For Donald Trump, becoming America’s “President-for-Life” is no joke—although he has often “joked” about doing just that. For example:

• In March 2018, he told Republican donors during a closed-door speech at Mar-a-Lago:[Chinese President Xi Jinping] “is now President for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”
• In May, 2019, Trump retweeted Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s suggestion that he’s owed “2 yrs added to his 1st term” due to distractions caused by the Robert Mueller investigation.

The ancient historian, Plutarch, warned in his biography of Alexander the Great:

“And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.” 

Plutarch

Odysses [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D

And, in making these repeated statements, Trump has revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.  

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks offered a disturbing analysis of Trump’s character on the March 25, 2016 edition of The PBS Newshour:

“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality, but it comes out in his attitude toward women.” 

Brooks’ analysis has been proven brilliantly accurate during the two years of Trump’s Presidency. He has attacked one person or institution after another—including officials within his own administration. 

For example:

• Repeatedly and viciously attacking the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.” 
• Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, National Security Agency) which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted  the 2016 Presidential election. 
• Firing FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.  
• Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018—because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay. This lasted until January 25, 2019, when Trump caved to public pressure.

* * * * *

Since childhood, Trump has had an overwhelming sense of entitlement and his own importance. 

Donald Trump

As a businessman, he demanded that his employees sign Non-Disclosure Agreements to prevent the outside world from learning of his crimes and follies. He has tried to continue that practice in the White House, even though it is flagrantly illegal.

More ominously, he identifies himself with the State—and thus deems anyone who disagrees with or opposes him as guilty of treason. And the penalty for treason has traditionally been death.

Furious that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) mocked him during a session of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump tweeted:

“His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..” 

He judged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason.”  

But now Trump faces a far greater threat than mere disagreement or criticism.

On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives voted for two Articles of Impeachment to remove Trump from office: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The case has not yet been sent to the Senate, but that there will be a trial is a certainty.

Whenever Trump has been unable to buy or intimidate his way out of trouble, he has lashed out. And in Nancy Pelosi he faces an implacable foe and a master legislative tactician.

Desperate to avoid impeachment and the cascade of damning news as more of his crimes are revealed almost daily, he has hit upon the most powerful “remedy” of all: War. 

What can be even more attention-grabbing than an expected trial of the President of the United States? A fullscale war between the United States and Iran, a country America has been at odds with since 1979.

Moreover, by going this route, he can take revenge, Matt Bevin-style, on those Americans who dared elect Democratic members of Congress to oppose him.

An all-out war between nuclear-armed America and an Iran now coming into its own as a nuclear power will last for years and leave untold numbers of hated “liberals” as incinerated or blasted corpses. 

And just as he dodged the draft during the Vietnam war, Trump expects to dodge the calamity he is trying to unleash.

Surrounded by Secret Service agents, able to be whisked into heavily-fortified bunkers or onto a high-tech Air Force One, he stands an excellent chance of doing so.

With enough national carnage and confusion, he might live out his dream to become “President-for-Life”—simply because there won’t be any opposition capable of challenging him.

On November 5, Kentucky voters refused to re-elect Republican Governor Matt Bevin. To get revenge, he issued more than 650 pardons to hardened criminals before he left office on December 9.

He claimed these were people he would not hesitate to welcome as neighbors, co-workers or members of his church.

Among those pardoned:

• Convicted killer Patrick Baker, who had served two years of a 19-year sentence for reckless homicide and robbery in the slaying of a Knox County man in front of his family. Baker’s brother held a campaign fundraiser for Bevin in July 2018 that raised $21,500. 
• Micah Schoettle, a convicted child rapist. In 2018, a judge sentenced Schoettle to 23 years in prison. But Bevin said he made his decision partly because the hymen of the nine-year-old victim was still intact.

“This is perhaps more specific than people would want,” Bevin said in a radio interview. “But trust me. If you have been repeatedly sexually violated as a small child by an adult, there are going to be repercussions of that physically and medically.”

Studies show that most child victims do not show evidence of physical damage and that examination of the tissue is not a reliable test of sexual activity.   

Matt Bevin

• Leif Halvorsen, who confessed to a triple murder in 1983.  Bevin removed Halvorson from death row and commuted his sentence to life in prison.
• Dayton Jones was serving a 15-year sentence after he and three other men pleaded guilty to sodomizing an unconscious teenage boy at a party and videotaping the incident. Then they posted the video on social media.

Bevin said there was “no evidence” showing that Jones was present at the assault because he did not appear in the video.

Under Kentucky state law, people can directly apply to the govern’s office for clemency. While most states require a board review to decide who gets their sentences reduced or pardoned, Kentucky does not.

“You have police, FBI, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, hours and hours of work undone on the whim of one person,” Leland Hulbert, who prosecuted a case for an individual pardoned by the governor, told The New York Times. “It’s almost like a godlike power.”

Defending his pardons, Bevin told The Washington Post: “I’m a big believer in second chances. I think this is a nation that was founded on the concept of redemption and second chances and new pages in life.”

These hardened criminals whom Bevin has given “a second chance” will be preying on Kentuckians for decades to come.

Apparently, President Donald Trump has learned something from Bevin’s departing act.

Donald Trump

On September 9, 2019, the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight and Reform committees began investigating his attempted extortion of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

On July 25, 2019, Trump had “asked” Zelensky to do him a “favor”: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.

Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joe Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.

To underline the seriousness of his “request,” Trump had withheld $400 million in military aid Congress had approved for Ukraine, which is facing an increasingly aggressive Russia.

But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it. 

The ensuing Congressional investigation triggered nonstop Trump abuse of Democrats generally and especially of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff.

Nancy Pelosi

On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump along party lines.

On December 24—a day when most Americans were celebrating the alleged birthday of Jesus Christ—Trump threw a tantrum at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.:

“She [Pelosi] hates the Republican Party. She hates all of the people that voted for me and the Republican Party and she’s desperate. She’s doing a tremendous disservice to the country, and she’s not doing a great job. And some people think she doesn’t know what she’s doing.” 

And on Christmas Day, Trump tweeted: “Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States? Got ZERO Republican votes, there was no crime, the call with Ukraine was perfect, with ‘“no pressure.’ She said it must be ‘bipartisan… 

“‘…& overwhelming,’ but this Scam Impeachment was neither. Also, very unfair with no Due Process, proper representation, or witnesses. Now Pelosi is demanding everything the Republicans weren’t allowed to have in the House. Dems want to run majority Republican Senate. Hypocrites!” 

Even before the Democratic House took its first steps toward impeaching him, Trump was enraged that they might even want to do so.

On May 30, 2019, he raged at reporters: “I don’t see how they can because they’re possibly allowed, although I can’t imagine the courts allowing it. I’ve never gone into it. I never thought that would even be possible to be using that word. To me, it’s a dirty word—the word impeach. It’s a dirty, filthy, disgusting word.” 

Seven months later—on December 18—“impeachment” would become more than a word. It would become reality.