WILL DIRECTION DEFECTIONS TILT THE ELECTIONS?

We will have to wait for the opinion polls to tell us how voters are processing the revenge of Omarosa, the guilty verdict against Manafort, and the guilty pleas of Michael Cohen, the revelation of thirty hours of testimony given to the Mueller team by White House counsel Don McGahn, and the granting of immunity, first to Trump Organization CFO, Allen Weisselberg, and then to National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker.

And to all of that, we now add the death of John McCain.

Barring a crazy event (which you can never discount in the age of Trump), John McCain will dominate the news, and the comparisons between the American statesman and the man who pledges allegiance to himself will be unavoidable to any thinking person.

We can expect that some or all of those recent developments may have nudged some Trump supporters to slowly drift away, but not the ones who attend his rallies, where Trump does what Trump does best --stir the inner fires of the faithful, prompting their tried and true chants of “LOCK HER UP!”

But the numbers indicate that the desertions have already begun.

I tell everyone who will listen that Donald Trump’s favorability ratings of 40 to 45% do not reflect his hardcore loyalty numbers -- the devoted ones who will support his presidency, regardless of what he says or does.

I do not dispute the accuracy of those poll numbers. I think that about 43% of our friends, neighbors, and family members continue to support Donald Trump. I just happen to believe that it is only 30 to 35% of those individuals who would stick by him if he actually does shoot someone on 5^th Avenue.

The latest Quinnipiac University Poll tells us that only 31% of voters say they LIKE Donald Trump. I am certain you know one or two of those people. We all do. They still respond to evidence of incompetence and criminality with “Anyone but Hillary,” and they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Obama’s mother faked her newborn baby’s birth certificate, so that he could one day be President of the United States. The woman had vision.

That Quinnipiac poll also tells us that 43% of voters approve of Donald Trump’s policies, but only 30% approve strongly.

That squishy 13% gives me hope – a lot of hope, and if your inner optimist hasn’t thrown in the towel, that 13% should give you hope too.

Speaking of optimism, when the Trump supporter you know and love (or used to love) starts looking glum, you can take that as a hopeful sign. Has he stopped saying that Trump is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers? Has he or she stopped insisting that alienating our allies, starting trade wars, and standing by his pal in the Kremlin are going to make us great again?

Maybe he has finally decided that the country might be on the wrong track. Maybe she is worried about how her children and grandchildren will be affected by opening the door to more dirty air and rising sea levels.

There should be major opinion polls that measure optimism and pessimism.

Actually there are, and one of them is now in. The Monmouth University poll for the month of June told us that only 40% of voters believed that the country was headed in the right direction, while 53% believed we were on the wrong track.

But under this runaway presidency, June is now ancient history. What do we know about optimism and pessimism in August?

This is what we know.

The Monmouth poll conducted between August 15 and August 19 tells us that only 35% of voters now believe we are headed in the right direction, and 57% believe we are on the wrong track.

And need I remind you that a lot has happened in the few action-packed days since August 19?

And, do you doubt that a lot more will happen in the many action-packed days before the November 6^th midterm elections?

Speaking of the midterm elections, the exit polls will be revealing, to say the least. The answers to those poll questions will tell us how many Americans voted to change direction.

I hope voters are asked if character and integrity influenced their vote. We might assume that those who answered YES voted for the candidate more like John McCain and less like the phony who disparaged his heroism.

And now my optimistic two minutes are up.

CRIME UNIVERSITY

As far as I know, a school for criminals does not exist. That is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. If you are in favor of the survival of the civilized world, it can be somewhat reassuring that criminal wannabes cannot enroll in a prestigious institution, created to educate and graduate some of the worst among us.

Crooks learn by doing. This imperfect, unsystematic learning system eventually results in most of them getting caught for committing crimes that they should have gotten away with, thanks to sloppy execution.

Sure, there are elite criminals, like the gang that robbed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston, stealing priceless masterpieces, without leaving a trace.  At Crime University, they could be professors or guest lecturers.

Remember that time you were sitting in a bar, having a great conversation and drinking way too much, and began saying things you should not have said? You blurted out a few things that you later regretted. But I doubt that you revealed any information, while “feeling no pain,” that triggered an FBI investigation into a campaign for the presidency of the United States.

But that is exactly what George Papadopoulos did, in a London pub, when he informed an Australian diplomat that he knew that Russia had dirt on Hilary Clinton.

Had he attended Crime University, he would have been required to take a class called Crime Basics. In that class, he would have learned that drinking and bragging can land you in prison or force you to become a cooperating witness.

Had Michael Cohen attended that same class, he would have learned that when juggling multiple crimes, it is absolutely fundamental to stay organized. Why is that so important? Because when you are in possession of 3.7 million files, you have to know which of those files will put you or your client in prison.

That way, when you begin shredding documents ahead of a police raid, you are not wasting precious time shredding CVS and Costco monthly fliers. You only shred documents related to hush money, money laundering, bank fraud, and of course absolutely anything related to Russian oligarchs.

And, you have to be thorough. You do not leave document shreds in the shredding machine, because there are people who will painstakingly sift through those shreds and glue them back together to restore the documents you spent all that time shredding, which is exactly what the FBI did.

At Crime University, he would have learned that shreds need to be flushed!

And imagine that you are brought before a judge and placed under house arrest, and required to wear an ankle bracelet while awaiting trial. If you are a white collar criminal, out on bail, you are being spared the ugly experience of going to jail, where some of your fellow guests will regard you as fresh meat. So you do not want to violate the conditions of that parole by committing a brand new crime, which is exactly what Paul Manafort did, while wearing not one, but two ankle bracelets.

Paul, Paul, Paul, why would you think that you could get away with witness tampering by sending encrypted messages through a Russian agent to two potential witnesses with the purpose of getting their stories straight, while Bob Mueller and the Untouchables are praying for you to screw up?

So much for Crime 101!  At Crime University, there would be an advanced course called Crimes You Should Never Attempt.

As the new National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn should have just said No! to outside income opportunities. When the Turkish despot offered him $15 million to kidnap the exiled opposition leader from his home in Pennsylvania, and give him a one-way plane ride to a Turkish prison, Mike should have said, “I’m sorry. I could sure use the $15 million, but I am pretty sure it’s illegal to commit a kidnapping on behalf of a foreign government.”

But, he didn’t say that, and he didn’t cover his tracks – not that he could have covered his tracks. From the beginning, General/Foreign Agent Flynn was no match for the federal bloodhounds who caught him in so many lies, he had to cop a deal, preventing him from kidnapping anyone.

Sad as his story is, he could someday become a respected authority on Crimes You Should Never Attempt. In the post-Trump era, you might see him doing a TED Talk.

I want to be very clear that I am not in favor of the creation of Crime University, but I think it might be valuable to establish The Museum of Political Crime. In fact, I would put it at Mar-a-Lago, once it is confiscated as criminal forfeiture.

The very thought of that makes me want to go past my two minutes.