Ted Babbitt

In light of some of the incredibly stupid and dishonest acts of Trump, people are talking about charging him with treason. That is highly unlikely. The definition of treason against the United States consists of levying  war against the country or adhering to its enemies and giving them aid and comfort.

Even though it is obvious that there has been collusion between  Trump, his minions and the Russian government and that that was the way he got elected I doubt that it fits within the narrow definition of treason.

In light of the emails surrounding the June 2016 meeting of Trump Junior and the heads of the Trump campaign with Russians there can be a little doubt of collusion. This is particularly true if you look at the timeline.  On June 3, 2016 Junior receives an email telling him that Russia wants to help his father by giving him information against Hillary Clinton. He was told that the crown prosecutor of Russia  had met with the people Junior was going to meet with and that the Russians were flying from Moscow for the meeting

Junior responds “if it’s what you say, I love it especially later in the summer”

Junior received another email telling him that the Russian government envoy who was flying over from Moscow wants to meet with him. Within  hours Trump makes a speech promising to give a major speech the following week discussing all the things that have taken place About Clinton.  The planned speech would have taken place four days after the upcoming meeting with Junior. Days later the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee is discovered.

What is probably most damning is that everyone connected with the Trump campaign has lied over and over again about this meeting and what was said. It was only because of true investigative reporting that the truth was uncovered. To believe that all of this  is coincidental is to put your head in the ground like an ostrich.

apart from being abrasive and obnoxious Trump is simply ignorant about how to act as a president and about half the things that he says.

The firing of James Comey was done because Trumps  intimidation about loyalty didn’t work for Comey to drop the Flynn investigation. When it didn’t work with Comey Trump tried to get the director of national security and the CIA director Mike Pompeo to kill the investigation into the campaigns collusion  with Russia

Dropping out of the Paris accord was done for nothing less then spite and made us look like fools on the world stage. Only Syria and Nicaragua  join us in dropping out. Even big oil tried to convince Trump not to do it but all he cares about is playing to his base.  By doing this, he ceded moral authority to Beijing on the issue of climate change

Trump has given the middle finger to our allies in NATO and insulted both Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron

Hours after the London bridge attack Trump accused London’s mayor of being indifferent to terrorism because the mayor was trying to calm down people by telling them that the increased police protection was nothing to be alarmed about.  Trump then tried to use this terrorist attack which had involved the use of knives as somehow validating his position on gun control.

Trump shared highly classified intelligence information with Russia in a way that would allow them to discover the sources and methods of our greatest ally Israel. When the government was careful not to indicate who was implicated Trump blurted out that it was Israel  endangering the lives of Israli intelligence officers.

Trump went to Saudi Arabia to cement a $110 billion arms deal and didn’t bother to crack down on Saudi Arabia’s state sponsored terrorism.  The Saudi Arabians took advantage of Trumps enormous ego by putting his image projected on buildings and treating him like a king. Trump lapped it up and said nothing about Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship of the most violent form of Islam.  Saudi Arabia then took advantage of what they perceived as Trumps weakness by cutting off our ally Qatar. The gamble worked because Trump has done nothing to change that or to help Qatar.

Trump has praised the president of the Philippines for the way he has handled their drug problem with mass murder.

Trump released a budget with a $2 trillion math error saying that the enormous  tax cuts for the wealthy would somehow pay for themselves .  Included in the figures was $320 billion in estate tax over the next 10 years even though Trump’s position is that that tax should be abolished.

The image of Trump pushing the minister of Montenegro out of his way so he could preen before the cameras is so rude that it should make you embarrassed to be an American. Trump’s goal was to stand in front of the other NATO leaders  while the cameras were running

One of Trumps first executive orders was to prevent government employees from lobbying  on behalf of former employers. Shortly after it went into effect he began routinely granting waivers that allowed the order to be ignored

Trumps White House has routinely ignored the office of government ethics and allowed the Justice department  to prosecute a woman for laughing at Jeff Sessions. Trump hired Flynn knowing he had connections with Turkey and had  lobbied on its behalf as well as connections with Russia

Incredibly, Trump has said that the Nazis didn’t use chemical weapons while he was justifying sending dozens of useless Tomahawk missiles into Syria  which accomplished nothing and spent tons of American taxpayer dollars

Trump falsely accused the Obama administration of unmasking US spies so he could cover up his fiasco with Devon Nunes going to the White House supposedly to tell Trump what he already knew. Trump falsely claimed that President  Obama wiretapped him. He makes these things up out of thin air.

His incompetence is shown in his one page long tax plan which abolished the alternative minimum  tax and the estate tax as well as limiting pass through taxes from businesses to 15%. If all that passes he and his family would gain multiple billions of dollars in astounding self dealing.

Trump has promised to destabilize the health insurance industry for the sole purpose of making sure that Obamacare fails and hoping that the public will blame the Democrats. This, despite the fact that it would deny health insurance to millions of low income Americans

Because the ninth circuit court of appeals has found against him on several issues he has threatened to break it up

He has refused to turn over documents about Flynn’s financial dealings with foreign governments and of course has refused to turn over his own tax returns.  Now he’s threatening to fire the special counsel if he dares to look at his finances.

Trump has set up his daughters meeting with the Chinese government and obtained permission for her to sell her clothing line and shoes in China

Trump has shown his ignorance about who was the president of North Korea. He has praised Bill O’Reilly a serial  sexual predator.

Trump has supported a horrible health care plan that would hurt tens of millions of Americans and at the same time ignored carbon emissions and freed companies to pollute our environment

Trump has failed to adequately staff thousands of executive branch jobs which has hurt every aspect of government and especially the state department.

Trump has declared war on the media calling them the enemy of the American people.  This is what dictators do when they plan to take over the country

Trumps relationship to Putin and Russia is horrible and his willingness to discuss nuclear strategy in a public dining room is baffling.

Trump treats courts dishonorably, treats women boorishly,  discriminates against Muslims, and regularly tweets outright lies.  He struggles with even basic concepts despite tweeting “I was a good student. I understand things. I comprehend very well, OK? Better then, I think almost anybody.”

That explains a lot. He simply doesn’t understand what he doesn’t understand.

He believes he knows more about the military than his generals and has suggested that anyone criticizing his military decisions is aiding the enemy. This,despite approving a disastrous navy seal raid on Yemen which ended with one seal, an eight-year-old American and uncounted civilians all dead. The raid gained absolutely nothing and John McCain dubbed it a failure.

Trumps personality is ill-suited for the job. He got mad at Sean Spicer because Melissa McCarthy, a woman, impersonated him. He instituted a Muslim ban which created chaos because it wasn’t thought out and was eventually determined to be largely unconstitutional

He has set United States foreign relations back a millennium. He hung up on the Australian Prime Minister who dared to remind him of Americas commitment to take in a mere 1250 Syrian refugees. He threatened to invade Mexico telling the Mexican president that he had a lot of bad hombres down there and that Mexico’s  military was scared so he might just send in the US military.

Trumps ego precludes him from admitting that he lost the popular vote by 3 million so he has come up with this incredible fantasy that between three and five million undocumented people voted in the election and that there is rampant voter fraud.

His ignorance is never ending. He didn’t know that Fredrick Douglas was dead saying that

Osama bin Laden was dead but Frederick Douglass was alive. He claimed that the size of his inaugural crowd was twice as big as it really was and said the CIA gave him a standing ovation for five minutes when there were no seats for anybody in the crowd.

Trump is a joke but a very very bad joke. How he can still have 38% of the American people be loyal to him is inexplicable.  Nevertheless, charging him with treason is highly unlikely and unlikely that this Republican Congress will vote to impeach him even when his collusion with the Russians is proven.  Hang on it’s going to be a bumpy ride.