, and then telling everyone he did it with the Russia probe on his mind, as pretty much a slam dunk on obstruction, not to mention his constantly complaining that Jeff Sessions never told him ahead of time that he would recuse himself. (I wish some reporter had asked Trump, "Okay, well, what would you have done if he had not recused himself? Would you order him to close down the so-called 'witch-hunt'?") I have a feeling this obstruction question isn't gone for good.

How about "Collusion"?

Technically? Yes, I accept that, assuming Barr's accurately reflecting Mueller’s report, specifically that, after many attempts, they found no actual evidence of coordination between Trump and the Russian attackers. And I trust Mueller did his job.

Still, it should be noted that, while “price-fixing”, for example, is an illegal form of collusion, to be found guilty of it does not always require being caught actually colluding with anyone. See this legal advice from the Art Publisher’s Association to its membership (“Be Careful About Antitrust Law!”) back in February of 2000:

"To be unlawful, the agreement does not have to be in writing or even expressed verbally. Countless courts have found that unspoken agreements to fix prices exist, based on the parties' conduct. An example would be where an industry leader announces its prices, and all the rest of the industry then adopts identical pricing.”

And so maybe the battle-cry of our side in the coming war should be, “EXONERATION? NO WAY! BUT COLLUSION? ACTUALLY, PROBABLY YES!” (Okay, this bumper sticker obviously needs some work.)

I suppose it might have been too much to ask the Special Counsel’s team to look for this “de-facto” type of collusion, but if they had, they would have found several examples of it — Trump and Putin saying all those nice things about each other; Trump refusing to agree with our intelligence services that Russia and not some 400-pound kid in New Jersey was behind the election meddling; and probably even Trump’s “jokingly” asking Russia in a live news conference to try to find Hillary’s missing emails, something the Russians apparently tried to do the first thing the next morning.

And yes, there may also be evidence in his taking positions that Putin would like, and that Americans and our allies would not — Trump’s attacks on our European and Canadian allies; Trump’s attempts to weaken NATO; Trump’s attempts to weaken the EU; Trump’s seeming praise and admiration of authoritarian leaders; Trump’s having America step down from its role of world leadership; Trump's blatant diminution of free media (if you believe in Democracy, you don't disrespect the free press); and Trump's weakening of the world economy with his declaration of a world-wide trade war, raising tariffs on Chinese purchasers of American soy beans and on the Iowa farmers that sell them to them, on everyone on the planet with the possible exception of Antartica.

And then there’s that goofy Trumpian narrow-minded ignorance that can’t be expected to ever do anything good for his country, but can only turn out well for its foes.

But did Russia and Trump ever really coordinate? I’m thinking probably not, but certainly not because of Trump’s moral scurples.

I think Putin originally intended to screw up our elections, as he does in lots of countries, and only later realized he might be able to scuttle his nemesis, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, at the same time helping Donald Trump, who’s political aims, he had by this time discovered, seemed to jibe with his own. Neither party really needed to coordinate with the other, since they were already naturally in synch.

Which I would think, in a normal world, wouldn’t really say much for Donald Trump, would it? But apparently, being praised by one of our nation’s foes didn’t turn out to be a problem for him after all. Go figure.

But what about Manafort’s polling data, given to that Russian oligarch? Although I think the data probably came in handy to the Russians, I never got the idea Manafort realized that he was helping Russia’s election shenanigans — I think he was just intending to help out someone he did business with — and I think his lack-of-criminal intent may help him here. But we’ll see.

And I think the same dim-wittedness was present in that Trump Jr. meeting in Trump Tower.

My feeling is, they had no idea why they all found themselves in a meeting that was supposed to be about getting dirt on Hillary, but in which the topic turned to “adoption of Russian children”, of all things. I can see them all looking at each other with puzzled looks — (“Do any of you guys know what the hell they’re talking about?”) — and when it became clear they weren’t going to be getting Clinton dirt, they all just split. I’m sure the Russians, on leaving, concluded that they had overestimated the intelligence of these Bozos.

Had anybody with the least awareness of what the Russians want been there, they would know immediately the Russians were saying to the Trump people, “Look, maybe we can help each other out here. You help us get us something we want —  like, oh, getting rid of those sanctions — and we’ll give you something you guys want — like, for example, cancelling our prohibition of Americans adopting Russian orphans" — a law Russia had enacted to punish America when it put sanctions on Russia — "and okay, perhaps we might also dig up stuff on Hillary Clinton for you!”

I’m pretty sure the Trump people hadn’t a clue what all this nonsense was about, but seeing nothing in it for them, they just bailed. And all that dirt old man Trump promised America was coming? Just another broken Trump campaign promise fades away without a trace.

And so America is, once again, accidentally rescued by our resident nit-wittery, but through no real efforts of our own!

God Bless America! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Response to Off the Deep End

(See: Just Above Sunset: Off the Deep End)

What is it with Trump’s hatred of the press? I have a theory:

Back before he ran for president, back when he was a local character in New York City, Trump used to manipulate his own news coverage — calling them up while pretending to be his own spokesperson to praise his “boss” behind his back, spilling the beans on “Mr. Trump’s” sex life, or arguing that he’s actually much richer than everyone thinks (which, of course, he wasn’t) — he was talking mostly with tabloid page-six editors and gossip columnists, all of them desperate for salacious material, the kind of “journalist” who wouldn't dig so deeply into his story in a way that might kill it, since their very livelihood depended on keeping the “billionaire playboy Trump” myth alive — not so much Woodwards and Bernsteins; more like the paparazzi bikers who chased Princess Di into that tunnel.

But once he got into dealing with national political reporters, he found himself out of his league — a different class of journalist who doesn’t really care about the comings-and-goings of the local New York village idiot, but one more likely to dig into a candidate’s background to see how much of it is total bullshit. National media have little incentive to play along with his silliness, and he doesn’t like that.

But even though he’s now playing with journalists who aren’t so likely to play into his fantasies, he still knows enough about how media works to be pretty much able to manipulate what will be the big news of any given day. Reporters and editors and producers already know the rules; they have little choice about what to report on if Trump decides, for example, to insult a famous dead American war hero or the husband of one of his closest advisers. It’s not that there aren’t more important American issues to delve into, such as why it is that so many unarmed black people seem to get killed by cops, but it’s hard to even start discussing that stuff when the president of the nation is so busy trying to trash the reputation of the late John McCain.

The fact is, however, that other presidents had to have known how to play that game, too — it doesn’t take a genius to know how to do this. But the difference is none of them chose to do it, since none of them (with the possible exception of President Richard Nixon, and probably also President Andrew Johnson) suffered from a particular type of Personality Disorder — although it may be worth noting, according to the Mayo Clinic, that "Many people with one personality disorder also have signs and symptoms of at least one additional personality disorder”, and that "It's not necessary to exhibit all the signs and symptoms listed for a disorder to be diagnosed."

Just saying.

Response to The Man Who Broke the World

(See: Just Above Sunset: The Man who Broke the World)

There are times when everything I see in the news reminds me of one of those “what-if” alternative history books that get published every few years:

"Can you imagine what might have happened to the country, and probably the world, had Donald Trump actually won the 2016 elections?”

(Oh, wait! He did win! Okay, never mind.)

Or how about an Andy Borowitz column from the New Yorker:

HITLER MEETS WITH TRUMP

DENIES INVADING POLAND

“Seriously, I asked Mr. Hitler about it, right to his face, and he swore to me he knew nothing about any invasion at the time, and in fact, he didn’t even hear about it at all until several weeks later!”, the president said in an interview with a Fox reporter. “He told me he didn’t do it, and I believe him.”

When the reporter told Trump that would be impossible, since Hitler has been dead since 1945, Trump answered, “Whatever! This guy swore to me that he was Hitler,” adding, “and I believe him.”