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Let's review a few recent developments.

Last week, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, resigned. This was part of a "White House shakeup" to get the Trump administration back on track. The new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, would fix the White House's "messaging problem."

Within 24 hours of Scaramucci's appointment, the president returned to Twitter and unloaded another torrent of political bombshells, including talking about his power to pardon, even as his attorneys were denying that Donald Trump was thinking about pardoning anyone.

Speaking of lawyers, earlier last week, the president's legal team underwent another "shakeup." That shakeup had similar results: no change.

Over the weekend, Trump returned to Twitter to vent his ire at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. The former senator was the first major politician to endorse Trump, and more than any other figure Sessions lent conservative credibility and legitimacy to Trump's campaign.

The president insisted on Twitter that the "beleaguered" attorney general was taking a "weak position" on the need to prosecute Hillary Clinton for various alleged crimes.

This is an odd claim. The president himself announced after he was elected that Hillary had suffered enough and that all the "Lock her up!" stuff was campaign bluster.

When I say it is "odd," I'm being generous, because the claim is almost certainly a politically expedient lie. How do we know this? Because just days earlier, Trump sat down for an Oval Office interview with what he calls the "failing" and "fake" New York Times and said as much.

The president whined that Sessions had been "unfair" to him when the attorney general recused himself from the investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Never mind that the recusal was a political necessity at the time (whether it was a legal or ethical necessity is debated). Trump told the Times that if he had known Sessions was going to behave so ethically, he would never have appointed him.

In political terms, this was the equivalent of saying something to The New York Times that you would normally whisper to your closest advisor, if anybody at all.

The president has an elaborate theory that if Sessions hadn't recused himself, special counsel Robert Mueller wouldn't have been appointed.

It's a strange theory. Trump admitted he was taking the Russia investigation into consideration when he fired FBI Director James Comey. Trump tweeted about the possible existence of "tapes" of his conversations with Comey. Trump hired the man who appointed Mueller. On the campaign trail, Trump had openly called on Russia to continue its cyber war on the Clinton campaign.

In short, at every turn, the president has acted as if he has something to hide. Whether he actually does is an open question, but his obsession with the unfairness of the Russia story and his refusal to credit claims that the Russians meddled in the election, or to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin is a perpetual smoke machine causing people to think there's got to be a fire somewhere.

So what's my point? Simply: The author of Donald Trump's problems is first and foremost Donald Trump. It's fine to point out the excesses of the Democrats and the media. There's certainly ample reason to criticize his staff. It's understandable that Trump supporters think the "establishment," the "swamp" or the "Deep State" have undermined him because they have.

But Trump is not a victim. He is the hamster spinning the wheel in the massive Rube Goldberg machine that is the spectacle of presidential dysfunction.

Every few weeks, the debate about his tweeting starts again. It's like the gun control debate. Guns are to blame! No, criminals are to blame! Guns don't kill people, people do.

It's all nonsense. Twitter is a tool. Barack Obama had a Twitter account, too. Trump puts the bullets in the social media gun, and Trump pulls the trigger, aiming at his own foot with unerring accuracy.

After every good speech, the clock restarts and the Trump train is "back on track." Then, Trump acts like Trump again and the clock gets reset to zero. Spicer's departure changed nothing. Firing Jeff Sessions will change nothing. Shakeups change nothing. Shake the White House snow globe all you like. The scene doesn't change much, and when things settle down, there Trump remains, being Trump. It won't change, because he can't change. Character is destiny, now and forever.

Tribune Content Agency

Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review.

goldbergcolumn@gmail.com

Twitter @JonahNRO

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Donald Trump is not a victim - Chicago Tribune

Stephen Colbert explained President Donald Trumps address to the Boy Scout Jamboree this week to his Late Show audience. With all his scandals, he needs somebody who is good at putting out fires.

He told the scout annual gathering that the press will lie about how many of them are attending the annual jamboree, mistaking it for one of his rallies.

You know they were going to be there anyway, right Colbert asks Trump rhetorically. Its their event, not yours.

Trump also told the scouts that Washington is not a good place and that very same day he had suggested no longer calling it a swamp, because its more a cesspool, or a sewer.

Colbert translated: Kids I come here to inspire you. Your government is a festering river of human waste and Im the madman who rules it on a throne of turds.

As Trump continued to pour poison into the ears of children, he began talking about a very successful man he know who bought a yacht and had a very interesting life, the details of which he declined to mention because you are boy scouts.

And he promised the scouts that, during his presidency, youll be saying Merry Christmas again when you go shopping which they have been downplaying recently.

Yes they have been downplaying it, for some reason, Colbert said. Im just spitballing here: maybe because its July.

Having absorbed the Presidents messages, the boy scouts have re-worked their oath, Colbert imagined:

On my honor, I will do my best to make a tremendous amount of money and buy a sex yacht like the old guy the president knows, to keep myself physically strong with golf and steak, and refer all questions to outside counsel. Merry Christmas.

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Stephen Colbert: Donald Trump Tells Boy Scouts Their Government Is Festering River Of Human Waste - Deadline

WINDHAM COUNTY, Conn. In what had been one of the Northeasts liberal strongholds, Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDem rep to introduce measure requiring White House to disclose pardons Lawmakers push to toughen foreign lobbying rules False advertising: How the Democrats attempt to rewrite history MORE beat Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonOvernight Tech: Trump touts new Wisconsin electronics plant | Lawmakers to unveil email privacy bill | Facebook funds group fighting election hacks Lawmakers push to toughen foreign lobbying rules Budowsky: Lets discuss impeachment MORE by 8 percentage points in the November presidential election.

Now, Republicans hope they have established a beachhead that could lead them back to power, or at least relevance, in a region that has proved politically elusive.

Windham County has supported Democratic presidential candidates since 1992, and Connecticut has been solidly blue since Democrats knocked off three House Republican incumbents in 2006 and 2008. Yet, in a region some locals bitterly call the other Connecticut, there are signs that the sluggish recovery has left some voters open to persuasion.

Theres still a lot of frustration about the fact that they really have not felt the benefits of whatever recovery you want to describe out there, and Trump became, you know, the change candidate, said Rep. Joe Courtney (D), who represents eastern Connecticut in Congress.

In parts of Connecticut, those closer to New York, the median income is approaching $80,000 a year. But in Windham County, in Courtneys district, the median income is below $60,000 annually and up just $22 per household between 2010 and 2015, by far the lowest increase in the state.

Were like Appalachia up here, said Tony Falzarano, the mayor of Putnam, population 9,416.

This is the 13th story in The Hills Changing America series, in which we investigate the demographic and economic trends shaping American politics today. And the Northeast shows those trends can force changes even in the most solidly partisan regions in the nation. Electoral College maps show an almost impenetrable sea of blue east of New York, but under the surface, Republicans have begun clawing back once-Democratic territory.

Around the country, the economic recovery has been good for corporate profits, especially in the financial sector, while at the same time leaving manufacturing communities behind.

As jobs dried up, so did the tax base in many communities once dependent on manufacturers and the property taxes they paid. Local governments have felt a simultaneous shock leveled by a persistent state budget gap that has robbed them of funding. Gov. Dannel Malloys (D) office said in May the state faced a $323 million budget gap going into next year, likely meaning more cuts ahead cuts that will harm small rural communities that rely more on state money than their big-city neighbors.

Twenty years ago, every town out here had a social service director, and maybe an employee, said Richard Ives, a Democratic selectman in the small Connecticut town of Brooklyn. Thats all gone away.

Roy Piper, the Republican first selectman of Canterbury, population 5,089, said state funds to spur economic development through tourism have been reduced almost to zero and added that the cuts have also affected the quality of service.

After years of Democratic consolidation throughout the Northeast, voters are starting to punish the party in power for leaving them behind. President Obama won 56 percent of the vote twice in Windham County; in 2016, Trump took 51 percent.

Its sort of the growth area for the Connecticut Republican effort, said Chris Healy, a former state Republican Party chairman.

The story of the nascent Republican comeback in New England begins after the partys nadir in 2008, when Democrats held every one of the regions U.S. House seats, every Senate seat except for Maines two centrist Republicans and every governorship except Rhode Islands.

Today, Republicans control the governorships of Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They hold one seat in Congress, Rep. Bruce Poliquins (R-Maine), along with control of both legislative chambers in New Hampshire. Connecticuts state Senate is locked in a tie between 18 Democrats and 18 Republicans.

In the greater New England culture, you see that big shift [toward the GOP], said Colin Woodard, a journalist and author based in Maine. And where do you see it? Its all concentrated in several areas that are, like eastern Connecticut, rural and largely homogenously white.

Since 2008, Republicans have gained between 5 and 9 percentage points in Connecticuts eastern counties, said Ronald Schurin, a political scientist at the University of Connecticut. The same pattern has emerged in the rest of New England: Trump outperformed Mitt Romney in about 40 of the 67 counties in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Clinton won all but one of New Englands electoral votes, though by a far narrower margin than Obama did in 2012. The only county in the region where Clinton outperformed Obama: Suffolk County, Mass., the heart of liberal Boston.

Across the region, Republican gains were most pronounced in smaller rural counties and those dominated by manufacturing jobs. Trump won eight counties in Maine that Obama carried four years earlier. Trump is the first Republican to carry a county in Rhode Island, Kent County, since Ronald Reagans reelection in 1984. In New Hampshires rural north, Coos County swung toward Republicans by a 26-point margin.

Every county that flipped from Obama to Trump relies heavily on manufacturing jobs to keep its economy humming. All but one, Hillsborough in New Hampshire, lost population over the last five years.

Healy said the same trends that propelled Trump to victory in Rust Belt states are present in eastern Connecticut, where communities moved away from a manufacturing base more toward a service-oriented or a technology- or information-based economy.

Courtneys election was a part of the Democratic wave that washed over New England the last time the country underwent a political revolution, during the 2006 and 2008 midterm elections. In 2006, Courtney beat out Rep. Rob Simmons (R) by just 91 votes.

Courtney has won comfortably ever since. But now, Republicans see an opportunity for a comeback.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has its eye on Courtney and on several other New England Democrats, including Reps. Elizabeth Esty (Conn.), Bill Keating (Mass.) and Ann McLane Kuster (N.H.). Also on the committees political hit list is Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.), whose district gave Obama 50.2 percent of the vote in 2012 before flipping to Trump last year.

However, Connecticut Democrats dont see voters rushing toward Republicans, especially as Trumps approval rating sags.

I think that Donald Trump is such an unusual, different president and I dont say either of those things in a good way that I have the feeling the landscape in 2018 might not be as friendly to the Republicans as they think its going to be, said Roy Occhiogrosso, a longtime Democratic operative in Connecticut.

In the face of a potentially strong GOP campaign in 2018, Courtney indicated hed be ready.

We had a pretty aggressive field operation during the [last] campaign, he said. But I know this district really well, and, you know, its just a mistake to ever take it for granted.

Reid Wilson contributed.

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Why Donald Trump flipped a Dem county in blue Connecticut - The Hill

"It is much easier to act presidential than what we are doing here tonight, believe me," Trump assured his audience. "With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that's ever held this office."

Well then.

Lincoln has frequently been singled out for praise by Trump and used as a point of reference when he is when pondering the impact of his own presidency.

"Jokingly." Ahem.

It's impossible to fact-check Trump's claims to being more "presidential" than anyone but Lincoln since no sort of grading system of the 44 men who have been president includes such a subjective measure.

In those rankings, which are determined by the collective views of a group of historians, Lincoln has been ranked as the best president in history in each of the three years (2000, 2009, 2017) C-SPAN has conducted the survey. George Washington finished second in 2017 and 2009 and third in 2000. Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been third in the last two C-SPAN survey but was second in 2000.

The highest ranking modern president is Barack Obama who comes in 12th in the 2017 survey. Bill Clinton is 15th -- the same spot he held in 2009 but up 6 spots from his initial ranking in 2000.

The lowest ranked modern president is George W. Bush at 33rd in 2017, up from 36th in 2009. The worst-rated president overall is James Buchanan, who served from 1857 to 1861. (Trump wasn't included in the C-SPAN survey since he only assumed the presidency in January 2017.)

While there is no ranking of the presidents by "presidential-ness" in the C-SPAN survey, there are rankings of each man in 10 specific categories considered essential to presidential success (or failure).

In short: If Trump wants to slide into the second spot behind Lincoln, he's got some work to do. Look out George Washington!

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Donald Trump ranked himself 2nd on a list of most 'presidential' presidents - CNN International

He won't break that streak on Tuesday but he will take a few questions -- as part of a joint presser with the prime minister of Lebanon -- this afternoon at the White House.

There's no shortage of news -- between Trump's bullying of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to the drama over whether Senate Republicans can get the votes to start debate on health care, it's a massive week for the President and his party.

Below are six of the most pressing questions worth asking Trump. (Note: This is by no means a comprehensive list.)

1. Are you going to fire Jeff Sessions? Why or why not?

2. See question #1.

3. Can you rule out the possibility of firing special counsel Bob Mueller?

4. Will you campaign against Republicans who don't vote for the Obamacare replacement bill? What about recruit primary challengers against them?

Trump has overtly threatened one on-the-fence Republican already over health care.

5. Do you agree with your intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to aid you and hurt Hillary Clinton? If not, why not?

6. What specific crime do you believe Hillary Clinton committed in regard to her emails in the 2016 election? And why did you say you wouldn't prosecute her right after the election?

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6 questions Donald Trump should get asked at today's news conference - CNN International