Donald Trump And The Law

I've been up to my ears in little green, er, grey men/women and nonexistent flying saucers, so this is a break.  Whatever color they were, one witness said, "They sure weren't from Texas."

Seems like the single thing I took away from watching President Trump, before he was Pres--well, I get two.  First he's very successful in business.  He learned from his dad how to do a deal and he does 'em.  Might not always pay his contractors, but . . . . . . We'll get back to how this fits in later.

Another way to say this would be that he lives large.  Large business success, large self-confidence, large "hands."  One way he "lives large" seems to be how he's his own guy.  Runs his own operation and calls the shots.  He lives by a set of rules he makes up, and I think he often makes them up as he goes along.  He's creative, he's spontaneous, gets ideas on the way.   Doesn't need to check with a bunch of people before he takes the idea and runs with it, or tweets about it.

In the campaign he was so appealing that he could get away with all kinds of things that have sunk unnumbered campaigns before him.   He's rude--insulted his way through the campaign.    He had about 16 Republican rivals and 3 Democrats, and it seems safe to say that if any of them had been half as rude as Trump--well, if Rick Perry had acted that way, bye, bye Rick.  Course, given the lack of success in Perry's White House run, might it have helped had he abandoned civility and manners?

President Trump, at least before taking office, was attracted to every good-looking woman who walked in front of him.  That's not rare, in case you don't know.  Reminds me of the joke where a guy with a big smirk on his face walks up to another guy at a party and says, How is your wife like Will Rogers?  I don't know.  Actually I haven't seen her for an hour.  Mr Smirk say, She's like him socially.  How do you mean?  I mean with people.  She never met a man she didn't like.  This is more common in men but it's present in more people overall than most of us think, because those of us who are this way tend to keep it hidden.  "So what do you think of that woman you were talking to?"  "She's very nice."  "What about the next woman walking this way?  She's too tall for me."  "I like them tall."  "What about this next speaker?  Thinks she's smarter than everybody."  "I like them smart, if they're not arrogant."  "What about that old blonde over there looking at us?"  "I'm old.  I used to be blonde."  A whole lot of the population was party-happy at college.  They don't hide it.  Naked in the front yard at one a.m., no problem.  Just good fun.

That's how Trump thinks, and we've learned he's not as different as we thought.  Trump doesn't bother with hiding, although now as President he is either hiding the womanizing or laying off--for four years.  There once was a pres. candidate named Gary Hart who really looked like he could be the Dems' candidate for president, and then the reporters found him and some nice lady in a motel room, while Hart's wife was far away.  This very issue sunk him like a rock.  Straight to the bottom.  Boom, gone.

Now why did the self-righteous souls in the Republican Party vote for this hedonist Mr. Trump when last time their guy Romney was the opposite?  Kinda blows the Moral Majority's claim that we "only vote for upright souls" to run the country and give examples to our children.  President Bush the second was a hedonist who had presumably reformed.  McCain is no hedonist, though I guess there are some hints that his wife Cindy may be, uh, restless.  Hedonists weren't allowed to run for president with any degree of success until now--Clinton doesn't seem like a hedonist in general, but a very sexually eager man, but he was elected by liberals.  In every campaign I remember, the Baptists and the Moral Majority abandoned ship on these kinds of candidates--the indulgent lifestyle type--like rats leaving the ship.  Think Ted Kennedy, Clinton, that Republican senator from Oregon who kept a diary of his 92 sexual partners in Washington--Packwood.  Only wicked Dems could put up with that, and not all of them.

But the God moralists this time are all behind Trump.  Mitt Romney at least had the guts to take a stand.  What was it he said?  Trump has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president.  When Trump said there were 3 million illegal votes and offered no proof, it was one piece of evidence for the "bad judgment" argument and for the "not interested in the truth unless it makes him look good" argument.  As to temperament, he seems like a bully.  To Romney's list of "temperament and judgment" I'd add a question mark behind character.  Does he have the character to be president?  What kind of good example do we have for president?  Anyway we've finally got somebody "going Rogue" who could get elected.

 All this got me wondering what we can say about the new President and the law, or the rules in general.  In an interview a Trump company rep said they stopped paying certain contractors because the company felt they had "been paid enough."  So they agreed to one thing, via a contract binding under law, and then made up their own rules. 

DONALD TRUMP AND THE LAW.  Let's do some teasers.
Item:  In the campaign he said something like, hell, yes, I believe in water boarding and more.  Sounds indifferent not only to US and international law but indifferent to human dignity and suffering.  The main disadvantage of torture, other than it's being evil, is practical:  if a people's laws and standards don't protect everyone from torture, then no human right is safe.  No civil right can be counted on.  If you can torture Mohammed, you can torture me next if it comes to that.  If I can be tortured, why do I think I possess some right like the right to assemble, to speak or to bear arms?  If the torturing group decides to put me away without charges, what hope do I have? 

Item:  The Newsweek editorial board claimed Trump seemed "indifferent" to the Constitution, less interested in it than anybody else who ran.

Item:  His history:  Has he ever interacted with the law as a kid or as a career man?  1000s of times.

Item:  Some claim Trump treated the other Republican presidential candidates like a bully.  A bully may be tempted to make up rules as he goes along, to get away with whatever he can.

All for now.  This is a subject that could be left at the teasers, could be one more post, or it could be a book.  In fact, after I wrote this post I left it alone for three weeks.

P.S. I was working on this before yesterday, when somebody sued Trump for violating the Constitution with his immigration order.  The President didn't bother to check with his legal eagles (a lady named Yates, turns out) on the order, and then fired her for interpreting the law differently than he wanted her to and making her opinion known. The troubling thing is that we hired her just to read the law as best she could and act accordingly.  She was doing just that and she got fired.  Does that sound a little like a bully?  Does it sound like Archibald Cox?