A prediction built on a tower of lies

Light reading for a crisp autumn day: "The Case for Impeachment" by Allan Lichtman.

It might be better called "The Impeachment Prophecy." We shall see.

Lichtman, a professor and historian at American University in Washington, D.C., offers himself as a political savant.

He predicted Donald Trump's victory last November, disastrous though he admitted it would be. He had to swallow hard when he got a personal days later from Trump: "Professor – Congrats -- good call."

Now? He predicts Trump will have more note-writing time on his hands and far fewer Twitter followers.

"A Russian sword of Damacles hangs over Trump's head," writes Lichtman, "and it's suspended by a slowly unraveling thread."

The amazing thing about this is how out-front Lichtman's prediction is. The book came out in April before -- yes, before –James Comey's firing, and before the appointment of Robert Mueller.

Indeed, when his book went to press, all Lichtman could do was divine the future by looking at a deceit-filled, corrupt past:

"Trump's penchant for lying, disregard for the law, and conflicts of interest are lifelong habits that will permeate his entire presidency." That presidency will be short, he writes.

I'm not one to jump on the book-maker's wagon regarding this prediction, for one reason alone: We have a Congress led by partisan rubes who will look the other way, whatever Trump may do.

If one-thousandth of what's already been affirmed as truth about President Trump – disregard all well-grounded allegations -- had been affirmed about President Obama, he, Michelle and their daughters would have been hounded out of town, the literal emphasis on "hounds."

With this Congress, the only way Trump will go away is in a paddy wagon. The only way he'll be impeached is if the criminal justice system takes Congress by the nose -- or if voters flip houses for more discerning congressional leadership.

"The Case for Impeachment" is a flight of fancy that only criminal investigators can make real.

So how can Lichtman make his prediction? By employing Shakespeare's, "What's past is prologue."

Lichtman sees Trump's removal in world-record time as the logical extension of his track record as a conniving dealmaker-breaker.

It takes a book to describe all the ways Citizen Trump end-ran federal labor laws, tax laws, and the hiring of undocumented workers. Yes, Mr. Build-a-Wall built his high-rise and casino empire thusly. Lichtman gives it a chapter.

Then there are all the lawsuits. Trump has been involved in more than 3,500 of them, 1,900 as plaintiff. A USA Today study found that he has been involved in more litigation than the next five leading real estate executives combined.

Then there are the conflicts of interest, foreign and domestic, that Trump pooh-poohs as his family continues to "build the brand." Writes Lichtman, Trump's clear and unrepentant conflicts of interest have "no precedent" in American history.

The amazing thing about Lichtman's impeachment prediction is how little he mentions, and how little he knew at the book's release, about how much would come down about Russia, collusion, and the obstruction of justice that really fuels Mueller's probe.

What he knows, and what we know – and this applies even to Trump supporters if they will be honest with themselves for a nanosecond -- is that the president's inability to tell the truth could prove to be his Nixonian downfall.

This is a man who as candidate had more "Pants on Fire" ratings for falsehoods by Politifact than all 21 campaign rivals combined.

The bottom line in this tale is a pattern of lying, writes Lichtman, that makes Trump "more vulnerable to impeachment and removal than any president since President Nixon."

It's prophetic that Lichtman wrote this before Trump sent his PR stooges out to explain to the nation that he fired James Comey for mistreating Hillary Clinton.

Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

Treating the Trumpite infestation

Termites did not destroy my house. Neither will Trumpites destroy your democracy.

But they will do damage, and it will be costly.

Termites, and other wood or plant borers like the mountain pine beetle, leave a trail of dust.

The Trumpites who have infested government leave jet trails as they engage their carnal pleasures on our dime, even occasionally doing their jobs. Unfortunately, in almost all cases what they consider their job is to destroy the structural sector of government to which each is assigned.

Consider a new top-level hire to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Nancy Beck qualified for that position, based on Trumpite intentions, by having been a lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, an industry arm that fights regulations of chemicals.

This fits perfectly with the philosophy of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, who rose to his position via the Trumpite virtue of suing the EPA on behalf of polluters as Oklahoma attorney general.

Former Georgia congressman Tom Price, the Trumpite choice as secretary of Health and Human Services, appeared to be the man who would eviscerate each and every one of those services, starting with the Affordable Care Act.

Unfortunately for him, he was mostly interested in taxpayer-funded jetting to and from family functions.

With Price gone, and with Congress failing to gnaw through legislation to abolish ACA, Trump has announced to those who benefit, "Eat my dust."

We'll see what happens as affected states take Trump to court over the end of subsidies that have kept insurers in the game and have lowered copays and deductibles.

One thing for sure is that Trump's tunnel assault on ACA is wreaking the requisite havoc.

For instance, cutting back on the marketing funds that inform people that Dec. 15 is the deadline for signing up for health coverage or changing one's your policy under ACA.  Another destructive act was to cut the enrollment period in half, from three months to 45 days. More about that shortly.

Meanwhile, though we've been assured that Donald Trump is the smartest man to ever ride an escalator into history:

The Law of Unintended Consequences is playing out with his designs, because he doesn't know what he's doing.

Associated Press reports that yanking the subsidies could trigger the bizarro result of making free basic coverage available to more low-income people -- yes, hundreds of thousands of them --  while costing taxpayers more.

It takes a lot of explaining, but the bottom line: Higher insurer costs caused by the yanked subsidies mean more spent on those tax credits and the reshuffling of what qualifies for the low-income of "bronze" coverage, meaning free.

If so, we could see more people insured, having signed up for free coverage even as the Evil Weevil declares the ACA "dead."

At the same time, The Washington Post reports that millions of Americans may get locked into coverage plans they don't want. That's because after Dec. 15, those who have coverage are auto-enrolled.

Health industry analysts predict that with the much-shorter season, and with less notice about their options, and with auto-enrollment, many may not make the necessary call regarding a policy that is not suiting their needs.

Whatever happens, Trump will not be able to blame "Obamacare." He is the death-wish engineer of this runaway train.

So, what do we do about this matter? Anyone who has termites knows that they can't be shooed out the door. If they are not treated, the structure they inhabit will be reduced to dust.

However, I've never known any homeowner to allow that to happen. I didn't. We fought. We won. The termites had a feast at our expense, but they could not eat us out of our home.

Neither will the Evil Weevil.

Longtime newspaperman John Young live in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

Bed sheet flapping from the Oval Office

While you're at it, Mr. President, burn the furniture.

You've shoved the sofa up against the door. You've cut the phone lines. You've hung a bed sheet out the window. You've stripped off that dress shirt, donning that red tie as a head band.

"Attica. Attica."

Donald Trump can't tell Congress what to do, doesn't trust anybody or anything. Doesn't trust the process. Doesn't trust Kelly or Tillerson.

But he has Twitter. He has the White House intercom. Now hear this: The inmate-in-chief has taken over the asylum.

Trump's announcement that he will cease subsidies built into the Affordable Care Act, and his decertifying the Iran nuclear agreement, show an individual who 10 months on has tired of deliberative governing. He will hold us all hostage as long as he can hold out.

Robert Mueller, you are now on the clock.

What Trump did last week in cutting the subsidies for the ACA will hurt millions of Americans? It will drive up insurance costs for many. It will cause more insurers to exit the health exchanges.

Trump said that we'd have a "great health care system" that "covers everyone" under his leadership.

This doesn't sound like that.

It sounds a little like someone prone to pick a fight with a streetlight.

If he wants a fight, a whole bunch of state attorneys general are game. Those states are going to fight tooth and nail to prevent Trump from doing this, and so are insurers, and so are medical professionals.

When Congress was considering this option, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that enough insurers would leave the market that about 5 percent of the nation would have no insurer from which to choose in the individual market.

This is outrageous, and seemingly illegal, since the ACA requires individuals to have coverage or pay a fine.

However, this is not just about the people who will be harmed.

This is about federal stewardship. The CBO says Trump's edict will drive up the deficit by $194 billion by the end of the decade, as the government will spend more on tax credits without the subsidies.

Speaking of stewardship, Trump's action on the Iran deal leaves in limbo something that many nations labored to bring about.

Trump and Republican opponents of the agreement say that it allows Iran to continue its nuclear program. That depends on what "nuclear program" means. Nuclear energy? There's a big difference between power plants and bombs.

As for nuclear weapons, the agreement forbids Iran from ever acquiring them, and subjects Iran to indefinite monitoring.

Did Iran benefit from the agreement? Of course it did, in the unfreezing of stranded assets and the lifting of crushing sanctions. Having international eyes fixed on its nuclear designs was absolutely worth it to Iran. The deal was a carefully negotiated give and take, so everyone got something in in the bargain.

Imagine if we had been able to get ahead of the curve relative to North Korea's nuclear program by lifting its pariah status a generation to avert the arms race that again threatens the planet. This is what President Obama and international allies accomplished with the Iran agreement.

Speaking of intercom hijinks: Just as Trump's second-grade taunts of Kim Jong-Un do not make this a safer planet (Right, Secretary Tillerson?), neither can his ditching of a painstakingly crafted agreement to halt Iran's nuclear program.

But a safer world, or a better health-care system, don't appear to be Trump's objectives. His main objective is to show that he's in charge and Obama.

While you're at it, Mr. President, burn every other presidential portrait, particularly of you-know-who.

"Unable or unwilling to completely erase his predecessor's signature initiatives," writes the Associated Press, Trump has "turned to another approach, wreaking havoc."

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that 71 percent of Americans want Trump to improve the ACA, not disable it. But of course, Trump has cut the phone lines. How should he know?

Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.