By Bob Gaydos

The check William Seward wrote in 1867 to purchase Alaska from Russia. It was no folly.

While I sit and read about the ongoing demands of Americans of all stripes — Democrats, Republicans, MAGAs, What Nots— for the Trump administration to release the Epstein files because no rational person believes that it is does not include mentions of Trump’s name and numerous girls between the ages of 13 and 17 with whom he may have engaged in sexual acts, which is officially known as rape, I also marvel at the lengths to which this soulless excuse for a human being is willing to go to divert attention from the Epstein files and his efforts to avoid their public release.

The latest entries in this traffic wreck of a presidency involve Trump taking over the policing of Washington, D.C., and negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine without including Ukraine. What could possibly go wrong? In truth, with Trump’s record, almost anything.

Taking over the D.C. National Guard and mobilizing 800 troops to “police“ the nation’s capital along with the help of several hundred FBI agents, while claiming a major crime problem even though recent statistics show crime significantly down in the city, is fascism 101. Add the fact that Trump says he’s going to clean up the city by rounding up homeless people and taking them somewhere else. Anywhere else apparently because he hasn’t said where. That doesn’t bode well for the homeless ever since Trump’s Supreme Court last year ruled homelessness could be treated as a crime.

The mentally ill will also inevitably be included in any such round up. Apparently, Trump wants to return to the out-of-sight out-of-mind philosophy for dealing with these issues.

The fact that the National Guard, citizen soldiers, many of whom have day jobs (accountants, mechanics, sales people, politicians) are not trained for this kind of work apparently doesn’t matter to the geniuses in the White House. Send them out there, armed to the teeth so the citizenry feel safe. I doubt most of the guardsmen are thrilled with the mission.

And apparently the FBI agents are going to be patrolling some swanky D.C. neighborhoods. What a great use of trained investigators who should be dealing with actual crime committed by some of Trump’s wealthier supporters.

None of which, of course, is going to convince anybody to forget about the Epstein files. I suspect the show of force will be mostly a show simply to show that Trump, racist to the core, can do it seeing as he’s threatened to do it in other cities run by black mayors.

What could possibly go wrong? Look up Kent State in the history books if they haven’t been removed from the library.

As for the Putin meeting, it has disaster written all over it. Just recall the meeting with Putin in Finland and watch the Russian president emerge with a big grin on his face and Trump look like an 11-year-old boy who just had the riot act read to him. Just the two of them in the room. Manchurian Candidate material.

Trump is talking about giving up some land somehow to settle this deal even though Ukraine didn’t take any land and Russia is the one who invaded despite Trump’s insistence otherwise and Ukrainian President Volodamyr Zelinsky isn’t even invited to this “peace talk.“

What could go wrong? Well, for starters, Trump thought he was going to meet Putin in Russia and had to be reminded that the meeting was in Alaska, which is American territory which should be off-limits to Putin, who was declared a war criminal by the United Nations. Putin might be willing to forget about claiming a chunk of Ukraine if Trump lets him go home with Alaska back in his pocket. After all, it’s worth a lot more than the $7.2 million Secretary of State William Seward wrote a check for in 1867 to purchase the territory from Russia. Who knows what Trump’s price might be to sell it back, with hotel rights?

Far-fetched? Will there be any other American adults in the room who know what they’re doing? And will they realize that even giving Alaska back to Russia will not make Americans forget about those Epstein files?