On September 5, the New York Times published an op-ed supposedly written by an anonymous official within president Donald Trump’s administration. The snobbish and self-serving hit piece paints Trump himself as dangerously immature, incompetent, and unstable, while reassuring us that “adults in the room” are working tirelessly to keep his worst impulses in check and save the republic without tedious formalities like invoking the 25th Amendment and removing him from power.

The op-ed itself was a jejeune and mediocre example of a time-honored American pastime, talking smack about one’s boss behind his back. On its own terms, it deserved at most a brief period of public mockery before fading away to something less than an historical footnote.

But then Trump responded swiftly and decisively from his favorite bully pulpit, Twitter.

“TREASON?” he thundered. “If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

In a few short outbursts, Trump managed to confirm all the op-ed’s worst characterizations of his temperament and mental state.

As for the alleged internal “resistance” the anonymous writer claims to belong to, it seems to have fled the scene. Cabinet secretaries quickly lined up to plead their innocence of any involvement, playing  Bukharin to Trump’s Stalin. Who wrote the op-ed? Someone by the name of “Not Me.” An internal administration manhunt (womanhunt?) has allegedly launched to unmask the evil-doer.

Worse, key administration figures, including vice-president Mike Pence and presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, are doubling down on Trump’s  initial take. They’re softening the risible “treason” line to mere “criminal activity,” but still pushing the line that this whole episode may involve “national security.”

Treason is defined in the US Constitution in terms of levying war on the United States, not in terms of claiming to be your boss’s babysitter. As best I can tell, the rest of federal criminal law is also silent on the media-boosted equivalent of disrespectful water cooler talk.

Nor does any plausible version of “national security” extend to punishing speech of this sort.  Calling the president names and affirming an already widely held impression of his fitness for office may further damage his personal reputation (if that’s even possible), but it doesn’t damage the US as such.

These over-the-top responses from Trump and his loyalists, on the other hand, suggest that the cancerous growth long decried as “the imperial presidency” is metastasizing into even more dangerous form before our very eyes. It’s the Reichstag fire, minus even the excuse of an actual fire.

The 25th Amendment doesn’t sound quite so over the top now as it did a week ago. Unfortunately, its beneficiaries would be the same gang minus their current leader.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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On September 5, US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and US Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) announced a new bill  intended to claw back $150 billion per year in public assistance costs as tax revenues. Because all laws must come with catchy acronyms these days, and because this one targets Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, it’s called the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies — Stop BEZOS — Act.

According to the press release from Sanders’s Senate office, Stop BEZOS “aims to end corporate welfare by establishing a 100 percent tax on corporations with 500 or more employees equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers. For example, if a worker at Amazon receives $2,000 in food stamps, the corporation would be taxed $2,000 to cover that cost.”

Let’s consider the desired effect, and the more likely actual effects, of the Sanders/Khanna scheme.

The desired effect, of course, is that Amazon, Walmart, and other large employers will pay their workers “living wages” such that those workers needn’t turn to food stamps, subsidized housing, etc., to get by.

The more likely effect is that Amazon, Walmart, and other large employers will 1) speed up their adoption of labor-saving technologies such as robotics, and 2) change their hiring and employee policies.

Robots don’t need food stamps. Or housing. Or healthcare. Or public transit. They’ll work 24/7/365 without complaint, vacation or overtime pay. They don’t get mad and walk out. They seldom “call in sick.” And they’re already increasingly cost-competitive with even low-wage human labor.

Job applications will include questions like “do you receive any of the following forms of government assistance?” Applicants who answer “yes” won’t get interview callbacks. Employee policies will make it clear that accepting any of the tax-triggering programs will result in immediate termination.

Yes, those policies will reduce the pool of workers available to work for those companies. That might force wages up some. But it’s also likely to increase the length of time that people who NEED  government assistance CONTINUE to need that government assistance. Not because they don’t want to work, but because the wage deals they’re able to drive won’t exceed the lost benefit dollars.

If the programs in question are going to exist — as a libertarian I would prefer to see them phased out in favor of voluntary charity and  of the higher wages that companies with lower tax burdens can afford to offer, but I don’t expect that any time soon — the smarter option is to scale down benefits as a fraction of increased earnings.

Like: For every $3 an assistance recipient earns in the labor market, the benefits are decreased by $1, reaching zero when his or earnings reach  a “living wage” level.

Perfect idea? No, but better than Bernie’s bozo BEZOS boondoggle.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In a Labor Day tweet, President Donald Trump took Attorney General Jeff Sessions to task over the indictments of two Republican congressmen — one for insider trading, the other for misusing campaign funds.  “Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff …”

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin responded on the network’s “New Day” program: “This tweet alone may be an impeachable offense,” because it is “so contrary to the traditions of the Department of Justice.”

Can a presidential tweet — and especially this tweet in particular — be an impeachable offense?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: The US Constitution envisions impeachment for two specific offenses (treason and bribery) and for other not specifically defined offenses (“other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”).

That second category does carry historical meaning, but the meaning is broad and, more importantly, determined politically and in the moment. Which means that pretty much anything can be an impeachable offense.

A “high crime” is not a crime of some particular severity. Rather, it is a crime committed by someone serving in a “high” government position that carries  obligations above and beyond those binding a private citizen. The president of the United States is obviously such a person.

The first conviction handed down by the US Senate pursuant to impeachment in the House was of a federal judge for the “high crime” of chronic intoxication. Not a crime at all for you or for me, but antithetical to a judge’s obligation to not go mentally self-impaired in the performance of his duties.

President Andrew Johnson was impeached for, though not convicted of, “high crimes” including making speeches which “attempt[ed] to bring into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach, the Congress of the United States.”

It’s not a stretch to put Trump’s tweet in the same category as those offenses. He’s a high official, publicly and corruptly calling on a government agency which he’s obligated to oversee honest operation of to give members of his party free passes on their own “high crimes” because there’s an election coming soon.

Republicans in Congress complained bitterly when former FBI director James Comey and the Obama Justice Department gave Hillary Clinton exactly such a free pass on her grossly negligent handling of classified information in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Will congressional Republicans apply the same implied standard to Trump?

Yes, whether or not Congress deems Trump’s tweet a “high crime” is indeed a  political question.  It’s all about the votes — at the Capitol and, come November, at America’s polling places.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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