Why he’s not fit to be President.

I took great note of Rep. John Lewis’ statement that he will not attend this coming Friday’s inauguration because he does not see Donald Trump as a legitimate President of the United States. This is pretty strong stuff, and Rep. Lewis is not one for loose talk. So what’s going on?  There are several pieces to the puzzle

First, one of Trump’s close advisors is Paul Manafort, best known for his lobbying efforts on behalf of the pro-Russian Ukrainian dictator Viktor Yanukovich who was overthrown by popular demand in 2014 and then fled into Putin’s arms. Putin then invaded Ukraine annexing the Crimean part of the country, the only invasion of a European country since WWII.

Second, US intelligence has now confirmed that Russian hackers, at the behest of Putin, hacked Democratic party e-mails, and then through Julian Assange, who is wanted in Sweden on rape charges, and since 2012 has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London to avoid extradition, released these e-mails at inconvenient times for the Democratic party during the US election campaign, definitely and deliberately damaging Hilary Clinton’s campaign.  There are indications that Trump knew about this Russian hacking, and even a claim that he helped pay some of the hackers himself. If true, this amounts to treason.

Third, there is some indication that Russian hackers may have been able to fiddle with out-of-date polling machines in rural Pennsylvania, enough to swing that state Trump’s way. Remember him saying on the stump – more than once  - that if he didn’t win Pennsylvania then the election was rigged. He probably knew more than he was letting on.

Trump has no conscience nor political sense to see that allowing himself to falsely win the US election through help from the Russian leader might have untoward consequences down the road. But, he has no moral conscience, and as Director of the CIA John Brennan said a couple of days ago, Trump doesn’t understand the threats posed by Putin’s Russia. Let me make it clear here - I am not anti-Russian; rather I am pro-Russia, have made several visits to that beautiful country and am happy to have several Russian friends. No, the tragedy is Putin’s dictatorial rule of that great country.

Why would a Russian leader do all that he could to put Trump in the White House? Normally you might expect Putin to wish for a less conservative American leader. Here are some reasons. First, Trump doesn’t understand the fairly simple science behind climate change – even though his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago is beginning to get flooded. But Putin wants a climate denier American leader because one country that could well benefit from global warming - in the near future at least - is Russia. This is because the warming oceans and rapidly retreating north polar ice cap will mean that Russia will be able to operate some naval bases more year round from its northwest coast.

There’s another reason. Why do you think Putin is happy with Rex Tillerson, former head of ExxonMobil, becoming Secretary of State? Well the two men are already friends, and Tillerson is happy too with Trump’s promise to pull out of the Paris agreement on climate change. Not that Tillerson doesn’t accept the reality of climate change – he’s cleverer than Donald; but he has been lying for years to ExxonMobil shareholders, and is now being sued in court over that by the Attorney Generals of New York and Massachusetts. Now why are Putin, Trump and Tillerson all in bed together? Because a warmer Russia will make oil drilling easier there; and you can be sure all three men stand to gain financially from that.

But it’s not just Trump’s inability to understand climate change. He also doesn’t understand the intricacies of NATO defenses.  He keeps saying that NATO is obsolete. Eisenhower and Reagan must be turning in their graves. This is another major reason Putin worked to get Trump elected. Meanwhile, in recent months Putin has been moving his armed forces up to the borders with the three Baltic States. US intelligence has certainly informed the in-coming president. I bet he had to look up where the Baltic States are – yep that’s right Donald, once back under Russian control the Russian navy will have better access to the ocean again. It’s not very complicated. President Obama and the NATO commanders are so concerned that just in these last few days American armed forces have been moving into Eastern Europe at the request of Poland and other East European countries.

These are some of the reasons that I agree with Rep Lewis – Trump is not fit to be president; and I’ll go further and say that he stole the election with the connivance of Putin. Wow!  Just a year ago, if I’d come out with this as a plot for a movie, you’d say Nah -  it’s too unrealistic, especially with a Republican candidate supported by conservative Christians. Yep, I keep thinking I’ll wake up from this James Bond movie dream at some point.

But it’s real folks; and it will get really serious in the coming weeks. Because, if all this wasn’t enough – here’s the latest from a source in the British intelligence community. Putin has information about Trump’s sexual trysts in a Moscow hotel some while back; and about his financial dealings in Russia - just one of many reasons he didn’t want to have us look at his tax returns – not of course that he would declare these things to the IRS.

In other words, Putin has some blackmailing hold on Trump. But, sooner or later, with a lot of help from US intelligence, Trump will begin to see how he’s being used; and then boy will he get mad. Now using his finger to tweet is one thing, but losing his temper and using his finger to push The Button is quite another. That’s why I’m very worried and why I agree with Rep Lewis – Trump is not fit to be President. We simply have to hope that over the next months enough Republican congress-people will come to realize this and have enough good sense and patriotism to move to impeach him.