Donald Trump has been President for fourteen months now, and I am utterly astonished that he hasn’t been run out of town by now. With every passing day, the man further debases himself and the country he was elected to lead.
Amazingly, the United States of America has a leader who doesn’t believe in democracy and seems to be doing everything in his power to destroy it.
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt (both of them!) would be appalled.
In the latest news from the three-ring circus that we know as Washington D.C.:
“Rocket Man”
For an inexplicable reason, the President seems to want to bully this despotic nation into submission. The North Koreans now have nuclear weapons and are proud of that; Trump wants them to give them up.
Of course, Trump hasn’t made the same demand of other despotic nations like Russia or China, and is similarly giving a free pass to other fellow members of the nuclear club: Israel, Pakistan, India, England, and France. The President thinks that he is going to have a personal sit-down with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un and talk him into dismantling his nuclear program. Of course, this is the same guy that the President ridiculed publicly a few months ago.
Zoltar predicts that this effort will fail and that the President of the United States will be lucky if he isn’t publicly humiliated by the North Korean dictator.
Second Amendment
After much confusion via-Twitter, the President has, predictably, revealed himself to be safely ensconced in the pocket of National Rifle Association Executive Director Wayne LaPierre, along with virtually every GOP Senator and Congressman.
Enraged by the lack of response to the recent spate of armed attacks on school campuses, huge protests occurred in many American cities last week. By and large, the protesters were young, and were joined by politicians and celebrities. The crowd in Washington D.C. was estimated at 800,000.
I repeat: this is THE ISSUE OF OUR TIME. Unlimited access to guns by all segments of society is passe; something needs to be done. And, just as with the Vietnam War, our young people are leading the way.
Trump and the GOP are on the wrong side of this issue, and they will pay the price.
Stormy Weather
Some nasty storm clouds have been circling Washington D.C. in recent months.
Of course, Americans have known for decades that Donald Trump is a major league sleazeball when it comes to women. His in-your-face public comments (bragging about his Tom Cat nature), his “locker room talk” about grabbing women by the pussy, and his marriage failures due to infidelity are all public knowledge. The guy’s a bum, and every woman knows it.
Surprisingly (or, to me, not so surprisingly), the so-called Moral Majority of right-thinking, God-fearing Christian folk in the Bible Belt have given the President a free-pass on his chronic, lecherous behavior. Almost 63 million Americans voted for the douchebag, so evidently they are OK with sin…as long as it’s the Republican variety.
As a by-product of the “Me Too” movement, several women have come forward to note, for the record, that the President of the United States deserves at least an Honorable Mention ribbon for his sleazy acts…while his newly married bride, Melania, was carrying his son-to-be Baron. Now, that’s pretty classy.
One of the ladies who slept with Trump was porn star Stormy Daniels, and another was Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate. They both indicated that their affairs with Donald Trump were consensual.
The President’s attorneys have been doing legal gymnastics during the past several months, attempting to silence the blabbermouths.
In fact, threats to enforce “non-disclosure” pacts with these women have been bandied about on behalf of the President…who, all the while, professes that these women are lying about his infidelity. Logical question: If nothing happened, then why did Trump’s attorneys pay these gals money not to disclose?
Prior to, and during, the election, 16 women came forward to publicly claim that, in years past, Trump made unsolicited, unwanted sexual advances toward them. (One of them claimed that he raped her when she was 13 years old.)
If this pervert was a big shot in Hollywood, he would be out of work by now.
The big loser in all of this is the poor First Lady, who is publicly humiliated every time one of her husband’s former flings details some of his lascivious, adulterous behavior.
You’d think son Baron would be embarrassed. However, “cheating” on spouses is in the Trump DNA. His half-brother Donald Jr.‘s wife Vanessa recently announced her intent to divorce her husband of 12 years. A main cause: infidelity…a fling with former “Apprentice” contestant Aubrey O’Day.
Here’s the proud husband and daddy in happier times. What could that doofus have been thinking!
The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.
From Russia With Love
The investigation into Russian meddling with the 2016 elections seems to be proceeding right along; seemingly, every week the headlines reveal some new twist to the diabolical plot.
Now we learn that Facebook was used by some sinister folks to feed Russian propaganda favoring Donald Trump into the “smart phones” of millions of U.S. citizens. This particular scandal has flummoxed billionaire founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who will soon be testifying before Congress (and, probably, Special Counsel Robert Mueller).
For goodness sake, it also appears that Russian money funded some National Rifle Association campaign ads supporting Trump. I though these red-blooded guys in the camos were patriotic. If you can’t trust a Redneck, who can you trust?
The F.B.I. investigation is in full swing, with no sign of let-up. The President still continues to proclaim that his campaign had clean hands, but it is beginning to look like his campaign director, Paul Manafort, and his deputy, Robert Gates, were no-goodniks in cahoots with Russian operatives.
Mr. Trump’s continuous pronouncements of “no collusion” with the Russians sound a lot like his “never happened” denials of sexual escapades with the 16 whistle-blowing victims, Stormy Daniels, and Karen McDougal.
And then there are the too-often-to-be-a-coincidence fawning statements by our President over Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin. The latest Valentine from our Commander-in-Chief was a congratulatory message to Putin for his recent landslide election (that every knowledgeable Kremlin watcher agrees was rigged). Gee, and I thought Donald Trump hated rigged elections…
As the saying goes, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”.
It seems to me that there’s plenty of evidence that something pretty fishy happened in the 2016 elections. And all evidence trails seem to be heading back to the same place.
It seems that the President is stacking his advisory deck with yes-men, in the hopes that one will find some excuse for shutting down the Russia-gate investigation before the posse arrives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. GOP leaders are being cagey about what they might do if this occurred. Based upon their Jello-like backbone of late, one can only imagine. But, Mueller is getting their “thoughts and prayers”.
The Prez and his cronies in Congress have tried like Hell to besmirch the F.B.I. and, by association, the Special Counsel. But, no dice…as of yet. Trump being Trump, he will probably decide one morning, while sitting on the crapper Tweeting, to invite Mr. Mueller into the Oval Office for a man-to-man conversation.
Then, again, there’s always Plan B.
The Carousel
When Donald Trump was elected, he promised not only to “drain the swamp” but also to bring the highest quality individuals into his Administration…a private industry all-star team, as it were.
The President quickly reversed his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” and seeded his Administration with big-time lobbyists from every conceivable major American corporation.
(And, then, he and the GOP gave those same corporations a hefty tax break, financed by debt that will be paid by our children and grandchildren.)
The quality of Trump’s all-star team has been lacking a bit. We know this because the Prez has been firing them weekly. A lot of other “stars” that he brought onto his team have upped and quit.
Recently, the President fired his National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and replaced him with John R. Bolton, a hawkish, nut-job, Fox News commentator whose claim to fame is that he was one of the Bush Administration honks for war against Iraq because they were hoarding “weapons of mass destruction”. Yeah, he helped talk us into that one.
Evidently ex-Three Star General McMaster wasn’t hawkish enough for the President’s taste. Bolton, on the other hand, has publicly advocated preemptive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea. He likes wars.
Trump also doubled-down on war-like behavior by nominating Gina Haspel to replace outgoing CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Earlier in her CIA career, Ms. Haspel distinguished herself by being chief of a black ops site in Thailand where the United States tortured prisoners of war. She has been condemned by human rights organizations as a “war criminal”. Her appointment would be totally in line with Mr. Trump’s campaign assertions that he supports torturing captured combatants…something that our government and the Geneva Convention says is illegal.
Not coincidentally, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, John Dowd, resigned last week. Talk about seeing the handwriting on the wall…
For some reason, the President has had a tough time convincing top-flight lawyers to join his legal defense team.
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that she “had no reason to believe” that the President had lost confidence in his Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs David Shulkin, head honcho of the VA’s $198 billion organization.
Today, the President fired Shulkin…
…and replaced him with his personal doctor “Ronnie” Jackson (I’m not making this stuff up!) who has no organizational management experience.
The President has also publicly floated the idea of nominating his personal pilot, John Dunkin, to head up the Federal Aviation Authority and its $16 billion bureaucracy. (I repeat: I’m not making this up, folks.) I’m sure John is a fine pilot, but he has no organizational management experience.
I think you get the idea: Trump wants to staff his Administration with toadies, bootlickers, and turd polishers…like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for example.
The President is now pulling third-stringers off the bench, which is pretty thin after all the attrition. These scabs will be rank amateurs, getting on-the-job experience while directing massive governmental organizations. Expertise is not required…as long as you can say “Yes” to the Prez.
The inmates are officially running the asylum.
Say It Ain’t So: It is being rumored that the next head to fall will be Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who’s been in Trump’s cross hairs for months…because he wasn’t bootlicking well enough.
No problem: the President has already got another TV personality lined-up for the top law enforcement job in America.
Is The Apocalypse Upon Us?
It’s getting pretty chaotic in D.C. Pretty much anything could happen at any time. We need to keep our fingers crossed that the President takes all of his meds at night.
The good news is that the 2018 midterm elections are approaching. Every member of Congress is up for reelection…except those who’ve thrown in the towel in disgust. Thirty-one Republican Congressmen have seen the light.
Historically, the party that is not in power (i.e. the Democrats, this time) makes substantial inroads from midterm elections. Of the several special elections that have taken place since Donald Trump’s election, I believe that the Democrats have won them all.
I think the President needs Vladimir Putin’s help now more than ever.