Summations Only

From today's Washington Post: Trump on climate change: ‘People like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers.’A more accurate Trump characterization would be venal, vindictive vengeful, autocratic, impulsive, secretive, inflaming, abusive, scheming, partisan, racist, xenophobic and misogynistic. But highly intelligent? No. He does have impressive verbal jousting skills.Hopefully the soon-to-be Democratic House can have a positive influence on the government's approach to climate change.--Percy

I don't know. A more descriptive characterisation would be that the US can't be relied upon. Their latest President is just too unpredictable for anything.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Intelligent people throughout history have denied reality. Being intelligent is not a guarantee of infallibility.It would be interesting if Trump were asked about the science of the greenhouse effect, adiabatic cooling, IR absorption, blackbody radiation, and the rest. I think he would quickly be shown to be a blubbering fool.

Too late.

He's good at inheriting things, though.

Yeah, like a recovering economy which he still takes full credit for.

I titled this message "Why Trump Will Be Impeached," but another good choice would be, "Why Trump Will Soon Fire Mueller." Yesterday Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. Last year he testified before Congress that the Trump Tower Moscow project was dead by January of 2016 when negotiations actually continued until June. Cohen said that during this period he briefed Trump and members of his family, including Donald Jr., on at least several occasions.During the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and during the presidential campaign itself Trump lied repeatedly and frequently about his involvement with Russia, issuing strong and unequivocal denials at every turn. And the Russians knew he was lying, including higher ups in the Russian government and especially including Vladimir Putin. This turned Trump into a Russian lackey, since they could hold the threat of revealing his lies over his head.Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's lawyers, thinks the lying is a political but not a legal problem for Trump, but he's wrong, and here's why. Trump needed the Russians to keep his secret, and to insure this he had to operate in the Russians' best interests instead of America's. It explains all Trump's sucking up to Putin and his resistance to getting tough on Russia for their interference in the 2016 election and their adventurism around the world. Now that the lies are public and Trump no longer has any Russian secret-keeping hanging over his head (that we know of), perhaps he will take action against the Russian military threats against Ukraine. If he doesn't then we'll know the Russians still have dirt on him.So why do I think Trump be impeached? His actions regarding Russia over the past two years have threatened the security of the United States, and that is treason. Treason is one of the grounds for impeachment specifically mentioned in the constitution: "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Because of this threat Trump will soon fire Mueller (he can't do it directly - he'll have Whitaker do it).Trump will put up a fight that will make Nixon's firing of Archibald Cox look like a pop-gun skirmish. It's going to get interesting. Bring your popcorn.--PercyPS: Giuliani claims that Trump's written answers to Mueller's questions include the same information as Cohen's guilty plea, so why is Trump calling Cohen a liar if they both provided the same information - contradictory much?

Extremely possible.But I wouldn't discount the possibility of Trump's idiocy.
I think it's possible he's so dumb he could just be a fan-boy of Putin.
So into personal financial improvement that he would do anything for Putin's approval because he thinks Putin is some sort of person to be idolized.I would bet that your proposed reasoning is more likely.
Just sayin'... Trump's a bit of a dumbass and it's possible his idiocy could extend to such ridiculous levels...

Impeachment would require the senate republicans to actually have spines.

To convict, that will never happen.

Or we could construct a simple syllogism: From what I understand, in the multitude of lawsuits against Trump over the decades, there has been a clear pattern in which he would lie outright in all his depositions only to eventually arrogantly admit his own wrongdoing, even boasting about it, thinking that he would not suffer any consequences for it. Up to this point, he has been correct in that assessment, but that won't work this time.Can Trump be impeached? He has already committed so many impeachable offences out in the open, mainly obstruction of justice, that it boggles the mind to imagine that he can't be impeached.But the issue is not impeachment, but rather removal from office. I do not doubt that the House could easily impeach Trump, but I also doubt very strongly that the GOP-run Senate would convict him. The Kavanaugh fiasco clearly revealed the Senate Republicans' complete lack of character. Without the ability to convict and remove, no number of impeachments could achieve anything more than symbolic gestures. Furthermore, I've seen the GOP propaganda machinery preparing exploit our impeachment efforts as red meat to feed their base. I can even foresee Trump deliberately commit even worse impeachable offenses in plain sight daring the House to impeach him -- kind of like ordering the police to not arrest a low-level crook because he's going to lead us to the crime bosses, so that crook starts committing serious crimes right in front of the cops.Part of current news show panel discussion is the pros and cons of impeaching Trump. Part of that discussion revolves around the timing, since acting now on Mueller's report (whenever it finally comes out) would place the impeachment too close to the 2020 elections which should be a sure way to remove Trump and the GOP. Also, the Democratic House has a lot of very important business to attend to first, such as revitalizing the Voting Rights Act in order to fight voter suppression. Getting tied up with impeachment proceedings would interfere with that other very important business.Of course, part of the business is the ability of the soon-to-be Democratic-run committees to conduct actual oversight and investigation instead of the Republican malpractice we've had so far. The results of those investigations can not only supply us with the evidence we will need should it come to impeachment, but also plenty of fodder for the 2020 elections. Plus I would very dearly love to see Nunes get everything that he so very richly deserves.

to quote the great morale philosopher Marlow Stansfield "If you come at the king you best not miss". Starting impeachment proceedings without a guarantee of a win would only backfire on the democrats.

I should have mentioned that. I think the House could well decide to impeach once they see the Mueller report (if Mueller actually gets to produce a report and if the House ever gets to see it), but unless the evidence is unambiguously damning (as in the Republican party would go down in flames Watergate style if they ignored it) I don't think the Senate is likely to convict. That factor could have a strong influence on whether the House decides to actually pursue impeachment.--Percy

I don't think any of this is necessary to explain Trump's pro-Putin behaviour. It makes ideological sense.First off, Trump's leanings are decidedly isolationist. He has no interest in getting involved in scuffles about other countries' sovereignty, and is therefore happy to ignore what Russia is doing in neighbouring countries. He is decidedly hostile to collective action and cooperation on the international stage; including the traditional security cooperation with Western Europe, and so from this side is quite happy to be seen striking a different tone to European allies in their relationship to Russia.Secondly, Putin and his team have spent the last two decades working on how to gain supporters in European countries with large degrees of residual hostility to Russia thanks to the Soviet legacy; while simultaneously trying to restore Russia's role as a great superpower - exactly the sort of thing that should be expected to increase that hostility.In his old KGB days, they sought to sow dissension and gain support in the west through Communist ideology. They've now hit on the brilliant tactic of simply appropriating a new ideology for a new era. Putin has been positioning himself as the champion of right-wing European nationalism; standing as a bulwark against Soros' and Merkel's evil liberal democratic plot to turn all white Christian children into transexual Muslims. Propaganda wings like RT have tried to promote this kind of thinking in the West, and the whole plan has been pretty successful.Thing is, this is the ideology that speaks to Trump and his supporters. He doesn't need an ulterior motive to cozy up to Putin - he looks across and sees a fellow traveller.ABE: Plus he doesn't want to get tough on Russia for election interference because he doesn't like facing the fact that his own election was promoted by foreign propaganda.Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

Wise words. Late last night it was revealed that Cohen consulted with Trump lawyers and White House staff to craft his testimony before Congress to hide the truth about the Trump Tower project in Moscow and Trump's level of involvement. Trump must have been aware and briefed about all this. The White House Counsel at the time was Don McGahn (resigned in October of 2018), and Trump's personal legal adviser for the Russian investigation was John Dowd, who quit in March of 2018 shortly after mock interviews with Trump revealed that his client couldn't talk without lying.I'm no lawyer, but I think that planning to lie before Congress constitutes conspiracy to commit a crime, and lying to Congress is a crime in itself (though apparently a rarely prosecuted one, only 6 in the last century or so). And isn't counseling someone to knowingly lie (to protect the interests of your client, namely Trump) grounds for disbarment? So aren't Don McGahn, John Dowd and other White House lawyers in big trouble, too? But did they know the testimony they were crafting for Cohen was false?Doesn't this mean that Mueller would want to put the White House lawyers before the grand jury? And wouldn't the White House fight that tooth and nail, except that McGahn and Dowd don't work in the White House anymore.I think many of us lived through the Nixon years - isn't this starting to feel familiar? The Moscow Trump Tower project is starting to feel Nixonian in some details, where the cover up of the project could cause more trouble than the project itself.--Percy