Read The Transcript

As the impeachment inquiry heats up, Donald Trump continues to urge people to ‘read the transcript’ of his call with the Ukrainian president. His assumption is that if they did they would see that he did nothing impeachable.

What the White House issued last month is not actually a verbatim transcript of the call. Instead, as the White House fully admitted, it is a summary of the call. As the White House would like to present it.

The summary was still bad enough that the Democrats started an impeachment inquiry. But based on the summary, Trump is unlikely to be convicted by the Senate.

The problem for Trump is that the verbatim transcript will eventually come out. People are going to read it. Trump’s summary is going to look like a coverup. And coverups are what sink politicians.

The Dem’s Little Blue Book

The whole impeachment drama is starting to shape up less as an investigation of what Donald Trump might have done wrong and more of a constitutional battle. Trump’s position seems to be that a sitting president is immune from criminal prosecution, and Congress cannot investigate him for impeachment if its motive is ‘political’.

There is support for the first point. Many constitutional experts feel that presidents can only be criminally indited after they leave office. The reason? The Constitution provides a special way way to take a president down: impeachment.

Ttump is wrong on his second point. The Constitution does not give the president a pass if he feels that the impeachment is politically motivated. In fact, it almost always is. The president has to turn over the information that Congress requests. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld that principle back in the Nixon Watergate days.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are wasting an opportunity, They should print up little copies of the Constitution in booklet form. Blue covers with an American flag. Hand them out at every rally, debate and voter registration event.

Claim the Constitution as their issue.

Before the Republicans do.

Carter Wastes An Opportunity

Jimmy Cater just advised Donald Trump to “tell the truth . . .for a change.” Why in the world would Trump do that? Being loose with the truth has worked just fine for him so far. He convinced investors to back dubious real estate projects that made him very wealthy. He built his political chops by embracing fringe conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Lying is a wining strategy for Trump. He would be crazy to change.

Carter wasted an opportunity. Instead of saying his advice for Trump was to tell the truth, he should have answered in a more truthful manner. “I would advise him to stop lying, but we know that is never going to happen, so I will just pass on this one.”

Bullsh*t President?

Donald Trump got called out the other day for using the word ‘bullshit’ in a Tweet. It is not the first time he has used that word, but the news media made a big deal out of it.

It opens the door for some Democrat or pundit to point out that by using that word, Trump is affirming his reputation as the ‘bullshit’ president.

Trump’s (Classified) Hospitality

So far we don’t really know what Donald Trump exactly said to the Ukrainian president, or any other world leaders for that matter. Despite subpoenas from the House of Representatives, Trump is not turning over the transcripts.

It is easy to understand Trump’s reluctance. Not because there is anything classified in the calls. But because he probably said something that would have Congress on his back even harder. Something that sounds a bit like extortion for private gain.

“Thanks for staying at my hotel. Please come again.”

Is Trump A Racist?

It seems like every few months Donald Trump says or does something that is labelled ‘racist’. This leads to people calling Trump racist and him denying it, which accomplishes nothing. And then we wait a few months for the next incident.

The thing is, everyone is missing the point.  The issue is not whether Donald Trump is racist. The issue is whether Donald Trump thinks that his supporters are racists.

We know that everything Trump says and does is calculated at keeping the support of his base. If he says racist things, it must be because he thinks his base wants to hear those kinds of things. Because he thinks they are racists.

So the next time a reporter asks one of the Democrats if they think Trump is a racists, they should turn the tables and answer, “I’m not sure, but it is pretty clear that he thinks his supporters are. Which is kind of an insult to them, don’t you think?”