Donald Trump: Still Ruining the World Every Day

OCTOBER 2019-JANUARY 2020.

Foreign help in elections now welcome!!!!

THE TRUMP ARCHIVE

October 1-2, 2019: A new report shows U.S. manufacturing output has slipped to the lowest level since June 2009.

The Dow Jones drops 344 points on the news Tuesday and an additional 494 points on Wednesday.

We all know President Trump is incapable of accepting blame. It is no surprise then, when he starts tweeting nonsense again. “You cannot judge my Stock Market performance since the Inauguration,” he insists, “which was very good, but only from the day after the big Election Win, which was spectacular due to the euphoria of getting Obama/Biden OUT, & getting Trump/Pence IN. WentI up BIG between Nov. 9 & Inauguration!” 

We have addressed this claim before, due to the fact that Trump continues to misstate facts. Starting from the day Obama took office and ending on January 16, 2017, the last trading day before the end of his second term, the Dow rose 148.3 percent. That would allow Obama to edge out Ronald Reagan, for third best stock market performance under any U.S. president in the last century (not counting Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had nearly twice as long to oversee any gains). Second place would go to another Democrat, William Jefferson Clinton.

The gold medal would then be draped round the neck of Calvin Coolidge, a Republican. But you’d probably rip it off, since a few months after he left office the Crash of 1929 occurred, and the Great Depression began.

Republicans would like you to forget, but with George W. Bush steering the ship of state, the stock markets boomed. Okay, that part they want you to remember. The Dow Jones hit 14,165 on October 11, 2007.

Then the ship of state hit an iceberg and started to sink. A massive housing bubble burst. Banks wobbled. Wall Street giants teetered. Consumer spending contracted. Auto sales plummeted. By the time Obama was sworn in the Dow Jones had shed nearly six thousand points. On January 16, 2009, the last trading day before he took over, the Dow stood at 8,291. The skid continued for two months. On March 9, the market bottomed at 6,547.

Or, as Warren Buffett put it, the U.S. economy had “fallen off a cliff.” Investors in stocks had lost $13 trillion, or 59.9 percent of their money.

And no one in their right mind tried to claim Barack Obama pushed the U.S. economy off that cliff.

Yes, the markets have been doing well under President Trump. And, yes, this blogger, who is heavily invested, is happy about that.

But the markets did better—to this point in Obama’s first term than they have under Trump.

Frankly, Trump makes this kind of, “the markets were going to crash if Hillary won the election” stuff up. (See: 2/7/20.)

I’m a big fan of basic facts. So, I go to the charts. I’m not turning up an exact figure for October 2, 2011, but based on a comparison chart prepared by macrotrends, by early October in 2011, the Dow Jones was up 49.4 percent with Obama running the show.

Trump had the markets up 36.2 percent.

(When we check the numbers again, on 2/8/20, Obama retains the lead. The markets were up 61.9 percent by that time, under his calming hand. Trump has done well, too, with gains of 46.5 percent.)

10/3/19: Covered in the story of the Ukraine investigation.

10/4-6/19: The blessed weekend arrives; but the beleaguered president has little reason for enjoyment. You’d think Trump would be fine, as unemployment falls to the lowest level in fifty years: 3.5 percent.

Unfortunately, he has several daunting problems on his hands—most of which he created himself. First, North Korea has launched a nuclear-capable missile from a submarine, which is not Donald Trump’s fault. What is his fault is that he has allowed himself to be played for a sucker. Even Trump fans will remember when he claimed, wrongly, that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat.

Now North Korea can park a sub off the U.S. coast and, in event of war, wipe out any city it chooses.

In fact, much ballyhooed negotiations with the North, which began Saturday, ended Saturday. The North said talks broke down because the U.S. brought nothing new to the table.

By contrast, the American negotiating team insisted everything went great. And Trump really did deserve a Nobel Prize (see below).

*

WHEN IT COMES to growing threats, we learn that September was the hottest September ever recorded, just slightly hotter than the record set in 2016. If you weren’t an idiot, you’d be worried, as August was the second hottest August ever, and July was the hottest July. June was the hottest June.

The problem, of course, is that the president is an idiot.

Future generations are screwed.

*

IN BONUS STUPIDITY, we learn that ACT America, an anti-Muslim group, is planning to hold their gala at Mar-a-Lago. Because what better way to say, “I love freedom,” than to host a group that hates not just terrorists, but all Muslim Americans and all Muslims around the world!

If you are willing to cough up $1,500 per ticket, for ACT America’s November party, you can rub elbows with bigtime haters. Michelle Malkin will be there, spewing venom. So will Brigette Gabriel, founder of the group.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, ACT America “propagates the hateful conspiracy theory that Muslims are infiltrating U.S. institutions to impose Sharia law.” Gabriel’s organization pushes the idea that “headscarves are a sign of radicalization” and claims that “25 percent of Muslims approve of terrorism.” The ADL warns that ACT America has attracted “far-right extremists, including white supremacists and militia group members.”

In Ms. Gabriel’s world, the 3.3 million Muslims living in our country are terrorists in waiting. In 2007 she made that position clear, insisting that “a practicing Muslim who believes the word of the Koran to be the word of Allah…who goes to mosque and prays every Friday, who prays five times a day—this practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States.” If a mosque was built anywhere in America, Gabriel warned, the F.B.I. must be notified. We were to assume that the mosque would be a den of jihadis.

Last, but not least, Gabriel warned that Muslims were trying to take over our schools, by insisting that if students were taught about different religions, they should be taught about Islam, too.

At any rate, ACT America will be hosting a party at Mar-a-Lago next month. But, at least no strippers are involved.

Muslim Americans have died under the flag.
Someone should tell the haters who show up at Mar-a-Lago next month.

10/7/19: This hard-working blogger goes on vacation. Unlike Trump, he despises golfing and prefers to hike.

He does not believe, as does the president, that the body has a limited supply of energy, and if you use any of it, the supply is forever reduced. The hiking blogger does not believe this because he is not an ignoramus.

View from Gorham Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine.

10/8-18/19: The blogger returns from vacation and tries to catch up on a raging torrent of recent events.

Republicans are in a dither over Democrats and their flirtation with Bernie and socialism; but we keep getting lessons in the grotesque imperfections of capitalism. For example: Big Pharma.

Faced with thousands of opiod-related lawsuits, manufacturers and distributors begin caving. Three of the largest distributors and two manufacturers offer $22 billion in damages and promise to spend an additional $28 billion on drugs to combat the damage opioids have caused.

In related news, Dr. Joel Smithers, a capitalist if ever there was one, is sentenced to 40 years in prison. His crime: writing 500,000 opioid prescriptions, mostly bogus, and pushing millions of pills out onto the streets. His sentence won’t help the 2.5 million Americans who are currently addicted. Nor will it bring back the 300,000 individuals who have died from opioid overdoses since 2000.

It’s one small step for mankind, though.

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Congressman Chris Collins, who represented an upstate district in New York, resigns from office and pleads guilty to charges of insider trading. Collins had long insisted on his innocence—and President Trump had talked about how unfair it was that Collins was investigated in the first place. Now the former lawmaker is a felon, facing up to five years in prison.

His son, Cameron, pleads guilty the next day. Prosecutors note that the pair, and the father of Cameron’s fiancé, avoided more than $800,000 in losses by dumping stock, based on insider tips.

So, bad day for Mr. Collins, Mr. Collins and the younger Mr. Collins’ future father-in-law. Good day, however, for justice. 

This tweet has not aged well. 

*

IN RANDOM ORDER, we also learn that the sea is running out of fish. Unless the nations of the world face up to the challenge, food supplies crucial to hundreds of millions of human beings will begin to decline. Climate change alone may drive down maximum catch rates by 24% by the end of this century. A third of all fishing stocks are overfished at unsustainable rates; and 90% of stocks are fully exploited.

Bad year for fish.

*

GOOD YEAR for billionaires! According to detailed new studies, in 2018, America’s richest 400 families paid an effective tax rate of 23%, less than the 24.2% rate paid by the bottom half of American households.

*

GOOD YEAR for billionaires, bad year for glaciers.

Fox News posts pictures of Mont Blanc. At 15,774 feet, the mountain straddling the borders of Italy, France and Switzerland, is the highest in western Europe. Scientists manage to compare glaciers on the mountain in 1919 with those a century later. The loss of ice is sobering—and for Fox News viewers, probably stunning. Normally, climate change denial is part of the company brand.

Fox reports:

“The scale of the ice loss was immediately evident as we reached altitude but it was only by comparing the images side-by-side that the last 100 years of change were made visible. It was both a breathtaking and heartbreaking experience, particularly knowing that the melt has accelerated massively in the last few decades,” said Kieran Baxter, of the University of Dundee, in a statement.

“Unless we drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, there will be little ice left to photograph in another hundred years,” Baxter warned.

Somebody should probably alert President Trump to the growing realities and the challenges they represent.

*

SSPEAKING OF TRUMP, his lips move again, and a series of baffling whoppers come spilling out. For some unknown reason, he insists that when he took office the U.S. military was hurting.

We couldn’t even buy ammunition!

This was a surprising claim for several reasons. First, defense spending in Fiscal Year 2017 was $605.8 billion, or $1.66 billion daily. Second, U.S. defense spending surpassed (and still surpasses) the spending of any other nation. Our spending, even before he took over, matched the next seven or eight highest-spending countries combined. Finally, Trump claimed “a top general, maybe the top of them all” told him about this sad state of affairs. But no top general came forward to support his claim.

Retired Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, did respond. “For those interested,” Hertling tweeted, “this isn’t true. Actually, it’s ludicrous.”

*

SPEAKING OF TRUMP, his lips move again, and a series of baffling whoppers come spilling out. For some unknown reason, he insists that when he took office the U.S. military was hurting.

We couldn’t even buy ammunition!

This was a surprising claim for several reasons. First, defense spending in Fiscal Year 2017 was $605.8 billion, or $1.66 billion daily. Second, U.S. defense spending surpassed (and still surpasses) the spending of any other nation. Our spending, even before he took over, matched the next seven or eight highest-spending countries combined. Finally, Trump claimed “a top general, maybe the top of them all” told him about this sad state of affairs. But no top general came forward to support his claim.

Retired Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, did respond. “For those interested,” Hertling tweeted, “this isn’t true. Actually, it’s ludicrous.”

*

THAT CLAIM—of no ammunition—came with Trump facing a firestorm of criticism for his decision to abandon the Syrian Kurds. And that decision came so suddenly that U.S. diplomats, allies and the Pentagon were caught flat-footed.

“No one in the U.S. government told us” about the U.S. decision to reposition troops or possibly pull out of northern Syria, a Kurdish intelligence official told Newsweek. “When we heard the news of American withdrawals, well, it was over Twitter.” Knowing how Trump works, that kind of figures. “We had no idea, we were like, ‘What is this shit?’” the Kurdish official said.

“They trusted us and we broke that trust. It’s a stain on the American conscience.”

U.S. Army officer

This shit, in the eyes of most Americans, was a cold-hearted betrayal of some of the best fighters the U.S. has allied with since the Korean War. The Kurds weren’t led by corrupt officers, as were South Vietnamese units. They weren’t actively hostile to U.S. forces, as were many Iraqis. They weren’t afraid of the Taliban, as Afghan military forces often are. The Kurds knew how to fight.

Now the president had dumped them as unceremoniously as he dumped his first wife for his second.

Fidelity is not the president’s strong suit.

Criticism came from all directions. You could almost imagine Kellyanne Conway losing her grip it at last and running across the South Lawn, shouting, “The man has no soul! My god! TRUMP HAS NO SOUL!”

Sen. Marco Rubio pointed out what everyone, save the president, seemed to grasp. “We degraded ISIS using Kurds as the ground force. Now we have abandoned them. They face annihilation…We must always have the backs of our allies, if we expect them to have our back.”

Former Secretary of State and four-star U.S. Army general, Colin Powell, summed up the situation. “Our foreign policy is in shambles right now.”

U.S. troops who had been fighting beside the Kurds were aghast. One officer put it this way. “They trusted us and we broke that trust. It’s a stain on the American conscience.” “I’m ashamed,” said a second. General John Allen, recently retired, was blunt. “There is blood on Trump’s hands,” he said, “for abandoning our Kurdish allies.”

Faced with bipartisan opposition in Congress, the president began digging deep in his bag of duplicitous tricks. Why should we care about the Kurds, he wondered aloud? The fight in Syria didn’t affect us. We were 7,000 miles away. This was “not our problem,” he told reporters. Let the Turks and Syrians and Kurds fight it out, maybe with Russia’s help. “If Syria wants to fight for their land, that’s up to Turkey and Syria, as it has been for hundreds of years, they’ve been fighting,” Trump explained to the press. “And the Kurds have been fighting for hundreds of years. That whole mess, it’s been going along for a long time. Syria may have some help with Russia, and that’s fine. It’s a lot of sand,” he added dismissively. “They’ve got a lot of sand over there. So there’s a lot of sand there that they can play with.”

Got it.

Sand.

A journalist pointed out that the Kurds had suffered 11,000 casualties in the battle against ISIS. A lot of blood had been spilled while they “played” with that sand.

“And we’ve lost a lot of fighters, too,” Trump responded cluelessly.

As is so often the case, Trump was talking out of his ass. An estimate from the Department of Defense should have helped him put Kurdish losses in perspective. Yes, the U.S. supplied ammunition (we had plenty) and backed the Kurds with pinpoint artillery and air support. Otherwise, our allies did nearly all the bleeding. U.S. losses in the fight against ISIS, across Iraq and Syria, totaled 88, a tragedy for their families, but a toll that paled in comparison to the sacrifices made by the Kurds.

Still, when it came to defeating ISIS, President Trump was clear about who the real hero was. “Everybody said that was going to be an impossible thing to do,” Trump preened for the cameras. “I did it, and I did it quickly, because we have a great military now.”

Trump did what he does best when faced with complex issues. He made up weird excuses. The Kurds didn’t help us in World War II, he said—which made absolutely no sense. He insisted he didn’t green-light a Turkish invasion. He talked to President Erdogan by phone, agreed to remove U.S. forces from positions in northern Syria, where they had served as a tripwire, and the Turks just happened to storm across the border. Who could have seen that coming!

Trump decided to attack his former Secretary of Defense, James Mattis. The veteran Marine general wasn’t tough enough to take out ISIS—and only he, Cadet Bone Spurs, was man enough to get the job done.

Mattis, he grumbled, was the most-overrated general in history. Trump? Cadet Bone Spurs was the best!

Speaking at a white tie dinner soon after, Gen. Mattis introduced himself as a man who had “achieved greatness.” “I mean, I’m not just an overrated general, I am the greatest, the world’s most overrated general,” he laughed. He said he was “honored to be so considered by Donald Trump, because the president also called Meryl Streep an overrated actress. So I guess I’m the Meryl Streep of generals,” he laughed

Did it bother him to be insulted by the president, Mattis said he had been asked? He made it clear it did not. “I earned my spurs on the battlefield. Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor.”

(To see the clip, click this link.)

As for the president, the more he thought about it, Trump wasn’t even sure he liked the Kurds. They’re “no angels,” he told reporters.

“The PKK, which is a part of the Kurds, as you know, is probably worse at terror and more of a terrorist threat in many ways than ISIS.”

Once again, Trump was banking on the fact that his biggest fans would never realize the Kurds in Syria were a different group from the PKK. And they’d never know the Syrian Kurds had been dying by our side for years. Finally, Trump said we’d given the Kurds a lot of money. In his mind, that more than made up for the fact they had suffered 11,000 dead and wounded.

Trump didn’t understand—and can’t ever understand—because no one in his family ever sheds any blood for a true cause.

In fact: for any cause.

With the situation in Syria exploding, Trump decided he’d had enough stress and went golfing once more.

His trip Sunday, October 13, to Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, marked the three-hundred-and-seventh day he had spent as president, in part or in total, at one of his own private golf clubs. 

*

FORCED TO TROT OUT any defenders they could find, it fell to that expert in U.S. geopolitical affairs, Lara Trump, Eric’s wife, to appear on Fox News and explain the situation in Syria. Ms. Trump made it clear she didn’t care about the Kurds and doubted most Americans did. 

Most of us would have to google, “Who are the Kurds?” to know anything, she said.

With Kurdish women and children dodging bullets and bombs, and tens of thousands fleeing the slaughter, her comments seemed beyond insensitive, especially when, generation after generation, we know Trumps are adept at avoiding putting themselves in any lines of fire.

A map to help Lara Trump.

*

A stash of 51 nuclear weapons.

MEANWHILE, the president was dodging criticism as best he could. When ABC ran a picture of an explosion in Kentucky, and labeled it an explosion in a Kurdish town by mistake, he lost his cool and demanded an apology. Real explosions in Syria? Dead Kurdish children caught in the maw of war? A stash of 51 nuclear weapons, left behind by U.S. forces at a Turkish air base as we beat a precipitous retreat? The fact that our withdrawal came so suddenly U.S. warplanes had to go back and bomb a munitions dump at a base we left? Nah. None of that bothered the president. That ABC mistake, though! Boy did that piss him off!

Next, he took to Twitter and threatened to destroy the Turkish economy if Turkish armed forces advanced too far into Kurdish territory. “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits,” Trump tappity-tap-tapped, “I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey.”

So, it was okay for the Turks to attack the Kurds, who were our allies.

And if they went too far, and killed too many Kurds, Trump would destroy the Turkish economy. Turkey being another U.S. ally.

Yes: “great and unmatched wisdom,” for sure.

*

ON OCTOBER 9, we learned that Trump had mailed a letter to the Turkish president, one that seemed so “puerile,” as a critic put it, he thought it must be a prank. As another pundit described the missive, in all its “batshit glory,” it read like a third grader might have written it using crayons.

In any case, Erdogan was unimpressed. According to the BBC, he deposited it in a waste basket by his desk.

It wasn’t long before Jimmy Kimmel posted this parody on his late night show. This letter focused on how a past president might have handled a foreign crisis, had he possessed half the deal-making skills of Donald J. Trump. 

*

IT FINALLY FELL to Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo to travel to Turkey for conclave with Mr. Erdogan.

In miraculous fashion, in one day, they hammered out an “Art of the Deal” gem. According to Mr. Pence, Turkey agreed to a cease fire which would last five whole days. The Turks almost immediately announced that what they had agreed to was not a cease fire, but a “pause in operations.”

They would stop bombing the shit out of our old friends, so long as the Kurds agreed to leave the lands where they had lived for centuries and take their armament with them. Or they could lay their weapons down and stay—and hope the Turks would refrain from slaughtering them all. In return for this face-saving cease fire and/or pause, the U.S. would halt sanctions it had threatened to slap on the Turks and everyone would live happily ever after.

Except the Kurds.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey summed up the reaction of many Americans when he said Trump’s claim that the Kurds were happy, was “absurd, it’s cruel, it makes him look stupid.”

That would be Trump.

*

IF THE KURDS were getting massacred, there was good news for Donald J. Trump. The U.S. government had determined that the best spot in all the fifty states to hold next year’s G-7 summit would be Trump National Doral golf club, just outside of Miami.

In a boffo performance before an audience of admiring reporters, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney explained how Doral wasn’t the “only place” the meeting could have been held, “just the best place.” He promised the president wouldn’t profit during the G-7 summit. Trump would never do such a thing.

According to ProPublica, however, when government officials stay at Mar-a-Lago they can be charged as much as $546 per night for a single room. In one case, members of Team Trump sent taxpayers a bill for 54 drinks in a Trump-owned resort bar, at a total cost, with tip, of $1,076.

That’s $18.62 per.

We cover the story of Ukraine and impeachment in a separate post.

10/19/19: After a tough week at the Oval Office, President Trump took Saturday off and spent the day relaxing at the White House. There were no public events on his schedule.

He did, however, have time to send out 59 tweets and retweets. Really, at this point, it’s just what he does.

Then, late Saturday evening, we heard stunning news. The president was punting on the idea of holding the next G-7 summit at his private golf club, Trump National Doral.

And whose fault was it?

According to Trump, the goddamn Democrats, and the goddamn media had spiked his great plan.

(The media promptly and accurately reported that Trump caved in the face of Republican condemnation.)

10/20/19: Trump decides to take another day off, after a busy Saturday devoted to tweeting. He stays up late, tweets into the early hours of the Sabbath, hits the sack, rises early on Sunday, and starts hammering on his iPhone. Unfortunately, even tweeting proves more than Trump can master.

At 8:15 a.m. he issues this gem in defense of his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria:

Mark Esperanto, Secretary of Defense, “The ceasefire is holding up very nicely. There are some minor skirmishes that have ended quickly. New areas being resettled with the Kurds.” USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil. Bringing soldiers home! 

It’s humorous to see that the President of the United States has failed to realize his iPhone has autocorrected. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is not Mark “Esperanto.” But the crass, cluelessness of the tweet is what matters. To use an old cliché and give it a twist, Trump is reduced to slapping lipstick on a herd of pigs and trying to convince supporters that the pigs are a bevy of Miss Universe contestants. New areas aren’t being “resettled with the Kurds.” The Kurds are being driven out of their ancestral homes. Most are going to end up stuck in refugee camps.

We also know the Trump administration doesn’t care for refugees, having cut the number that will be allowed to enter the U.S. next year to 18,000. That’s the lowest figure since the refugee program was established in 1980.

So our loyal allies are screwed again.

10/21/19: The president’s decision to abandon the Kurds, but save the Kurds’ oil, makes many Americans want to vomit their lunch. If Kurdish children get killed, the fool in the White House remains unmoved.

But Kurdish oil. Yeah.

Save that.

Monday afternoon, we were treated to a bonkers view inside a Trump cabinet meeting. In a rambling diatribe, lasting well over an hour, with cabinet heads and reporters looking on, we were treated to vintage Trump. The economy, he said, was the best it’s ever been. He was doing way better than his immediate predecessors, Bush 43 and Obama, and, really, all the presidents going back to 1789. He had created record numbers of jobs. “We’ve never had—there’s close to 160 million people [working now]. So it’s—some incredible things are happening,” he crowed.

We did have a record number of jobs. We also had a record number of people. A check of Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the percentage of Americans at work was 63.2 percent. That was the same as September 2013, when a much thinner gentleman was seated in the Oval Office. Still, the economy was doing well. The unemployment rate had fallen to a fifty-year low.

Unfortunately, glaring inequities remained. Income inequality had also reached a fifty-year high.

It wasn’t long before the president went over the right-wing rainbow and got lost in the fluffy clouds. After touting his economic success, Trump decided to focus on his brilliant moves in Syria. He insisted his plans were working perfectly. “We are having very good news coming out. The ceasefire is holding. The Kurds are moving out to safer areas beyond the ‘safe zone,’ as we call it,” Trump said. “Having the safe zone is not a bad thing; it’s a good thing.” 

Anyone who reported differently—for example camera crews that showed Kurds throwing rocks and potatoes, as U.S. forces left them to the mercy of the Turks—was peddling “Fake News.”

Had Trump mentioned lately that he hated reporters? He thought he should mention it again. His political opponents were corrupt, he said. But the press wouldn’t say that, because “the media is corrupt also. Much of the media—so much of it, such a big percentage of it. It’s such a shame. Some great reporters and great journalists, but some really bad people. So, that’s the story.”

The president also wanted to boast about ISIS. When he took over, he complained, he inherited a mess.

Because President Obama—it was a mess. And I was told and you were told, and everybody told it would be years before you ever did what I did in about a month and a half after I started. I went over to Iraq, I met with our generals, and we figured out a plan, and it was done within a month and a half. I’m the one that did the capturing. I’m the one that knows more about it than you people or the—or the fake pundits.

Trump wanted everyone to know how great he was. He went over to Iraq. He basically didn’t mess up the plan that was already in place before he took office. That plan was to let the Kurds do most of the fighting.

And they did.

That didn’t bother the president. He continued to prattle:

Now, all of a sudden, people are starting to say, “You know, what Trump is doing is great.” And we have tremendous—a tremendous power. Because since the election of 2016, November—since that beautiful day, our country has picked up in value trillions and trillions of dollars of worth. Trillions and trillions of dollars. Numbers that nobody would believe. Numbers, if I would have said it on the campaign trail, I would’ve been—I would’ve been excoriated by the fake media. Excoriated.

Plus, the Kurds—Trump wasn’t sure he liked them. And Obama. No. He didn’t like that guy at all.

As you know, most of the ISIS fighters that we captured—“we.”  We. Not Obama. We. We captured them. Me. Our country captured them, working with others, including the Kurds. And we helped them, don’t forget. We helped the Kurds. Everyone said the Kurds helped us; that’s true. But we helped the Kurds.  They’re no angels, but we helped the Kurds.

And we never gave the Kurds a commitment that we’d stay for the next 400 years and protect them. 

“But we’re going to bring our soldiers back home,” Trump added. “So far, there hasn’t been one drop of blood shed during this whole period by an American soldier. Nobody was killed. Nobody cut their finger.”

That was the plan—the plan before he took over.

All Trump had to do was ditch our allies, who had suffered 11,000 casualties in the fight against ISIS. Then he had to watch the Russians, among others, fill the vacuum in Syria that he left behind. And next time, of course, he would probably find that no one wanted to fight on our side.

Who cared about a few thousand dead and maimed Kurds? “We’ve secured the oil,” Trump pointed out. He always said, he reminded everyone, that if you were going into the Middle East, you should, “Keep the oil. We want to keep the oil.”

And wasn’t that the kind of inspired language that stirs idealistic young men and women, but not transgender folks—who are no longer allowed—to don the uniform! You can get shot at in Iraq—Afghanistan—or northern Syria—maybe Saudi Arabia next, so that the U.S. can keep the oil!

“Ask not what your country can do for you,” Trump might say. “Ask if you can help your country keep a few more barrels of petroleum.”

Finally, Trump insisted that even the Kurds would eventually love what he was doing. “And we’ll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, they have some cash flow,” he explained. “Maybe we’ll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly.”

Yeah, that should work out great. Save for the fact that many of the Kurds will already be dead. 

*

TRUMP TURNED NEXT in his nutty little rant, to the impeachment inquiry. He insisted the Democrats had no reason to impeach him.

“Word for word, comma for comma.”

He made a call to President Zelensky, “a perfect phone call. I made a perfect call—not a good call; a perfect call.”

Trump wanted all Americans to know who the real villain was. It was “Shifty Schiff,” the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Schiff had “fabricated” a story. He “made up a lie.” Trump was no chump. “So he made up a lie, and I released—they never thought that I’d do this—I released a transcription, done by stenographers, of the exact conversation I had. And now, the game was up.” 

That “transcript,” he said, was completely accurate, “word for word, comma for comma.” Only that wasn’t true, either.

What had been released was a call memorandum, not “the exact conversation.” And even then, the memorandum contained multiple ellipses.

“There was no pressure whatsoever,” put on Ukraine, Trump said again.

Yet, for some strange reason, U.S. military assistance to Ukraine was held up for months, just for fun.

Besides, Democrats didn’t dare impeach him. The people loved him! In Dallas, at a recent rally, he “had a record crowd.” His crowds were huge, he repeated. He filled “massive basketball arenas.” And he filled them without even bringing a band. “I don’t have a band,” he said. “I set the world record for somebody without a guitar. Okay? I don’t have bands. All right?”

Okay, Donald doesn’t have a band.

Well, then, did Trump want to talk about “Shifty Schiff?” You bet! He’s “a phony guy, a corrupt politician,” Trump complained. Trump wanted everyone to know. He wasn’t phony. He’s wasn’t corrupt. He hardly knew Rudy Giuliani—or the four men Rudy was working with in the Ukraine.

Trump switched topics again. He said that if Turkey stomped the Kurds, the United States would use our incredible power. “We’ll tariff the hell out of their products coming here.” The Kurds, of course, would already be stomped. “I don’t want to use that as a threat,” Trump added, having just made the threat. “But our power is—our power of economics, it’s very powerful.”

Yes. Our power is very powerful.

A reporter asked if we were going to leave troops in Syria. Trump said we weren’t. We “only had 28 troops” in Syria that he pulled out. So, we’ll just leave a few troops in a different section of Syria. Near Israel. Where all the oil is. “We’re working with the Kurds,” he continued. “We have a good relationship with the Kurds. But we never agreed to, you know, protect the Kurds. We fought with them for three and a half to four years. We never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives.”

Trump’s explanation of how we were dealing with the Kurds made even less sense than his usual babbling.

And our relationship with the Kurds is good, and they’re going to be safe. And I will say this: If shooting didn’t start for a couple of days, I don’t think the Kurds would have moved. I don’t think, frankly, you would’ve been able to make a very easy deal with Turkey.

I think when it started for a few days, it was so nasty that when we went to Turkey and when we went to the Kurds, they agreed to do things that they never would have done before the shooting started.

In other words, we got a good deal for the Kurds, and they’re “going to be safe” because we let the Turks come in and shoot at them for a few days.

And the Kurds love it. Now they’re going to “move.”

A reporter asked another question. The president had said that Republicans needed to fight harder to protect him. What about Democrats? Did Trump have anything to say about them?

He did:

Well, I think the Democrats fight dirty. I think the Democrats are lousy politicians with lousy policy. They want open borders. They don’t care about crime. They want sanctuary cities. They don’t care about drugs. They don’t care about almost anything. 

The Democrats were, in other words, terrible human beings.

Trump said he knew he might be facing impeachment charges soon. But the real threat came from the people investigating him. Those Democrats! Trump hated them. And, also, he hated Sen. Mitt Romney. “They’re vicious and they stick together,” he said. “They don’t have Mitt Romney in their midst, they don’t have people like that. They stick together.”

Trump wanted to be clear. He hated whistleblowers almost as much as he hated Shifty Schiff, and physical exercise of any kind.

Except golf.

“So do we have to protect somebody that gave a totally false account of my conversation?” Trump asked rhetorically. The whistleblower lied. Not Trump. “I don’t know. You tell me,” he persisted. “Do we have to protect the informant? Now, I happen to think there probably wasn’t an informant….So was there actually an informant? Maybe the informant was Schiff. It could be Shifty Schiff. In my opinion, it’s possibly Schiff.”

By the same bizarre logic, it could “possibly” be Elvis, or Jimmy Hoffa. It could even be—possibly—Melania. You could image the First Lady wanting to blow the whistle on her philandering, fat husband.

(Remember, though: The Inspector General for the U.S. intelligence community reviewed the complaint. He found it “credible” and of “urgent concern.” Elvis didn’t write it. Neither did “Shifty Schiff.”)

“I have to fight off these—these lowlives.”

In Trump’s eyes, Schiff was shifty because he was gathering testimony from a series of witnesses. “He’s a crooked politician,” Trump grumbled. The entire impeachment inquiry was,

Very bad for our country. This whole thing is very bad for our country. In the midst of that, I’m trying to get out of wars. But we may have to get into wars, too. Okay? We may have to get into wars. We’re better prepared than we’ve ever been. If Iran does something, they’ll be hit like they’ve never been hit before. I mean, we have things that we’re looking at.

But can you imagine I have to fight off these—these lowlives at the same time I’m negotiating these very important things that should’ve been done during Obama and Bush and even before that.  

Yes. Trump’s political foes were lowlifes. But he was a tough guy—even if he weaseled out in Syria. He’s got “things,” he’s got plans. He’s ready to destroy Iran if they mess around. But first, he’s going to bring all our soldiers home. Some of them we’re going to reposition in Iraq (not quite home.) We’re also going to send additional troops to Saudi Arabia (definitely not home.)

If we get in a war with Iran, maybe we’ll ask the Kurds, who also live in the northern mountains of Iran, to help!

Trump admits it’s hard being president, what with seeing coffins of dead soldiers coming home, or visiting the wounded at Walter Reed. “The toughest thing is sending letters,” he says. “I send many letters home to parents, and I speak to parents. But I send many letters home to parents; their son or daughter has been killed over in the Middle East. For what? For what?” he muses.  

Personally, I believe he’s made that clear. We want to keep the oil in the Middle East. So, he could pen a letter like this:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Your son and/or daughter died bravely in service to our country. Well, screw the Kurds, who fought by their side.

We have the oil!

Peace and crackers,

Donald J. Trump

*

WHAT ABOUT HIS DECISION to hold the next G-7 summit at Trump National Doral? a reporter finally asked.

Well, Trump explained, he gives his salary away, all $450,000. He’s happy to do so. He’s not in the White House to make money. Okay, sure, the tax cuts he and the GOP rammed through saved him at least $11 million per year.

And, yes, they saved Don Jr. and Eric and Ivanka and Melania and maybe Tiffany, too (even if she does look fat in her photos), millions more.

But he was giving up his salary! Because he cared! Because he was the best! He wanted the reporters there in the room, and the American people by extension, to know what he knew. He was the best.

They say that no other President has done it. I’m surprised, to be honest with you. They actually say that George Washington may have been the only other President that did. But see whether or not Obama gave up his salary. See whether or not all of the other of your favorites give up their salary. The answer is no.

(A quick factcheck by the free press turned up two more examples of presidents who took no pay: Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy. That meant Trump was making shit up or lying again.)

Wrestling with some deep-seated inferiority complex.

Besides, he continued, he was losing a fortune by being president. Maybe as much as $2 billion. Maybe $5 billion. No way of knowing. Probably because he was pulling numbers out of his hat. It’s Trump Math. He would have been happy to hold the G-7 at his property, and it would have been “the greatest G-7 ever.” He’d have done it without making a dime! Because he’s like George Washington, except for the fact that Washington was willing to fight for his country. But did anyone appreciate the losses he, Donald J. Trump, had to endure to be president?

No.

You know who else made money while he was president? Trump asked reporters. He decided he’d explain.

George Washington—he ran his business simultaneously while he was President. Many other Presidents—there weren’t too many really rich Presidents, but there were a few—they ran their business. Hey, Obama made a deal for a book. Is that running a business? I’m sure he didn’t even discuss it while he was President. Oh, yeah. He has a deal with Netflix. When did they start talking about that? That’s only, you know, a couple of examples.

No one in the room had mentioned Mr. Obama. But Trump brought him up again. You suspected that he was wrestling with some deep-seated inferiority complex, as far as his predecessor was involved.

The only problem with this comparison would be that Obama closed the Netflix deal in May 2018, more than a year after leaving office.

As for a book deal, every president gets a book deal. Presidents make history. Publishers know people will want to read about how it was made. Even Nixon got a book deal. And a pardon. Not that we mean to imply that Trump might be leaving office in similar fashion any time soon.

“Pelosi, Shifty Schiff, Schumer, these people are trying to destroy the country.”

President Trump

As is often the case, Trump’s comments were all over the map. He said he was going to win again in 2020.

“I have my best polls now,” he claimed.

“Pelosi, Shifty Schiff, Schumer, these people are trying to destroy the country,” he warned. The Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution was “phony,” he said.

Then he attacked the free press once more. You could tell he wanted to say the First Amendment was “phony,” too.

He bit his tongue, scowled and insisted that he should be able to run the country any way he pleased, “not have to focus on this kind of [impeachment] crap, while at the same time doing a great job with Syria and Turkey and all of the other things that we’re doing.” If somebody else was president we’d already be “in a big war with North Korea. You don’t hear too much about it,” he said. “It could happen. Could happen. I don’t know. I always say, ‘Who knows?’ It’s deals. Who knows?”

Again. Who knows? No one knows. Trump is just making shit up. You almost expect him to say we might have to fight a war with aliens from outer space.

“But, in the meantime, North Korea is—I like Kim; he likes me. We get along. I respect him; he respects him [error in White House transcript; or mistake by Trump]. You could end up in a war. President Obama told me that. He said, ‘The biggest problem—I don’t know how to solve it.’ He told me doesn’t know how to solve it. I said, ‘Did you ever call him?’ ‘No.’ Actually, he tried 11 times. But the man on the other side—the gentleman on the side did not take his call. Okay? Lack of respect. But he takes my call.”

Obama was no good.

That’s what Trump wants everyone to know.

*

HE THANKS his cabinet and the reporters for listening and tries to wrap up the show. Reporters keep firing questions.

Does he think he’ll be impeached?

“Well, the Democrats want to do it,” he says. But he has the greatest economy ever. And the stock market “went through the roof” because “they got rid of Obama, they got rid of Hillary.”

If any of the Democrats he’s watching in the debates were in power, the stock market would “go down 70, 90, 80 [percent], you’d destroy the country.”

That’s from the White House transcript. It reads, “70, 90, 80 [percent].”

Trump is making shit up again, trying to make himself look good, trying to fill some empty place in his soul.

The Democrats want to impeach him because that’s “the only way they’re going to win. They’ve got nothing. All they have is a phone call that was perfect.” The whistleblower has “disappeared.” So has the second whistleblower. And the “informant.” He’s gone too.

As for all the diplomats testifying, the Democrats were “interviewing ambassadors who I’d never heard of. I don’t know who these people are. I never heard of them.”

Even more, if the Ukrainians would help.

You figure it might be a problem—if Trump really wanted to deal with corruption in Ukraine—that he didn’t know who his own diplomats were. Even though he didn’t know them, he continued,

I have great respect for some of them. One of them said, just recently—a very, very highly respected man—I’m not going to get into their names, but a highly—said, “No, no. We were very, very bothered by Joe Biden and his son back during the Obama administration.” He said, “We were very…” He’s supposed to be their witness.

Trump went on to suggest that the people saying he was abusing his power were Obama people, and Clinton people, and “Never Trump” people. “Those people might be worse than the Democrats—the Never Trumpers. The good news is they’re dying off fast. They’re on artificial respiration, I think.”

Finally, the president turned it over to cabinet members and aides and they finished telling us how great Trump really is. Larry Kudlow, for instance, explained several “economic models” he’d been studying. They helped predict electoral victories. Trump was on target, Kudlow claimed, to get between 289 and 351 electoral votes in 2020. Even more, if the Ukrainians would help.

It was almost pitiful in the end—how needy the President of the United States was. “Are they predicting who is going to win the election, Larry?  Is that what you’re saying?” Trump asked.

Yes, Kudlow told the boss. The economic numbers he was seeing, “are the kinds of numbers that suggest a very substantial victory. A very substantial victory.”

Trump beamed.

Rep. Adam Schiff: "Shifty Schiff" to President Trump.

Developments in impeachment, 10/22-25, are covered in a separate post.

10/26/19: We learned this week that the federal deficit had increased in Fiscal Year 2019, by 26%, over FY 2018. The red ink totaled $984,000,000,000. So, good job, President Trump, when it comes to your promise to eliminate the entire federal deficit if we gave you two terms.

Interest on the federal debt hits $376 billion; and that’s a bill that will metastasize in years to come, one our children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, will be forced to pay.

It is expected that the deficit will top a trillion dollars in FY 2020, and top a trillion again in FY 2021.

In other words, either Trump is going to inherit a mess he created, if re-elected, or stick his successor with one.

*

IF MORE EVIDENCE was needed to indicate that President Trump had gone rogue, we had it in court.

His lawyer, William Consovoy, tried to make the case that Trump’s taxes and financial records should remain hidden in perpetuity. Democratic lawmakers had no right, he told a three-judge panel on the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to see documents they were demanding as part of the House impeachment inquiry. In this case, Consovoy was appearing in response to the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena for records as part of a probe of the Trump Organization. According to Consovoy, that subpoena should be quashed—and also fricasseed.

The president, he claimed, “enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind” while in office.

The judges proved dubious. “What is your view of the Fifth Avenue example?” Judge Denny Chin inquired. Could Trump shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and get away with it, as he suggested during his run for office?

I only wish the judge might have expanded that question. “Could Trump depopulate the street by machine gunning a crowd of anti-Trump protesters, gathered in front of Trump Tower?”

At any rate, Judge Chin, was curious. Was Consovoy laying out a legal position, that would hold that local authorities could not investigate, if a president committed murder? “They couldn’t do anything about it?” he wondered.

“Once a president is removed from office, any local authority—this isn’t a permanent immunity,” Consovoy suggested…

“I’m talking about while in office,” Chin cut him off.

No, Consovoy responded. The president, as president, had absolute immunity from prosecution.

He could rape, rob, and cheat on his taxes. Or ask Ukraine to help him win the next election.

He’d be safe, so long as the Senate didn’t vote to impeach him.

*

PRESIDENT TRUMP wasn’t the only member of MAGA Land who had a bad week, legally speaking. On Tuesday, David Dempsey, 32, of Sherman Oaks, California, a big fan of the guy in the Oval Office, was charged in court with spraying anti-Trump protesters at a rally with bear-repellent. 

Even Fox News couldn’t spin the story to make Dempsey the hero, standing up for the Second Amendment (bear-repellent variation), while living in fear of leprous immigrants bringing crime over the border. Dempsey had “previous convictions for second-degree burglary, conspiracy to commit commercial burglary and fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s motor vehicle while driving recklessly, the district attorney said. He is being held on a $50,000 bond.”

Another Trump fan having a bad week and perhaps headed for legal difficulties, was Major League umpire Rob Drake. Angered by the realization that his favorite president might be impeached, Drake tweeted a plan. He was going to go out and buy an AR-15 “because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020.” 

I think we can agree that Umpire Drake is not the man you want to argue with about balls and strikes.

Also, he can’t spell.

A surprising number of Trump fans want to save the country by launching a civil war.

*

FINALLY, WE SHOULD take a moment to revisit the plight of the Kurds. Wednesday, President Trump appeared on TV to update the American people on their situation. What he wanted everyone to know was that his decision to ditch our allies was proving to be brilliant!

Trump said he had promised to bring our troops home, and he would. And he said the United States had halted the bloodshed in Syria, and done it without any other nation’s aid or assistance.

“We’ve secured the oil,” Trump explained for the second time in recent days. We were going to guard the Syrian oilfields, “and therefore a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area.”

“We’re going to be protecting it,” he continued, speaking of the oil, “and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

Anyway, Trump insisted it was time to, “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.”

Trump didn’t have just one great idea. He had another. We would bring our troops home by moving them out of Syria, to positions in Iraq (kind of like announcing you had passed “Go” after landing on Marvin Gardens). This plan fizzled quickly when Iraqi officials announced that they had not been consulted, and our troops would not be welcome after four weeks.

Okay then!

Trump had another great plan. He would let someone else fight over the “long-bloodstained sand” by ordering 900 U.S. soldiers, plus battle tanks, to head back to the region from whence our troops—headed for home—had just days before been withdrawn. Screw the Kurds, of course.

But by Saturday, we had the oil fields under guard.

The troops weren’t coming home.

10/27/19: Late Saturday, into Sunday, President Trump had one of his better moments as leader (reluctantly) of the Free World. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, he was able to march out in front of waiting cameras and announce that U.S. Special Forces had killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the mastermind behind ISIS, during a well-planned, well-executed raid in northwestern Syria.

And let us pause a moment to agree, as Americans, as decent human beings: Good riddance to al-Baghdadi, a bloody murderer.

*

UNFORTUNATELY, the moment was blighted when the president—as always—made the story about him. First, as we have come to expect, there was a great deal of “ME, ME, ME” in his description of what transpired.

You may remember that it used to infuriate Citizen Trump, when Mr. Obama took the slightest credit for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Later, when the man who planned and ordered that raid, Admiral William McRaven, joined the legions of his critics, Trump attacked him too. In an appearance on Fox News, in November 2018, our current president grumbled, “Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it have been nice?” 

(More on that in a moment.)

Speaking to the American people, Sunday morning, Trump offered us a taste of his greatness. “I’ve been looking for him for three years,” Trump said, of al-Baghdadi. “I’ve been looking for him. I started getting some very positive feedback about a month ago, and we had some incredible intelligence officials that did a great job.”

Trump clearly seemed to be hogging the credit; but would his chat get stranger? We’ve seen this before.

It would.

If he was going to grab all the glory that he was sure he deserved, Mr. Trump would have to make his success sound bigger and better than the success of his predecessor. Yes, the U.S. military got Osama bin Laden, in May 2011. But this killing of al-Baghdadi, with the great Donald J. Trump in charge, “this is the biggest there is,” he insisted, when it came to rating killings.

Of course, you might remember, back in the day, when Obama got Osama, that Trump poo-pooed his success. How long had it taken him to find the leader of Al Qaeda! Good god. Obama had been in office for two years, and three months, when Seal Team Six surrounded the hideout of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and filled him with well-deserved bullet holes.

(For context, go to: “10 Symptoms of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” There you will find the best description of President Trump ever penned—even if it isn’t specifically written about him.)

At any rate, our current president (at least, for now) decided that since he was standing before a bank of cameras, he should mention “a really very successful book” he wrote, before anyone else knew who Osama bin Laden was. Trump wanted us to appreciate his prescience:

I’m writing a book. World Trade Center had not come down...And I’m saying to people take out Osama bin Laden, that nobody ever heard of. I mean, al-Baghdadi everybody hears of because he’s built this monster for a long time. But nobody ever heard of Osama bin Laden until really the World Trade Center. But about a year before the World Trade Center came down, the book came out. I was talking about Osama bin Laden. I said, “You have to kill him. You have to take him out.” Nobody listened to me.

Trump had to keep bragging. He couldn’t help himself. It’s what he does. Bragging. And tweeting.

Also: Golfing.

Well, then, he was excited to have a chance to talk about something besides how he held up military aid to the Ukrainians to force them to help him in the 2020 election. “If you read my book,” he continued, “there’s a book just before the World Trade Center came down, and I don’t get any credit for this, but that’s okay, I never do. But here we are. A very, very successful book,” he said. “If they would have listened to me, a lot of things would have been different.”

“I wrote 12 books, all did very well,” he added. Had he mentioned how great he was? He was a great author, too.

He got the job done much faster than Obama and McRaven. He had been looking for al-Baghdadi for only two years, and nine months.

So, take that “Fake News” media, with your “Fake Calendars,” which indicated that Obama got Osama faster than Trump got al-Baghdadi.

*

EITHER WAY, GOOD WORK, America’s fighting men and women! We wouldn’t quibble here, on this blog, except to take note again of Trump’s shameless hypocrisy. Back when Seal Team Six was killing the terrorist leader, Citizen Trump loved to tweet his disdain. “Stop congratulating Obama for killing Bin Laden,” he objected. “The Navy Seals killed Bin Laden.”

Fox News agreed, of course. No credit for Obama!!!

Zip.

“The military and Navy Seals should be given more credit for Bin Laden’s death, not Obama, who works hard to take all the credit away from them,” Trump grumbled in another tweet.

Trump even washed up on the shores of CNN for a chat with Wolf Blitzer. Bah! Obama! What did he have to do with military success in killing Osama? “But anybody sitting in that office, Wolf, would have—I keep hearing about, oh, bin Laden, the military did an incredible job and they called and they said, we have him. And he [Obama] said, go get him,” Trump complained.

Obama did nothing.

“What’s he going to say, don’t get him? And he gets all this credit? It’s a lot of crap,” Trump continued.

Eleven months later, he was still bitching about President Obama and the raid that killed bin Laden.

*

THAT WAS THEN; and this was now; and President Trump was painting himself as the great man of action!

This was his chance to revel in glory and describe the attack in all its gory detail. U.S. troops, he explained, flew in on eight helicopters, across dangerous territory. Some of that territory was controlled by Russian forces. The U.S. military had to notify them to avoid trouble. Trump thanked Russia for its cooperation.

(He really likes Russia.)

Landing near a compound where the leader of ISIS was hiding, our brave soldiers blew a hole in the wall, rather than risk entering by a possibly booby-trapped main entrance. Trump said he saw it all from the White House Situation Room, “like watching a movie.” The attackers exchanged fire with a number of ISIS fighters, wiped them out, and suffered no casualties, save for one of their dogs. That dog was “a beautiful dog,” the president said, and that dog was injured. But that dog was a hero. And that dog was following orders from President Trump, who was the real hero of this story. Luckily, that dog didn’t have bone spurs.

Anyway, al-Baghdadi headed for a tunnel. He had three of his children with him. He was wearing a suicide vest. But the tunnel was a dead end. The ISIS leader was trapped. Just the way Trump planned it! He blew himself to bits. Also, his children. His body, Trump told the American people, was torn to pieces. So were theirs’. He skipped over that detail. It took a sophisticated DNA test to prove the bit and pieces were him. Boy, oh boy, Trump wanted us to know. He killed the head of ISIS.

It was like he was there, leading the attack himself!

Naturally, the president had to talk smack. He called al-Baghdadi’s followers “losers” and “frightened puppies.” Their leader “died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering, screaming and crying all the way…He died like a dog, he died like a coward, he was whimpering, screaming and crying,” Trump repeated. “And frankly, I think it’s something that should be brought out.”

All in all, it was a typical Trumpian performance. The president explained that he had not called Democratic leaders to notify them about the raid. He said he didn’t want leaks. Sure, he notified the Russians. But, could you trust Pelosi? Trump wanted us to know he didn’t think you could. He thanked the Russians and Turks for allowing the raid to go off without interference. He skipped over the Kurds, however, even though tips from their informants provided the U.S.A. with critical information necessary to pinning down al-Baghdadi’s location.

(Trump’s not sure he likes the Kurds anymore.)

This also seemed like a perfect time to attack our European allies, because they refused to take the thousands of ISIS prisoners—the ones the Kurds had been guarding until Trump pulled our forces out of northern Syria. As for the work of U.S. intelligence in locating the feared ISIS leader, Trump thought he should mention he was often forced to work with “people who aren’t very intelligent having to do with intel.”

In closing, Trump called the leader of ISIS a “gutless animal.” “Thank you all very much,” he told reporters. “I appreciate it.”

And off he went, probably to find a mirror and gaze in wonder at his own glorious, orange reflection.

*

SUNDAY NIGHT, October 27, Trump showed up for Game 5 of the World Series, between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros. Here he was! The conquering commander-in-chief. Yet, when his image appeared on the big screen at the D.C. ballpark, he was roundly booed.

Then the crowd began to chant, “Lock him up! Lock him up!” which you figure ruined his mood—now that he had killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with his own bare, orange hands.

Critics noticed that the president had invited several toadies to attend the game, including Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. John Ratcliffe. Barron Trump, his 13-year-old son, was not in attendance.

So, Trump also sucked at being a dad.

Some pundits defended the president and insisted, short of trial and conviction, that Americans should not be shouting, “Lock him up!” or “Lock her up!” at any other American citizen. Indeed, one should never demand that anyone be locked up, until that other person has been found guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt. And even then, one should be wary of mistakes in the justice system.

(See, for example: Trump’s take on the Central Park Five.)

But one might well take a certain degree of pleasure in seeing Trump’s tactics turned against him.

Postscript: When Admiral McRaven criticizes Trump in an opinion piece in The New York Times a few days before, the president realizes McRaven doesn’t deserve credit for killing Osama, either. It took Obama and McRaven two years, three months to get Osama. What crap! Whereas, he got Al-Baghdadi quick! In only two years, nine months, which, according to Trump Math, is faster. 

(See: 2/7/20, for an explanation of the miracles possible with Trump Math.)

10/28/19: Just another day in Trumpistan. The president travels to Chicago to talk to a gathering of police chiefs from across the nation. 

At the conference he launches into one of his patented rants. He’s mad because the police superintendent of the Windy City isn’t there to listen to his speech. “He’s not doing his job,” Trump says of Chief Eddie Johnson. He calls him “disgraceful.” He lists the numbers of killed and wounded in shootings in the city and blames them all on Johnson and his failures. He blasts the “stupid politicians” who have no idea what they’re doing. He says Johnson doesn’t have the backs of his own police officers. Strict gun laws aren’t working and “Afghanistan is a safe place” compared to Chicago, the president says.

“It’s true,” he adds simply.

And you know, if President Trump says, “it’s true,” why, by all the gods in the firmament, it’s true.

And that is how you help the police in Chicago to address the problems they face. You trash the superintendent to score cheap points.

So, let’s see if we have this straight: all the bloodshed in Chicago is Eddie Johnson’s fault.

So, all the bloodshed in America would be….

Again, we cover events for 10/29/19, related to the Ukraine, in a separate post.

10/30/19: Somehow, the “War on Coal,” conducted by President Barack Obama continues to this day! Murray Energy becomes the eighth important coal mining company to file for bankruptcy in 2019, which is clearly Obama’s fault.

President Trump likes to shout at rallies that “coal is back” and promise he’s saving good coal mining jobs. But former President Obama apparently has magical powers and continues to thwart his efforts. According to CNBC, demand for coal fell last year to the lowest level in forty years. In April, for the first time in history, renewable energy sources, including wind and solar, supplied more power than coal.

President Trump, of course, has warned that windmills cause cancer. The American Cancer Society says they don’t.

So: Someone is lying.

In a recent poll of Iowa voters, a state where wind power is huge, only 1% believe they are going to come down with cancer if they get too close to windmills, whereas 84% do not.

Cancer-causing death machines.

*

NEW RESEARCH paints a dire future as climate change threatens coastal cities. Estimates place the number of people who could be displaced temporarily from their homes by sea level rise at 300 million by 2050. (It is unlikely this blogger will be around at age 101; his granddaughter will be at 37).

Rising seas are also expected to permanently submerge lands on which 150 million people currently make homes.

Still: Beware of windmills.

*

“They were in flying coffins as a result of Boeing deciding that it was going to conceal MCAS from the pilots.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal

Also, be wary of Boeing executives! Even before the second 737 Max 8 nosedived into the ground, company leaders had been warned about problems with computer software in the plane.

The company addressed that problem by lobbying F.A.A. regulators to keep mention of the problems out of pilot manuals and training procedures.

According to Boeing, when the two planes crashed, the pilots were to blame. That wasn’t true. The software contained a fatal flaw. “Those pilots never had a chance,” said one U.S. senator, as lawmakers grilled Boeing execs in a public hearing. Neither did the passengers. “They were in flying coffins as a result of Boeing deciding that it was going to conceal MCAS [Manual Characteristics Augmentation Program warnings] from the pilots.” Under withering attack, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg had no recourse but to concede, “We have made mistakes, and we got some things wrong.”

As in “two crashes” mistakes.

On October 29, 2018, the first 737 Max 8 to fall from the sky as a result of malfunctioning software, carried 189 passengers and crew to their deaths.

On March 10, 2019, the same problem caused a second 737 Max 8 to slam into the ground, resulting in another 159 dead.

Yes, “we got some things wrong.”

(This is why, as all Trump fans know, government regulations are always the biggest problem of all.)

*

SPEAKING OF GETTING “some things wrong,” we learn that the Trump Tax Cuts are not paying for themselves. Nor are those cuts juicing the economy. GDP rose at an annualized rate of 1.9% during the third quarter of 2019, after growing only 2.0% in the second quarter of the year.

Candidate Trump promised to return the U.S. economy to 4% annual growth. That mark has not been achieved since Bill Clinton, the last guy to get impeached, did it in 1994 (4.0%), 1997, (4.4%), 1998 (4.5%), 1999 (4.8%) and 2000 (4.1%). Bush 43 never managed in eight years and left it up to Obama to pull the U.S. out of a near-catastrophic recession. Obama’s best year was 2015, when GDP grew 2.9%, a figure Trump matched in 2018.

It is unlikely he will match that again this year.

*

Developments in the story of Ukraine and impeachment inquiry 

are covered in detail in a separate post.

As is often true, when considering the machinations of President Trump, the more you know, the worse it becomes.

November 1, 2019: This post is basically duplicated in December and January 2020. The stock market continues to rise under Trump’s “calm” guiding hand. He brags. But a check of Obama’s performance, shows Trump continues to lag.

11/2/19: Same with this post. Job gains under Trump continue to be solid; just not as good as under Obama. (See separate post: 2/7/20.)

Here we present a jobs chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from February 2020.

11/3/19: It turns out drug smugglers can use reciprocating saws to cut through the new bollard walls that the Trump administration is building on the southern border. Mexico is still not paying for the wall.

Or repairs.

Smugglers can purchase the necessary saws for $100 and in ten minutes cut a passage for their drugs and drug mules.

Asked for comment, the president defends the Great Wall of Trump in exactly the way you’d expect. “We have a very powerful wall, but no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness,” he told reporters. “But we have a lot of people watching. Cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in,” he added. “But we have a very powerful wall. But you can cut through any wall.”

(Why does this man repeat so often! It’s like he doesn’t even listen to his own babbling crap.)

This is still a bummer, as even Fox News must admit. In a visit to the border in September, Trump bragged about his Great Wall, insisting, it was “virtually impenetrable.”

Unless you stopped by the hardware store first.

*

The New York Times publishes a lengthy analysis of Trump’s Twitter obsessions. If you’ve never paid close attention, the picture that emerges is one of a petty little man, prone to hate, prone to simplify, and happy to lie.

First, the president tweets a lot. “He needs to tweet like we need to eat,” top White House aide Kellyanne Conway admits.

Carrying the food analogy forward, you might say the president likes to binge on junk, with zero intellectual nutrition. More than 2,000 times, he has tweeted in praise of himself. “I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to Puerto Rico,” he said. His hotel in New York City was voted “#1 ‘Best Hotel in the World.’” He has described himself multiple times as “your favorite president,” and even as “your all time favorite duly elected President, me!” Trump also likes to retweet praise from fans.

The president sometimes makes government policy via Twitter, then destroys the policy just made, all by tapping away on his iPhone. Recently, the president of Turkey mocked our “favorite president” for posting a series of conflicting policy twists and turns regarding the Syrian Kurds. “When we take a look at Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts,” he laughed, “we cannot keep track.”

Neither can the Pentagon.

*

Trump follows Hannity, almost slavishly, on Twitter.

THE TIMES notes that the president “follows” only 47 other accounts. With one exception those Twitter accounts echo the hodgepodge of furies and goofy odds and ends of misinformation and conspiracy thinking that warp the presidential psyche. Seven accounts belong to family members. Only one is controlled by a member of Congress, Rep. Jim Jordan, a fellow traveler in hate and #1 defender of all things quintessentially Trump. Fox News hosts, former Fox News hosts, and Fox News shows are heavily represented. The president follows Maria Bartiromo—Tucker Carlson—Jesse Waters—Laura Ingraham—Geraldo Rivera—and the rotating cast of morning morons at Fox & Friends. He still follows Bill O’Reilly and Eric Bolling, which is telling, since both were axed in the wake of sexual harassment claims. Above all others, the president follows Sean Hannity slavishly. At least 258 times, he has tweeted links to Hannity’s show or thanked Hannity for his treacly support.

The president has a number of other Twitter fetishes. He has used more than 1,700 tweets to push conspiracy theories. He has used 1,400 to question the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He has described the free press as the “enemy of the people,” or, when really angry, the “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE” again and again. He has used 580 tweets to decry “Fake News” and mentioned “witch hunts” 334 times. Lately, as his paranoia deepens, the “Deep State” is out to get him too.

Some of the Twitter accounts he follows are harmless, albeit telling. Of all the sources of insight he might choose, his select circle of 47 includes Diamond and Silk, two brainless African American buffoons. He follows Vince McMahon of fake wrestling fame and his own press secretary, Stephanie Grisham. White House banshee Kellyanne Conway is also part of the select circle.

Conway’s main job on Twitter is to praise her boss.

*

THE PRESIDENT’S CARELESSNESS, when it comes to checking facts, gullibility and penchant for hate, make for a toxic Twitter dish. Since he follows his eldest son’s account, if Don Jr. picks up a dose of racist poison—which he often does—dear old dad is prone to spread the poison far and wide.

Don Jr. follows Stefan Molyneau, a Canadian, who calls “white genocide” a worldwide threat. The president’s oldest used to follow Lauren Southern, another white supremacist kook. Southern likes to boost the “great replacement” theory, which holds that white populations are being overrun by immigrants. And liberal “global elites” are pushing the scheme. The president and members of his inner Twitter circle have also retweeted QAnon conspiracy theories. QAnon believers warn that a liberal “deep state” exists and controls the world. It’s a variation of the old belief that Jews dominated international banking behind the scenes—often dripping with exactly the same kind of anti-Semitism. According to QAnon, liberal elites are into Satanism, pedophilia and cannibalism.

That doesn’t stop members of Trump’s inner circle from following such accounts and feeding his worst appetites. Don Jr., Bartiromo, Ronna McDaniel (chair of the Republican National Committee) and Rep. Jordan follow at least 50 Twitter accounts that reference “QAnon” in their profiles.

President Trump is a sucker for them all.

Bartiromo has retweeted posts from an account, @QBlueSkyQ, which claimed that top Democrats sexually tortured children to harvest their adrenochrome. If you’ve never heard of the substance, you’re not alone. Apparently, it can have hallucinogenic effects at high doses. But the QAnon folks believe it to be “a life-extending elixir.” Therefore: torture of children.

Eric Bolling has retweeted political posts from @K12Lioness, another QAnon buff. In June, that Twitter user posted: “The Democrats have lost their minds (andrenochrome) eating baby parts. MY GOD Americans, WAKE UP!”

Yes, Americans, wake up. Because there are all kinds of fruit cakes and haters on Twitter, not to mention “bots” and even Russian intelligence agents, masquerading as Americans. Trump is a sucker for them all. Russian accounts have “tagged” him at least 30,000 times. That is, they link to his account, @realDonaldTrump, hoping he’ll notice their tweets and retweet what they say. This drives traffic in their direction and allows them to build presence and spread the kind of disinformation they like. On numerous occasions, Trump has fallen prey to, or retweeted the posts of others who have fallen prey to, Russian agents peddling lies. When a phony Russian account tweeted, “We love you, Mr. President!” he retweeted it with the joy of a simple child. Heavy traffic then flowed toward a phony Russian account.

*

“The idea is to stack up so much doubt, emotional appeals, and circumstantial evidence ON TOP of facts that we create a landslide of anti-Hill sentiment that permeates through society.” 

Anonymous

Trump first opened a Twitter account in 2009. But it was not till 2013 that he found his calling. And he found it by tweeting and retweeting birther smears aimed at President Obama.

As the Times explains,

After Mr. Trump started tweeting on his own in early 2013—he previously had help from an assistant—he was soon recycling misinformation. He retweeted an anti-Obama account that had tweeted at him, “The birth certificate that you forced Obama to show is a computer generated forgery.” And he spun conspiracies within conspiracies, tweeting: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”

According to the Times, it was clear even in 2013, that the worst elements on Twitter planned to twist the medium to suit their purposes. Trump, in other words, had come to the right place. An on-line manual offered tips on how to use memes and tweets to batter the reputation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “The idea,” the anonymously-authored manual suggested, “is to stack up so much doubt, emotional appeals, and circumstantial evidence ON TOP of facts that we create a landslide of anti-Hill sentiment that permeates through society.” The Russians, if nothing else, were involved in the “anti-Hill” efforts. Trump himself often retweeted misleading information and came to favor hashtags like #CrookedHillary.

Best of all, the limit of 140 characters per tweet, later doubled to 280, meant Trump’s posts had to be short and simplistic. You couldn’t explain complex policy. Indeed, your best bet was to keep posts even shorter (280 characters often proved too much for Twitter users to plow through) and reach for the lowest intellectual denominator. You had to go for the gut.

At that, President Trump excels.

Postscript: After defeating Mrs. Clinton, Trump promised during a 60 Minutes interview that he was going to be more careful as president. “I’m going to do very restrained, if I use [Twitter] at all. I’m going to do very restrained.”

That turned out to be just another wildly inaccurate prediction.

11/4-5/19: Various developments, mostly bad, punctuate the news. On Monday, the president initiates formal steps to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. Fox News praises the president for leadership and efforts to protect American coal mining jobs. (See: 10/30/19; see also, the rather unspectacular results: 2/7/20.)

In an article on the cable news giant’s website, a Trump tweet is cited. In it the Science-Moron-in-Chief lists three points, none of which, if you stop to ponder the real problem, would justify his administration’s refusal to participate in global efforts to address or even admit we have a climate change issue.

Fox won’t explain it. So the blogger will have to do it, instead. 

All three points Trump makes are stupid.

Let’s devote a few moments to rumination. Largest carbon emission reductions? Okay, America! Well, good job, previous presidents!

The Clean Air Act, passed in 1963, has been a monumental success. Too bad a former coal lobbyist is now running the E.P.A., and we’re retreating from progress made in previous decades.

Climate change is affecting the entire globe.

Biggest polluter! China! Yes. And the Chinese are paying a price for lax environmental rules.

Unfortunately, we’re the second biggest emitter, and the second biggest per capita. If China is the Jeffrey Epstein of carbon dioxide emissions, we’re Harvey Weinstein. And it might have been wise to remain in the Paris Accord, where we might work to pressure the Chinese to clean up, too.

What about the fact that of all the people around the world breathing unsafe, badly polluted air, none are in the USA? That may be true. It probably is. It’s also 100% irrelevant. Trump might just as well have announced that he won’t ever eat lima beans. Climate change is affecting the entire globe.

*

THE NEXT DAY, 11,258 scientists from 153 countries sign an open letter, warning the other 7.6 billion people riding around on the only globe any of us have, that we’re all in equally bad trouble.

They explain:

Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.

The climate crisis has arrived, and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.

The science they lay out in support is complicated and extensive. Their warning is easily grasped.

“HOLY SHIT!” is what they’re saying.

Profound and sometimes wrenching social change may be forced upon us in years to come.

How to achieve those changes will be cause for serious debate.

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Iran announces it has started up advanced new centrifuges. This means the Iranians can more quickly produce material to construct an atomic bomb. Some experts fear they can have a nuclear weapon within a year.

Iran has also announced that it doesn’t really want to build a bomb. What Iran wants is “full implementation of the nuclear deal.” That is: the deal that was signed by Barack Obama, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran.

That was the deal Trump tore up.

Nice move, slick.

*

 TUESDAY, we learn that Mr. Trump has added another grifter to his team. Paula White will now be offering advice as part of a White House “Faith and Opportunity” initiative.

This is not meant as an attack on religion, generally, or Christianity, in particular. A good liberal supports the right of Christians to worship as they please. Methodists, Muslims Mormons are also cool.

Send those “First Fruits” to Pastor White.

It is not an attack on religion to point out that Pastor White is exactly the kind of charlatan one would expect to find joining Team Trump. First, she’s been married three times, which is kind of a thing with Trump and his crew. Second, as a disciple of Jesus, she goes in big for the perks that come from preaching the Gospel of Christ. At one point, she and her second husband lived in a Tampa Bay mansion worth $2 million. (Or more.) They also owned a condo worth several million more—in Trump Tower New York City. Ms. White is much like Trump when it comes to the diligent pursuit of Mammon. She preaches the “prosperity gospel,” which holds that God wants his faithful to find wealth and health. One way to prove one’s faith is to send “First Fruits” to Ms. White.

God be praised!

And bank accounts!!

“Each January,” she wrote in one missive to fans, “I put God first and honor Him with the first of our substance by sowing a first fruits offering of one month’s pay. That is a big sacrifice,” she admitted. “But it is a seed for the harvest I am believing for in the coming year. And God always provides!”

(Certainly, God always provides for White—so long as her gullible followers fall for her shtick.)

The results, White promised, would be “miraculous,” whether followers sowed a month’s pay, a week’s pay, or a day’s. “First Fruits has impacted my life personally and the lives of countless others!” she wrote. “First Fruits is more than just an offering … it’s a principle.”

“I don’t want pie in the sky by and by,” she likes to tell congregants. “I want some ham where I am.”

As White tells it, her life is proof God rewards those who worship Him. She has gone from “a pit to a palace,” from childhood poverty to phenomenal success all by bilking suckers. (She doesn’t say that, of course.) Then again, there was a detour in 2012, when the ministry she and her second husband ran filed for bankruptcy. Allegedly, they had stiffed the Evangelical Christian Credit Union for $29 million in loans, which I think we can all agree probably did not please Jesus.

Still, it’s easy to see why the president might want to have White around, particularly now that he’s facing impeachment. According to her interpretation of the Bible, you can’t oppose him anyway.

Even in the early days of Trump’s presidency, she was arguing,

He is authentically—whether people like it or not—has been raised up by God. Because God says that he raises up and places all people in places of authority. It is God who raises up a king. It is God that sets one down. When you fight against the plan of God, you are fighting against the hand of God.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, once questioned White and her Gospel interpretations. Since getting to know her in the wake of Trump’s election, he’s become a fan. He, White, and other members of the “Faith and Opportunity” initiative are working with Trump and his staff. “We’re there to influence public policy and move this nation forward,” Perkins says, “where faith is openly welcomed, so that you don’t have to hide the fact that you’re a person of faith.”

Well, then, more power to Perkins and all people of faith in the world, including Druids. But can someone explain? If God raises Trump up, and we can’t “fight against the plan of God,” doesn’t the logic hold for every ruler, past, present, and to come? Doesn’t that mean it was wrong to fight against George III? And if Trump is impeached, won’t that also be the “hand of God?”

Also, what’s the address if I want to send in “First Fruits?” 

Fucking mountain men!

White isn’t the only minister warning that if the president is impeached, all the fiends in hell will break loose. Pastor Rick Wiles has explained that Trump fans are “guys who knew how to fight.” And they are “going to make a decision” and go to war for Trump and Jesus and fat tax cuts for billionaires and a really big wall. “Veterans,” he said, would rise up. And “cowboys!”

And fucking “mountain men!!”

Wiles did not use the “f-word,” but, really, he should have.

Like many Trump fans, he sounds kind of nuts.

November 6-7, 2019 will be covered under the impeachment inquiry.

11/8/19: Like soulless father, like soulless son. In a new book, which we won’t bother to cite, Don Jr. talks about visiting Arlington Cemetery the day before dad was inaugurated. The 400,000 graves (not one filled by a Trump) remind Jr. how much he loves our great country.

Then he thinks about how his family fought and bled and…well, okay…no Trump ever has served.

But still!

“In that moment,” Don Jr. writes,

I also thought of all the attacks we’d already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we’d have to make to help my father succeed—voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were “profiting off the office.” 

Yes, he would serve his country, just as his dad, “Fighting Lips” Trump, did in 1964, when he dodged the draft.

Trumps never fight, except on Twitter.

And Don Jr. won't be doing any more "charity" work.

*

DID SOMEONE say, “Sacrifice?” This week, a federal judge ruled that President Trump must pay $2 million to settle claims that his charity foundation misused donations. The entire Trump Foundation is dissolved. Ironically, the charity is accused of misusing funds it raised to help…wait for it…veterans!

As NPR reports:

The Trump Foundation has shut down, funds that were illegally misused are being restored, the president will be subject to ongoing supervision by my office, and the Trump children had to undergo compulsory training to ensure this type of illegal activity never takes place again,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office filed the case, said in a statement. “The court’s decision, together with the settlements we negotiated, are a major victory in our efforts to protect charitable assets and hold accountable those who would abuse charities for personal gain.”

As one example, the Trump Foundation sent a “charitable” donation of $25,000 to help the political campaign of Pam Bondi, a Republican candidate for Attorney General of Florida in 2016.

(Bondi later decided not to join a lawsuit filed by other state attorneys general, suing Trump University. More recently, she was one of Trump’s defenders in the impeachment “trial” in the U.S. Senate.)

Any other shady examples of the Trump charity at work? Why, yes. A cool $10,000 went to purchase a six-foot high painting of…Donald, himself. That painting now hangs over a bar at Trump National Doral.

And there was that other $11,525 Trump spent on sports memorabilia and champagne for himself.

And, of course, the $100,000 “charity contribution” to pay lawyers who were fighting a zoning violation at Mar-a-Lago, filed by the city of Palm Beach.

11/9/19: The president travels to Alabama to watch the Crimson Tide take on the LSU Tigers. Trump is happy because the crowd mostly cheers. One of his biggest fans—but not a big fan of the First Amendment right to protest—Hoyt Hutchinson, 32—stabs the Trump Baby Blimp, which is floating peacefully in a park not far from the stadium.

(This is the second time the blimp was stabbed by freedom-loving Trump fans, although the last time it happened the fan also sliced her hand.) 

Even in death, the balloon resembles a flabby President Trump.

November 10 is covered in part under the impeachment story. 

11/11/19: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has a book coming out. President Trump thinks we should read it. Unfortunately, both author and president miss the chilling import of a story she relates.

“They weren’t being insubordinate. They were trying to save the country.”

Ambassador Nikki Haley

According to Ambassador Haley, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly tried to “undermine the president.” In one passage she describes how they approached her for help. “Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley writes. “Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president’s decisions was because, if he didn’t, people would die.”

In Haley’s telling, the two men should have gone to Trump to urge him to reconsider decisions they opposed. Instead, Haley saved America by not joining the plot! “It should’ve been ‘Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing,’” she told CBS News. “But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. And it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want. And it was offensive.”

The problem, of course, is that two top officials thought the President of the United States was a danger to the country.

Tillerson has not commented publicly. But General Kelly told the Washington Post that if giving Nixon—I mean, Trump—“the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the [government] so he could make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,’ then guilty as charged.”

*

APPARENTLY, TILLERSON AND KELLY aren’t the only people who worked with Trump and came away convinced the man was a loon. In another new book, Lt. Com. Guy Snodgrass—who served as Sec. of Defense James Mattis’s chief speech writer—paints an unflattering picture.

Snodgrass flew an F/A-18 Hornet in combat over Iraq and later served as an instructor in the TOPGUN fighter pilot program. So, he’s not the kind of guy to fear the Twitter wrath of Trump.

In one story, he describes the first meeting of Mattis with the new president. It’s a meeting for which Mattis has prepared at length. From the first, however, it proves impossible to keep the Leader of the Free World focused on problems round the world, which Mattis hoped to lay out. Trump veered from topic to topic—Syria—Mexico—a military parade he wanted, with tanks—a recent Washington Post story—like a “squirrel caught in traffic.” As Lt. Com. Sondgrass describes it, “The issues were complicated, yet all of the president’s answers were simplistic and ad hoc. He was shooting from the hip on issues of global importance.”

Um…He still is?

11/12/19: Another day, another dose of nuttiness from President Trump. In a speech to the Economic Club of New York, dad swears daughter Ivanka has created 14,000,000 jobs since he took office.

No doubt his audience is stupefied by this news.

Stupefied, for sure, since Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that since Trump took office, only 6.5 million jobs have been added.

*

TRUMP MATH is often bad. Stephen Miller is always bad and often much worse. The trusted White House aide and architect of the Trump administration immigration policies, is once again in the news.

According to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), leaked emails show that Miller promoted…surprise, surprise…white nationalism.

Miller dodged public comment Tuesday, but White House Press Enabler Stephanie Grisham said the SPLC was nothing but “an utterly-discredited, long-debunked far-left smear organization.”

So, reporters wondered, was she saying Miller’s emails were fine? Grisham admitted, lamely, that she hadn’t seen them.

The SPLC had, and said the source for more-than 900 emails was Katie McHugh, a former writer and editor at Breitbart, who had communicated regularly with Mr. Miller in 2015 and 2016. McHugh was 23 when she started at Breitbart in 2014 and she was fired three years later, after she posted a series of anti-Muslim tweets. She has since renounced her ties with the far-right.

(Miller has not.)

In September 2015 Miller sent McHugh a book recommendation. She should read The Camp of the Saints, which might inform her writing. As summarized by Hatewatch, an arm of the SPLC,

Notably, “The Camp of the Saints” is popular among white nationalists and neo-Nazis because of the degree to which it fictionalizes the “white genocide” or “great replacement” myth into a violent and sexualized story about refugees.

The novel’s apocalyptic plot centers on a flotilla of Indian people who invade France, led by a nonwhite Indian-born antagonist referred to as the “turd eater” – a character who literally eats human feces. In one section, a white woman is raped to death by brown-skinned refugees. In another, a nationalist character shoots and kills a pro-refugee leftist over his support of race mixing. The white nationalist Social Contract Press plucked the 1973 book from relative obscurity and distributed it in the United States.

Miller wasn’t done offering McHugh his help. In October 2015 he sent her a story he found on a white nationalist website, VDARE. That site “traffics in the ‘white genocide’ or ‘great replacement’ myth, which suggests that nonwhite people are systematically and deliberately wiping white people off the planet.”

Miller had all kinds of racist bugaboos to share. It upset him when Amazon pulled Confederate symbols for sale—just because Dylan Roof posed with the Rebel flag before shooting nine African Americans to death at a Charleston, South Carolina church. Miller suggested McHugh aggregate stories of crimes committed by non-white immigrants. He was enthusiastic when McHugh agreed to do a story on Chris Harper-Mercer, a college student who killed nine at his school in Roseburg, Oregon. Could McHugh emphasize the fact the killer was “mixed race?”

Miller lost interest when it turned out Harper-Mercer espoused white supremacist beliefs.

It’s impossible to miss the drift of Miller’s pro-white, anti-everyone else thinking. (Trump loves him, of course.) Miller has long been a fan of writers who hate Muslims. He liked to send McHugh links to InfoWars, a website which claims the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre was faked. He cited the Immigration Act of 1924, holding it up as a model of good legislation.

Interestingly enough, it was a model Hitler praised too.

In fact, let’s let President Calvin Coolidge explain from the grave why that 1924 law was so necessary and wise.

There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. ….Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.

In fact, according to SPLC, a review of all those hundreds of emails found no “examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.”

*

SINCE WE’RE on the topic of racists and racist policies, let’s hear it for President Trump! The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to his effort to end the DACA program once and for all.

Court watchers believe the five conservatives justices are inclined to allow the Trump plan to go forward. And that means 797,297 “Dreamers,” as they are called, may soon be eligible for deportation.

The rules for acceptance in the DACA program are strict. Applicants must have come to the U.S. before age 16, must have been living here since June 15, 2012, must be in school, have graduated from high school or earned a GED, must have been honorably discharged from the Coast Guard or U.S. armed forces, and must have a job.

A person covered under DACA loses protection if they have felonies or serious misdemeanors on their record.

“Some are very tough, hardened criminals.”

All individuals covered under this Obama-era program were brought to this country illegally, but at an age where they had little say in the matter—or no say at all, since many were too young to talk at the time. They settled here and grew up thinking of themselves as Americans.

That means it’s time for a hateful Trump tweet:

Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from “angels.” Some are very tough, hardened criminals. President Obama said he had no legal right to sign order, but would anyway. If Supreme Court remedies with overturn, a deal will be made with Dems for them to stay!

Later, Trump cites Lou Dobbs, who claims that 53,792 DACA recipients have criminal records. I think, in Lou’s mind, that proves we should deport all 797,297 “Dreamers.” And toss their bags over the border fence, as they leave.

By the way, that would mean 8% of DACA recipients have criminal records vs. 29.5% of all American adults.

Arrest that dangerous illegal immigrant in cap and gown!

November 13-15 are covered in another post related to the

Ukraine/impeachment investigation.

11/16/19: President Trump arrives at Walter Reed Hospital at 2:45 p.m. We are told he’s there to get an early start on his annual checkup, scheduled for February.

White House Fable Maker Stephanie Grisham issues a statement explaining the accelerated timing. “Anticipating a very busy 2020, the President is taking advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam at Walter Reed.”

Grisham likes to issue “statements” because if she gave a press conference, she’d get asked a whole flock of questions she’d have trouble answering, unless she lied. Since taking over for Pinocchio Sanders on June 25, as official “White House Press Secretary,” Ms. Grisham has not yet held a press briefing.

She has found time to buzz over to Fox News and do interviews—complete with actual questions—although, admittedly, easy ones—at least a dozen times. She visited with Eric Bolling, last seen at Fox News harassing female co-workers, currently shilling for Sinclair Broadcasting. Finally, she squeezed in an interview with One America News, a cable channel that makes Fox seem liberal.

As of November 16, 250 days (including time when Sanders was bouncing around the White House) have passed since the last White House press briefing.

White House Fable Maker Grisham.

November 17-21 and parts of November 22 are covered in a separate post on impeachment.

11/22/19: DONALD TRUMP refuses to say whether he’ll sign legislation passed by Congress in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

Any ordinary president would have signed the bill without a moment’s hesitation. But for Trump, all moral questions are solved by totaling losses and gains. If he can get a good trade deal with China—and by that we mean a deal he can brag about—he won’t care if the people in Hong Kong lose their freedom.

Knowing the bill has bi-partisan support (it passed unanimously in the Senate and on a vote of 417-1 in the House), he tries to have his cake and hog it too. In a rambling interview on Fox & Friends, he tells the hosts, “I stand with Hong Kong. I stand with freedom. I stand with all of the things we want to do. But we’re also in the process of making the largest trade deal in history.”

Trump still has a soft spot for China’s President Xi. He’s “an incredible guy,” our freedom-loving president says, and “a friend of mine.”

In a bizarre segue, however, Trump tells the Fox bunch that if it weren’t for him, his friend, President Xi, might have launched a bloody crackdown (shades of Tiananmen Square). The Chinese military might have marched into the city and killed “thousands” of people. “If it weren’t for me, Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes,” he said.

Yeah, boy, that Xi! He’s an “incredible guy,” even if Trump did have to stop him from killing everyone in Hong Kong!

November 23-25 are covered in the impeachment post.

11/26/19: A detailed study reveals that life expectancy in the United States declined again in 2017, the third year in a row. The decline is a result of rising death rates among working-age Americans, 25-64.

The United States continues to spend more per capita on health care than any other industrialized nation.

We continue to get worse results.

11/27/19: A report from the National Center for Health Statistics notes that the fertility rate for the United States fell to its lowest level ever in 2018. For every 1,000 women of child-bearing age, there were 59.1 births. Buried in the numbers, there is one positive trend, with births to teen mothers down 70% since 1991. The decline among women in their 20’s and early 30’s is less positive.

At current rates (1.73 children per woman), and barring robust immigration, the U.S. will soon begin to experience negative population growth.

11/28/19: Trump manages to pull off a surprise trip to Afghanistan to visit the troops. While there he serves turkey and mashed potatoes to servicemen and women and also announce plans to reopen peace negotiations with the Taliban.

In other words, if we watch Fox News, or listen to Trump talk, he’s about to win his second Nobel Peace prize.

11/29/19: The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that headliner Terry Fator at the Mirage has been asked to drop a puppet version of President Trump from his show. The ventriloquist has been performing at the hotel for the last five years, but has been instructed to dump the dummy president.

“This political season is very, very, very rough and it’s going to get nastier,” Fator says management advised him. “Would you mind?”

‘Fine, I’ll do it,’” he agreed.

And, since we’re on the topic of dummies, we should report that in a recent poll, 53% of Republicans agreed. Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln.

Maybe someday kids will want to grow up, not to be just like “Honest Abe,” but “Fat Nixon.”

In that case, girls on the playground, protect your private parts.

11/30/19: Former Republican congressman Charlie Dent tells CNN that colleagues in the House of Representatives are “absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the President’s behavior.”

“Your legacy is more important than the next election.”

“Moving from one corrupt act to another,” Dent said. “I mean those types of head-exploding moments are just I think infuriating these members and I think they’d like to step out but they just can’t because of their base at the moment. I think a lot of members have to take a hard look at this,” Dent continued. “They can be more concerned about their election, or their legacies. And I would argue to many of them: your legacy is more important than the next election.”

Based on what he has seen, Dent said he would probably vote to impeach if he was in the House. “I do think this rises to the level of impeachment.” 

December 1, 2019: The first U.N. diplomatic conference to take action to halt climate change occurred in 1992. So far, humanity has made almost no progress. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen from 358 parts per million to 418 parts per million. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that’s the highest level in…three million years.

It’s safe to assume, President Trump doesn’t know NOAA exists—but if he did, he’d be too lazy to read any reports.

Since 1993, there have been 212 major “weather disasters” in the United States, or 7.8 per year. These include F-5 tornadoes, record-setting floods, and massive forest fires. The total cost: 10,000 lives and $1.45 trillion. And the rate of weather disasters has more than doubled since 1980. Nine of the ten costliest hurricanes, adjusted for inflation, have hit the U.S. since 1992. In a five-year span, ending in 1992, 3.3 million acres of forest went up in flames yearly. By 2018, the five-year average was 7.8 million.

The National Academy of Science reports that Greenland has lost five trillion tons of ice since 1992.

Experts writing in the journal Nature put the loss of Antarctic ice at three trillion tons.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump is run by a former coal industry lobbyist.

*

NUMBERS DON’T LIE, at least, according to mathematicians. Scientists have long warned that global temperatures would be rising much quicker, save for the fact that the oceans sop up most of the heat trapped in the atmosphere. Now, we have fresh evidence of trouble from Iceland.

“Fish made us rich,” Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, said recently. But in the last twenty years, water temperatures off the island have increased as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That meant, this year and last, that Icelanders were unable to harvest capelin. A type of smelt, capelin are the second most valuable fish Icelanders catch, worth an estimated $143 million in 2017. The cod catch, worth $1 billion, has also been affected, since cod feed on capelin. So, when one species disappears a chain reaction begins.

What happened? Capelin “moved farther north where there are colder seas,” one fisherman explained.

Fish can’t vote.

The signs of trouble are everywhere, save for the White House, where the Climate-Denier-in-Chief continues to tweet about cancer-causing windmills and mix up weather and climate. Sea bass, which normally like warmer waters off the mid-Atlantic coast, are showing up off Maine. Spanish hog fish, usually found in the Caribbean, are caught off North Carolina.

According to Daniel Pauly of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, fish “need more oxygen when the temperature is higher.” But warmer water holds less oxygen. That means, as Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor of environmental studies at N.Y.U., says, that fish are swimming for their lives. “They are moving in order to breathe.”

Species found farther south may eventually replace capelin and cod off Iceland and help the fishing industry survive. Tropical nations, however, may be screwed as fish found offshore head for cooler climes and no species replace them. President Trump couldn’t care less because fish can’t vote. 

Capelin are disappearing.

12/3/19: Add another felon to the list of Republicans who love Trump, work for Trump, or want to do dirty work for Trump.

Duncan Hunter, the second member of Congress to endorse Trump for president, pleads guilty to misuse of campaign funds. Prosecutors say Hunter and his wife spent at least $250,000 on themselves. Duncan’s wife pled guilty after he tried to blame her, and testified against him.

It was all a “witch hunt,” Rep. Hunter claimed for over a year. Now, it’s official. Hunter is a witch.

Rep. Chris Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Trump, also pled guilty this fall to felony charges of insider trading.

*

MEANWHILE, A VIDEO of other world leaders laughing at Trump after a clownish performance at the NATO summit goes viral. That’s where American prestige is under Donald J. Trump. (See: 12/4/19.)

VIDEO of other world leaders laughing at Trump at the NATO summit (see: 12/3/19) brings out creepy Kellyanne to defend her boss.

Ms. Conway shows up on Fox & Friends for a friendly chat. Well, she grumps, those other leaders were “childish.” They weren’t denouncing Trump’s policies because his policies are great!

The greatest, most stupendously perfect policies ever!!!!!!!!!

“What was it really about?” Conway asks, and then answers her own question. “It was about the fact that President Trump commands a room, and he does. And maybe that makes a couple of people jealous.”

(This blogger is thinking they’re jealous of his hair.)

12/5/19: The president and the First Lady light the National Christmas Tree. Trump manages to count down, “five, four, three, two, one,” without losing count. The First Lady pushes the button on cue.

And the lights come on, as they have every year, starting in 1923.

“A violent civil war in America fought between the pagan left and the religious right.”

Rev. Rick Wiles

But we know at least one good Christian gentleman who isn’t satisfied with ornaments and lights. On his nightly program on TruNews, Pastor Rick Wiles tells his audience that he’s stockpiling ammunition for the civil war to come, if Trump is impeached and removed from office.

In the true spirit of Second Amendment Jesus, Wiles warns,

Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel, Brad Sherman, and Charles Schumer are compelling calm, law-abiding, middle-class American citizens to prepare for the unthinkable: a violent civil war in America fought between the pagan left and the religious right. Their actions are compelling me and others to immediately get ready to defend our families, our personal lives, and our properties if violence erupts in America over the impeachment and ouster of President Trump.

Wiles continues his tirade: “The Democrats are forcing me to stockpile ammunition, food, water, and medical supplies to defend my family, home, and church. This is a bad dream that won’t end, and it’s brought to you by the Trump haters.”

There’s no time to lose.

“I strongly encourage you to take immediate action to prepare your home and family for the worst,” Wiles tells listeners. “Don’t foolishly dismiss my warning that a revolution could erupt, or widespread civil disruptions, even civil war.”

Not only is Pastor Wiles an anti-Semite (see: 11/21-22/19), and a man willing to stir one fraction of Americans to kill the other fraction, he’s fucking nuts.

Other hit shows on TruNews include:

“Tom Brady is sleeping with a witch.”

And an episode meant to alert diners to the fact that Impossible Burgers are the “work of Luciferians!”

12/6/19: On Twitter, we find Trump bragging about the stock market being way up and touting his job-creating magic again. The report from November is excellent. A total of 266,000 jobs were added. Preliminary numbers for September and October were also revised upward. That brings jobs added in Trump’s first 34 full months in office to 6,545,000.

On Twitter, of course, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee likes to claim that Trump has added “7.2 million jobs since he was elected,” claiming all gains for November and December 2016, and January 2017, before he took office.

You wonder why she just doesn’t claim all the jobs created since he was born in 1946 and be done with it.

 It remains true, however, that Trump has been adding jobs at a slower pace since taking office than Obama did during his last six years in office. But the results of a public opinion poll in December 2016 are still relevant. At that time, one in seven Trump voters believed Hillary Clinton was connected to a child sex trafficking ring, operating out of a pizza parlor basement in Washington D.C.

Almost four in ten Trump lovers believed the stock market went down while Obama was in office.

Two out of every three believed that unemployment increased while the black guy was in the White House.

As for the stock market, at this same point in Obama’s first term, a devastating market skid that he inherited had ended.

The markets were up 52.7%.

Mr. Trump has the markets up 39.3% at this same point in his first term. So, good work, Mr. President.

Just not as good as Obama, who, of course, was never impeached. 

*

ARE WE THERE YET? Is it time to vote Trump out of office? Fresh danger threatens when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, warns Iran that the U.S. has “other tools” to employ if Iran continues its “malicious behavior.” Trump has already tried ripping up an existing treaty, which limited Iran’s ability to produce an atomic bomb. That “tool” totally backfired.

Also, Craft wants the U.N. Security Council to address the growing threat posed by North Korea. (We all remember when Trump tried palling around with Kim Jong-un. That didn’t work so good, either.)

Well, then, who better to work some diplomatic magic than Ambassador Craft, who honed her skills by being, basically, the wife of Joe Craft, owner of the third-largest coalmining business in the U.S.

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump proves once again that he’s an idiot who can’t keep his lies and misrepresentations straight. Today he tweets angrily about unnamed sources, a supposed presidential bugaboo.

 Twitter sleuths quickly remind him what he used to say about his predecessor, Barack Obama:

(To see how absurd Trump’s positions on the topic of President Obama’s birth once were, and how his position morphed over time, consider a report from NPR, highlighting the many  contradictions.)

12/7/19: The president marks the anniversary of Pearl Harbor with a stirring speech about light bulbs and toilets.

For Trump, a day of infamy involves fighting to keep the world safe from energy efficient lighting. The new bulbs, he tells reporters, make him look orange and the EPA will soon be finding ways to bring back the old, wasteful whiter light bulbs.

But the greater tragedy is toilets that require ten and even fifteen flushes! Under his guiding hand—with that hand on the flush lever—Trump promises that the EPA is going to end the tyranny of water-saving toilets.

I, for one, am going to go to the bathroom for a break right now, and when I do, I know 97% of the time one flush will suffice. Sometimes two flushes are necessary. Rarely a third.

After that: go to the plunger.

So: If you’re flushing ten times, the problem is not your toilet, and you need to call a plumber.

If you’re flushing fifteen, you need to call a therapist.

  

*

MEANWHILE, multiple news agencies, including CBS, report that the North Koreans have announced that “de-nuclearization” is off the table. This is no doubt quite a surprise for our president, since Trump described Kim Jong-un as a “friend” as recently as August. And let’s not forget, President Trump deemed North Korea to be no longer a nuclear threat on June 13, 2018.

Here are two of Trump’s August tweets:

Chairman Kim does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust, there is far too much for North Korea to gain - the potential as a Country, under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, is unlimited….I may be wrong, but I believe that......

....Chariman Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as President, can make that vision come true. He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!

*

THE PRESIDENT closes the evening with a rambling talk before the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida.

Apparently, his speech to a dinner crowd of 4,300 involves letting random stereotypes percolate to the surface of his psyche and then spill from his lips. “A lot of you are in the real estate business,” he tells his audience, “because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all.”

Apparently, he means this as a compliment.

But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!

Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.

Yes. He doesn’t have to spend a lot of time on that. Jews are brutal killers, who only care about money.

It’s a pro-Israel crowd, and Trump plays up support for Israel. The chant, “Four more years!” breaks out, followed by loud applause.

Trump laughs and tells listeners that people are saying he won’t step down, even after he wins a second term. “So now we have to start thinking about that, because it’s not a bad idea,” he grins. (Again, you can’t be sure he’s kidding.) The audience responds with chants of “12 more years.”

Just another nutty night in Trumpistan.

Postscript: Reaction, generally, from Jewish American groups to the president’s speech is less than positive.

In fact, maybe Jews don’t have to vote for him! It could be that Jews might put principle above profit.

The American Jewish Committee advocacy group responds: “Surely there must be a better way to appeal to American Jewish voters…than by money references that feed age-old and ugly stereotypes…Let’s stay off that mine-infested road.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, warns that the president’s support for Israel was “essentially undone by his own trafficking of antisemitic tropes: questioning American Jews’ loyalty to Israel and asserting that Jewish voters only care about their wealth.”

Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, labeled Trump’s remarks “deeply offensive.” In an email to Newsweek, she pointed out that support for Republicans among American Jews had dropped significantly since Trump took office, from “33 percent in 2014 to 17 percent in 2018, because Trump’s policies and rhetoric are completely antithetical to Jewish values.”

  

12/8, 12/10 and 12/13 are covered in part two of the story 

of the impeachment of President Trump.

12/9/19: The Inspector General’s report is out regarding the F.B.I. investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign.

This is the report that is going to prove that everyone in the F.B.I. hated Trump—and hated America—and that a coup was plotted. In fact, the “Deep State” was so slick in those days that the “Fake News” New York Times was first to announce (March 2, 2015) that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a private email server, in violation of State Department rules.

Way to stick it to Trump!

The coup gathered force on July 5, 2016, when the diabolical James Comey, Director of the F.B.I., announced that Secretary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information on her private server.

Another body blow to…Trump!!

That investigation was closed in July; but Comey decided to knife Trump in the back again, on October 28. This time, he announced that the investigation had been reopened—and Clinton was under suspicion again.

Yes, sticking it to….Trump…just ten days before voters went to the polls!!!

(Sound of diabolical Comey laugh.)

So, now the report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz is out and when the smoke clears we learn that the F.B.I. was sloppy in investigating Team Trump. Some of the information they relied on proved no good. Some sources were biased. Some were not totally reliable. One agent tampered with an email to make it easier to get a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide. We even learned that Christopher Steele, of Steele dossier fame, had previously had a “personal” relationship with…dun dun dun…Ivanka Trump.

Meaning: Ivanka was part of the “Deep State!”

(Sound of diabolical Ivanka laugh.)

Politico neatly summed up the main takeaways from the report:

First, the F.B.I. did not use the Steele dossier as the basis for opening its Russia investigation as Trump and his allies have long insisted. The first critical warning came from an Australian diplomat.

Second, the F.B.I. was initially “waved off” when it requested a FISA warrant on Page. The F.B.I. then used the Steele dossier to bolster support for a claim that a warrant was justified. According to I.G. Horowitz, he “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the F.B.I.’s decision to seek FISA authority on Carter Page.”

Third, “Lovely Lisa” Page, as President Trump has often portrayed her, and Peter Strzok, “her lover,” as Trump has described them, did indeed have an anti-Trump bias. But they did not lead the investigation. Bill Priestap, head of the F.B.I. counterintelligence division, was in charge. Preistap used his “exercise of discretion in opening the investigation” and “was in compliance with Department and F.B.I. policies.”

Horowitz “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision.”

In fact, some agents had a pro-Trump bias. The day after the election a supervisor volunteered to work on any special probe into the Clinton Foundation. He compared Trump’s victory to “watching a Superbowl comeback.”

As Politico explained, another F.B.I. agent wrote, “Trump!” A colleague replied, “Hahahah. Shit just got real.” Then they added a message from a third agent to their thread: “I saw a lot of scared MFers on…[my way to work] this morning. Start looking for new jobs fellas. Haha.”

They all earned their felonies, fair and square.

Fourth, Carter Page was the only Trump official under FISA surveillance. So, none of the six Trump officials convicted of felonies (so far) were illegally surveilled. They all earned their felonies, fair and square.

Fifth, the F.B.I. had initiated an investigation into Paul Manafort by January 2016, two months before he joined the Trump campaign. Manafort was suspected of money laundering and tax evasion—related to  his payments from corrupt Ukrainian politicians and sleazy oligarchs.

Sixth, the first Carter Page warrant was handled badly and at least one F.B.I. lawyer may have committed a crime in altering documents.

Seventh, the F.B.I. dropped Steele as a source, after he revealed information to reporters. But Bruce Ohr, an attorney for the Department of Justice, met with Steele multiple times to discuss findings. The IG’s report finds Ohr “committed consequential errors in judgment.” 

Lastly, the F.B.I. had a source inside the Trump campaign; but that source did not play a role in the Russia probe.

*

AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED, different observers studied the glass and decided it was half full, or spilling over with toxic sludge, or insisted that the glass was a bathtub filled with bootleg gin.

NBC went with this headline: “Internal Justice watchdog finds that Russia probe was justified, not biased against Trump.”

Fox News went with: “F.B.I. demons plotted against God’s Chosen One.” (Okay, that’s a joke.)

Attorney General Bill Barr—that pillar of unbiased rectitude—gets mad at Horowitz, who he put in charge, and tells reporters, “The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the F.B.I. launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”

President Trump goes bonkers, claiming, that the findings are “far worse than anything I would have even imagined. This was an overthrow of government,” he howls. “This was an attempted overthrow, and a lot of people were in on it, and they got caught. They got caught red-handed.”

Actually, the one agent who tampered with documents got caught, if anyone did. As for Trump and his pals: George Papadopoulos, General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone were all eventually convicted of felonies of different sorts.

All six lied, we assume, in service to Donald J. Trump.

Roger Stone makes six felons from Team Trump 2016.

12/11/19: President Trump holds a Hanukkah Party at the White House, which is a fine idea.

It is not a fine idea, however, to allow Pastor Robert Jeffress to speak. First, Trump calls Jeffress a “tremendous faith leader.”

Jeffress returns the favor, calling Donald “the most pro-faith president in history.”

The problem is that Jeffress has insulted almost every other religion represented at the party, except maybe Zoroastrians. We have made note of this before, but Jeffress believes Mormons are a cult. He has labeled the Catholic Church “the genius of Satan.” As for Islam, you figure he doesn’t much like Muslims, whose religion he calls “evil,” “violent” and “false.” Jeffress doesn’t like Hindus or Buddhists either. But this is a Hanukkah event and you’d have to assume an Evangelical firebrand, who has made it clear he believes all Jews will someday burn in Perdition, might not be the choice of “the most pro-faith president in history” to speak.

Then again, Trump doesn’t really know much about religion.

Or history.

Science.

Etc.

12/12/19: While the president obsesses about toilets (see: 12/7/19), climate change wreaks havoc in the Gulf of Alaska.

A “heat blob” in 2014 raised water temperatures 4-5 degrees, which killed most young Pacific cod. This fall it was found that there were “next to no” new eggs and the cod fishery has been closed for the year. In 2014, Gulf fishermen and women hauled in 113,830 metric tons of cod.

That figure declined to 46,080 metric tons in 2017.

This year, the fishery is closed. (See also: 12/1/19.)

NPR captures the essence of the story in an interview with one man who made his living catching cod:

“It’s kind of devastating,” Kodiak-based…cod fisherman Frank Miles said last month, hoping at the time that the situation would turn around for next year’s season.

Before the first heat wave, Miles said about 70% of his income came from cod fishing. Since then, he’s worked to diversify, but he’s still concerned for the future.

“I’m more worried about my son and his generation, the younger guys coming up,” he said. “I’m 60, I’m probably just about done. I’d like to think that I could fish cod one more time before I retire, but I don’t know. I simply don’t know where we’re going here.”

Neither does the president.

Maybe he’ll spot a cod in his toilet.

(To get some idea of how much money is involved, a metric ton of Pacific cod was selling in 2017 for around $3,500.)

Cod: disappearing from a menu near you.

12/13/19: Exhaustion sets in; the House Judiciary Committee advances two articles of impeachment. On both, 23 Democrats vote “yes,” and 17 Republicans vote “no.” There is plenty of hypocrisy in such a party-line result; and both Republicans and Democrats can cite examples of colleagues taking diametrically different positions in 1998, when Bill Clinton was impeached.

And look, I’m a flaming liberal. But I’m not blind. Or deaf. Or dumb. And I don’t hate America, either, despite what President Trump or his most loyal supporters seem to believe.

Trump deserves to be impeached. He needs to be impeached, even if the Senate won’t remove him. His campaign in 2016 had dozens of contacts with Russian agents offering help against Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t matter if Clinton had major flaws. It doesn’t matter what her missing emails said. The Trump campaign happily pursued Russian assistance in a U.S. election.

This past June, Trump said in an interview that he would take dirt on an opponent if a foreign country offered. He said he would.

He didn’t stutter.

Rep. Adam Schiff didn’t kick him in the groin and make him say he’d welcome help. Trump said it.

He would take help.

Trump didn’t care if he put U.S. security at risk.

He said he’d take it from “Norway,” of course, which sounds almost benign. But later he said China should investigate Joe Biden. China! You know: Communist China. The country that has jailed more journalists this year than any other nation. The country where those who speak out against corrupt leadership end up spending happy time in “re-education” camps.

And then, this past summer, Trump put the squeeze on Ukraine to force the Ukrainians to give him help in the next election.

Trump took help from Russia, a hostile power, in 2016. He said he’d take help again from “Norway” in 2020. What he really meant was: I will put the Ukrainians in a box. If they want military aid, they’re going to have to cough up. I don’t care if Ukrainian security is put at risk. I want them to promise to find dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden. And I don’t care if—in damaging an ally—I put U.S. security at risk.

That’s the story in a nutshell. Put all the posturing and pontificating by politicians aside. Trump wanted foreign help again.

Norway or North Korea, it wouldn’t matter.

Trump wouldn’t care.

He only cares about winning. In the end, there’s only one American he wants to keep safe: himself.

*

A $400 MILLION CONTRACT to build 31 miles of border wall—that money coming from U.S. taxpayers, not the government of Mexico—is under investigation. Oddly enough, the contract was awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel, a North Dakota company, which has never built anything but highways before.

What Fisher Sand & Gravel might lack in wall-building expertise, however, is more than made up for by the enthusiasm company chief executive Tommy Fisher has shown while appearing on Fox News, where he likes to talk about how important a wall on the border with Mexico really is.

If we figure 31 miles will cost taxpayers $400 million. Then 310 miles will be $4 billion; and since we have more than six times that many miles to wall off, figure the total cost will surpass $25 billion. (See: 7/11-12/20.)

(Mexico replies: “The check is in the mail.”)

12/14/19: PBS reports that North Korea has “successfully performed another crucial test at its long-range rocket launch site.”

This second test in a week will “further strengthen its nuclear deterrent” and leave the U.S. with even less room to negotiate.

Pak Jong Chon, chief of the Korean People’s Army’s general staff, said in a statement that his country has built up “tremendous power.” Recent tests will allow the North to develop new weapons to “definitely and reliably” counter U.S. nuclear threats.

This has to be a surprise to President Trump, who said one year, six months, and one day ago, that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat.

12/15/19: You might imagine that our president would be focused on the threat posed by North Korea today.

You would be giving Trump way too much credit.

Sunday, he spends his time tweeting about the sins of President Obama, former F.B.I. Director James Comey and Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. According to the president, Comey was guilty of “unlawful conduct” and might be staring at “years in jail.” The report Horowitz released wasn’t good enough either. “As bad as the I.G. Report is for the FBI and others, and it is really bad,” Trump howls in a tweet, “remember that I.G. Horowitz was appointed by Obama. There was tremendous bias and guilt exposed, so obvious, but Horowitz couldn’t get himself to say it. Big credibility loss. Obama knew everything!”

In fact, the I.G. found that bias did not affect the F.B.I. investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign. Horowitz couldn’t “get himself to say it,” because he wasn’t a liar. (See: 12/16/19.)

Trump also screamed about a Fox News poll that showed 50% of Americans wanted him impeached and removed from office. Another 4% wanted him impeached but spared the ultimate humiliation.

Only 41% said they didn’t think he should be impeached. Trump insisted that Fox needed new pollsters.

He didn’t need to quit breaking the law.

12/16/19: The votes are in and Donald J. Trump, without help from any foreign country, has won for a fifth year in succession.

Politifact, a non-profit fact-checking site, has recognized him for telling the “Lie of the Year.”

This year, his winning whopper, oft-repeated, was saying that the whistleblower got his July 25 phone call “almost completely wrong.”

This was not Trump’s first win. It won’t be his last. In 2018 he shared the award with other liars on the right, after claiming that Parkland High School students who were calling for stricter gun control were “crisis actors.” The year before he swept to victory by insisting that Russian meddling in the 2016 election was a “made up story,” a “witch hunt” and “a hoax.” That followed his epic win in 2016, when he repeatedly labeled any news story he didn’t like “fake news.” That win was part of what would become an impressive streak, since he also won in 2015, in that case for his body of work (Politifact rated 76% of all of Candidate Trump’s claims partly false, false, or “pants-on-fire” false).

12/17-18-19/19 are covered in Part II of the story of impeachment.

12/20/19: The Trump administration rolls back rules on energy efficient light bulbs because…

Okay, there’s no “because.”

The Trump administration doesn’t care about environmental protection and the president can’t tell the difference between climate and weather. So: He doesn’t believe in climate change. (See: 12/21/19). 

*

TEAM TRUMP may not care about protecting the environment; but to listen to President Trump, he is working day and night to protect all good Americans from dangerous criminals who want to slink across the border and rob us—especially if we are old white folks, i.e. the Trump base.

Sutter Health: Ripping off patients and taxpayers.

Unfortunately, Sutter Health, a northern California healthcare provider, was robbing not only old white folks who came to their facilities for treatment, but everyone else, including pregnant women and children with leukemia. Luckily, the State of California got wise and sued Sutter for anti-competitive practices. According to one study, Sutter managed to push the costs of a “typical inpatient procedure” up as much as $90,000, compared to the cost of the same procedure in the southern half of the state.

This lead to a rap on the company’s greedy knuckles and a court settlement of $575 million in damages—just in time for Sutter to avoid a jury trial and possible damages totaling $1 billion.

And that followed a $46 million legal judgment against Sutter for providing kickbacks to doctors who recommended patients use Sutter facilities for expensive operations.

12/21/19: The evidence continues to build…okay, not the evidence against Trump… because he’s still stiffing congressional investigators.

The Trump administration does less than nothing.

We mean evidence of climate catastrophe in the making (see: 12/20/19). Australia just set a dubious record: hottest day ever, December 18, with an average temperature, across the continent, of 107.4 F.

That broke the old record set…on December 17.

And that broke the old record set in 2013.

If that isn’t enough evidence (and for Trump and the Trumplican Party there may never be enough), we can turn to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Relying on more than 26,000 weather stations around the globe, and even more devices to chart ocean temperatures, NOAA notes that June, July and September this year were the hottest those three months have ever been. August tied for second hottest—with August 2015 and August 2017. March, April, October and November were all the second hottest ever, in 2019.

Paris, where records date to 1658, had its hottest day ever at 108.7 F (42.6 C) this past summer.

Signs of trouble continue to multiply; and the Trump administration does less than nothing to address the issue. Under Trump, government agencies are actually thwarting efforts to protect the environment. New studies by NOAA also indicate that California coastal waters are acidifying at twice the rate of waters in other parts of the world, “threatening major fisheries and sounding the alarm that the ocean can absorb only so much more of the world’s carbon emissions.”

Why worry? The Los Angeles Times sums up just a few of the problems in one tightly-written paragraph:

Across the globe, coral reefs are dying, oysters and clams are struggling to build their shells, and fish seem to be losing their sense of smell and direction. Harmful algal blooms are getting more toxic — and occurring more frequently. Researchers are barely keeping up with these new issues while still trying to understand what’s happening under the sea.

Meanwhile, pesky scientists, using satellite imaging, discover that “a little known gas-well accident at an Ohio fracking site” last year “was in fact one of the largest methane leaks ever recorded in the United States.”

How bad was it? More methane was released from that site than some nations spew into the atmosphere in a year.

A Dutch-American team detected the problem and their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this week. Methane, as many people—and all scientists know—is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But don’t worry. President Trump has our backs when it comes to strong-flushing toilets. Plus, he’s good at insulting teenage climate activists. (See: 9/23/19.)

(Trump’s EPA has rolled back rules to control methane emissions, despite the fact methane is estimated to do as much as 30 times more damage to the atmosphere, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide.)

*

IF YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, a growing number of Trump supporters want to save the country by launching a civil war and killing all the Americans they don’t like: namely, non-Christians, liberals, socialists, immigrants, Democratic lawmakers, Trump’s press critics and anyone of dark pigmentation.

The latest in this growing line of “patriots” is six-term Washington State lawmaker Matt Shea. This week, despite being charged with “domestic terrorism, Shea refused to resign his seat.

Your devoted blogger is just waiting for Shea to claim charges against him are part of a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.”

Independent investigators found that Shea had engaged in the training of young people to fight a “holy war.” Shea helped prepare a manifesto—with a kind of a Uni-Bomber vibe—titled Biblical Basis for War.

Just as Jesus and the Founding Fathers intended, the government of the United States would be replaced by a theocracy. In fact, Shea’s plans—and he had many supporters—were even too nutty for Fox News. As Fox reported, Shea talked of a “Holy Army” that would “kill people who flout ‘biblical law.’” In Biblical Basis for War, Shea condemns abortion, same-sex marriage and warns that those who refuse to follow biblical law should be punished.

Stoning, maybe?

“If they do not yield, kill all males,” Shea adds.

According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Shea “espouses far-right conspiracy theories, mingles with militia groups, considers the U.S. ‘a Christian nation’ and champions a push for a fifty-first state called Liberty.”

That’s right: a state called Liberty. And kill all the males who resist.

Just more women for Shea and his nut-job supporters. 

Not mentioned once in the U.S. Constitution: The Bible.
But you can read it whenever you want.

12/22/19: If you still need proof that the Great Wall of Trump isn’t the answer to stopping crime in America, you had it again this week. A trial has now been scheduled for Nicole Franklin, a Des Moines, Iowa woman, who is charged with two counts of attempted murder.

Earlier this month, Franklin decided to make America great again by running over a 14-year-old girl because she believed the teen was “a Mexican.”

In a separate incident the same day, she drove over a curb and ran over a 12-year-old African American youth.

Franklin is—if you haven’t already guessed--white. Franklin is also a racist and moron. The good news is that she is a racist and a moron in jail.

She is currently held under a $1 million bail.

Once more, 12/23 falls under a post related 

to the impeachment of President Trump.

12/24/19: Former Republican Rep. Dave Trott, who served from Michigan in Congress, unloads on Trump. The impetus for his attack comes after he reads an article in The Atlantic, in which U.S. military leaders blast our current Commander-in-Chief.

“Trump is psychologically, morally, intellectually, and emotionally unfit for office.”

Former congressman Dave Trott

In a letter to the editor of the Detroit Free Press, Trott writes:

Frightening. That is the only word to describe Mark Bowden’s article. President Trump’s inability or unwillingness to follow normal decision-making protocols has created chaos in our foreign policy and put our country at risk [emphasis added thoroughout, unless otherwise noted].

I will now have to consider voting for a Democrat: High unemployment, a stagnating economy, and massive debt for a few years are better than alienating the rest of our allies, getting into a nuclear war with Iran, or allowing 10,000 Islamist soldiers to be set free in Syria.

Trump is psychologically, morally, intellectually, and emotionally unfit for office. We can only hope Congress impeaches and removes him so we have a choice between two adults in 2020.

Trott joins former Republican Senator Jeff Flake in roasting Mr. Trump over his conduct. GOP lawmakers, Flake warns, are “denying objective reality” in their insistence that the president did nothing wrong in his dealings with Ukraine.

And it’s worth reminding Americans. The underlying cause in Trump’s impeachment is that he put U.S. security at risk.

Postscript: This blogger was unaware of the article by Bowden until Trott brought it up. Bowden supplies more proof to support the idea I often float for my wife and friends, who, like me, consider Trump to be an existential threat. That is, no matter how bad you think he is, the more you delve into his behavior, the worse you realize it is. Bowden seems to have had that same eye-popping realization.

“In 20 years of writing about the military, I have never heard officers in high positions express such alarm about a president.”

Author Mark Bowden 

A few highlights from what he writes: “To get a sense of what serving Trump has been like, I interviewed officers up and down the ranks, as well as several present and former civilian Pentagon employees.”

Sources included several three- and four-star generals, Bowden says. Most asked to be quoted off the record.

Military officers are sworn to serve whomever voters send to the White House. Cognizant of the special authority they hold, high-level officers epitomize respect for the chain of command, and are extremely reticent about criticizing their civilian overseers. That those I spoke with made an exception in Trump’s case is telling, and much of what they told me is deeply disturbing. In 20 years of writing about the military, I have never heard officers in high positions express such alarm about a president. 

The military men Bowden interviewed warn that we have a “rudderless captaincy,” a president who makes and unmakes foreign policy by tweet and then expects the military to react accordingly. Trump’s approach to North Korea is typical. Threaten “fire and fury” to start. Then go to Twitter to announce joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises have been canceled. Then tweet about pulling American troops from the peninsula and tell the world Kim Jong-un is “your friend.”

“While the lovefest continues for the cameras,” Bowden notes, “the U.S. has quietly uncanceled the canceled military exercises, and dropped any mention of a troop withdrawal.”

Bowden warns, “Out in the field, where combat is more than wordplay, his tweets have consequences. He is not a president who thinks through consequences—and this, the generals stressed, is not the way serious nations behave.”

Bowden identifies five characteristics that define Trump’s leadership style. The military people he talked to believe their Commander-in-Chief is putting the United States at risk.

First, Trump “disdains expertise.”

As different as George W. Bush and Barack Obama were in temperament and policy preferences, one general told me, they were remarkably alike in the Situation Room: Both presidents asked hard questions, wanted prevailing views challenged, insisted on a variety of options to consider, and weighed potential outcomes against broader goals. Trump doesn’t do any of that. Despite commanding the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world, this president prefers to be briefed by Fox News, and then arrives at decisions without input from others.

In other words, the “generals” offering Trump advice are Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs.

None of the three has ever put on the uniform or defended the nation with anything more than their mouths.

Typically, Trump claimed on Twitter that ISIS had been totally defeated—thanks to him. Then he announced that he was going to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria, without seeking advice. That meant deserting the Kurds, who had been battling ISIS by our sides. General Joseph Votel, who had command in the region, was caught by surprise. Now he “found himself in the position of having to tell his allies, in effect, ‘We’re screwing you, but we need you now more than ever.’”

The problem was clear:

American troops were in the final stages of crushing the Islamic State, which, contrary to Trump’s assertion, was collapsing but had not yet been defeated. Its brutal caliphate, which had briefly stretched from eastern Iraq to western Syria, had been painstakingly dismantled over the previous five years by an American-led global coalition, which was close to finishing the job. Now they were to stop and come home?

Votel did something, as a result, that military men are reluctant to do. He announced publicly that ISIS was not yet defeated.

Trump next said he would withdraw troops from Syria—but they would redeploy across the border in Iraq.

Then the Iraqis said our troops wouldn’t be welcome longer than a month. So Trump sent troops right back to northern Syria—and announced that we were guarding the oil—and everything was going to be great.

Second, Bowden writes, the president “trusts only his instincts.” Considering this is a man who believes windmills cause cancer, this is not the best way to handle serious threats to the nation.

Typically, Trump threatened “to end” Iran after they shot down an unmanned American drone. He ordered a retaliatory attack on Iranian defense installations—only to call it off with U.S. planes in the air and only minutes to spare.

“‘How did we even get to that point?’ the general asked me in astonishment,” Bowden writes. “Given what a tinderbox that part of the world is, what kind of commander in chief would risk war with Iran over a drone?”

Third, Bowden warns, the president “resists coherent strategy.”

As a candidate, “he said he would get China to make the North Korean dictator ‘disappear in one form or another very quickly.’” In fact, Trump often talks about achieving diplomatic and military ends “very quickly.” Later, he threatened, in Bowden’s phrase, to “immolate Pyongyang.”

You know, just casually threaten nuclear attack.

See above: threatening to “end Iran.”

Bowden describes what the military men told him were the results:

To operate outside of an organized process, as Trump tends to, is to reel from crisis to rapprochement to crisis, generating little more than noise. This haphazard approach could lead somewhere good—but it could just as easily start a very big fire.

If the president eschews the process, this general told me, then when a challenging national-security issue arises, he won’t have information at hand about what the cascading effects of pursuing different options might be. “He’s kind of shooting blind.” Military commanders find that disconcerting.

Fourth, the Commander-in-Chief “is reflexively contrary.”

According to those who have worked with the president, he “resents advice and instruction. He likes to be agreed with. Efforts to broaden his understanding irritate him.” Trump’s attention span is short, too. He’s not interested in detailed military briefings. He’d rather go tweet.

Bowden continues:

Distrusting expertise, Trump has contradicted and disparaged the intelligence community and presided over a dismantling of the State Department. This has meant leaving open ambassadorships around the world, including in countries vital to American interests such as Brazil, Canada, Honduras, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine. High-level foreign officers, seeing no opportunities for advancement, have been leaving.

“When you lose these diplomats and ambassadors that have all this experience, this language capability, this cultural understanding, that makes things very, very difficult for us,” one of the generals said. “And it leads to poor decisions down the line.”

Trump so resists being led that his instinct is nearly always to upend prevailing opinion.

“He is reflexively contrary,” another of the generals told me.

“Trying to shape this president’s approach to the world into a cogent philosophy is a fool’s errand,” Bowden says. “For those commanding America’s armed forces, it’s best to keep binoculars trained on his Twitter feed.”

And if you’ve ever checked out Donald J. Trump’s Twitter feed, you know how nutso it usually is.

“If you treat civilians disrespectfully, you’re working for the enemy! Trump doesn’t understand.”

A general, commenting for attribution

Fifth, and finally, the president “has a simplistic and antiquated notion of soldiering.” And in this respect, Trump may be damaging our military in the end. On several occasions he has overruled the decisions of the military courts. Bowden lists examples—pardoning “Army Lieutenant Michael Behenna, who had been convicted of murdering an Iraqi prisoner” and overturning the decision of a tribunal in the case of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL. Gallagher had been “accused by his own team members of fatally stabbing a teenage ISIS prisoner and shooting unarmed civilians.”

And lest we forget, “war crimes” do occur. Ask General Chivington, who ordered the butchery of Native Americans at Sand Creek in 1864. Ask the Nazis what happened the town of Lidice in 1942. Remember the torture of U.S. prisoners during the Bataan Death March the same year

Or consider the monstrous behavior of ISIS fighters in recent times.

There are war crimes; but President Bone Spurs avoided service; and he doesn’t grasp that fact.

“He doesn’t understand the warrior ethos,” one general said of the president. “The warrior ethos is important because it’s sort of a sacred covenant not just among members of the military profession, but between the profession and the society in whose name we fight and serve. The warrior ethos…makes wars less inhumane and allows our profession to maintain our self-respect and to be respected by others. Man, if the warrior ethos gets misconstrued into ‘Kill them all …’ ” he said, trailing off. Teaching soldiers about ethical conduct in war is not just about morality: “If you treat civilians disrespectfully, you’re working for the enemy! Trump doesn’t understand.”

Bowden admits that the “military is hard to change.” There are bad generals and good. But, as one general told him, “the military’s experienced leaders have steered Trump away from disaster. So far.”

“The hard part,” one general said, “is that he may be president for another five years.”

12/25/19: “Merry Christmas,” to all Trump lovers everywhere, who think it’s safe to say “Merry Christmas” again.

This liberal can attest to the fact that it has been safe to say, “Merry Christmas,” since at least 1954, when he was in kindergarten.

You may also safely say, “Happy holidays,” if you think a person is not a practicing member of some Christian faith.

Or you may in complete safety say, “Happy holidays,” if you want a shorter salutation than, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”

You can even wear a festive sweater, emblazoned with the words, “Fuck Trump and the sleigh he rode in on,” if the holiday spirit moves you. Because this is a great country, and you have rights; and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that profanity is, in most settings, and in most usages, a form of free speech.

See, for example, the decision in Cohen v. California.

*

THE PRESIDENT issues his annual Christmas message, which, considering the messenger, could be mistaken for a hoax.

“A culture of deeper understanding and respect.”

“While the challenges that face our country are great,” he says, “the bonds that unite us as Americans are much stronger.”

Together, we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect—traits that exemplify the teachings of Christ.

We hope your heart is filled with the love and joy of your faith, family, and friends this Christmas. We send our best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Postscript: Trump’s Christmas mood of understanding and respect doesn’t last more than a few hours.

By the time he dons his pajamas and prepares for bed, he’s tweeting about “Crazy Nancy Pelosi” and the “scam” impeachment case. (See: 12/26/19.)

12/26/19: The president is on vacation at Mar-a-Lago; but his foul mood doesn’t improve, even after a night’s rest.

By 7:18 a.m., he’s tweet-ranting again:

The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because “President Trump is a threat to National Security” (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!

Otherwise, it’s a slow news day in America, at least.

*

A CHECK OF WORLD NEWS hints at metastasizing troubles. We learn, for instance, that farm run-off from Poland is polluting wide swaths of the Baltic Sea. Pesticide run-off builds up to become a threat to humans who consume fish. Fertilizer run-off “saves” humans by killing fish instead.

If you like algae you’re in luck. Algae thrives on fertilizer run-off. It blooms in the Baltic, as it does off the mouth of the Mississippi, where a dead zone the size of Massachusetts was predicted for 2019. That would be the largest expanse ever recorded. Toxic algae blooms turned much of Lake Erie a sick shade of green last summer. A similar problem has left beaches in France covered with “killer slime,” not exactly helpful to the tourist industry, as any fool could see.

While the President of the United States is focused on issues like how many times it takes to flush a toilet—and let’s just say, kudos, because the man does not give up, not if it takes ten tries. Even fifteen.

Meanwhile, pesticides have contributed to a steep decline in honeybee populations, including a 40% decline last winter.

Pollution all across North America has caused a dramatic decline in bird populations, too. The Audubon Society notes that “1 in 4 birds” in North America have already been lost in the past fifty years. This particular blogger, already age 70, won’t be around another fifty years. But my grandkids (and yours) will be, and may curse us all for failure to address serious problems before it was too late.

Think government regulation is the main issue when it comes to environmental protection? You have to be ignoring the evidence.

Or you may be too busy flushing, like Donald J. Trump.

*

But wait! I just stumbled on an old story. Did you know that one expert has estimated that the president’s IQ is 156!

Trump, of course, has described himself as a “very stable genius” since taking office—so, assuming he can get that damn toilet to flush, maybe he can save us in the end. Certainly, one man agrees that Trump is a genius—and that would be Trump. In 2013 he slapped at critics, saying, “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault”

By contrast, he likes to refer to critics and foes of all kinds as “low I.Q. people.” Jon Stewart managed to get under Trump’s orange skin several years ago. Trump lashed out, calling him as an “obnoxious lightweight with a lower I.Q.” Mika Brzezinski, a political commentator, was “low I.Q. Crazy.” “Weak and totally conflicted people” like Rick Wilson “shouldn’t be allowed on television unless given an I.Q. test. Dumb as a rock!” Trump howled. Actor Robert DeNiro was “a very low I.Q. individual.” And in his best worst moment, Trump tweet-quoted Kim Jong-un, the murderous dictator, who had called former Vice President Joe Biden “a fool of low I.Q.”

Trump loved that.

Besides, the murderous dictator is his “friend.”

Trump is insensitive and crude, vulgar and uncouth. For example, he feels compelled to label opponents as “dumb.” The writer Tim O’Brien, a man with three masters’ degrees from Columbia, he called a “dumb guy with no clue.” Jon Stewart, again, was a “dumb clown.” George Will, a conservative of the old school, a school you could still respect, was “the dumbest” political commentator of TV. Bill Maher was “the dumbest man on television.”

And for some reason one popular show irritated Citizen Trump to no end. “Just tried watching Modern Family - written by a moron, really boring,” he tweeted in 2013. “Writer has the mind of a very dumb and backward child. Sorry Danny!”

Yeah. Sorry.

The Wall of Insults.

Someday there will be a Trump Presidential Library—located at Mar-a-Lago, no doubt. It will not be complete unless a Wall of Insults is one of the first displays. Visitors will stop and marvel at all the abuse a petulant president once hurled at other Americans. The wall will be covered with the furious offerings of a very small man. Former C.I.A. Director John Brennan will be described, in perpetuity, as “even dumber” than former F.B.I. Director James Comey. Don Lemon, like Maher, will live on at the library as “the dumbest man on television.” Perhaps this will cause a few quizzical looks. Future Americans will wonder how both Lemon and Maher could be the dumbest men on TV.

They will move on. There will be an entire section crammed with misogynistic comments. Another large section will highlight veiled racist insults. This wall will immortalize the words of a man who knew how to hate.

Tourists who visit the Trump Presidential Library will marvel at all the tactless offerings of a man who rose to the greatest office in a great land. Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party in protest will make the wall, forever listed as “one of the dumbest” people in Congress. Mayor Bill di Blasio will be there, “dumb and incompetent.” General Stanley McChrystal (Trump puts “General” in quotations when he describes him) will be known for “a big, dumb mouth.” Chris Cuomo, on CNN, will not be just dumb. He will be both “Dumb and Sick.”

Even the president’s first choice for Secretary of State will go down in history as dumb—which is another oddity, since the man with an I.Q. of 156 wasn’t smart enough to see that to begin. “Rex Tillerson,” visitors to the Trump Library will learn, “didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock.” 

That insult and hundreds of others will be forever chiseled in stone on the Wall of Insults.

Like the Vietnam War Memorial, only without the redeeming courage and sense of sacrifice.

Finally, one visitor will tire of reading and wander away. A second will take their place and begin reading. Former GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will be chiseled into stone as, “Weak, ineffective and stupid.” Paul Krugman, a Pulitzer-prize winning economist, will get a mention, too. “He is obsessed with hatred,” the Wall of Insults will reveal the president once claimed, “just as others are obsessed with how stupid he is.” Politicians Trump didn’t like, by the dozens, will be included as “stupid.” Obama: a “stupid man.” Hillary: a “stupid” woman. The British ambassador: “a very stupid guy.” 

And finally, even opinion polls Trump didn’t like—and windmills—will be tagged as “stupid” in the end.

12/27/19: President Trump enjoys a 14-day vacation at Mar-a-Lago, which is kind of fun if you remember what he used to say about President Obama. This kind of “behavior” by the dark-skinned guy used to really irritate Citizen Trump. As per this tweet on December 19, 2013: “Pres. Obama is about to embark on a 17 day vacation in his ‘native’ Hawaii, putting Secret Service away from families on Christmas. Aloha!”

Note that little extra touch of dickishness, putting “native” in quotes. Hypocrisy must run in Trump’s veins as thick as pea soup.

Still, we are happy to announce the results of a poll in which Donald J. Trump has finished first! Asked which world leader they considered the “greatest,” um…the “greatest threat to world peace,” 41% of Germans chose Trump!

Rounding out the Top Five were four other authoritarian types, three of whom Mr. Trump has described in glowing terms. Kim Jong-un, Trump’s “friend,” came in second at 17%. Vladimir Putin, who agrees that Trump should not have been impeached, and Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, tied for third at 8%. President Xi Jinping of China, who Trump said it was cool when he was declared president for life, came in fifth with 7%.

Only Khamenei has failed to crack the circle of Trump’s best buds.

*

AS OF TODAY, federal law mandates that an individual must be at least 21 in order to buy cigarettes, cigars or get his or her hands on a vaping pen.

This is the Trump administration moving decisively to keep dangerous objects out of the hands of the young!! As of December 17, CDC had confirmed 54 deaths and nearly 2,000 hospitalizations related to vaping.

If you are at least 18, however, in some states you still have a few interesting purchases you can make. You can march down to your local gun store and purchase a long gun, including an AR-15.

The limited evidence available shows that families who own guns are more likely to suffer fatal suicides than families without guns. Family gun ownership is also believed to be more dangerous to young children. Few guns are used to stop home invaders. Many are picked up by toddlers and fired by mistake.

The death rate from guns in the United States is extremely high, topping rates in almost all other advanced nations by a factor of two or more. But while the CDC can chart the health risks from vaping, the same agency has steered clear of tracking gun violence. The last time they tried, a little more than a quarter-century ago, members of Congress beholden to the N.R.A. cut funding.

And we have clearly seen that President Trump is never going to challenge the N.R.A., no matter how many Americans get shot. Trump fears the N.R.A. almost as much as he fears the American people getting a peak at his taxes.

We cover 12/28 in a post about impeachment.

12/29/19: GOP Sen. James Lankford admits what most Americans have long since figured out. On Face the Nation, he says: “I don’t think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of different youth. That’s just me personally,” he says. “I don’t like the way that he tweets, some of the things that he says, his word choices at times are not my word choices. He comes across with more New York City swagger than I do from the Midwest and definitely not the way that I’m raising my kids.”

Let’s be clear. “New York swagger” is fine.

Trump is just an asshole.

12/30/19: Holy crap! The Trump Winery in Virginia fires at least seven employees who lack legal immigration status.

Omar Miranda, who gave his name, and a second worker who refused, both said they worked at Trump Winery for more than a decade. Miranda noted that workers had finished the harvest season, which meant 60-hour work weeks, sometimes picking grapes under floodlights.

(Something tells this blogger that the Trump Winery wasn’t paying overtime for these workers.)

According to the Washington Post—“Fake News”—to all Trump fans, but a paper that contacted the Trump Organization for comment, the Trump Winery “has long relied on a couple dozen immigrants—primarily from Mexico—who legally arrive year after year on seasonal work visas, living in a dormitory on the winery property during the harvest.” But it was another group of year-round staff that got the axe just before the end of the holiday season.

So, let’s recap:

1.     Trump can’t find American workers to do the grape-picking.

2.     He’s not willing to pay a wage that would attract them.

3.     He takes a chance and hires Mexicans.

And we all know, most Mexicans who come here are “murderers” and “rapists.” Trump told us so.

(Over the past year, the Post notes, it has spoken with at least 49 former Trump employees who lacked proper immigration documentation.)

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Vladimir Putin invites President Trump to come to Moscow next spring, to celebrate the anniversary of the victory against Germany, during World War II.

You figure the two leaders can discuss better relations and also plan for the 2020 U.S. election.

If Trump does attend, he can watch a big military parade; and maybe Putin can give him tips on how to silence pesky critics.

12/31/19: In three of four draft reports, the Scientific Advisory Board for the E.P.A. warns that planned regulatory rollbacks conflict with established science. At least two new rules, one making it easier for coal-fired power plants to release mercury into the air, and another loosening rules about what chemicals can be used near waterways, are set to go into effect in January.

So, Happy New Year! A little extra mercury never hurt anyone. Well, not counting people who have brains, hearts, kidneys, lungs and immune systems.

And unborn babies.

January 1, 2020: Stuart Stevens, a GOP consultant, gets 2020 off to a rousing start when he describes the current state of his party:

Republicans are now officially the character doesn’t count party, the personal responsibility just proves you have failed to blame the other guy party, the deficit doesn’t matter party, the Russia is our ally party, and the I’m-right-and-you-are-human-scum party. Yes, it’s President Trump’s party now, but it stands only for what he has just tweeted.

Again, on this blog, we rarely quote Democrats to make our case. It is our official position that Donald J. Trump is a despicable human being.

Our entry for January 2 relates to the impeachment story.

1/3/20: On the third day of a new year, the president decides it might be fun to see if he could provoke a war with Iran.

With that, he orders a drone strike that kills a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, a man known to have organized numerous attacks against U.S. forces over the last decade or two.

Whether or not this was wise or ill-advised we will know only as events unfold. We do know it was risky. And if we look at Trump’s “thinking” on the subject of Iran over the last few years, we come away knowing that idiocy has been a guiding principle. Donald J. Trump’s tenuous grasp on the complexities and realities of foreign relations bodes ill for the future.

Take, for example, this tweet in September 2011. “The Iranians have just threatened to send warships to our coasts. They laugh at us. We can’t allow them to develop nuclear weapons.”

Trump wanted to make President Obama sound weak; but Iran never sent warships “to our coasts.” Nor was there any proof that they so intended or had the capacity.

And this tweet that October: “Why aren’t we getting any oil from Iraq before we leave? We are leaving the country wide open for Iran. Big mistake.” 

Yes, big mistake to leave Iraq open for Iran!

Since the drone strike that killed Soleimani was carried out while he was on Iraqi soil, Iraq’s parliament has voted to expel all 5,200 U.S. troops in their country. That would be “leaving the country wide open for Iran.”

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TRUMP HAS also made it a habit to offer up bold Twitter predictions, almost all of which prove wrong. Our current president repeatedly said his predecessor would attack Iran to insure his reelection.

A sample:

11/14/11: @BarackObama will attack Iran in the not too distant future because it will help him win the election. 

7/3/12: Just as I predicted, @BarackObama is preparing a possible attack on Iran right before November. 

10/9/12: Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.

9/16/13: I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!

In those days, when all Trump had to do was punch a few buttons on his phone—which, come to think of it, is all he really does now—he was sure, if he were in charge, he could quickly resolve any problem. “How far has the United States gone down when we are reduced to accept the imbecilic deal just agreed to with Iran,” he tweeted in November 2013.

Obama should have, “Read THE ART OF THE DEAL!”

In February 2014, Citizen Trump offered up another heaping helping of stupidity: “Do you think [Sec. of State] John Kerry is aware of the fact that they are building nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea and Pakistan already has them!!”

First, we should note that the Iranians never built a single nuclear weapon while Obama and Kerry were in charge.

Second, North Korea produced its first nuclear weapons during the years Bush 43 was in office.

Third, North Korea has continued to expand its nuclear arsenal in the years Trump has been in the White House.

Fourth, Pakistan started its nuclear weapons program in the 1970s and announced it had nukes in 1998.

Everybody knew it.

*

IN THOSE DAYS, Trump could tweet about how everything would be better if he was in charge. There was no way of proving it.

2/23/15: “The talks between the U.S. and Iran are going on forever, WORLD’S LONGEST NEGOTIATION. Obama has no idea what he is doing - incompetent!” 

3/31/15: “Via @FoxNewsInsider as seen on @foxandfriends: ‘Trump: Iran Nuke Talks Should Have Taken One Day’”

Yes! Obama should have worked out an Iran deal in one day. Which makes you wonder why Trump’s not getting a deal done with Iran in the next 24 hours.

Or the last 24.

Citizen Trump kept attacking:

4/1/15: “Obama’s offer to Iran will not stop Iran’s breakout capability. It is a bad, desperate deal negotiated from weakness. Pass sanctions!”

So, let’s be clear, clearer and clearest. Nuclear weapons produced by Iran during Obama’s eight years in office:

0.

*

DONALD J.’S grasp of the issues never went deeper than what he might spew in a tweet. And there’s almost no evidence, since he took office, that his grasp of important matters is any more nuanced.

For instance:

8/11/15: “The #IranDeal is a catastrophe that must be stopped. Will lead to at least partial world destruction & make Iran a force like never before.”

Yet, we know the following countries and organizations signed on to the deal worked out by the Obama administration. They believed it would keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons until at least 2025:

China

European Union

France

Germany

Russia 

United Kingdom

Now that Trump has backed out of the deal the Iranians have said they will begin breaching treaty limits and produce as much nuclear fuel as they like.

And don’t forget—Kim Jong-un hasn’t given up a single nuclear weapon in the last nineteen months.

“One Day Deal” Donald can’t get it done.

*

IN FACT, where Trump is concerned, it’s impossible to tell where he stands on basic policy. Does he, for instance, care what happens to the people of the Middle East? Or does he only care about oil? When he first took office, Trump was on an anti-Muslim crusade. His base was terrified. They believed Obama was a Muslim. And all the Muslims in the world were out to get us.

So, we had to block immigration from the Muslim world entirely. Trump tweeted simplistic warning:

2/12/17: “72% of refugees admitted into U.S. (2/3 -2/11) during COURT BREAK-DOWN [the federal courts had blocked a travel ban implemented by the Trump administration] are from 7 countries: SYRIA, IRAQ, SOMALIA, IRAN, SUDAN, LIBYA & YEMEN”

Our newly-elected president should have known that many refugees from these countries were Christians. Many were Muslims, but had worked for the U.S. military. That made them unpopular in their own countries. They sought safety in America, a nation they helped during the war.

Eventually, he realized that not all Muslims were bad. He decided he liked Iranians, if they protested against their government:

12/31/17: “Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!”

Of course, under Trump administration policies, if any leaders of those protests might need to flee to avoid arrest or execution, they would not be welcome as refugees in this country.

*

WHAT ABOUT OBAMA? When it came to dealing with Iran, Trump wanted us to know that Obama was weak when he was president.

Trump was a he-man:

7/8/18: “Iranian Harassment of U.S. Warships: 2015: 22 [incidents] 2016: 36 2017: 14 2018: 0 Source: @USNavy”

And with Trump you also got bluster. In July 2018 he hit the caps button and started shouting at the Iranians on Twitter.

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS! 

Tweeting, of course, is not the same as conducting actual diplomacy. So, you had to wonder when Trump was going to get around to working out that “one day” deal with Iran. That was the one he promised he could pull off if he was president. (Kind of like he said “repeal and replace” would be easy.)

Trump kept insisting that Iran was behind all kinds of trouble in the Middle East. For once, he was right. Well, then, what better way to stand up to Iran than to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria!

And to make that decision to withdraw so suddenly that the U.S. commander in the region said he was caught by surprise.

Which meant Trump had to tweet on the topic:

Getting out of Syria was no surprise. I’ve been campaigning on it for years, and six months ago, when I very publicly wanted to do it, I agreed to stay longer. Russia, Iran, Syria & others are the local enemy of ISIS. We were doing there work. Time to come home & rebuild. #MAGA

At last, we were bringing our troops home!

Or not.

Trump almost immediately reversed course and said he was sending most of the troops he was pulling out of Syria to Iraq, and then sent several hundred U.S. troops to eastern Syria to guard the oil. In fact, that’s a key consideration in Trump foreign policy. He likes oil. He wants to keep oil. He wants oil to be safe.

He likes oil more than people.

There were reports in May 2019 that Trump wouldn’t listen to advisers. He was too lazy to dive into details of foreign policy. He was too impatient to listen to briefings. He was too incurious to ask questions.

These stories riled him up and he turned defensive:

5/15/19: “....Different opinions are expressed [in cabinet meetings] and I make a decisive and final decision - it is a very simple process. All sides, views, and policies are covered. I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon.”

That prediction also proved incorrect; but more blustering followed:

5/19/19: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!”

See also: “Fire and fury” for North Korea.

We even got to hear Trump say he could end the war in Afghanistan in ten days, if he killed 10 million Afghans.

(Technically, since he was threatening nuclear holocaust, we should point out that any madman could end a war in ten days, assuming he was willing to wipe entire populations from the surface of the earth.)

The North Koreans have accelerated nuclear production.

Trump’s tweets often sounded juvenile:

6/2/19: “Hearing word that Russia, Syria and, to a lesser extent, Iran, are bombing the hell out of Idlib Province in Syria, and indiscriminately killing many innocent civilians. The World is watching this butchery. What is the purpose, what will it get you? STOP!”

The Iranians were not dissuaded by a Twitter shout. An attack was launched on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. On June 13, Trump had to admit, “‘It is the assessment of the U.S. government that Iran is responsible for today’s attacks in the Gulf of Oman....’ @StateDept @SecPompeo.”

Nine days later, he ordered air strikes after the Iranians shot down a U.S. drone. At the last minute, he aborted the mission.

Time to tweet excuses. First, it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t get a deal. It was still Obama’s fault, even though he left office on January 20, 2017.

Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable. We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday. 

Then we had this head-scratcher. “I never called the strike against Iran ‘BACK,’ as people are incorrectly reporting,” Trump howled, “I just stopped it from going forward at this time!”

The vague phrase “a short number of years” was of course telling. The signatories to the deal had agreed that Iran would not produce weapons-grade nuclear materials before 2025. And international inspectors would check up on the Iranians until 2030. By comparison, Kim Jong-un and the North Koreans have accelerated nuclear production since Trump took office.

In other words, nuclear diplomacy is hard. Harder than “One Day Deal” Donald ever imagined.

That meant threats would have to suffice:

7/3/19: “Iran has just issued a New Warning. Rouhani says that they will Enrich Uranium to ‘any amount we want’ if there is no new Nuclear Deal. Be careful with the threats, Iran. They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!”

Iran responded by threatening U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, which Trump used to say proved Obama was not respected:

7/18/19: “I want to apprise everyone of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz today, involving #USSBoxer, a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship. The BOXER took defensive action against an Iranian drone....”

Next, we had Trump lying: “The Fake News is saying that I am willing to meet with Iran, ‘No Conditions.’ That is an incorrect statement (as usual!).” 

As it turned out, the “Fake News” people were only reporting what Secretary of State Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had both said. Trump would meet with the Iranians without preconditions.

*

FINALLY, in December 2019, Iranian proxy forces in Iraq launched a mortar attack on a U.S. base. The U.S. retaliated with airstrikes on bases controlled by pro-Iranian militias inside Iraq.

On December 31, Trump tweeted:

Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!

....Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!

Ah, that incongruous: “Happy New Year.”

So Trump-like.

Then, the president ordered the drone strike and Soleimani was killed. This meant it was time to tweet-praise himself. Where other presidents had failed, he had not failed. Trump was the best ever:

The United States has paid Iraq Billions of Dollars a year, for many years. That is on top of all else we have done for them. The people of Iraq don’t want to be dominated & controlled by Iran, but ultimately, that is their choice. Over the last 15 years, Iran has gained more.... 

...and more control over Iraq, and the people of Iraq are not happy with that. It will never end well! 

General Qassem Soleimani has killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill many more...but got caught! He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number....

....of PROTESTERS killed in Iran itself. While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe. He should have been taken out many years ago!

First, a minor note—but one that goes to the heart of how Trump communicates. How he came up with the idea that General Soleimani was “responsible for the death of millions of people,” no one can know.

And, as always, in this tweet, we learn that the problems Trump faced were created by his predecessors, not by his own decisions. Gen. Soleimani “should have been taken out years ago.”

Trump decided to issue more threats. On January 4, he warned that the U.S. military had already:

....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

They attacked us, & we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!

At this point, Trump was barking out of his ass. By treaty, the nations of the world have agreed that attacks on cultural sites are war crimes.

Secretary of Defense Esper had no choice but to come out and tell reporters that the U.S. would carry out only lawful attacks.

Next, Secretary of State Pompeo showed up on TV and said Trump wasn’t going to order airstrikes on cultural targets even though he said he was. Pompeo insisted that the real threat to Persian culture came from the ayatollahs in charge—which was partly true. But he did not care to explain how Trump’s threat to blow Persian culture to bits might appeal to the average Iranian in the street.

Last, but not least, on January 5, we had Trump at his most clueless, talking about war as if he were playing a video game.

Here we have pure stupidity, the essence of the Trump presidency, boiled down in one tweet:

The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way...and without hesitation!

No war has ever been fought by “beautiful equipment.” And Trump was blithely talking about killing and maiming human beings.

How many Iranians might die, there was no way of knowing.

Other human beings, Americans, would carry the burden of the fight; and they, too, would be killed and maimed.

You might have thought the President of the United States would take this matter more seriously.

In fact, within hours of that vacuous tweet, militant Islamist forces attacked a U.S. base in Kenya. One U.S. soldier, 23-year-old Henry “Mitch” Mayfield Jr., and two Department of Defense contractors were killed. U.S. commanders said the attack by the al-Shabaab terrorist group, a first in Kenya, involved “indirect and small arms fire.” Six contractor-operated, civilian aircraft were damaged.

“My son was a great man and we love him and we’re going to miss him,” his father Henry Mayfield, told an ABC reporter the next day.

That’s not “beautiful equipment.”

That’s the reality.

1/4/20: John Stipanovich talks about voting for Gerald Ford in 1976. He helped Ronald Reagan win election in 1984. He advised the Bush 43 team on how to win the 2000 Florida recount.

Until this week, he lobbied and did legal work for Republican causes.

Now he has separated himself from his law firm. He says he plans to dedicate the next chapter of his life to defeating Donald J. Trump in his bid for reelection.

In an interview with Florida Politics he admits to being a “Never Trumper,” and for the very best reasons:

Is [Trump] the first demagogue the country has suffered from? Huey Long, Father Coughlin, pick somebody. But he’s the first to be President of the United States, someone that has reached that pinnacle of power. And that’s what makes him uniquely dangerous.

And I do consider him to be an existential threat to American democracy. He attacks the very concept of truth…

What Donald Trump represents, the tendencies he exhibits, the emotions he evokes, are frightening and they’re dangerous in my judgment. He’s the ultimate con man. He’s the carnival barker, and it’s just amazing how many rubes there are in the country.

Stipanovich admits the Republican party has long had a “nasty underbelly,” but the right-wing nuts were a minority. The twisted “genius” of Trump, he says, has been to sense the rot. He has appealed to the worst elements of the party and those elements have “metastasized.”

“I find it sad,” he told the interviewer, “but at the same time, in a perverse way, I find it stimulating.”

I remember reading some history a long time ago about a French order of the day issued at the beginning of World War I when the French offensive on the Rhine failed. The Germans were rushing toward Paris in the west, shattered French units were streaming back. And the order the day was: “Stop where you are, dig in and fight.” And that’s what I’m doing.

Stipanovich, knows what he’s talking about when he promises to dig in and fight. He served with the 1^st Recon Marines in Vietnam and took part in the bloody combat related to the Tet Offensive in 1968. Now he’ll fight a different battle for the soul of his party, and the soul of this country.

1/5/20: Subject to slight revisions, the final jobs report for 2019 is out. Preliminary numbers indicate 145,000 jobs were added in December. That brings the total to a healthy 2,108,000 jobs added for the year.

Three years into his first term, Trump continues to lag, in terms of job creation, compared with what President Obama achieved during his last six years in office.

1/6/20: Reverberations from President Trump’s decision to take out General Soleimani with a drone strike continue to shake the Middle East. Crowds for his funeral in Iran are massive. The fervor for revenge is manifest.

There can be no telling where repercussions will begin or where they will end. General Hossein Dehghan, a top Iranian military adviser, tells CNN that his country will strike back at U.S. military sites in the region. The Iranian Foreign Minister says Iran will no longer be bound by restrictions set forth in the 2015 deal. They will restart their nuclear weapons program.

President Trump hits the caps button and tweets: “IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”

That may be true.

Iran doesn’t have one now—because the 2015 deal was working. So, we’re right back where we were all along.

But now the risk of war has been magnified.

1/7/20: Tuesday night, the Iranians fire twenty missiles at U.S. military bases in Iraq. It is thought that some carried 1,500 pound warheads.

Any miscalculation in the next few hours or days could lead to war between the two nations.

Fortunately, there are no U.S. casualties, which leads to another tone-deaf tweet from President Twitter Thumbs:

All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.

“All is well?”

  

*

WITH MISSILES FLYING, another interesting story gets buried. Imaad Zuberi, who claimed he donated $900,000 to Trump’s inauguration, admits to a series of felonies.

To be fair, Zuberi raised money for Democrat candidates and causes in previous elections. But this time may be different. Zuberi funneled foreign money to Trump and his minions. Among other questionable actions, which led to a charge of obstruction of justice, Mr. Zuberi covered up the fact that at least $50,000 “he” donated came from a foreign individual.

According to CNN, Zuberi deleted emails related to a number of transactions. Those included “a $5.8 million transfer from a foreign national that came in around the time of his [$900,000] political donation.”

That would be Big Money.

Big Foreign Money. Big Foreign Money likely intended to enrich individuals associated with Team Trump 2016.

Often known as: BRIBERY.

Zuberi had already pled guilty to other charges, including income tax evasion, and on those charges alone faces fifteen years in jail. In his latest plea, prosecutors note that Zuberi was desperate enough to offer to pay six witnesses a total of $6,150,000 for false testimony or silence.

Postscript: We might expect Zuberi to start cooperating with investigators. We know, if we watch news other than Fox & Friends and Bill Hemmer, that Eliott Broidy, vice president of the Trump Inaugural Committee, is currently under investigation. And on the topic of felons, we know Broidy pled guilty to bribery years ago, in a scheme to game the New York State pension system.

He was a felon, too, till he agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

For that, his conviction was later reduced.

And for the sheer fun of it, let’s remember that Broidy is famous for paying a Playboy Bunny he says he impregnated a cool $1.6 million to keep her mouth shut about the matter. Even more amusing: That payment was handled through the good offices of Michael Cohen, Donald J. Trump’s personal attorney at the time, and a man currently residing in federal prison.

Finally, we know the Bunny had an abortion.

And there were rumors that Broidy took the fall for none other than our current president and the real father, Donald J. Trump.

And the Bunny.

In any case, the Bunny, Shera Berchard, claimed in court that Broidy had unprotected sex with her, despite the fact he had herpes.

Also, she said Broidy insisted she have the abortion, because—you know—Republicans—family values—and abortion should be illegal.

1/8/20: Apparently, Iranian missiles fired at the U.S. base caused no casualties, and may have been intended to miss—but to serve as a warning, that Iran could strike back hard if they wished.

Several buildings appear on satellite images to have been hit with precision-guided weapons.

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Gosar decides to add to the public’s “understanding” of the situation by tweeting a faked photo of former President Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shaking hands.

When reporters criticize his trick, Gosar gets mad. He never said the picture wasn’t photoshopped he howls. He didn’t say the two men met. The picture only shows them shaking hands!

Who the fuck would think from looking at the picture Gosar posted that they had ever met????

Several questions quickly come to mind. First, how did an idiot like Gosar get a degree in medicine?

Second, who are the 22,300 fools who “liked” this photo?

Third, does Gosar grasp how clueless many of his fans and Trump’s fans are? If they see this photo, they’re going to start loading their guns, shouting that Sharia law is sweeping the nation, and howling that Obama was a Muslim.

Let’s be honest. In 2016 we know two-thirds of Trump supporters believed Obama had a Quran hidden under his bed.

Ah! Silly me. For Trump supporters, I must point out the simplest facts: The Quran is the holy book of Islam.

Oh, damn it. I should explain. Islam is the religion of Moslems.

Or: Muslims.

Shit. Also: freedom of religion is enshrined in our First Amendment. So, if Obama had been a Muslim, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Of course, he wasn’t.

Even Sean Hannity knew the truth—but by the time Trump decided to run for office, Hannity didn’t want those two-thirds of Trump fans to remember that he had previously blasted Mr. Obama in 2007 for his choice in pastors. That would be: Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, of the Trinity Unity Church of Christ, which is assuredly not the name of a mosque.

It paid off in 2016, to scare the ill-informed into thinking Obama was a Muslim, and only Donald J. Trump could save the nation. So Hannity, Trump and most of the right-wing world went with that narrative.

Now, with war a looming possibility, Gosar stirs the fools again. Democrats shake hands with our enemies!!!

*

SO, THE NATION WAITS. President Trump is scheduled to speak to the American people at 11 a.m. The minutes tick by.

Behind the scenes, Trump is making sure every hair is in place.

Check.

Orange cream applied all over the face.

Check.

At 11:25 a.m. he finally strides to the podium. Despite his bone spurs, he manages not to limp.

First, the good news. Although the Iranians fired twenty missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq just hours before, Trump explains, “We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.”

Second, the U.S. would “immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions” on Iran. Because Trump was going to get them to the negotiating table. Like in “one day,” or maybe less.

As he used to say… (See: 1/3/20.)

Third, Trump was hoping our NATO allies would help out more in the region. He would really like it if they would get “much more involved in the Middle East process.”

And we know they’re going to jump at that deal. Because Trump has made a living insulting other NATO members, such as France, Germany and Canada, and because he refused, early in his presidency, to say he’d abide by Article V of the NATO agreement. That essential article says an attack on one member will be considered an attack on all. Trump even said the alliance was “obsolete.”

Then he said it wasn’t.

The French, the Germans, and the Brits all helped work out the Iran deal which President Obama brokered. When Trump came in and tore up that deal, they all said it was working.

Trump “broke” the Middle East. Now, he wants our allies to help fix it. In fact, in his little talk today he called on those three allies, Russia and China, to help him get a new deal with the Iranians.

After he tore up the last deal those nations helped negotiate.

Hey, maybe the Kurds will help! Oh, wait. Trump screwed the Kurds this past October too.

Finally, Trump assures his listeners, “As long as I’m president, Iran will never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.”

This is wonderful news, as every MAGA fan will tell you, because Iran has never had any nuclear weapons.

Now we’re right back where we were before the Iran deal, with Iran threatening to restart its nuclear weapons program.

And…hey, did we mention North Korea? The North Koreans keep building actual nuclear weapons.

Trump can’t stop them, either.

1/9/20: While you were worrying about whether or not Trump would drag us into war, you might not have noticed that scientists say 2019 was the second-hottest year ever recorded.

You can even find the story on Fox News if you dig a little. According to the leading climate change monitoring organization in Europe, 2016 remains the hottest year ever, but only by 0.04 degrees Celsius.

Other records: 2019 was the hottest year in Europe ever. It was the hottest ever on the continent of Australia.

The last five years are the hottest, globally, ever.

And the last ten—the same.

As Fox News explained:

The report found that global average temperatures over the last five years were between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, putting the planet perilously close to the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.

Scientists have warned that failing to cut human emissions of heat-trapping gases rapidly to hold global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius will trigger more extreme wildfires, floods and food shortages impacting hundreds of millions of people.

To get a sense of the growing risks, consider. Australia surpassed that threshold in 2019. The average temperature across the continent was 1.52 degrees Celsius (nearly three degrees Fahrenheit) above average. Results were as predicted. Rainfall patterns were disrupted. When rains did come, they came in torrents, because warmer air holds more moisture. Warmer temperatures also disrupted normal patterns and there were long dry spells.

The continent dried out and caught fire.

It’s mid-summer Down Under and the heat and the toll will grow. So far, 25 people have been killed—as well as one billion animals. Twelve million acres have gone up in flames. The fires are expected to burn for months.

For comparison, that acreage would be the same as burning down the states of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Here in the United States, of course, President Trump thinks we should burn more coal, roll back mileage standards for trucks and cars, and tear down the windmills, which he insists cause cancer.

On the topic of climate change, Trump is as ignorant as a cow in a meadow, farting methane. This past September he said he wasn’t going to worry about climate change because the United States had clean water.

You can’t make that up. A cow in a meadow couldn’t be dumber unless it worked to remain uninformed.

Trump has also rolled back rules requiring oil and gas drillers to control the release of methane, because…

Ah…there’s no “because.”

Trump has a bovine grip on the issue. 

January 10 is covered under the topic of Trump and impeachment.

1/11/20: We learn that the culture at Boeing was broken before their newest plane, the 737 Max 8 started falling from the sky. In recently released documents one employee sums up the general safety and quality of the new aircraft: “This is a joke. This airplane is ridiculous.”

 “I honestly don’t trust many people at Boeing,” another employee admits.

Chelsey B. Sullenberger III, famous for safely landing a crippled jetliner on the Hudson River, sums up the story for reporters, saying, “We’ve all seen this movie before, in places like Enron.”

“Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft?” one Boeing employee asked another in 2018, before two planes nosedived into the ground. “I wouldn’t.”

And, once again, in Trumpistan, we learn that all government regulations are terrible, all the time.

Unless, you fly on airplanes.

And don’t want to die.

1/12/20: Protests in Iran grow, as news that Iranian forces shot down a Ukrainian jetliner by mistake spreads. Many passengers among the 176 dead were Iranian students heading to Canada to pursue advanced degrees.

This gives President Trump a chance to tweet in Farsi, his sudden support for the Iranian people. 

When translated, we get: “The Iranian government should allow human rights groups to monitor and report on the current reality of protests in the Iranian people. We should not see the peaceful killing of protesters again or the Internet shut down. The world is watching.”

The actor Mark Hamill beats me to the punch when he responds, in Farsi: “Please ignore the fact that I created a travel ban for you and threatened to bomb your cultural sites.”

I will add that Trump is no fan of protesters in this country. Remember the good old days, he likes to say, when you could beat them up if they showed up at your rallies and they’d be “carried out on a stretcher?”

*

MEANWHILE, FIRES in Australia continue to spread with no end in sight. Two big fires merge to create a “megafire” engulfing 1.5 million acres, or 2,300 square miles. More than 3,000 homes have gone up in flames. At least 26 people have perished. With winds shifting suddenly on Friday, authorities called on a quarter million people to evacuate their homes. With 15 million acres reduced to ash, we can compare it to burning down the state of West Virginia.

Massive protests force Prime Minister Scott Morrison, until now pretty much a climate change denier, to admit that the link between climate change and the crisis has “been acknowledged.”

1/13/20: The president is having more than the usual trouble keeping his lies straight this week. His latest fabrications seem almost desperate and we have fresh evidence that Mr. Trump will say anything, no matter how outrageous, if he thinks he can trick Americans into believing.

Today, healthcare is the topic requiring deceit. We know that the Trump administration is advancing a lawsuit, Texas v. Azar, through the courts. That lawsuit, if Trump should prevail, will (as even Fox News admitted last March) lead to a “total overturn of Obamacare.” In other words, it would be the end of the first law ever passed to ensure that individuals with pre-existing conditions cannot be discriminated against by insurers. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as many as 129 million Americans might be affected.

The problem for President Trump is that he wants to be re-elected in the worst way, even more than he wants to boink another Playboy Bunny. And if the courts strike down the law before the 2020 election, his chances for a second term in the White House will surely evaporate.

In fact, Kansas—a deep red state—just became the 37^th to adopt Obamacare. And Kansans who have insurance for the first time might not be pleased if it was snatched away before November. 

Even many of Senate Leader McConnell’s constituents might rise up and vote him out of office. After Kentucky adopted Obamacare, the number of uninsured Kentuckians fell from 616,000 to only 223,000.

So. What to do?

Ah! The Trump administration has decided to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to delay hearing the case until after the election. That way MAGA folks who have healthcare can vote for Trump and McConnell and then lose that coverage in 2021. They’ll still have those red hats, though.

That meant, today, Trump was reduced to some truly ballsy lying. In a pair of tweets, he insisted up was down, and he was the real protector of Americans with pre-existing conditions:

[Democratic presidential candidate] Mini Mike Bloomberg is spending a lot of money on False Advertising. I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare, you have it now, while at the same time winning the fight to rid you of the expensive, unfair and very unpopular Individual Mandate.....

....and, if Republicans win in court and take back the House of Represenatives, your healthcare, that I have now brought to the best place in many years, will become the best ever, by far. I will always protect your Pre-Existing Conditions, the Dems will not!

The Associated Press immediately fact-checked Trump and—no surprise—said that he was being dishonest.

*

IN OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS, the mortality rate for all cancers in the U.S. dropped 2.2% from 2016 to 2017 (the latest year for which we have complete figures). It was the biggest one-year drop in history. And, if you know how Trump operates, you know what’s coming.

Bragging!

Dr. Don immediately hogged the credit. “U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest In Recorded History!” he tweeted.

“A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.”

I don’t believe the cancer rate fell because of Trump. But if he insists on claiming credit for everything good, he should also take the blame since the CDC noted that life expectancy dropped in the U.S. in 2017. Also: the fact that suicide rates rose that year to the highest rate since World War II.

In fact, here’s how Trump lowered cancer rates. Lung cancer has been declining for decades because fewer people smoke—a decline Trump started way back in 1965. Thanks to him, only 14% of adults smoked in 2017, compared with 42.5% half a century ago. Second, more Americans are getting early diagnoses and preventative care. Thanks to President Trump, Obamacare was implemented in 2010, and twenty million Americans gained insurance and could get x-rays and checkups to make sure they were, and remained, cancer-free.

Also: Obamacare protected people with pre-existing conditions—all thanks to…Doctor Donald J. Trump.

Cancer rates have been declining because Dr. Donald is the best! In 2011 the Food and Drug Administration approved new therapies for the treatment of melanoma. The mortality rate from skin cancer began to fall, 7% per annually. Trump did that!!!! Starting in 2015, advances in immunotherapy, including use of patients’ own T-cells to fight tumors, led to drops in mortality, as well.

TRUMPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

You don’t even need healthcare at this point. Doctor Donald will remove your cancerous brain tumor himself. The mortality rate will soon drop to zero. In fact, Trump may soon raise the dead.

Postscript: I think all Americans can agree that helpful warnings about cancer risks, issued by Doctor Donald have also alerted citizens to danger and helped us adjust our behaviors as necessary.

In fact, Doctor Donald started fighting cancer, via Twitter, in October 2012, with a pair of life-saving tweets:

“Big cancer risk from new ‘environmental’ light bulbs—a big price to pay!” he warned on October 2.

He followed up two weeks later with this: “Remember, new ‘environment friendly’ lightbulbs can cause cancer. Be careful—the idiots who came up with this stuff don’t care.”

The bulb on the right is trying to kill you.

1/14/20: So much lying to cover. So much crookery to explain. It’s a typical day in Trumpistan.

First, it’s official. The federal deficit topped ONE TRILLION DOLLARS IN 2019 (we are using emphatic capitals, like the president who shouts in tweets). It was hard work, but Trump did it, despite a healthy economy. The red ink total: $1.02 trillion, an increase of 17.1% over 2018.

The deficit in 2018 was also 28.2% higher than 2017.

*

IN NEWS you probably missed, another member of Team Trump 2016 pled guilty to an array of felonies this week, which is kind of like the guy who pled guilty last week. (See: 1/7/20.)

Then it was Imaad Zuberi. Now it’s George Nader. Nader pled guilty to child sex-trafficking, violating every taboo Evangelicals who love Trump say they hate. Sex outside of wedded bliss? Check. Gay sex? Double check with a side of fries. Gay sex with an underage 14-year-old boy.

HOLY SHIT! CHECK!

Do we need a border wall? Apparently, at airports. Nader brought the boy in from a foreign country, just for fun.

What makes this case more intriguing is the fact that prosecutors recommended the shortest possible prison term. That would lead one to believe the pedophile is cooperating with investigators.

One possibility: Nader may have funneled illegal campaign contributions from foreign individuals and interests to the Trump 2016 campaign. And he may know who else was involved.

If you are keeping track of felons associated with the first Trump run for office, the list now includes:

Michael Cohen

Chris Collins

Paul Erickson

Rick Gates

General Michael T. Flynn

Duncan Hunter

Konstantin Kilimnik**

Paul Manafort

George Nader

George Papadopoulos

W. Samuel Patten

Felix Sater

Roger Stone

Natalia Veselnitskaya**

Imaad Zuberi

(To be fair: Sater was a felon when Trump hired him. Kilimnik and Veselnitskaya also make the list, despite the fact they were never convicted. Both booked for Russia before law enforcement could nab them.)

*

IN OTHER NEWS, not involving felons, we learn that Ford Motors is making good use of the money saved when Trump cut corporate taxes. (Did we mention the federal deficit hit ONE TRILLION???)

The company plans to expand production in…you are guessing…Ohio?

Ha, ha. Guess again. Ford is going to help make America Great Again by expanding production in Vietnam.

News about the Ukraine and impeachment, for 1/15, is covered in a separate post.

1/16/20: Scientists at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration release their report for 2019. And while Trump worries about light bulbs trying to kill us, and flushes his toilet like a madman, we now know we have just passed through the second-hottest year ever.

“These trends are the footprints of human activity stomping on the atmosphere.”

Gavin A. Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

As usual, The New York Times does an excellent job of explaining these findings. This is not “Fake News,” as Trump fans might insist. This is providing readers with NASA and NOAA charts.

Then the Times quotes scientists. “These trends are the footprints of human activity stomping on the atmosphere,” Gavin A. Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, tells Times reporters. “We know that this has been driven by human activities.”

In fact, the five hottest years on record are the last five, leading Deke Arndt of NOAA to explain, “We’ve entered a new neighborhood in the last five years.”

It’s a bad neighborhood too.

You wouldn’t want to buy a house there.

(Don’t believe me. Go to the NASA website if you like.)

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Virginia becomes the 38^th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It’s a symbolic move, since the window for ratification closed in 1982. Still, it’s interesting to see how far the “weaker sex” has come in the last half century, with the amendment first proposed in 1972.

“Of all the classes of people who ever lived, the American woman is the most privileged. We have the most rights and rewards, and the fewest duties.”

Phyllis Schlafly, head of the Eagle Forum, 1972

This blogger is a liberal in part because he is old enough to remember a time when women in Ohio couldn’t work construction—because state law said you couldn’t ask a female to lift more than 25 pounds on the job. He graduated from high school the same year a woman who tried to crash the Boston Marathon was nearly ejected from the field. He remembers the “good old days” when Sen. Joni Ernst (a good conservative Republican) could not have flown jet fighters, as she eventually did. In fact, if someone like Sen. Ernst had found work as a stewardess in 1970, they would have been fired if they gained ten pounds and they “aged out” of the job at 35.

By comparison, NASA’s latest graduating class of astronauts includes five women, out of eleven: Kayla Barron, Zena Cardman, Jasmine Moghbeli (an Iranian-American immigrant), Loral O’Hara and Jessica Watkins. “They are the pioneers of the final frontier whose work will help fortify America’s leadership in space for generations to come,” Senator Ted Cruz told the audience for their graduation. “I am excited for the opportunities ahead of them,” he added, “including landing the first woman ever on the surface of the Moon, and having the first boots to step on Mars.”

Ah, for the good old days, when a good conservative like Phyllis Schlafly could insist that women had it made, as long as they stayed at home where God wisely put them to begin. “Of all the classes of people who ever lived, the American woman is the most privileged,” Schlafly insisted in 1972. Lucky women: “We have the most rights and rewards, and the fewest duties.”

Fifty years ago: Women were more likely to get hired if they had good legs, not good brains.

*

DID SOMEONE MENTION immigrants? (I mean, not counting the undocumented workers the Trump Organization keeps having to fire?) Yes. Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, warned on Wednesday that, “There has been a complete breakdown of law & order in New York City.” He went on to add in a tweet, “NYC proudly passed sanctuary city laws & bragged about it for months. But now they, & more importantly, the citizens of NYC are facing the deadly consequences of the sanctuary policies.”

At issue is a heinous crime—on that all agree. Reeaz Khan, a 21-year-old man from Guyana, has been arrested and charged in the brutal sexual assault and murder of 92-year-old Maria Fuertes earlier this month.

Got it?

Undocumented immigrants want to kill us all—and if one undocumented worker or illegal immigrant commits a crime anywhere in America, then we have a “complete breakdown of law & order.”

Now, let’s say Boeing executives cover up flaws in the safety design of their new 737 Max 8 plane. Two crashes: 346 dead.

Complete breakdown of law & order?

Or the Sackler family and others in Big Pharma push sales of opioid pills, calling them safe? Over the course of nine years, 100 billion of those pills are sold to the people of the United States. That works out to almost 300 pills for every man, woman and child in the country. Hundreds of thousand die from opioid abuse.

Complete breakdown of law & order?

A quick check indicates that Mr. Wolf hails from Mississippi, born there in 1976. His grandparents, if they are still alive, could remember the “good old days,” when law and order was always upheld, and you could lynch African Americans with impunity. In fact, if we compare states, Wolf might want to focus on crimes in Mississippi, recently, instead of New York City.

For every 100,000 inhabitants in Wolf’s home state there were 2,637 serious crimes in 2018.

In New York State, that number was 1,791, making it the eighth safest state in the land.

And, of course, there were the raids last August, when ICE agents stormed into seven chicken processing plants in Mississippi and arrested hundreds of armed killers with butcher knives in their hands.

Good Lord! No man, woman, child or chicken was safe!!!

Let’s not be idiots when we consider the news. One scummy criminal doesn’t translate into some sweeping “truth.” But that doesn’t mean Trump’s most fervent fans won’t try to shape this one killing into proof that we must have that wall, that all white folks are in imminent danger, and that all immigrants with dark skins are murderers and rapists.

Well—except Muslims. If you believe Trump, they’re all terrorists.

It’s ludicrous. In the same way, you can’t use the shooting in Odessa, Texas (8 dead, 25 wounded) last August to prove that there has been a “complete breakdown of law & order” in Texas.

Nor does a mass shooting in Virginia Beach in May (13 dead, 4 wounded) prove that all city workers want to kill people.

See, however, Sean Hannity and Tomi Lahren both using the New York City murder to “prove” a point.

Boeing CEO: Responsible for more deaths than any illegal immigrant?

(Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, who was fired after evidence surfaced that his company ignored serious safety issues with the 737 Max 8, is expected to walk away with a severance package worth $58.5 million.)

*

THIS BLOGGER rarely makes definite statements about foreign affairs but does enjoy making fun of President Trump when he makes those same kinds of statements. For example: North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat!

In other words, his recent decision to order a drone strike on an Iranian general may prove to be the correct move in the end.

My concern is that Ian Bond, an expert at the Center for European Reform, is more likely right. “If you have nuclear weapons you get love letters from the president,” he says, “and if you don’t, your generals get killed.”

He thinks the Iranians have more incentive to restart their nuclear weapons program than ever.

1/17/20: The world advances and retreats. With the Governor’s house and legislature in Virginia controlled by Democrats for the first time in years, and new laws to restrict gun rights under consideration, a pro-gun rally is scheduled in Richmond on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Leaving aside discussion of the Second Amendment, neo-Nazi groups are calling for their forces to converge on Richmond and stir up as much trouble as possible.

Time for the boogaloo.

According to The New York Times (Not Fake News; just reporting), extremists have been calling the planned gathering the “boogaloo.” In the white supremacist lexicon, that is any event that will hasten a race war.

“The arc of the moral universe is long,” Dr. King once famously said, “but it bends toward justice.” Unfortunately, we need to remember that groups and individuals are often set on bending it backward. The F.B.I. has arrested three members of a neo-Nazi group, known as The Base. The Times notes, “One of the men, Patrik J. Mathews, 27, a main recruiter for the group, entered the United States illegally from Canada….He was arrested along with Brian M. Lemley Jr., 33, and William G. Bilbrough IV, 19.” Mathews “was trained as a combat engineer and is considered an expert in explosives. The Canadian Army discharged him after his ties to white supremacists surfaced.”

So, proof, I guess, that Trump is right. We do need a border wall. Then, again, Lemley is a U.S. Army veteran. So, forget the wall.

The F.B.I. also arrested Richard Tobin, a young New Jersey man, last November. Tobin was said to have been recruiting for the Base, luring recruits with promises they might get to kill black people with machetes.

*

IN WORLD NEWS, bowing to climate change realities, the German government says it will phase out coal by 2038. A total of $44.5 billion will be set aside to compensate affected workers and companies.

Immigrants? Did we mention, these guys hate immigrants, too?

1/18/20: In a recent poll conducted by Military Times magazine, a majority of active duty U.S. troops have an unfavorable opinion of their Commander-in-Chief.

This blogger was relieved to see it.

1/19/20: It’s a slow Sunday in January. Trump spends the morning at his private golf resort in West Palm Beach.

Later, he flies to a rally in Austin, Texas, where he talks to a conference of American farmers and ranchers. Trump touts his new trade deal with China, which he says, will be great for farmers and ranchers.

Trump is slick in picking evidence. He says these two groups were dying before he took office. In fact, 2016, when Obama was in charge, was a tough year. But, when we adjust for inflation, and subtract $28 billion in bailout money provided by taxpayers—and, really, does anyone in the Trump family pay taxes—then, 2017, 2018 and 2019 would be the second, third and fourth worst years for farmers and ranchers in the last eleven.

So far, for farmers, having Trump as president, has been about as helpful as an invasion of stink bugs.

We cover 1/20-21 and 1/26 in our post on impeachment.

1/22/20: Trump tries to pretend he’s not worried about the impeachment trial; but then he posts 140 tweets and retweets, mostly about the trial, in one day. Finally, his thumbs give out and he has to ice them.

Meanwhile, we are reminded that Candidate Trump promised in 2015 that he would always protect Social Security. Today, reporters ask if Social Security and other entitlements cuts will be on his agenda. “At some point they will be,” he responds. That comment does not go over well with his aging base. (See: 1/23/20.)

1/23/20: President Trump realizes that he shouldn’t have admitted he would look at cuts to Social Security and other entitlements if he won reelection. Time to tweet out a few new lies.

He’ll be the one to “save” Social Security, he says.

Meanwhile, Fox News admits that projected federal deficits are expected to reach $1.2 trillion annually through Fiscal Year 2029, as “red ink explodes.” That’s almost funny, if you remember how much deficits half that size used to make the old Fox News blood boil, when Mr. Obama was in charge.

*

THEN AGAIN, we might not have to worry about red ink exploding, because scientists have moved the Doomsday Clock forward again. The clock, meant to represent the gravest threats to mankind, was first set in 1947, at five minutes, at the dawn of the Atomic Age. Now experts move the hands closer to midnight than ever: 100 seconds away. It’s the third time in the last four years that experts, including thirteen Nobel Laureates, who help assess dangers to the human race, have moved the clock up.

Two simultaneous existential dangers.

The experts explain:

Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.

Someone should probably mention this to President Trump. Go look in the bathroom. He’s probably still flushing the toilet.

1/24/20: In world news, more “proof” that government regulations are always the main threat to human happiness!

In China, where sanitation rules are lightly enforced and routinely ignored, a coronavirus is spreading. It quickly jumps oceans and borders and spreads to several countries. Australia reports four cases, Malaysia four, France its first. Worldwide, 1,400 are sick, forty-two dead. The outbreak is traced to a seafood market in the city of Wuhan—and all transportation in and out of that city of 11 million is halted.

The U.S. reports its first case.

Then a second. (See: 1/27/20.)

1/25/20: The president has no public events scheduled. The polls have improved slightly; but in most Trump is still unpopular.

1/27/20: The new coronavirus continues to spread, inside China and around the globe. There are now 4,000 confirmed cases, including five in the United States. CBS News reports that “there have been unconfirmed claims from anonymous health workers in China that many thousands more than their government is acknowledging could already be infected.” More than 50 million Chinese are under travel restrictions. The death toll rises to at least 106. At least one American, a man named Sam Roth, is trapped in Wuhan with his family, including an infant and a 5-year-old; but the U.S. State Department says it has a limited ability to evacuate U.S. citizens. International cruise ship operators suspend service. Airlines struggle to adjust to the threat. The World Health Organization says that the risk of the infection spreading rapidly is, “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”

Travel disruptions raise concerns for stock markets worldwide. “Consumption and travel will be the most affected, and to a lesser degree investment and industrial production,” says Tommy Wu, senior economist at Oxford Economics. “Travel and tourism across the region” may also be “adversely affected.” Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Philippines, which all rely on the Chinese tourist trade could be at risk.” The Dow Jones average falls 430 points on Monday.

1/28/20: We all know the president is a germaphobe. Considering current concerns, related to the coronavirus, it seemed like a good idea to see what Citizen Trump thought about the way President Obama handled the Ebola scare in 2014.

In those days, Trump was just an ordinary asshole with a Twitter account and only a few lonely souls paid any attention to what he said. When I checked his Twitter archive, however, I was surprised to see that back in the day he fired off 103 tweets and retweets on the topic.

“President Obama has a personal responsibility to visit & embrace all people in the US who contract Ebola!”

Citizen Trump

Naturally, he used most of those posts to stir up hatred and fear, because that’s what he does best. It was too bad, he tweeted, if missionaries and doctors went to West African to help—and got sick, themselves. “The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back,” he howled. “People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences!”

Consequences?

Death?

You had all the typical Trumpisms: Obama was “stupid” to let sick Americans return. On the other hand, Obama didn’t “care” about the public. “It’s almost like he’s saying F-you to U.S. public,” Trump insisted. “Ebola is now a household name in America,” he complained. A patient who showed symptoms only after returning from a trip to Liberia had “lied” on reentry. The contagion might even change society in a positive way. “Something very important, and indeed society changing, may come out of the Ebola epidemic that will be a very good thing,” Trump tweeted.

“NO SHAKING HANDS!”

It wasn’t long before he landed on this nugget of unmitigated ignorance and hate. Since it was Obama’s fault that a doctor returned to America, and a nurse in Houston who treated him contracted the disease, Trump screamed, “Obama has a personal responsibility to visit & embrace all people in the US who contract Ebola!”

*

It’s interesting to go back and look at some of the stories from those days. ABC had a list of people infected, who came to the United States. It included missionaries, a doctor, even a doctor who worked as a missionary in West Africa. Trump insisted all flights to the U.S. from the area should be canceled. (Had those patients, all American citizens, then died overseas, Trump could have blamed Mr. Obama for that instead.) Wikipedia has what seems like a solid list: seven patients who contracted the disease overseas, who returned to the United States. Four healthcare professionals in this country became infected. One of those four died, as did a patient.

So, the panic was overblown. At this checking, there are now six cases of the Chinese coronavirus in the U.S.

If we follow Trump Logic, this is all Trump’s fault. Some serious hugging & embracing will soon be in order.

1/29/20: The final numbers are in and the White House decides to brag: Gross Domestic Production (GDP) for 2019 increased by 2.3 percent. This was down from 2.9 percent growth in 2018; but still somehow reason to boast. Deficit spending, of course, has been a boost, with $1 trillion more spent by the federal government in Fiscal Year 2019 than the federal government took in.

Don’t expect the White House to talk about that.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Alchemy Steven Mnuchin promises that he and Trump have been right all along. Yes, Mnuchin promised Trump’s tax cuts would pay for themselves. No, they haven’t yet. Yes, the deficit has risen by 50%. But don’t worry. The tax cuts will pay for themselves! Soon. Like in…two more years. If we wait two more years and reelect Trump the magic will begin.

Fiscally speaking, if the deficits continue to pile up, as the Congressional Budget Office predicts, the U.S. will eventually end up in a debt crisis, like Greece.

*

THE U.S. POPULATION continues to gray. Barring a pandemic, as the trend continues, the strain on Medicare and Medicaid will begin to buckle the system. With the focus on the Iowa caucuses, The New York Times notes that Iowa is one of 27 states where the population over age 60 is growing and the population under 60 is shrinking.

The number of Americans 65 years old and older is expected to nearly double, from 52 million in 2018 to 95 million by 2060. (This blogger expects to be dead by then. So, he doesn’t care; but his grandchildren will.)

At that point, nearly 1 in 4 Americans, 23%, will be seniors. That means, if we keep piling up debt now, the next generations will be left with nothing more than giant piles of IOU’s signed, most recently, by Donald J. Trump and his Tea Party-Oh-Never-Mind Republican pals.

We wrap up this post and cover 1/30 and 1/31 in the story of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump.

There isn’t really much suspense in the story. Lapdog Mitch McConnell has already made it clear he plans to lick Trump’s hand, even as the president rips off bits and pieces of the U.S. Constitution.