Life in Trumpistan (with more liars): May and June 2019

May 1, 2019: Three perplexing questions confront us as the month begins. First, are shrimp getting high?

Second, how many times can one president tweet in a 24-hour period before his thumbs blister and bleed?

Third, did the Mueller Report really exonerate Trump?

Let’s start with shrimp. Scientists in Great Britain were recently testing river waters at fifteen sites. As expected, they found trace elements of pesticides in all the fish. But who knew! Freshwater shrimp were getting high. Traces of cocaine showed up in tissue samples at every site. The ways in which humankind has managed to degrade the environment are many and varied.

Have some cocaine with your shrimp.

As for tweeting, President Trump rises early to start the month of May. His first tweet comes at 4:56 a.m. Trump is in an orange snit because the International Association of Fire Fighters decided to endorse Joe Biden for president in 2020, with union leaders explaining, “Joe has always had our back.” This pisses off the poor president who tweets angrily, “I’ve done more for Firefighters than this dues sucking union will ever do, and I get paid ZERO!”

By 6:01 a.m. he has already tweeted and retweeted more than sixty times, risking carpal tunnel syndrome.

By the time he hits the sack after a hard day as president, Trump has tweeted 83 times, ending with a quote from Sean Hannity at 10:14 p.m.: “The Mueller Witch Hunt is completely OVER!”

It’s pathetic, really, because earlier in the day we learned that not everyone believes the Mueller Report totally exonerates President Donald R. Trump, as Donald R. has been insisting. (The “R.” is for “Russia.”)

Who disagrees with his assessment?

Special Counsel Mueller!

Once again, the free press is forced to step in and release a copy of a letter Mueller sent to Attorney General William R. Barr (he gets the “R.” too), since Barr has been playing dumb for five weeks and telling everyone he and Mueller agree. Barr says President Trump is exonerated! There was no collusion. And without the underlying crime, Barr insists the president cannot obstruct justice, even if he hits all the witnesses upside their heads with a five iron.

Barr “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance.”

Thanks to reporters doing their jobs, we find out Mueller did not intend to clear Trump. We learn he sent a forceful letter to the AG, outlining several concerns. In that letter, the Special Counsel explains:

As we stated in our meeting of March 5 and reiterated to the Department early in the afternoon of March 24, the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this Office’s work and conclusions. The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and [Barr] released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.

At any rate, Mr. Barr spends a good part of the first day of May—four hours, anyway—testifying before the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and his GOP colleagues spend their two hours’ worth of time allotted for questioning on critical issues like Hillary Clinton’s emails (which might make sense if she was president and we believed her missing emails would reveal a conspiracy with Russians to steal the 2016 election).

Sen. Josh Hawley’s focus is typical. He digs deep into the Mueller Report to land on an August 26, 2016 text message from F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok. It reads: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could smell the Trump support.”

(You can go to the 3:25 mark on this video link if you’d like to see the senator at work.)

Hawley is shocked and outraged and who cares about pages 112-123 of the Mueller Report where we learn that Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman up until that very same month, is working on a “backdoor” peace deal which would be in the best interests of Russia?

If I was Sen. Hawley, I might zoom in on this secret August 2016 meeting, between Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, as noted in the Mueller Report. “Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence [emphasis added, here and below, unless otherwise noted].”

If I were Chairman Graham, I might focus on this June 3, 2016 email from Rob Goldstone, a publicist for a Russian singer named Emin Agalarov, to Donald Trump Jr.:

“Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.

In fact, I might beseech Chairman Graham to heed the words of a great U.S. senator, uttered just days after news of that secret meeting that Goldstone and Don Jr. arranged broke in The New York Times. That great senator asked future F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, on July 12, 2017, during his Senate confirmation hearing, if he thought Don Jr. should have taken the meeting—and did he think Don Jr. or someone involved should have notified the Bureau?

Wray hedged slightly, saying he didn’t know all the details. The senator, growing irate, asked pointedly: Shouldn’t anyone running for office notify authorities if a hostile foreign power offered help during a campaign?

Yes, Wray agreed, saying: “To the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation state or any nonstate actor is the kind of thing the FBI would want to know.”

Who was that great U.S. senator? Who found that email to Don Jr. from Goldstone, and the decision to take the meeting, so highly questionable?

Lindsey Graham.

5/2/19: Attorney General Barr is so worn out after four hours of testimony on May 1, (compared to the eleven-hour grilling Secretary Clinton sat through during the Benghazi hearing), he decides to skip an appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by a Democrat.

Apparently, he’s afraid lawmakers will be mean.

Democrats respond to his non-appearance by placing a placard with his name in front of a silent microphone. They also add a chicken figurine. (I would have added crossed Russian flags, but that’s just me.)

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Steven Moore withdraws his name from consideration to be appointed to the Federal Reserve Board.

Apparently, insulting comments about women he made in the past are too much even for GOP senators like Joni Ernst of Iowa and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. Here’s Moore outlining his position on college girls and date rape and other problems they “say” they encounter:

Colleges are places for rabble-rousing. For men to lose their boyhood innocence. To do stupid things. To stay out way too late drinking. To chase skirts. It’s all a time-tested rite of passage into adulthood. And the women seemed to survive just fine. If they were so oppressed and offended by drunken, lustful frat boys, why is it that on Friday nights they showed up in droves in tight skirts to the keg parties?

Yes: tight skirts!

Time to lose your boyhood innocence, lustful frat boys, even if the girls do object to losing their girlhood innocence.

It doesn’t help, either, when we learn that Moore is for bringing back child labor, that he thinks the biggest economic problem today is declining wages for men (even though they still make more than women), that he doesn’t like the idea of women in combat, and once said that letting women be involved in NCAA sports was ruining the fun for men. Well, unless the women looked like Bonnie Bernstein. “Women are permitted to participate,” he once wrote, “if and only if, they look like (sportscaster) Bonnie Bernstein. The fact that Bonnie knows nothing about basketball is entirely irrelevant.”

To hammer home his argument and make clear his position on the role of women in sports, Moore insisted Bernstein should wear a halter-top during broadcasts. He called that a “no-brainer.”

You can see why President Pussy Grabber likes him.

Moore's idea of the perfect female sportscaster.

5/3/19: The April jobs report is good: 263,000 jobs added, with unemployment falling to 3.6%, the lowest level in fifty years.

This gives President Trump a chance to brag about his magic, job-creating skills and of course he takes it. But we keep checking the math and we keep getting the same results. In his first 27 full months in office, the Orange Buffoon has added 5,400,000 jobs to the U.S. economy, 200,000 per month.

During the last 27 months President Obama sat in the Oval Office, a measly 5,860,000 jobs were added, a shockingly bad average of 217,037 per month.

Of course, Trump is putting all kinds of people back to work! These include the 93,000,000 Americans he claimed had given up looking for jobs while Obama was in charge. That is why the Bureau of Labor Statistics can now report that the labor participation rate (people working + people looking for work) has risen like Jesus, three days after the Crucifixion. Yes, the labor participation rate is now a healthy 62.8 percent, which is much better than in January 2017, when Obama left a mess for Trump to mop up.

The rate then was only 62.9 per…..

WTF!!!!

5/4/19: Remember when “repeal and replace” was going to be easy? Remember when Mexico was going to pay for the wall? And remember when North Korea was “no longer a nuclear threat?” Those were blissful times. Delusional times, true, but the MAGA crowd cheered every ridiculous claim.

Now, with his term of office more than half over, the Great Deal Maker has still not managed to convince the North Koreans to give up a single nuke. For some reason, that doesn’t bother Trump. On Saturday, the president brushed off news that the North had test-fired short-range missiles, tweeting to make his point:

Anything in this very interesting world is possible, but I believe that Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!

Yes, anything in this “very interesting world” is possible. It is possible—likely, even—that Kim Jong-un has played Trump for a fool.

5/5/19: If you pay attention to the news you routinely stumble across evidence to show how much the superrich needed the fat tax cuts they received under President Donald R. Trump. (See: May 1, 2019, for explanation of the “R.”)

Consider this hypothetical example. You are Brian Duperreault, hard-working CEO of AIG. You and your family are taking a road trip. Night has fallen and you have been driving for nine hours. You and your wife and children are tired and stiff from spending most of the day in the car. You pull into the first Motel 6 you see, only to discover all rooms are booked.

Down the road in Malibu, however, you happen upon Nobu Ryokan, a hotel where red neon letters flash: “Vacancy.” You pull up in front, park, step inside, and discover rooms are available.

Only $2,300 per night.

You thank your lucky stars that you got that tax cut, and now your salary and compensation package ($43.1 million in 2018) stretches a little farther and you and your loved ones won’t have to spend the night in a Walmart parking lot, sprawled across the automobile seats.

Room with a view: only $2,300 per night.

5/6/19: Looks like the Democrats are going to need more chicken figurines (see: 5/2/19). President Trump has decided to invoke executive privilege to stop former White House Chief Counsel Don McGahn from testifying in front of Congress. This is necessary, in Trump’s view, mainly because McGahn might restate what he told Mueller’s investigators.

The president repeatedly asked him to break the law.

Trump has time over the weekend to ponder the likelihood that if Mr. Mueller himself testifies he would blast the president’s claim of total exoneration to flinders. With that, he decides Special Counsel Mueller should not testify either.

McGahn told Mueller's investigators that the president ordered him to break the law.

5/7/19: The President has lunch with VP Jesus and later attends the First Lady’s “Be Best” Anniversary Celebration.

It’s even a slow day for Twitter, with the president tweeting or retweeting only fourteen times.

5/8/19: The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Richard Burr, issues a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr. You’ve likely forgotten, but the Trump scion first testified before Burr’s committee in December 2017.

“Part of Russia and its’ governments support for Mr. Trump.”

Among other problems he will face when testifying again, Don Jr. cannot claim executive privilege and refuse to answer questions, since he does not work in the White House.

Also, young Don has lied repeatedly in the past about interactions with Russians.

For some reason there are lawmakers who believe the boy conspired with Russians to get help in swinging the election, having seen evidence of “subtle hints” at Russian willingness to help, as in this June 2016 email exchange. As the Mueller Report notes, Rob Goldstone, a publicist for a Russian singer and friend of the Trumps, informs Jr. that Russian agents would like to meet, and plan to bring along materials damaging to Hillary Clinton. “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Of course, you must puzzle out what Jr. meant by this inscrutable response, “If what you say is true, I love it.”

5/9/19: North Korea launches a pair of short-range ballistic missiles, it’s second launch in a week.

A distraught President Trump spends the morning flipping through his stack of “beautiful letters” from Chairman Kim Jong-un and wondering how he got dumped by his chunky, bad boy, foreign boyfriend.

“I thought we had something real…we fell in love,” aides hear him mutter. “We were so close…to denuking North Korea, which I claimed like a fool we had done in June 2018. I was such a dope!”

“Well, Mr. President,” White House Chief of Staff Mulvaney interjects, “U.S. intelligence officials will be here soon to brief you.”

Realizing a harsh truth, that Kim has been two-timing him, like he two-timed his first wife and—well, yes—his second—and his third—Trump starts blubbering like a child. It doesn’t help when intelligence officials arrive to interrupt his crying jag and explain that not only is Kim not giving up any nuclear weapons, the North is building a massive new base for long-range missiles at a site 100 miles north of the DMZ.

The weepy chief executive perks up a moment and asks a C.I.A. briefer, “DMZ? What are they doing in North Korea? I love Run-DMZ. Back in 1984 they were my favorite hip hop band.”

“Uh…Mr. President, DMZ stands for Demilitarized Zone,” a second briefer explains as gently as possible. “We have evidence that the North Koreans are hollowing out an entire mountain. We can see new roads in the area, facilities for moving, storing and launching long-range, mobile-fired missiles. Satellite images reveal basketball courts and even soldiers on a soccer field, sir.”

Old “Fire and Fury” Trump perks up and asks when Run-DMZ will be playing its first concert in Pingpong. Intelligence agents assume he means Pyongyang. They explain again—this time like they’re talking to a tangerine-tinted toddler, that Run-DMC is not performing for Kim Jong-un anytime soon.

“Based on the information we have now,” says a glum intelligence analyst, “the new base is fully active.”

Trump stumbles from the Oval Office in tears, his orange tanner running like Melania’s mascara when she found out about Stormy Daniels.

And Karen McDougal.

And the housekeeper and the baby.

McDougal was paid and her story was buried.
Trump has cheated on all three of his wives.

5/10/19: The Art of the Deal President admits he still can’t get a trade agreement with China. With that, he slaps a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese products entering the U.S.

“We’re in the middle, taking most of the hits.”

Naturally, China retaliates, with American farmers caught in the middle. According to one estimate, U.S. farmers’ personal income fell by $12 billion during the first three months of 2019.

China is the fourth-largest importer of American agricultural goods. Deere & Co. reports that farmers are cutting back on purchases of tractors and equipment as market uncertainty spreads.

According to the Des Moines Register, soybeans prices have now touched a 10-year low. Still, Iowa farmer Tim Bardole says he supports Trump and his trade policies. “He does really seem to be fighting for us, even if it feels like the two sides are throwing punches and we’re in the middle, taking most of the hits.”

Even this liberal blogger sometimes agrees with Trump on policy and is pleased to see pressure brought to bear on the Chinese. It does seem odd, however, to hear the president claim that U.S. consumers will not be paying the tariffs. China will be paying, he says. They will pay the 25% to the U.S. government. This will help reduce the massive deficits the federal government is running with “Balance the Budget” Trump in charge. And, even though that money will go to the U.S. government, and even though imports will cost more—in some magical fashion, consumers won’t pay more for products like light bulbs and tennis shoes they might want.

Even better, markets for U.S. products won’t be harmed! In Trumpistan, where delusion reigns supreme, it’s a win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win for every man, woman and child in America.

Because with Trump we always win, even at obstruction of justice.

A caveat, of course: When a company imports Chinese goods, the government sends them the bill—that is a bill to pay the tariff. The importer turns around and adds the additional cost to the products it sells.

In the meantime, the president is talking about “our great Patriot Farmers” and how he’s going to step in and help them out. A $15 billion bailout package for farmers and ranchers—who Trump keeps insisting aren’t going to be hurt—on top of an $11 billion bailout package last year, is in the works.

If you pay taxes (does Trump) you just helped bail farmers and ranchers out.

5/11/19: President Trump is furious to learn that a subpoena has been issued for his son, Don Jr. That means he spends most of his morning tweeting and retweeting stories he sees on Fox News.

He’s like one of those pigeons in an experiment to see how often they will peck at a lever, if they are intermittently rewarded with food. In just over an hour he tweets sixty times. He’s totally exonerated, he says. So are Don Jr., and Manafort and Flynn and Gates and Cohen (no, not him) and Papadopoulos, all now convicted felons who worked on his campaign. All  his critics hate America, and they are treasonous and ugly, and, losers and lowlifes and skanks.

5/12/19: President Trump is feeling the heat as more and more information about the Mueller Report spills out, including details that point directly at a case for obstruction of justice.

That means, a crazy man has got to tweet. “My campaign was being seriously spied upon by intel agencies and the Democrats,” Trump howls at one point. He’s praying his fan base will focus on the word “Democrats” and won’t wonder why U.S. intelligence agencies had determined he might be working in the interests of Russia, and not the United States. “This never happened before in American history, and it all turned out to be a total scam, a Witch Hunt, that yielded No Collusion, No Obstruction,” he continued to tap-tap. “This must never be allowed to happen again!”

In a second tweet, Trump’s authoritarian instincts receive full play. This time he rages, “we have had a giant SCAM perpetrated upon our nation, a Witch Hunt, a Treasonous Hoax. That is the Constitutional Crisis & hopefully guilty people will pay!” Once again, the president is accusing political opponents of treason, a crime punishable by death, and warning “guilty people will pay.”

5/13/19: Scientists report that carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere are higher than at any point in the last three million years. Trump is busy tweet-crediting himself for a win streak by the Boston Red Sox:

Has anyone noticed that all the Boston @RedSox have done is WIN since coming to the White House! Others also have done very well. The White House visit is becoming the opposite of being on the cover of Sports Illustrated! By the way, the Boston players were GREAT guys!

Also, he attacks Democratic presidential candidate, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, saying he’ll never be president because he looks like Alfred E. Neuman, the old Mad magazine character.

So, let’s get real. If appearances determined electability—that weird, swept back shock of hair, that radioactive-looking orange skin, those sagging man-boobs and paunch—Trump would be lucky to carry two counties in West Virginia, the reddest of red states, in the election to come.

Postscript: Buttigieg, who did a tour of duty in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, hit back a few days later, basically calling Trump a fake patriot and a coward.

“If you’re a conscientious objector, I’d admire that,” he said in an interview. “But this is somebody who, I think it’s fairly obvious to most of us, took advantage of the fact that he was the child of a multimillionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place.”

5/14/19: Alabama passes the strictest anti-abortion law in the nation, setting up a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. Under new state law, the rights of the “child” take precedence from the moment of conception—at which point the “child” is essentially an egg, moments after being penetrated by one lucky sperm. If the mother was just raped, under this law, she will be required to carry the “child” to term. If the mother is a victim of incest, the “child’s” rights shall supersede her own.

There is no way the zygote (or fertilized egg) could survive outside the mother’s womb, but the zygote’s rights now trump the mothers’.

It will take two weeks of cell division, according to scientists, for the zygote to become an embryo; but the mother shall not have the right to abort. If at four months, doctors determine the child will be born without limbs, the mother shall not have the right to abort. The choice to abort a child with Down Syndrome shall revert to the state, which shall say no. A doctor who performs an abortion shall be guilty of a felony, carrying a penalty of up to 99 years in prison.

As the Washington Post explains:

“This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection,” Alabama state Rep. Terri Collins (R), the sponsor of the bill, said after the vote Tuesday night. “I have prayed my way through this bill. This is the way we get where we want to get eventually.”

So: It’s a religious bill. It’s based on the beliefs of people like Rep. Collins. He believes his interpretation of when life begins should supersede every mothers’ interpretation. The matter of when life begins is not addressed in the U.S. Constitution.

Nor is it addressed in the Bible, the scientific workings of sperm and egg being unknown at the time the Good Book was written.

Sen. Vivian Figures (D), tries to push the debate to a logical conclusion, noting that it would only be sensible if Republicans would make it a felony to have a vasectomy.

The Bible is fine. But it's not the basis of the U.S. Constitution.

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Trump speaks at a White House gathering. By now, we expect him to say something stupid every day. And he does.

He’s touting American energy independence and the contributions of natural gas workers in achieving that end. So far, so good. Then he turns to bashing the Green New Deal and wind power, specifically.

Windmills, he claims, are bird-murdering devices.

His comments are so bizarre, when I see them on Twitter, I suspect it’s some liberal making shit up. Then I check the White House transcript.

Sure enough, here’s Trump blabbering:

Because under the Green New Deal, they [Democrats; liberals] don’t like clean, beautiful natural gas. They don’t like anything. They don’t know what they like. They sort of like wind, even though it kills all the birds. You want to see a bird cemetery? Go under a windmill sometime. You’ll see the saddest — (applause) — you got every type of bird.

You know, in California, you go to jail for five years if you kill a bald eagle. If you go under a windmill, you see them all over the place. Not a good situation. But that’s what they were counting on: wind. And when the wind doesn’t blow, you don’t watch television that night. (Laughter.) Your wife said, “What the hell did you get me into with this Green New Deal, Charlie?”

By unleashing American oil, natural gas, and clean coal, workers like you are helping to fuel America’s historic economic boom. 

Also, you are making America great again!

For eagles.

Eagle killing machines!
(According to Trump)

*

IF WINDMILLS don’t get the birds, God will get us all if lawmakers pass the Equality Act. Good Christian pastor Pat Robertson, who I suspect is milking the yahoos by way of his call-and-donate TV show, warns that if Congress passes the Equality Act, granting legal protections to LGBTQ individuals, we’re going to be as dead as those feathered friends piled up around all the windmills.

The Hill explains:

“They always give good names to these things,” Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network while discussing the bill. “This is a devastating blow to religious freedom and to the sanctity of America. If you want to bring the judgment of God on this nation, you just keep this stuff up.”

“I was reading in Leviticus where it says because of these things the land ‘will vomit you out,’” Robertson continued. “Vomit you out. I think God will say, ‘I’ve had it with America if you do this kind of stuff, I’m going to get rid of you as a nation.’”

Okay, I get it. Windmills and equal rights for LGBTQ individuals are really bad.

“I’m going to get rid of you as a nation.”

God

5/15/19: Speaking of religious fruitcakes, televangelist Jim Bakker is selling $45 dollar coins, bearing the image of Fat Nixon (a.k.a. Donald R. Trump).

This magic coin will serve as a “point of contact” between you and the Lord, as you pray for Trump’s reelection.

Has Putin ordered his?

*

SPEAKING of fruitcakes: we have more news on President Trump! Politico first reported, and other media outlets verified, that Larry Lindsey, a former economic adviser to president George W. Bush, was invited by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to speak to GOP lawmakers about the U.S.-China trade war.

We should probably start with the obvious: George W. didn’t exactly leave the U.S. in robust economic shape. So why listen to Lindsey on trade? Well, it turns out he generally agrees with how Trump is handling the China situation. As the Washington Post describes it, “Lindsey also shared a character analysis of Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling him a ‘sociopath.’ He described the two nations’ standoff as ‘existential’ and said neither country can win so the U.S. has to stay tough.”

Economic policy doesn’t make for much excitement in the internet world. But Lindsey also had a few pungent observations to make about Trump, as a person. He told the gathered lawmakers that he had asked two psychologists he knew to evaluate the president, as best they could.

The professionals found Trump to be a “10 out of 10 narcissist.”

“That’s what he scored,” Lindsey told his audience. You figure very few Republicans were surprised.

Here a brief medical note: According to the Mayo Clinic, the “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” is rare, only 200,000 cases a year; but judge for yourself. Go to the link and see if you don’t think Trump has every symptom in the book.

As Politico first reported, and the Washington Post elaborated, Lindsey said Trump had the same long-term planning abilities as an “empty chair.”

Nor is this “Fake News,” as the Narcissist-in-Chief would insist. The Washington Post asked for additional comment.

Members in attendance did not attempt to challenge Lindsey’s characterization of Trump, aides said.

“I think most were a little taken aback but no one interrupted,” another GOP aide said. “I was surprised McCarthy didn’t since it was his guest.”

McCarthy’s spokesman Matt Sparks declined to comment.

5/16/19: Now that the president has dispatched an extra aircraft carrier group and other important military assets to the Middle East, to counter some amorphous “threat” from Iran, even GOP lawmakers are growing nervous. The fear is that the U.S. may stumble into a new war. “I’m always leery to get us more heavily involved anywhere,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) tells reporters. “If we’re going to go to war somewhere, Congress ought to approve it.”

Sen. Rand Paul is even more direct in his warning to the president and his top aides:

I think it’s important that the administration know that they do not have the permission of Congress to go with Iran. The Constitution is very clear. Congress must declare war…We want to be very clear to them they don’t have the prerogative to go to war without our authority.

As for the influence of National Security Adviser John Bolton, Sen. Paul is blunt. Asked about Bolton’s role in dispatching all the extra war-fighting capabilities to a volatile region, Paul replies, “I fear that he’s a malignancy, a malignant influence on the administration.”

Bolton, of course, was one of the preeminent cheerleaders behind the invasion of Iraq, which was going to be a cakewalk according to people like Bolton—and Cheney—and Rumsfeld—but did not turn out quite that way.

(Liberals who questioned the decision to go to war with Iraq at the time were dismissed in right-wing circles as “unpatriotic.”)

5/17/19: New court filings related to the case against General Michael Flynn do further damage to President Trump’s claim that he has been totally exonerated by the Mueller Report.

New documents reveal that Flynn,

informed the government [investigators] of multiple instances, both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation.

“If there’s information that implicates the President.”

Flynn provided a voicemail recording—and that recording was included in the Mueller Report—from John Dowd, a defense lawyer for President Trump. The recording was made on November 22, 2017, just hours after Flynn made it clear he planned to start cooperating with Mueller’s team.

As with the emails to Don Jr., promising Russian help (see: 5/9/19), try to pick out the subtle hints in what Dowd says:

“I understand your situation, but let me see if I can’t state it in starker terms. … It wouldn't surprise me if you’ve gone on to make a deal with ... the government. … If … there’s information that implicates the president, then we’ve got a national security issue, … so, you know, … we need some kind of heads up. Um, just for the sake of protecting all our interests if we can. … Remember what we’ve always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn, and that still remains.…”

(As the Washington Post explains, “These ellipses and this punctuation are taken directly from the report.”)

The next day, Flynn’s lawyer calls Dowd back. The Mueller Report explains:

“According to Flynn’s attorneys, the President’s personal counsel was indignant and vocal in his disagreement [that Flynn was making the right decision to cooperate]. The President’s personal counsel said that he interpreted what they said to him as a reflection of Flynn’s hostility towards the President and that he planned to inform his client of that interpretation. Flynn’s attorneys understood that statement to be an attempt to make them reconsider their position because the President’s personal counsel believed that Flynn would be disturbed to know that such a message would be conveyed to the President.”

That’s not “Fake News,” either, no matter how many times President Trump wants to say it is.

It’s reporting.

5/18/19: The party of family values and the sanctity of marriage and magic “point of contact” coins for $45 (see: 5/15/19), admits it has accepted almost $400,000 in campaign donations from Steve Wynn, the disgraced former casino magnate. A cool $248,500 went to the Republican National Committee. Another $150,000 went to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Wynn, if you have forgotten, lost his position as fundraising chairman of the Republican National Committee and was forced out as head of Wynn Resorts in January 2018, after evidence of serious sexual abuse was uncovered. The company has since paid a $20 million fine assessed by the Nevada Gaming Commission for ignoring employee complaints about his aberrant behavior. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has also filed a report. Wynn Resorts executives are accused of hushing up complaints, including one from an employee who said Wynn raped her in a massage room.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Wynn had a “decades-long history” of sexual abuse. As summarized by The Week, the Journal found:

…that in 2005, Wynn called a salon worker to his office at the Wynn Las Vegas for a manicure, after which the businessman “pressured her to take her clothes off and told her to lie on the massage table he kept in his office suite.” Despite the manicurist’s repeated statements that she did not want to have sex, Wynn “persisted in his demands,” the Journal wrote, “and ultimately she did disrobe and they had sex.” After the incident, the manicurist filed a report to the Wynn Las Vegas’ human resources department, which ended in Wynn paying the woman a $7.5 million settlement.

The Journal reported that Wynn allegedly repeatedly acted inappropriately around the female hospitality staff in his casinos, to the point where employees “entered fake appointments in the books to help other female workers get around a request for services in Mr. Wynn’s office.” One masseuse, who worked at the Wynn Las Vegas, said Wynn told her to “massage his penis to climax,” and she said she complied because Wynn was her boss—though she refused subsequent requests from him to perform oral sex. Another woman said Wynn asked to kiss her, a comment she “laughed off” so as not to anger him, per the Journal.

As Politico notes, “Last month, Wynn greeted President Donald Trump on the tarmac when the president flew to Las Vegas for a rally.”

Two perverted peas in a pod.

Wynn and Trump.

5/19/19: Who knows what gremlins dance about inside the head of Donald J. Trump? He begins his Sunday, as he begins so many days, with tweeting. He’s infuriated by “all of the Fake News Sunday Political Shows, whose bias & dishonesty is greater than ever seen in our Country before.”

(It’s amazing how many “dishonest” people Trump believes there are, a classic case of projection.)

At any rate, he wants credit for saving “our Military, which was a depleted disaster” before he took over.

By now, we realize the president has only a passing familiarity with real numbers, and if we go back to March 2017, when the U.S. was still operating under the budget limits set by President Obama and a GOP-controlled Congress, our country was spending $596 billion on national defense.

In U.S. dollars, this compared to $566 billion in combined spending by the next seven largest spenders: China ($215 billion), Saudi Arabia ($87 billion), Russia ($66 billion), the United Kingdom ($55 billion), France ($51 billion), India ($51 billion) and Japan ($41 billion).

Total defense spending, by all the nations of the world, in 2017, was estimated to be $1.7 trillion, with the U.S. accounting for 35% of the total. Chinese spending accounted for 13%, second highest, and Russia for 3.8%.

The U.S. military was not “depleted.”

Older chart: but same idea.

A nuclear attack perhaps?

Speaking of military matters, President Trump once again made bombing the shit out of another country sound like a picnic in Central Park. “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran,” Trump cautioned in a Sunday tweet. “Never threaten the United States again!”

What is the plan for “ending” Iran?

A nuclear attack perhaps?

5/20/19: President Trump loses Round One in a ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who says his accountants must turn over financial records subpoenaed by Congress.

“Courts have grappled for more than a century with the question of the scope of Congress’s investigative power,” Mehta writes in his decision. “The binding principle that emerges from these judicial decisions is that courts must presume Congress is acting in furtherance of its constitutional responsibility to legislate and must defer to congressional judgments about what Congress needs to carry out that purpose.”

Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which formally requested documents on Trump and the Trump Organization, calls Mehta’s ruling “a resounding victory for the rule of law and our constitutional system of checks and balances.”

Naturally, the president says the decision is shocking and appalling, and nasty and a disgrace. “It’s totally the wrong decision by, obviously, an Obama-appointed judge.”

Obviously.

Now, a Trump judge? Yeah, those guys you can totally trust.

*

SPEAKING OF TRUST, Kris Kobach, is considering an offer to become Trump’s “immigration czar.”

Now that he has cleaned up all the illegal voting by immigrants, which no one else could find—for example, nine whole cases in Kansas, where he was attorney general for several years—Kobach is ready for a fresh challenge.

There are, however, a few conditions before he accepts the position. First, Kobach wants to be a four-star general in the Trump Air Force, whereby members of the cabinet waste millions flying hither and yon in the most expensive fashion possible. Kobach wants a government jet on call 24 hours a day. Kobach expects to have an office in the West Wing and guaranteed weekends off to be with family. He expects to be the main TV spokesman for the administration—which means Press Secretary Pinocchio can spend her time lying about other matters for a change.

Kobach had about as much success hunting down illegal voters as people do hunting Bigfoot.

5/21/19: Tuesday is a busy day for lawyers, as former White House Chief Counsel Don McGahn, bowing to presidential orders, refuses to appear for testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Normally, communications between a president and aides are privileged.

That is, they are not subject to review.

McGahn has already talked at length with investigators, and his comments, outlined in the Mueller Report, hint strongly at obstruction of justice by the president. His previous testimony, when the White House waived privilege, may make it hard in court to claim privilege now.

In any case, aides have often appeared before Congress and claimed “executive privilege” in declining to answer specific questions.

It is unlikely that an aide can just blow off an appearance entirely. The courts will now have to decide.

Meanwhile, fresh subpoenas go out for Hope Hicks, one of Trump’s favorite aides, and a young woman who may very well have aided in obstruction of justice. Since her alleged involvement in obstruction predates Trump’s election, her testimony will almost surely be required.

Also served a subpoena: Annie Donaldson, former White House Deputy Counsel and top associate of Mr. McGahn. She took daily notes of discussions involving the president, herself, and McGahn.

Donaldson’s notes are often cryptic, as we learn if we read the Mueller Report. But when Trump rages about firing F.B.I. Director James Comey—because of the Russia investigation —she writes, “Is this the beginning of the end?”

The evidence for obstruction of justice by the President of the United States continues to build. (See: 5/17/19.)

5/22/19: Let’s talk deals. Let’s talk Democrats and President Trump working out a $2 trillion deal on infrastructure... 

Never mind. Let’s talk temper tantrums!

A meeting at the White House collapses like an interstate highway bridge in desperate need of repair, when Donald R. Trump (the “R” is honorary, for his collaboration with Russians) stalks into a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer and never makes it to his highchair.

The Toddler-in-Chief is steaming because Democrats are accusing him of obstruction of justice—and keep coming up with evidence to support their charges. Trump informs Pelosi that her comments—that he’s engaged in a cover up—are “terrible” and stomps out of the room before anyone else can utter a word.

Moments later, he appears in front of reporters at a lectern in the Rose Garden. Some thoughtful aide has stuck a sign in front, reading, “No Collusion, No Obstruction.”

Trump lets rip:

Instead of walking in happily into a meeting, I walk in to look at people that have just said that I was doing a cover-up. I don’t do cover-ups.

I walked into the room and I told Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi: “I want to do infrastructure. I want to do it more than you want to do it. I’d be really good at that, that’s what I do. But you know what? You can’t do it under these circumstances. So get these phony investigations over with.”

“You can’t legislate and investigate at the same time,” he complains. This is like saying you can’t drive a car or mail a letter if you are going through a divorce. At any rate, we’re never going to know if Trump might be “really good” at doing infrastructure, because he proves once again, he’s a septuagenarian baby.

“This meeting was set up a number of days ago,” Trump continues. “All of a sudden I hear last night they’re going to have a meeting right before this meeting to talk about the ‘I word.’ The ‘I word.’ Can you imagine?”

Can you imagine?  

“Incontinent?”

Other possibilities, swirl in imagination: “imbecile,” “infantile,” “immoral,” “incompetent,” “inept,” “impede” (as in “impede an investigation”) and “indict.”

“Impeach?”

Speaker Pelosi sums up the meeting later. “He just took a pass, and it just makes me wonder why he did that. In any event, I pray for the president and I pray for the United States of America.”

5/23/19: Trump goes off script during a meeting with American farmers  and lays into Speaker Pelosi, labeling her “crazy Nancy,” and calling her a “mess.” “They say she’s disintegrating before their eyes,” the president claims, without explaining who “they” are, which means he’s making shit up again. The president is basically his own “anonymous source.”

He says he’s an “extremely stable genius,” even though he walked out of a meeting with top Democratic lawmakers the day before. To prove it, he calls on his sycophants to vouch for his stability and genius. 

Kellyanne Conway goes first. By now we all know if Trump was prancing around the White House in pink lace panties, she’d insist he was wearing a stylish tuxedo and looked like Adonis. Yes, she tells reporters, her boss was “very calm.”

Trump then calls up Mercedes Schlapp, Larry Kudlow and Press Secretary Pinocchio, who all agree. The president was “very calm.”

It’s an Oval Office cult.

5/24/19: President Trump changes his mind again. Stopping on the South Lawn to chat with reporters, the “extremely stable genius” says he could still work with Democrats on an infrastructure deal. “I can work with the speaker, sure. I can work with the speaker,” he insists, when asked about Nancy Pelosi.

He insisted on Wednesday he couldn’t—and said on Thursday, that Pelosi was crazy and that was why he waddled out of the meeting on infrastructure. 

*

IN OTHER RIGHT-WING NEWS, it’s official. America is a theocracy. Florida lawmaker Mike Hill insists he has been talking directly to God, and God convinced him to introduce a bill which would have banned abortions in the state as soon as a heartbeat could be detected. God was clear. Hill had included exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergency and human trafficking.

Speaking to a group called Women for Responsible Legislation, he explained, God “said, ‘you remove those exceptions and you file it again.’ And I said, ‘Yes Lord, I will.’ It’s coming back. It’s coming back. We are going to file that bill without any exceptions, just like what we saw passed in Alabama.”

In other words, like Alabama lawmakers, God thinks if you are raped, you should have the baby if you get pregnant.

It’s all right there, nowhere, in the Bible.

Postscript: It has been said that God works in mysterious ways. According to Press Secretary Pinocchio, God mysteriously wanted Trump to be president. So did Vladimir Putin—but that’s a different matter.

Pastor Paula White, Trump’s spiritual advisor, agrees. God wanted Trump. (You thought it had something to do with the Electoral College!) That means opposition to Trump is opposition to God. If you would also give White 1/12 of your earnings every year, as first fruits, she will make sure to send you a Paula White calendar thrown in as part of the deal. (See: 1/30/19.)

I think, by the same logic, we must assume God picked Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Xi Jinping, and Trump’s best buds, Vlad and Kim Jong-un.

Hey, free calendar!

5/25/19: President Trump is in Japan. Having nothing better to do with his time, during the flight over, he starts tweeting and retweeting, early and often. At 1:51 a.m. he’s alert, and retweeting Jim Jordan.

At any rate, he and the First Lady land safely and the Japanese soon dispatch the Golfer-in-Chief for a round with Prime Minister Abe, which means Trump is doing what he really loves best. Golfing.

By now, he’s closing in on 200 days, as president, devoted to the sport.

As we have mentioned before, Trump used to turn a burning shade of orange when he thought about Obama and how that lazy Kenyan played more rounds than Tiger Woods. Sure enough, according to Golf Digest, Obama played a lot: 306 rounds during eight years in the White House.

Let’s turn now to TheGolfNewsNet.com to see how often Trump is out on the links, now that he’s leading the Free World.

How many times has Trump played golf as President of the United States? Since taking office on Jan. 20, 2017, Mr. Trump has reportedly been on the grounds of his golf courses or played golf elsewhere 191 times since becoming President, and that’s as of May 26, 2019.

That means, Trump is on pace to play nearly 750 times in eight years, should, God forbid, we give him eight years.

Of course, Dwight D. Eisenhower logged 800 rounds during his two terms in office. We can give him a pass, because he never lied to get out of the military and never claimed he had debilitating bone spurs.

Missiles smissiles! Trump still thinks he denuked North Korea.

Japan! We were talking about Trump going to Japan!

Once again, Trump fails to come to any trade agreements. He also undercuts Prime Minister Abe and his U.S. intelligence team in shrugging off recent North Korean missile launches. “My people think it could have been a violation [of U.N. sanctions],” the president says, “I view it differently.”

Yes, Trump views it differently, because:

A)    The short-range missiles the North tested couldn’t hit the USA.

B)     He doesn’t care if Tokyo gets annihilated.

C)    The president has already declared that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. If he starts acting like North Korea is—and it is—he’ll look like the giant fool that he is.

Trump then disgraces himself completely with a tweet, quoting a murderous dictator approvingly, after Kim Jong-un attacks a former U.S. vice president, and candidate for president in 2020.

In other words, Trump has no shame:

North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?

Yes, they are sending you a “signal,” because they know you’ll fall for this transparent trick.

Kim Jong-un has sized you up and knows you’re a chump.

Postscript: Sunday morning, Press Secretary Pinocchio shows up like a demon from Lying Hell, for an appearance on Chuck Todd’s show. She says, sure, quoting a homicidal maniac to attack a fellow America was great.

Ms. Sanders adds that Kim Jong-un and the president have a similar opinion when it comes to Mr. Biden. That’s all.

They also have similar instincts when it comes to suppressing dissent, save for the fact that Trump hasn’t suggested thinning out the press corps with anti-aircraft guns. At least to this point. (See 5/31/19.)

“In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has. I believe the only hope for him, and this nation, is God.”

Rev. Franklin Graham

5/26/19: Franklin Graham calls for a national day of prayer to protect President Trump from his enemies—such as reporters quoting the crap he says, Democrats running for president, and a majority of Americans who disapprove of the job he’s doing. On Facebook, Reverend Graham posts:

President Trump’s enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family, and the presidency. In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has. I believe the only hope for him, and this nation, is God. This is a critical time for America. We’re on the edge of a precipice. Time is short. We need to pray for God to intervene. We need to ask God to protect, strengthen, encourage, and guide the president.

We know that God hears and answers prayer. He can soften hearts and change minds. He is all-powerful, and He rules over the affairs of nations.

*

WELL, THEN, THANK GOD for the Trump Tax Cuts, which will not drive up the deficit, because the president says they won’t.

Okay, that was wrong….

But don’t worry! According to Kevin Hassert, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, starting in 2021, companies will begin to pass along the extra money they are making to workers. Then the average American family will have an extra $4,000 to spend.

Yes, there will be pie in the sky in 2021! Meanwhile, Mr. or Ms. Average American Worker, you saw wages skyrocket last year, didn’t you! When adjusted for inflation, Mr. Carpenter and Ms. Teacher, you enjoyed a 1.2% increase in real wages. (So says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

Using a slightly different measure, BLS statistics show average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, are up 1.1% in the last twelve months. In either case, the average worker is up roughly $500 this year.

The numbers get less and less impressive the more you look. Workers saw better increases under Obama in 2013, 2014 and 2015. According to Pew Research, wages for the average worker, adjusted for inflation, peaked in 1973, at $23.68 in 2018 dollars. That was before the union busting heyday of Ronald Reagan, before Big Corporations learned to play the game of shifting jobs from “high wage” states (Ohio) to “low wage states” (South Carolina) and then perfected the next version of the same game—shipping jobs from “high wage” countries (USA) to “low wage” countries (Sri Lanka). If they could find cheaper labor on Mars, they’d outsource jobs to Mars.

Earning $260,735 per hour must be kind of nice.

But let’s all hear a cheer for the Top 1%, who continue to make capitalism work better and better for the Top 1%.

Top CEO salaries are out for 2018, and while the average worker might wipe out his or her extra $500 with one trip to the emergency room for a child with a broken wrist, Elon Musk of Tesla, earned $2,284,044,884 in 2018. You can understand why Musk needed a tax cut, since he was earning $260,735 per hour, round the clock, even when gargling or flossing his teeth.

How are some of the others in the Top 1% faring, while you spend your 1.1% -1.2% wage increase? David Zaslav of Discovery received a 207% raise this year and pulled down $129,499,005 in salary and compensation. The co-chief CEOs of Oracle, Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, did quite nicely, but Catz must be pissed to see Hurd earned $108,295,023 when all he got was $108,282,333.

You figure Catz goes home at night and starts drinking, knowing how little respected he is at work.

James A. Murdoch, head of Twenty-First Century Fox, received a 125% raise, to $44,415,365, which helps explain why Fox News is always thumping the drum for tax relief.

The head of Skechers USA made $27,361,406, a salary equivalent to what 2,159 ordinary Skechers employees earned for the year. Of course, most Skechers employees are toiling away in low-wage communists states like China and Vietnam, and soon to be, in India.

Check the labels in your own shoes. You won't find many made in America.

The head of Universal Health Services pulled down $23,545839, which explains why, when you call about a bill, you get an automated voice telling you what numbers to push, and then after 26 minutes on the phone you get disconnected.

The head of Boeing earned $23,392,187, meaning he got a 38% raise in 2018, despite the fact Boeing planes kept crashing.

Walmart, CEO C. Douglas McMillon, earned $22,527,249, as much as 1,076 checkout workers.

The CEO’s of Big Pharma had a great year. The head of Merck made $20,934,504; the head of AbbVie $20,808,664; the head Johnson & Johnson $20,097,572; the head of Bristol-Myers Squib $19,379,755 and the head of Amgen $18,555,266. My personal favorite is the CEO of Eli Lilly, who earned $15,701,000. This year Eli Lilly was also one of dozens of top companies that posted profits of at least a billion dollars—and still managed to pay zero federal taxes.

The head of Wells Fargo chalked up $18,419,306 in earnings, even though the bank was sued again in March for failing to help victims of the bank’s own fraud.

The head of Mattel was deemed to be worth $16,955,660, a salary equivalent to what 3,408 average Chinese, Brazilian and Indian workers at Mattel made.

Sheldon Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, made $24,012,913, got a huge tax cut under the Trump Tax Plan, and kept on donating heavily to Trump and Republicans in Congress.

I mean: Come on. The poor guy is worth only $34.1 billion (as of 5/29/19.)

And let’s finish with Jeffrey C. Sprecher, who turned up dead last on the list of 200 top earners, probably prompting suicidal thoughts on his part. The head of Intercontinental Exchange earned a pittance: $14,513,403.

5/27/19:  Just an ordinary day in Trumpistan. NPR reports that Infant’s Tylenol and Children’s Tylenol are identical. Yet the company charges three times more for the Infant formula.

Which is…identical.

(One is reminded of how often restaurants serve a type of cheap fish but charge for a more expensive dish. So that, instead of getting halibut, you get carp. Okay, that last is a joke, but only a bit of a joke.)

More proof that you can always trust Big Business to do what’s right. Therefore, we should get rid of all regulations.

*

A U.S. SENATOR (admittedly a Democrat, a species of politician I rarely quote in my blog), Amy Klobuchar, says that during the Trump inauguration, her colleague, Sen. John McCain kept reciting the names of dictators to her, “because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation, he understood it.”

She continued: “He knew because he knew this man more than any of us did.”

*

IN OTHER NEWS, Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) criticized the president for retweeting an edited video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) put together for the perpetually angry Lou Dobbs. No one, least of all the President of the Unites States, Hurd warned, should “disseminate information that you know is ultimately doctored.”

The Hill explains:

Last week, a video went viral on conservative social media outlets that slowed down audio of a Pelosi speech to make her appear to be slurring her words. Shortly after, Trump tweeted a different clip of Pelosi initially aired on Fox News’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that spliced together several verbal pauses.

5/28/19: Even the Big Orange Buffoon knows when his tweets have gone too far—as when he quotes Kim Jong-un in attacking an American citizen, former VP Joe Biden.

Then again, a Buffoon is a Buffoon. Trump tweets again on the topic, trying for a more “humorous” approach. “I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil,” he says . “Kim Jong Un called him a ‘low IQ idiot,’ and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer ‘low IQ individual.’ Who could possibly be upset with that?”

Ha, ha, the Comedian-in-Chief—quoting a murderous maniac. What next, Otto Warmbier jokes? (See: 5/26/19.)

5/29/19: If you follow President Trump’s Twitter feed, you discover a smorgasbord of juvenile insults, false claims of unparalleled success, whining about how unfair his critics are and lies of all shapes and sizes.

Today, our focus is on just one of those lies: that Democrats and liberals don’t care about crime.

This is patently false.

“I pardon myself! Also, I pardon Don Jr. and Paul Manafort.”

We do care. If nothing else, we don’t believe Trump has the power to pardon himself. That’s a basic “rule of law” concept. Were that true, he could shoot the First Lady, announce he was running off with a porn star, but first intone: “I pardon myself! Also, I pardon Don Jr. and Paul Manafort, just to be safe!”

It is true that Democrats and liberals have a different view of how to address and suppress crime. A good liberal might say, “I am not terrified by families seeking asylum at our southern border. I would, however, be happy to see employers who hire undocumented workers so they can pay them less, and kill American jobs—yes, I would favor seeing such employers led off in handcuffs.

Our side cares about crime just as much as the other side, just not in the same way. We cared when BP Oil cut corners on safety. We cared when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew up, killing 11 workers and spilling 3.19 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. We cared when Takata covered up the fact it was selling air bags that exploded, spraying deadly shrapnel in drivers’ and passengers’ faces. We cared when Big Pharma cheated Medicare out of billions and got nailed in court—and we now hope to see them get nailed again for pushing false claims that opioids were safe. We are fans of good government regulation, because we know how often business crooks break the law to make a buck. See, for example: Trump University, which was nailed by the courts.

Like the most committed Trump supporters, we of a liberal inclination rejoice to see pedophiles, rapists and house breakers arrested. We are happy to see a priest who dabbles in child pornography packed off to prison. It was a pleasure to see Harvey Weinstein get indicted, and see Patriots owner Robert Kraft pinched, too. We on our side are opposed to human trafficking as much as anyone in a MAGA hat. And if Kraft had sex with a victim of trafficking—as has been alleged—it would be nice to see a judge slap him around for a change. Our side cares about the law. In fact, unlike many conservatives, we do not agree that the law should force a woman who has been raped and impregnated to carry the baby to term.

Weinstein.

In what other ways do Democrats and liberals care differently, but deeply, about the law? We believe, since facts prove it, that American justice remains stacked against the poor. We can count on fingers and toes and show that people of color are locked up more often and for longer stretches than white defendants for similar crimes. We care when more than 2,000 convicted “criminals,” dozens on death rows in several states, have been exonerated on the basis of new evidence.

  

We absolutely do care. We cared when a Trump fan sucker-punched a protester as the protester was being led away during a campaign rally in 2016. We cared when Trump said he’d pay the puncher’s legal fees. We cared that a man who wanted to be President of the United States reveled in violence. We cared when a GOP candidate for Congress body-slammed a BBC reporter, lied about it to police, and cared when Trump talked about how much he loved the liar. We cared when a Trump fan sent bombs to CNN. We cared when a right-wing nut shot up a Pittsburgh synagogue, too.

This should not be difficult to grasp. Almost no one on our side (we do have our share of left-wing nuts) approves if Trump supporters are attacked. When an 81-year-old man wearing a MAGA hat in a New Jersey store was attacked, we knew without question that was wrong.

What part of “attacking an 81-year-old man” sounds good to anyone, after all?

Yes, many of us were hasty in believing Jussie Smollett when he said he was attacked by two men in those distinctive red hats, who slurred him because he was gay. That doesn’t mean we weren’t glad to see him arrested once his story turned out to be false. And before conservatives start getting all high and mighty, they might want to remember that on Fox News, apologists for the president like to insist that any crimes committed by Trump aides, Flynn, Gates, Manafort, Cohen and Papadopoulos, are “process crimes” and so, in some parallel legal universe, don’t count.

Again, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, care about different crimes in different ways. Our side believes addressing the issue of military-style rifles in the wrong hands would be a good place to begin to attack crime. The other side thinks building a giant wall might be cool and might do some good.

If Trump and his gang want to battle crime, our side can suggest all kinds of places to start. We’re liberals and don’t normally take pleasure in the pain of others. But it was a joy to watch Martin Shkreli get seven years in prison after inflating prices on life-saving drugs, in some cases by 5,000%. We were thrilled to see VW get fined for rigging air pollution controls in diesel engine models. (We’re liberals, of course, and care about clean air.) We think the government is doing God’s work when the Department of Justice catches a big international bank laundering money for drug cartels and imposes a $1.9 billion fine. It would even be a pleasant change if we could see the white collar bankers sent to jail for as long as some poor woman who stole $100 worth of quarters from a residential laundry room.

On the right, the focus might be armed robbers, welfare cheats, and illegal immigrants who vote. All these crimes are bad—although the last is extremely rare, as even the Heritage Foundation has shown. 

On the left, we might argue for increased focus on the biggest robbers of all, people like Bernie Madoff, and Jordan Goodman, the latter busted recently for running a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. 

On our side, we know the president likes to simplify every issue—boil down complex matters into 280-character-no-real-thought-required-tweets. So, he focuses on killings by illegal immigrants and claims our side doesn’t mind if MS-13 runs amok. Our side knows the shooting of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant in July 2015 was a terrible crime. We know the pain her family must feel, as any decent parent of any political persuasion would readily grasp. Yet we also ask how it is that Trump took zero action after the Las Vegas slaughter, shrugged off the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and brushed away the many killings ordered by Vladimir Putin.

“There are a lot of killers,” he told Bill O’Reilly, just days after he took office, when asked about Putin’s bloody record.

“What? You think our country’s so innocent?”

90% of Americans would condemn the same crimes.

If you strip away the presidential rhetoric, it’s likely that 90% of Americans, of all colors and sizes, and all political persuasions, would condemn the same crimes. Conservatives might focus more on the killing of police officers. Liberals might focus more on the killing of innocent African Americans. Both are tragedies of immense sorrow and equal legal weight. If a right-wing nut walks into a church in South Carolina and kills nine, and another runs a protester down and kills her with his car, and a third shouts at immigrants in a Kansas bar, that they should “go back to their own country,” and kills two, yes, liberals care about crime. If a Muslim terrorist runs over eight pedestrians in New York City with a truck, yes, a sickening hate crime has occurred.

And we haven’t even touched on the mass murderers, from Adam Lanza to Nikolas Cruz, who have been shooting up schools. 

In fact, here’s an easy rule of thumb: If a murder is committed by anyone you could name, against anyone at all, sympathy goes to the victim and family. It doesn’t require great thought. When a black man murders five Dallas police, out of a misguided desire for “payback,” you empathize with the families of the slain. When a white officer shoots Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in the back, you empathize with Scott’s family in the very same way.

Last, but not least, it is never a bad day if you catch politicians, of either party, or no party at all, in their crimes.

So, Mr. President, we on our do care about crime, as much as those on your side, and perhaps a bit more. Many of us have read the Mueller Report. And we believe more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors (see: 5/7/19) are correct when they say that were you a private individual, you would already have been charged with several felonies, involving obstruction of justice of the Russia probe.

In fact, to say we don’t care is just another of your brazen lies.

5/30/19: At this point, it would be nearly impossible to overestimate how petty the president is and how petty everyone who works for him knows he is (see: 5/15/19). The Wall Street Journal reports that when Trump was in Japan the White House requested that the USS John S. McCain, a destroyer, be moved out of sight during his visit to the U.S. Naval Base in Yokosuka.

The request to move the ship was rejected. Nevertheless, Navy officers reportedly draped a tarp over the “offending” name. Then clearer heads prevailed and down came the tarp.

Real reporters do their best to verify what they say. So, ABC added this:

The Navy’s top spokesman, Adm. Charlie Brown, tweeted that the ship’s name had not been obscured.

“The name of USS John S. McCain was not obscured during the POTUS visit to Yokosuka on Memorial Day,” Brown tweeted. “The Navy is proud of that ship, its crew, its namesake and its heritage.”

But it had been obscured, per the White House request, until base commanders ordered the tarp removed. “There was a lower level effort to comply with the request but when leadership became aware they ordered the tarp be taken down,” a U.S. Navy official told ABC News. “Navy leadership decided the name should not be obscured.”

There was disagreement about details and ancillary claims. For example, was a barge moved closer to the destroyer to block its name from view after the tarp disappeared?

What we know beyond doubt is that the White House made the request. We know the president said he had no prior knowledge of the request. “Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him, OK? And they were well-meaning,” Trump told reporters gathered on the White House lawn. “I will say, I didn’t know anything about it. I would never have done that.”

By the time the storm had settled, with no ships sunk, Navy officials had wasted much of the day explaining and clarifying the situation surrounding the “offending” warship name.

And here, your hard-working blogger would like to add that the offending vessel is named for three generations of the McCain family who served bravely during World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The tradition continues, with James McCain, the late senator’s son, having fought with the Marines and the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. His brothers, Doug McCain and Jack McCain were both Navy pilots, like their dad.

By comparison no Trump, since Friedrich Trump first planted immigrant foot on U.S. soil in 1885, has ever dodged a bullet or bomb or even flown a paper airplane in service to this country.

Naturally, the president thought this all over and then decided to ignore the basics of the story, and tweet out a defense:

*

MEANWHILE, reporters managed to question the president about growing talk among congressional Democrats of impeachment.

“Do you think they’re going to impeach you?” one of the enemies of the people, unless that reporter works for Fox News, asked.

Trump replied:

“I don’t see how they can, because they’re possibly allowed, although I can’t imagine the courts allowing it [emphasis added]. I’ve never got into it. I never thought that would even be possible to be using that word.”

To me it’s a dirty word, the word ‘impeach.’ It’s a dirty, filthy, disgusting word. And it has nothing to do with me.”

Or to put it plainly, Trump fails Government 101 again! The courts have nothing to do with the impeachment process. Also, the “dirty, filthy, disgusting word” appears in the Constitution for obvious reasons.

The process can be used to deter a president or any other high official intent on abusing the powers of office. (See: 4/24/19, for explanation of the role of the Chief Justice in any impeachment trial.)

5/31/19: Someone apparently poked President Trump in his fat ass with a stick. Angered by what he views as Mexico’s failure to stop migrants from reaching the U.S. border, he orders a 5% tariff slapped on all Mexican goods entering the country.

This idea is so dumb that even Republicans who have stood idly by and watched Trump pander to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, who didn’t mind when he said he could pardon himself, who haven’t cared about his sustained attacks on the free press, finally begin to complain. The stock market reacts badly and continues its May swoon, falling to 24,815 by the end of the day.

The “good news” for Trump? This will allow him to brag again—for a fourth time—when the Dow rises above 25,000.

As in the following tweets:

January 4, 2018: The Fake News Media barely mentions the fact that the Stock Market just hit another New Record and that business in the U.S. is booming...but the people know! Can you imagine if “O” was president and had these numbers - would be biggest story on earth! Dow now over 25,000.

July 14, 2018: The Stock Market hit 25,000 yesterday. Jobs are at an all time record….

January 30, 2019: Dow just broke 25,000. Tremendous news!

Need this simple blogger point out, it is hardly “tremendous news” when the Dow hits the same level, a year later, that it hit the year before?

June 1, 2019: President Trump is preparing for a state visit to Great Britain. That is, he’s working on putting.

He’s at Trump National Golf Course in Potomac Falls, Virginia.

6/2/19: Realizing that he needs to buckle down and prep for his visit to Great Britain, one of our closest allies, the president…decides to go golfing.

Again.

Today he’s focused on tee shots.

Later, he’ll do some thumb exercises to prepare for all the international tweeting he’ll be doing.

6/3/19: The president, the First Lady, and all the Trump children you can stuff on Air Force One, plus a week’s supply of hair gel for Eric and Don Jr., jet off to London.

What possible mischief can occur over the Atlantic? There aren’t any Russians aboard are there?

President Twitter Thumbs decides to insult someone, just to keep in practice. How about some scuzzy dictator?

Nope. Trump would rather insult the Mayor of London, who he has insulted before. (See: 5/18/18.)

This requires a pair of childish tweets:             

.@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly “nasty” to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me......

....Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job - only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!

The stupidity of these tweets is hard to overstate. But they serve as a window on the president’s id—and the twisted mess it is. First, you have the juvenile insults from a 72-year-old man-boy: “nasty,” “stone cold loser.” Second, you have the bully’s ploy: mocking a shorter man’s stature. Third, you have a U.S. president focusing on crime in London, which is none of his business. Crime is indeed up in London and Trump likes to focus on knife attacks—proving, in his mind, that gun control in the U.S. wouldn’t do any good because only a good guy with a knife can stop a bad guy with a knife, or a good guy with a gardening rake, crowbar, trowel, etc.

As we have noted before, in 2018, including a rash of stabbings, London had roughly 140 homicides.

The Mayor of London might retort, if he wanted to descend to the same juvenile level, that “Fat Nixon” should worry about crime in his own backyard and be sure not to grab the queen “you know where.” He might note that American cities, where a president’s focus should be, have far higher murder rates, say, Houston  (an estimated 335 murders in 2018) or Chicago (more than 530 murders).

In fact, you could argue that the president might focus on crime problems across the USA. In 2017, the last year for which we have complete statistics, the U.S., with a population of 327 million, had 17,284 murders.

By comparison, England and Wales (56 million population) had 709.

We know Trump can always find time to tweet. He could stop tweeting and do the math on a napkin.

England and Wales had thirteen murders per million population.

We had 53 per million, making Trump a “stone cold loser” when it comes to addressing crime.

*

FINALLY, THE USE of “nasty” in the tweet above is interesting. Just the day before, Trump had to deny he had ever called Megan Markle, the American actress, now Prince Harry’s wife, “nasty.”

Except he did.

We also know it’s one of his go-to favorite insults. If we search his Twitter feed, we find that during the 2016 primaries he called Ted Cruz “a nasty guy.” “Dopey Charles Krauthammer is still nasty,” he said. Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney were “nasty, angry, jealous failures.” Russell Moore was a “nasty guy with no heart!” Trump claimed he gave Barbara Res “a top N.Y. construction job, when that was unheard of, and now she is nasty.”

Most famously, during one presidential debate he referred to Mrs. Clinton as “a nasty woman.”

*

FOR CONTEXT, in 2017, The Telegraph, a British newspaper, put together a list of offensive comments Trump had made about women. So, as far as Megan Markle goes, it could have been worse.

You had, for example, Trump’s comment on Howard Stern’s show in 1997, regarding the Princess of Wales, recently deceased. “Why do people think it’s egotistical of you to say you could’ve gotten with Lady Di?” Stern asked the mogul. “You could’ve gotten her, right? You could’ve nailed her.”

“I think I could have,” Trump agreed with a leer.

R.I.P. Lady Di.

In fact, he revisited the idea in another interview with Stern in 2000. This time, he ranked women he’d like to sleep with. The Telegraph provided the list, “should you be interested.”

Melania Knauss (then his girlfriend, now his wife)
Ivana Trump
Princess Diana
Michelle Pfeiffer
Cameron Diaz
Julia Roberts
Cindy Crawford
Mariah Carey
Gwyneth Paltrow
Diane Sawyer

No telling how many of those women had to stifle a vomit reflex if they heard they made his Top Ten.

(I’m guessing nine. Possibly: ten.)

Trump thinks he could have nailed her: Lady Di.

6/4/19: The Mueller “Witch Hunt” continues, with George Nader, a Lebanese American businessman, the latest witch to be shot down while riding a broom. Nader was arrested on June 3, after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. His arrest, under sealed indictment, stems from the Russia investigation. That means he spends today consulting with lawyers.

Questioned about suspicious contacts with Russians.

Nadar, an occasional Trump adviser, was first stopped by F.B.I. agents at a D.C. airport on January 17, 2018. He was pulled into a side room and questioned about suspicious contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

Where was Nader headed at that moment? To Mar-a-Lago, to celebrate Trump’s first year at the helm. (Nader had been part of the Trump transition team, headed up by that paragon of Christian virtue, Vice President Jesus .)

At that time, agents wielding a warrant confiscated his electronic devices. Nader’s, not the vice president’s. A subsequent search revealed evidence of possible child pornography on his phone. A new warrant resulted. A dozen sexually explicit videos were recovered. That led to a sealed indictment. But yesterday was the first chance authorities had to arrest Nader, who works overseas.

If convicted, Nader—who was convicted on child pornography charges in the Czech Republic in 1991—faces at least fifteen years in prison.

Unfortunately, Nader is the type of sleazebag who constantly floats to the surface in stories involving President Trump. He first came to the attention of federal investigators when they got wind of a secret meeting in January 2017, in The Seychelles. (Admit it: you have no idea where these islands are. This, of course, explains why they were the perfect spot for a secret meeting.) Nadar was one participant. Kirill Dmitriev, representing Vladimir Putin, was a another. Third was Erik Prince, brother of Betsy DeVos, Amway Secretary of Education. Once the secret meeting was revealed, Prince claimed it was all a matter of chance. He just happened to be vacationing in The Seychelles. And he just happened to run into the Russian guy in a bar. And they just happened to decide to have a friendly chat, of no consequence.

But the Mueller Report proves otherwise. Nader set it all up. Mueller has emails and phone records.

That wasn’t the first time Nader was involved in a suspicious secret meeting. In May 2018 the “Fake News” New York Times broke the story of another secret conclave. This one, in August 2016, had involved Nader, Donald Trump Jr., and representatives of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Plus: Erik Prince!

Plus: Joel Zamel, representing an Israeli tech company. According to the Times, Zamel pitched a plan to “to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation and to gather intelligence to help defeat Hillary Clinton.”

Participants in that meeting disagree about what happened next, with almost everyone conveniently denying any such work was ever performed (which would surely have been illegal).

Oddly enough, Mueller’s team turned up evidence that Nader sent Zamel $2,000,000 after the election.

And just to spice up the story, let’s toss another felon into the stew. After Trump won the election, Nader helped arrange a defense consulting deal between the United Arab Emirates and Elliott Broidy, a deal worth as much as $600 million. It was an odd choice, for sure—save for the fact that we now live in Trumpistan. Broidy wasn’t the type you’d trust with a contract of that magnitude, or any other contract, really. He was convicted in 2009 of paying a cool $1,000,000 in bribes to secure a deal to invest $250 million in New York State pension funds.

Broidy is also the guy who agreed to pay a $1.6 million hush money payment to a Playboy Bunny he impregnated.

That deal was worked out by a third felon, Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer.

The Bunny had an abortion.

(This blogger learns in August 2019 that Broidy is not technically a felon. He did plead guilty to a felony. But he was later allowed to plead to a misdemeanor after he agreed to cooperate with investigators in the bribery scandal.)

Nader, in happier times.

6/5/19: Donald R. Trump has never been good with numbers; but as he wraps up a visit to Britain and Ireland, he’s playing with math again. This time, he’s mad because not everyone loves him.

So, he tweets:

If the totally Corrupt Media was less corrupt, I would be up by 15 points in the polls based on our tremendous success with the economy, maybe Best Ever! If the Corrup Media was actually fair, I would be up by 25 points. Nevertheless, despite the Fake News, we’re doing great!

Let’s ignore the dangerous attacks on the free press and the bumbling spelling of “corrupt.” Let’s pretend it’s not pathetic that eighty minutes later, the president repeats the same tweet, so he can fix “corrup.”

Let’s focus on real numbers. On June 5, the president has an approval rating of less than 44% in an average of all polls. He believes he deserves a 69% approval rating, all due to the economy.

Kellyanne Conway should probably tug on his sleeve and remind the Orange Buffoon, “Sir, a large part of the reason your approval rating has never been above 46% since you took office, is that you—and, I say this with all due respect—are considered an asshole by a large chunk of the U.S. population.

“Sir, to be specific,” she should explain, “65 percent of Americans think you are not honest, 67 percent think you are a poor role model for children, and 62 percent of women don’t like you because you’re an unapologetic pussy-grabber.”

*

TRUMP WRAPS UP A BUSY DAY, including a visit to a golf club he owns in Ireland (more golf!!!), and a talk with the Irish premier, by catching a little tape of Fox News and then tweet-raging after Sean Hannity stirs him up.

According to Hannity, Trump’s performance in Britain was brilliant and the British media are giving him “glowing reviews.” Here at home, Hannity fumes, “MSNBC ramps up hateful coverage.”

It’s so mean!

Trump: Less popular than a poisoner.

So, let’s do a bit of fact-checking. Here’s how The Guardian described Trump’s second visit to Great Britain:

He insulted London’s mayor, abused an American actor on Twitter at 1.20 am, turned Brexit into a threat to the National Health Service, described Meghan Markle as nasty, and behaved as if he was a kingmaker offering audiences to aspirants from the 51st state, and yet to Whitehall’s diplomats Donald Trump’s state visit was by no means the worst [emphasis added] in living memory.

It may be that the bar had been set vertiginously low, or that Trump, as a repeat visitor, has lost some of his capacity for shock and awe. Somehow, it seemed tame and normalised in comparison with his previous disastrous visit a year ago [emphasis added].

Readers reactions are also less than glowing. “That the British state has rolled out the red carpet for Trump in this way is a total disgrace,” said one. “Trump is not leading the free world, the free world is ignoring him on so many levels, from global warming, to trade, to diplomatic policy,” another commented. A third referred to the U.S. president as a “vile creep.”

“I’ve never been so ashamed to be British,” said another. “That a draft dodger who thinks Neo Nazis are ‘very fine people’ is invited to attend D-day commemorations is an insult to all who fought.”

Resignedly, one reader admits, “We may have to hold our noses when Trump visits, but he does represent the most powerful and important defensive alliance in the world.” It’s just too bad the president doesn’t agree that NATO is important. 

So, how did ordinary Brits feel about Trump. It turns out, he’s their seventh most popular foreign politician! Millions love Trump! As in enough millions to give Trump a 21% positive rating, vs. 67% negative.

Only 66% of Brits have a negative opinion of Vladimir Putin—and he tried to poison people on British soil.

6/6/19: President Trump reads an excellent speech, written by some aide with an actual vocabulary. It is meant to honor the heroes who fought and died on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. It’s a good speech because Trump doesn’t say Allied troops who were captured by the Germans weren’t heroes, because he likes heroes who don’t get captured. He also doesn’t say there were “good people on both sides,” which is a plus anytime one side is Nazis.

In one powerful passage, Trump reads about the men who stormed the shores:

More powerful than the strength of American arms was the strength of American hearts. These men ran through the fires of hell moved by a force no weapon could destroy: the fierce patriotism of a free, proud, and sovereign people. ... They pressed on for love in home and country — the Main Streets, the schoolyards, the churches and neighbors, the families and communities that gave us men such as these.

Naturally, Trump must mar his message by giving Laura Ingraham an interview later, seated with a cemetery for fallen Americans in the background. In that interview he calls Robert Mueller a “fool.” Mueller, of course, “ran through the fires of hell” (and was wounded) in Vietnam.

Later, the president credits himself with giving the best speech ever given by any American leader on European soil.

Really, he said that.

No Trump, since 1885, when Friedrich arrived, has ever put their life on the line for this country.

6/7/19: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 75,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in May.

Studying the chart below, see if you can determine which president inherited a mess and had to dig the country out of a catastrophic recession once he took office.

Obama?

Or Trump?

As a good liberal, who believes in the rule of law—as well as the rules of addition and subtraction—and likes to quote Donald R. Trump (“R.” for “Russia”), I am continuing to worry about the 93 million Americans Trump insisted were out of work when Obama left office.

Or would it be the even more horrifying and scary 95 million imaginary unemployed who pissed Sean Hannity off?

According to the latest iteration of conservative voodoo math, 5.4 million jobs added in 28 months under Trump = 3.6% unemployment, and almost all those 92-95 million are now gainfully employed!

I don’t make this crap up. I quote the fools who did.

6/8/19: In case you missed it, during his trip to Great Britain, the president sat down with Prince Charles, who wished to discuss climate change. The prince believes climate change is a threat to the planet because he is not a moron.

Unfortunately, talking with Trump for 90 minutes proved to be as useful as talking to a tree stump. The president later described their meeting in an interview with the British journalist Piers Morgan.

“What did the Prince say to you about climate change?” Morgan inquired.

Whatever he said, Trump wasn’t listening; because he missed the main point, and all the ancillary points. Below, we offer up the Moron-in-Chief’s comments and add an “interpreter” to aid you along the way.

TRUMP: What [the Prince] really wants and what he really feels warmly about is the future.

INTERPRETER: Yes—the future—a time when Barron Trump’s kids are growing up, and even Barron and his children realize you were clueless on this issue.

TRUMP: He wants to make sure future generations have climate that is good climate, as opposed to a disaster, and I agree. I did mention a couple of things. I did say, “Well, the United States right now has among the cleanest climates there are, based on all statistics.”

INTERPRETER: You do realize the U.S. climate is part of the global climate? Also, “clean” isn’t the issue. It’s temperature, you buffoon!

TRUMP: And it’s even getting better because I agree with that. I want the best water, the cleanest water—crystal clean, crystal clean air.”

INTERPRETER: Climate change isn’t about clean water. Can some White House adviser explain all of this to the president, and talk slowly? Because clearly, Trump can’t grasp even the most rudimentary concepts.

By now, Morgan had to be thinking, “Okay, I might as well be talking to a zebra, for all the good I’m doing.”

Still, he asked Trump if he believed in climate change.

TRUMP: I believe that there’s a change in weather and I think it changes both ways.

INTERPRETER: Yes, weather changes both ways! When the sun comes up, it gets hotter. When the sun goes down it gets cooler. Sometimes it’s spring. Or summer! Fall mornings are usually brisk. We also have something called “winter!” Then we have snow!

TRUMP: Again, it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather you can’t miss.

INTERPRETER: For god’s sake, climate is not weather. Did this guy pay any attention in sixth grade science?

Finally, Morgan asks the president if he gave Prince Charles any reason to hope. Would the U.S. be taking any actions to address the threat while Trump was in the White House?

TRUMP: I think we had a great conversation.

Trump seems unable to understand: climate is different than changing weather.

*

BACK HOME that same day, White House officials were editing Congressional testimony to be given by Dr. Rod Schoonover, Senior Analyst for the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

“Absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant—possibly catastrophic—harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change.”

Dr. Rod Schoonover, Senior Analyst

Because who wants to hear depressing truths related by actual scientists, truths such as these:

Our preferred sources are from the U.S. government technical agencies such as NASA, NOAA and USGS and U.S. scientific institutions such as the National Academy of Sciences. We also utilize information and analysis from many other domestic and international sources, particularly peer reviewed journals.

Okay, the White House doesn’t want anyone to know that NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey all believe evidence points to serious climate-change related troubles ahead. The paragraph above is excised.

“Extreme weather and climate events are a major risk for all societies…”

Cut…cut!!! Out that line goes.

Potential future tipping point processes include:

·       Very rapid die offs of many critically important species, such as coral or insects

·       Rapid conversion of Amazon and other rainforests to grassland

·       Massive release of carbon from methane hydrates or permafrost carbon

·       The continuous decrease in summertime Arctic sea ice

·       Rapid melting in West and Arctic or Greenland ice masses

Okay, cut that entire list, which goes on even longer; and count on the president to keep saying climate change is a “hoax.”

“Absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant—possibly catastrophic—harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change.”

CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT!!!! send VP Pence out to talk about how cool it is to burn more and more coal.

*

A NEW APP allows us to “see” climate change globally, or in our area, at a website called showyourstripes.info. Blue stripes show years that were cooler than the average temperature over the last century and a half. Red and orange stripes indicate years that were hotter.

Global change (above).

Temperatures in the United States: 1895-2018.

Temperatures for Ohio: same recent heating trend.

We see the same variations with Texas, but starting in 2000, the trend is always hotter,
as seen round the globe.

We see the same variations with Texas, but starting in 2000, the trend is always hotter, as seen around the globe.

You can knock yourself out, but although you have local variations, the trends are always clear. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the planet is heating.

Check the website yourself.

6/9/19: The Chinese government blocks the Washington Post website as part of its internet “Great Firewall.”

“Wait, can we do that?” President Trump asks Kellyanne.

While he mulls over new ways to silence the free press, he continues to whine about how mean reporters are and how no one except Sean Hannity kisses his fat posterior with the fervor he deserves.

“If President Obama made the deals that I have made, both at the Border and for the Economy, the Corrupt Media would be hailing them as Incredible, & a National Holiday would be immediately declared,” he tweets today. “With me, despite our record setting Economy and all that I have done, no credit!”

Okay, credit where credit is due. The economy is good. Excellent for the 1%. The economy was good when Obama left office, too.

Trump was a liar and said it wasn’t. He said he inherited a mess.

6/10/19: Who needs the E.P.A., especially now that it’s led by a former Big Coal and Big Oil lobbyist! We should let business types control everything. Screw environmental protection!

This year, farm runoff, including fertilizer and pesticide residues, is expected to create an 8,700 square mile “dead zone” at the mouth of the Mississippi. That’s a zone the size of New Jersey where sea life cannot survive.

Now we live in Trumpistan. Let’s take the “handcuffs” off business. Let’s allow BP to drill for oil offshore, in view of Mar-a-Lago.

6/11/19: Do you worry about environmental issues? Because if you do, the E.P.A. under President Trump has stopped worrying. Not everything wrong with the environment is our current president’s fault; but you know he’s not paying attention to bad news.

It turns out, because we are producing so much plastic, and recycling almost none, that “microplastics” are showing up in our food and water, in our soil and in the air we breathe.

Most Americans have probably heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where ocean currents have trapped 80,000 metric tons of mostly plastic trash in a giant, floating field twice the size of Texas.

Now, it turns out, the average American is inhaling or swallowing 74,000 to 121,000 “microplastics” annually.

Microplastics get into food and air in several ways. Many start off as part of larger plastic objects, which over time fragment into smaller and smaller pieces until they become tiny: 5 millimeters or less in diameter, or as small as a sesame seed. People can’t see most of the plastics they consume. These are ingested by animals (who then become our food), and they float through the air until people inhale them. They also settle on the food that people eat.

Bottled water is a “great” source of clean water, if you’d like a nice dose of microplastics, which you can wash down with the contents of another bottle.

Researchers “did a separate analysis; when people drink their water only from bottled sources, they ingest about 90,000 microplastic particles every year from that water, but people who drink only tap water get 4,000 of such particles a year.”

Kieren Cox, the author of the study calls the 22-fold increase in plastic consumption a “lifestyle choice,” and suggests, maybe, tap water isn’t such a terrible idea.

6/12/19: President Trump sits down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. The first segment airs today.

Another “Fake News” story results, when ABC releases tape of Trump’s lips moving and all the absurdity spilling out.

Russia, if you’re listening: 2020.

Having spent the last three years denying that he or anyone on his campaign ever met with Russians, Trump makes it clear. Would he like to meet with Russians (again) to swing the 2020 election?

He would.

Here’s the transcript of his remarks, related to hypothetical foreign interference in the next U.S. election. We have once again added an “interpreter” to help you grasp every orange-hued nuance.

Below, Stephanopoulos is quizzing the president:

ABC NEWS CHIEF GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You’re a fighter. You, you, it feels like you’re in a constant kind of churn.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, uh, my life has always been a fight. And I enjoy that I guess, I don’t know if I enjoy it or not, I guess—sometimes I have false fights, like the Russian witch hunt. That’s a false fight. That’s a made-up hoax. And I had a fight that –

INTERPRETER: The following Trump aides and buddies from 2016 have admitted meeting with Russians during the campaign: Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, Michael Caputo, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Nadar and Michael Cohen.

Not quite a baker’s dozen, but a start.

STEPHANOPOULOS: —the first line of his report says they had a systematic attempt at interfere [sic] in our elections.

President Trump: They did, but not me. And they also said, okay, that we rebuffed them. Okay?

INTERPRETER: The Mueller Report does not say his campaign “rebuffed” the Russians. (See list above.) The report does say Manafort was working on a “backdoor deal” to benefit the Russians while serving as Trump’s campaign chair.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well they said you’re—

TRUMP: —that the Trump campaign. Excuse me. The campaign, the Trump campaign rebuffed them. We had nothing to do with Russia. Hillary Clinton had much more to do with Russia than anything having to do with our campaign. It said very specifically that, not only we didn’t have to do, but we rebuffed them. Now, anything having to do with Russia had nothing to do with our campaign.

INTERPRETER: The president is lying. What the Mueller Report says is this: “The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations [Russian military hacking] coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.”

And: “Russian outreach to the Trump campaign continued into the summer of 2016…”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Paul Manafort.

TRUMP: Paul Manafort, they have Paul Manafort on taxes and many other things. Nothing to do with our campaign.

INTERPRETER: They have Manafort on witness tampering in 2018, involving, his key Russian contact, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik was also indicted but fled to Russia. Does Trump really not know this? Manafort cheated the U.S. government out of millions. Investigators have him working on that “backdoor deal” in 2016.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Giving polling information to the Russians.

TRUMP: I don’t know anything about that. What difference does polling information make? It doesn’t matter. He was maybe trying to do something for an account or something. Who knows? But they said specifically that there was nothing to do, and we, in fact, rebuffed them—

INTERPRETER: “Who knows?” This was his campaign. Was he saying he didn’t know what was going on during his campaign?

Hope Hicks, then his spokesperson, said no one on the campaign had any contacts with Russians. Don Jr., who had already met with several Russians by that time, did not raise his hand and correct her, saying, “Hope, to be honest, I did.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: —they said there were hundreds—

TRUMP: It’s a phony—

STEPHANOPOULOS: —what they said is that—

TRUMP: They also said that there were bloggers in Moscow and they said specifically, about the bloggers in Moscow, had nothing to do with Trump, had nothing to do with the—and there were like 32 or 36 bloggers. We have nothing to do with bloggers in Moscow. I’ll tell you, you talk about collusion, take a look at the collusion with the Democrat party and Facebook and Google and Twitter. That’s called collusion, that’s called real collusion. Not where somebody buys some ads and the other thing, having to do with Russia, they were also helping the Clinton campaign, you know that? It wasn’t just Trump. And Putin, I will say this: if he had it, it was up to him. He would much rather have Hillary Clinton be president right now. And all of these countries would rather have Biden or anybody else but Trump.

INTERPRETER: Mueller’s team indicted 25 Russians for interference in the election, including Russian military hackers. All their efforts were aimed at harming the Clinton campaign and boosting Trump. Don Jr. took a meeting with Russians after receiving an email that warned him to be careful not to get caught.

“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” it read.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He said the Russian government was trying to help elect you. He said that explicitly.

TRUMP: Well he might’ve said that after I won because it’s a smart thing to say, okay? Because frankly—

INTERPRETER: Nope. That offer of help and warning to be careful (above) was in a June 2016 email. The Russians wanted Trump to win all along. In the hours after Trump’s victory became clear, Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian wealth fund manager with close ties to the Russian president, emailed Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian Federation.

“Putin has won!” his email read.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Mueller says that he’s trying to do that.

“Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.”

President Donald J. Trump

TRUMP: Mueller said that we rebuffed Russia, that we pushed them away, that we weren’t interested. Read the report.

INTERPRETER: Clearly, the president has not read the report. The Mueller Report notes on page nine that “…the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the [Special Counsel’s] Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: I have read the report. On that though, your son Don Jr. is up before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, and again, he was not charged with anything. In retrospect though, do you think—

TRUMP: —I mean not only wasn’t he charged, if you read it, with all of the horrible fake news, I mean, I was reading that my son was going to go to jail. This is a good young man. That he was going to go to jail and all of these horrible stories. And then the report comes out and they didn’t even say—they hardly even talked about him.

INTERPRETER: Don Jr. lied about the purpose of the meeting he took with the Russians. He said it was about adoption. Don Sr. helped write a letter, supporting that lie. Sarah Sanders told reporters the president had nothing to do with the letter. The president’s lawyers eventually admitted he did. That’s some serious lying.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But should he have gone to the F.B.I. when he got that email?

TRUMP: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the F.B.I.?

STEPHANOPOULOS: If it’s coming from Russia you do.

TRUMP: You don’t—I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the F.B.I. In my whole life. I don’t—you don’t call the F.B.I. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do—

STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the F.B.I.

TRUMP: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t—this is somebody who said, “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the F.B.I. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.

INTERPRETER: Ellen Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission is clear in response to the president, issuing the following statement, first noting, “I would not have thought that I needed to say this.”

Let me make something 100 percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept. Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded the alarm about “foreign Interference, Intrigue, and Influence.” They knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not America’s. Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donations from a foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The FBI Director says that’s what should happen.

TRUMP: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life. Now, maybe it will start happening. Maybe today you think differently. But two or three years ago, if somebody comes into your office with oppo research—they call it oppo research—with information that might be good or bad or something, but good for you, bad for your opponent, you don’t call the FBI. I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings—if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected—on negative information about their opponent. They don’t—

INTERPRETER: Trump, a man with no moral compass, is projecting. Let’s look at a few reactions from Republicans.

Sen. Mitt Romney disagrees. Accepting help, as Trump suggests, “would be totally inappropriate and it would strike at the heart of our democracy. I’ve run for Senate twice. I’ve run for governor once, I’ve run for president twice, so far as I know we never received any information from any foreign government …We would have immediately informed the F.B.I.”

Sen. Susan Collins concurs. The “proper action” if offered foreign help would be to “call the F.B.I.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham takes issue with the president. “I think that’s wrong. “I’ve been consistent on this. If a public official is approached by a foreign government offering anything of value ... the right answer is ‘no.’” 

STEPHANOPOULOS: From foreign countries?

TRUMP: Possibly. Possibly. But they don’t call the F.B.I. You don’t call the F.B.I. every time you hear something that maybe—now, you see the people. The meeting, it also sounds to me—I don’t know anything about that meeting—but it sounds to me like it was a big nothing. That meeting was a big nothing. But I heard about my son, who is a great young man, going to jail over a meeting where somebody said, “I have information on Hillary Clinton.” She’s the one that should be in jail. She deleted 33—

STEPHANOPOULOS: She should be in jail?

TRUMP: She deleted 33,000 emails from—sent by the United States Congress. They gave a subpoena to Hillary Clinton for 33,000 emails. After the subpoena was gotten, she deleted them. That’s called obstruction. And her lawyer should also be looked at because her lawyer—she’s got to have the greatest lawyer on earth because she does that, he did the deleting, supposedly. Not only did they delete, but they acid washed them.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s been investigated.

INTERPRETER: The President of the United States has just said he’d accept help from a foreign government to win an election.

This is exactly the kind of suspected behavior that led to the investigation of his 2016 campaign. Trump might as well be a rapist claiming, “I didn’t rape that woman; but if I had the chance again, I would.”

Let’s quote a few more Republican responses.

“Generally speaking, it’s a part of, in the case of like Russia, it’s an effort to disrupt our elections,” said Sen. Thom Tillis. “My first call would be to the F.B.I., my second call would be somebody to corroborate the information.”

“I was just surprised he wouldn’t say he would immediately turn it over to F.B.I. or DOJ,” added Sen. James Lankford.

Sen. Cory Gardner said foreign opposition “should be turned over to the FBI, plain and simple.”

Sen. Joni Ernst agreed. “I’d definitely alert the authorities.”

“You don’t ever want to take foreign money, that’s illegal. And the next route to money is information,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson. “So if you take information from somebody that’s foreign and it’s involved in your campaign, you’re inviting the risk of inviting foreign money into your campaign.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your campaign this time around, if foreigners, if Russia, if China, if someone else offers you information [emphasis added] on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the FBI?

TRUMP: I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, “we have information on your opponent.” Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You want that kind of interference in our elections?

TRUMP: It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI. If I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research. Oh, let’s call the FBI. The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it, but you go and talk honestly to congressmen, they all do it, they always have. And that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research.

INTERPRETER: Trump’s son and half a dozen aides listened to Russian offers of help in 2016. They never notified anyone. And we’re talking about Russia, a hostile foreign power, not Norway (Trump’s favorite country for immigrants).

Stephanie Douglas, a former executive assistant director of the F.B.I. national security branch, disagrees. “If President Trump is willing to entertain a conversation, foreign intel services love that,” she tells reporters. “It just makes him more vulnerable, and it makes the job of the F.B.I. much harder.”

And the F.B.I. has plenty of agents.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President. Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you. Okay. Fine.

6/13/19: Today marks the anniversary of Donald J. Trump’s greatest imaginary success. One year ago, he returned from his first summit with Kim Jong-un and announced that he had done the impossible, the incredible, that he, the greatest president ever, had worked an imaginary miracle.

“Just landed,” he tweeted joyously, at 4:56 a.m. on June 13, 2018, “a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea [emphasis added]. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”

Now, 365 days later, we count the nukes given up by the homicidal dictator of North Korea:

0.

Postscript: On June 17, Iran will announce that it will break uranium stockpile limits agreed to under the “worst deal in history,” worked out by the U.S., our top allies, Russia, and China, while Obama was in office. That deal was meant to ensure Iran did not build any nuclear weapons.

The Iran deal was still working—according to our allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Association. On May 31 the IAEA announced that Iran was complying with key limits.

Nuclear weapons built by Iran during Obama’s eight years in office—and in two years since:

0.

6/14/19: “Fat Nixon” turns 73. A second segment of Trump’s interview with George Stephanopoulos airs. This time, the orange prevaricator claims former White House Chief Counsel Don McGahn was untruthful when he gave testimony under oath to Robert Mueller’s investigators.

(Keep in mind: Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said his client would testify under oath over his dead body.)

McGahn told Mueller that Trump ordered him to fire Mueller and end the investigation. He says Trump asked more than once. When the “Fake News” folks got wind of this story, McGahn testified further, the president’s personal lawyer at the time, and two aides separately, asked him to sign a false document, saying Trump had never asked him to take such steps.

The Mueller Report is clear. “Each time he was approached, McGahn responded that he would not refute the press accounts because they were accurate in reporting on the President’s efforts to have the Special Counsel removed.”

Later, Trump met with McGahn, with Chief of Staff John Kelly present, and asked him to deny reports he wanted Mueller fired.

“McGahn refused and insisted his memory of the President’s direction to remove the Special Counsel was accurate.”

So, what does Trump say now?

“The story on that very simply, No. 1, I was never going to fire Mueller,” he tells George Stephanopoulos. “I never suggested firing Mueller. I don’t care what he [McGahn] says, it doesn’t matter. That was to show everyone what a good counsel he was.”

McGahn (right) heard plenty; the president doesn't want him to talk about it.

“Why would McGahn lie under oath?” Stephanopoulos inquired.

“Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer,” Trump replied. “Or he believed it was because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen — including you, including the media — that Robert Mueller was conflicted. Robert Mueller had a total conflict of interest.”

“And has to go?” Stephanopoulos responded.

“I didn’t say that,” Trump glared.

Here, by way of the Washington Post, is what the Mueller Report says in this regard. McGahn stated under oath, that Trump had twice called him from Camp David and directed him to remove Mueller.

The report says phone records show a 23-minute call between the two men on the afternoon of June 17, but not a second call. McGahn is certain he got two calls from Trump on this issue, so the first one may have been on June 14.

“On the first call, McGahn recalled that the President said something like, ‘You gotta do this. You gotta call Rod [Rosenstein; then in charge at the Department of Justice],’” the report said, citing testimony under oath. “McGahn said he told the President that he would see what he could do. McGahn was perturbed by the call and did not intend to act on the request.”

The report added: “McGahn considered the President’s request to be an inflection point and he wanted to hit the brakes.”

On the second call, Trump was more direct, “saying something like, ‘Call Rod, tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can’t be the Special Counsel.’ McGahn recalled the President telling him ‘Mueller has to go’ and ‘Call me back when you do it.’” The report said that “McGahn understood the President to be saying that the Special Counsel had to be removed by Rosenstein.”

In other words, we must decide, once again. Is Trump lying?

Or McGahn?

(The White House is vehemently opposed to a subpoena for McGahn and his top aide, Annie Donaldson, to testify before Congress.)

6/15/19: Ordinary praise will not suffice. For President Trump, only superlatives will do. And when superlatives are lacking there’s one man that Trump can count on to supply his needs.

Trump raves about Trump.

In a phone interview on Fox & Friends, the president assures the three hosts that during his trip to Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth loved him. “I have such a great relationship, and we were laughing and having fun. And her people said she hasn’t had so much fun in 25 years. Then I got criticized for it because they said we were having too much fun.”

The Mirror, a British newspaper, scoffed at the idea:

The 45th US President also said he had a “great relationship” with Prince Charles despite accidentally calling him the ‘Prince of Whales’ in a now deleted tweet.

“It doesn’t matter, but we have a great relationship and I had a great relationship with Charles, and honestly I have a very good relationship with a lot of the foreign leaders,” he added.

(See: 6/8/19.)

Trump does have a great relationship with a lot of foreign leaders, just not so much with leaders of our allies. Putin loves him. The Saudis like Trump because he doesn’t care when they carve up journalists. Kim Jong-un sends the president “beautiful letters.” So does Xi Jinping of China. He’s the same guy Trump complimented after Xi convinced the Communist Party to make him president for life. “I think it’s great,” Trump said on hearing the news. “Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday,” he told fans at Mar-a-Lago last March.

The president seems enamored of the idea that, like Xi, he might rule forever. Last month, he and his supporters floated the bizarre notion that maybe he should get two extra years in office because the Russia probe had “stolen” his time so far.

Now a pair of presidential tweets should make the danger of his thinking clear to all.

The man wants to crush the free press and rule forever in all his fat, orange, dimwitted glory.

6/16/19: The full interview with President Trump and George Stephanopoulos airs this evening.

In a quick bit of work, Trump blows to bits the conspiracy theory (pushed ad nauseum by screamers on the right) that President Obama and F.B.I. leaders tried to keep him from winning the 2016 election.

As writers at Vox explain, Trump labels top F.B.I. officials “lowlives” during the interview. The entire investigation into Russian interference was a “set up,” and Obama “must have known about” it.

As is so regularly the case, Trump, a man of no morals whatsoever, is projecting. He’s dishonest and devious.

He assumes the same of others.

Stephanopoulos puts the question directly: “If they were determined to prevent you from becoming president, why wouldn’t they leak it [news his campaign was being investigated for suspicious contacts with Russians] beforehand?”

You must have the reasoning skills of a watermelon.

As Vox explains, “instead of pushing back, Trump acknowledged that Stephanopoulos’s premise was correct.”

“You know what, you’d have to ask them,” Trump said. “And you know what — had that gone out before the election, I don’t think I would have had enough time to defend myself.”

In other words, even Trump agrees that had top FBI officials leaked word about the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia being under investigation in the months leading up to the election [emphasis added], it likely would have been fatal to his presidential hopes.

The gaping hole in Trump’s FBI conspiracy theory that Stephanopoulos identified in his line of questioning has long been one Trump allies have struggled to explain — at least in contexts where interlocutors are willing to challenge them. For instance, during an interview in late 2017, CNN host John Berman quickly debunked Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) when he echoed Trump and claimed the FBI had it out for Trump.

“You think James Comey — it went all the way to the top of the FBI — to keep Donald Trump from being president,” Berman said. “If that’s true, why then did he come out, again, and open up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, and never even tell us before the election about the investigation into alleged Trump collusion? If he was trying to keep Donald Trump from getting elected, don’t you think he might tell voters that?”

All Jordan could say to Berman was “we’ll find out” — a response nearly as lame as the “you’d have to ask them” Trump offered to Stephanopoulos.

Let’s just put it plainly. You have to have the reasoning skills of a watermelon to miss the point. Jordan did.

Trump does.

So do Trump’s biggest fans.

6/17/19: Sen. “Milksop” Mitch McConnell makes it clear. He’s not that interested in the U.S. Constitution.

You may recall that in 2016, McConnell said he would not allow a Senate confirmation vote on Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s pick for a vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Obama was a “lame duck president.” His pick for the court came too close in time (March 16, 2016) to the presidential election. Milksop wasn’t going to allow a “lame duck” to fill a seat, even though the Constitution makes no exceptions, when filling judicial positions, for length of time left in a president’s term.

Obama had ten months, four days, remaining in the White House.

“The American people are perfectly capable [emphasis added] of having their say on this issue,” McConnell insisted. “So let’s give them a voice. Let’s let the American people decide. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be.”

What happened next? The American people did decide. The people gave Hillary Clinton 65.8 million votes. The people gave Donald Trump 63 million votes.

The Electoral College gave Trump the win—as per the U.S. Constitution—but Milksop Mitch had never said, “Let’s give the Electoral College a voice.”

The next election, in 2018, was a rout, with the people giving Democrats 59 million votes vs. 50.3 million for Republicans.

So, the people had spoken. Mitch plugged his ears. Now he says if a vacancy opens on the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, he’ll allow Trump to nominate a person to fill it and Milksop will be sure his choice gets a vote.

“Lame duck” status won’t matter. If Ruth Bader Ginsberg retires from the Court on the morning of January 19, 2020, Trump will nominate son Eric to fill the vacancy and Milksop Mitch will hold hearings and a vote that afternoon.

Trump could nominate a ventriloquist dummy to sit on the highest court and GOP senators would vote for the dummy.

McConnell and the Republicans control the U.S. Senate because each state, no matter its population, gets two votes—again as the U.S. Constitution intended. The GOP picked up a pair of seats in the 2018 elections.

Still, the people of the entire country spoke in 2018. Mitch hears only the “people” of certain states.

And let’s remember what other leading Republicans said in 2016:

Sen. Charles Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee: “The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan: “We should let the American people decide the direction of the court.”

Sen. John Cornyn:

At this critical juncture in our nation’s history, Texans and the American people deserve to have a say in the selection of the next lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

The only way to empower the American people and ensure they have a voice is for the next President to make the nomination to fill this vacancy.

Sen. James Inhofe:

Sens. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have all made statements that the Senate does not have to confirm presidential nominations in an election year. I will oppose this nomination as I firmly believe we must let the people decide the Supreme Court’s future.

Fair enough, to quote Democrats to support the case; but McConnell, Grassley, Ryan, Cornyn and Inhofe were arguing that the people would have to have a voice in the coming election.

Now, Milksop is arguing that the voice that counts was the Ghost of Elections Past, which smacks of craven hypocrisy.

Postscript: In an interview on June 24, Trump owns the hypocrisy. Screw the voice of the people! Would he pick a replacement for an opening on the highest court next year? “It depends,” he says. “I mean, we have the Senate. We have a great Senate. We have great people. If we could get him approved, I would definitely do it. No, I’d do it a lot sooner than that. I’d do it. If there were three days left, I’d put somebody up hoping that I could get ’em done in three days, OK?”

Sure, if your goal is an increasingly authoritarian state.

6/18/19: It’s official. President Twitter Thumbs is running for reelection. In announcing, Trump lashes out in all directions. Speaking at the latest of what are essentially taxpayer-funded rallies, he labels Democrats “an angry, left-wing mob.” He insists his opponents are “depraved.” The man whose campaign had dozens of contacts with Russians—and who said recently he’d happy to talk to Russians or Chinese or Norwegians if they’d help him win again—has the audacity to complain about critics and political foes and the “un-American conduct of those who tried to undermine our great democracy.”

“Instead of bringing us together as one America, Democrats want to splinter us into factions and tribes. They want us divided.”

President Donald J. Trump

Trump was bad in 2016; if he wins in 2020, his brand will likely metastasize. Opponents don’t just disagree about healthcare. Democrats don’t just want to raise taxes. “They want to destroy you,” he warns his worshipers. They want to “destroy our country as we know it. It’s not acceptable, and it’s not going to happen.”

By comparison, Trump describes his fans as people who “love their country, love their flag, love their children, and believe that a nation must care for its own citizens first.”

In the twisted mind of Trump—and confused MAGA minds—we on the other side don’t love this country.

We do.

He says we don’t love the flag.

We do (we’re just not blindly nationalistic).

And he says we don’t love our children???

He’s an asshole.

Announcing his plans to run again, Trump is in full authoritarian mode. He’s stirring maximum hate. He tells his audience that their enemies—currently more than half the American people—are a threat. “They would shut down your free speech and use the power of the law to punish their opponents,” he storms. They “would strip Americans of their constitutional rights while flooding the country with illegal immigrants.” He turns, while speaking of constitutional rights, to attacking the “Fake News” people. He directs his fans’ attention to reporters at the back of the crowd. His fans boo and shout and shake their fists.

The greatest divider in American politics today goes on, ironically, to say, “Instead of bringing us together as one America, Democrats want to splinter us into factions and tribes. They want us divided.”

*

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL makes an early endorsement for president in 2020: Anyone but Trump.

The editorial board explains:

Some readers will wonder how we could possibly eliminate a candidate so far before an election, and before knowing the identity of his opponent. Because there’s no point pretending we would ever recommend that readers vote for Trump.

After 2½ years we’ve seen enough. Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies.

Historically, the Sentinel has endorsed Republican candidates for president in 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980 (noon endorsement), 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012. Now the board cites Trump’s “successful assault on truth” as “the great casualty of this presidency, followed closely by his war on decency.”  The board also warns that Trump “has diminished our standing in the world.”

“The nation must endure another 1½ years of Trump,” the Sentinel concluded. “But it needn’t suffer another four beyond that. We can do better. We have to do better.” (See: 6/15/19.)

6/19/19: As noted two days ago (see: 6/17/19), Milksop Mitch McConnell loves the voice of the people, so long as the people support Mitch and the GOP. In an interview with Laura Ingraham, which gains wide attention Tuesday, Sen. Milksop says there’s no way he’s going to let Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives push forward a bill to grant statehood to Washington D.C.

Mitch McConnell thinks voting leads to socialism.

That would give the 693,972 people of the District of Columbia, a voting representative in the House and two votes in the Senate. This would be horrible and unfair and anti-American and a total rip-off where Wyoming, with 579,315 people, and Vermont, with 623,657, are concerned.

McConnell also tells Ingraham that there’s no way he’ll allow Puerto Rico to become a state, not so long as he has breath in his body. He says that would be socialism…which…

WTF!

That doesn’t even make sense.

In case you’ve forgotten, or never knew, Puerto Ricans gained U.S. citizenship in 1917, but till recently, tended not to wish to become a state.

Now, imagine that the estimated 3,655,121 people of that island did vote by referendum for statehood.

Would the master of the U.S. Senate allow them in or would Old Milksop ignore the voice of several million U.S. citizens?

He would. McConnell would not listen to the Puerto Rican voice of the people, but would listen to the voice of Alaskans, North and South Dakotans, and Montanans, and their eight representatives in the Senate, representing roughly 3.4 million citizens, combined. Apparently, some U.S. citizens count more than others when McConnell is making up his mind.

6/20/19: The threat of war with Iran grows after Iran shoots down a $130 million U.S. drone.

President Trump loves to bluster. Now he must puzzle out what to do. He talks to National Security Adviser John Bolton, a man who has never seen a Middle Eastern country he didn’t want to bomb. As expected, Bolton urges Trump to rain down destruction. Administration officials tell The New York Times that the president’s national security team is unanimous in favoring a limited strike against Iranian radar facilities and missile batteries. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warns that escalation may have unforeseen and dangerous results.

Trump decides to attack!

Planes are on the wing. Ships move into attack positions. Then, with ten minutes to spare, Trump decides he should really, really think about what “General” Tucker Carlson said. The Fox News general warns that if he goes to war with Iran, he will never be reelected.

That clinches it. Trump will do what is good for Trump.

He aborts the mission and wastes millions of dollars of taxpayer money just for fun.

This blogger will admit that Trump is correct in his decision not to bomb. But the president settles on a proper course of action the same way the blind squirrel decides not to blow up the forest.

It’s furry-tailed luck.

Postscript: Trump later defends his change of mind saying he was not told till the last minute that the attack might kill 150 Iranians. He said the toll would be too high. He didn’t want to kill 150 people.

(Several military experts say there’s no way the president wasn’t told about the toll up front in any planning session.)

Then again, this president loves to talk loudly and wave his Big Stick. First, he tweets to all his fans, assuring them the U.S. was “cocked and loaded” and could have attacked if he really wanted.

Trump was trying to have it two ways. First, he wanted to take credit for caring about Iranian lives.

Still, he was one tough hombre, ready to kick Muslim ass.

General Carlson, however, was perfectly clear about what had swayed Trump. On his Friday night show, Carlson explained: “Bombing Iran would have ended his political career in a minute. There would be no chance of reelection after that [emphasis added].” In other words, Trump would happily have killed plenty of Iranians if he thought it would make him look good.

It was poll numbers—not numbers of dead—that convinced him to abort the attack. (See: 6/23/19.)

6/21/19: The New Yorker publishes an account by a writer named E. Jean Carroll, who claims to have been raped by President Trump in 1996. She says she feared to come forward earlier because she knew “she’d be attacked, threatened, and smeared by Trump and his supporters.”

(Within days, after making her accusations, she gets death threats.)

Depending on how you count, Ms. Carroll would bring to 16 or 22 (the count varies based on how media outlets assess claims), the number of women who have accused President Pussy Grabber of criminal sexual behavior and/or sexual harassment. That would include Ivana Trump. She once described a violent sexual assault during the period when the couple was in process of a divorce. (The first Mrs. Trump later said her story was “without merit.”)

So, let’s leave Ivana out and revisit the list of accusers. Vox and other news outlets have put together lists like the one following.

We have added details for context:

E. Jean Carroll: She claims she was raped in a department store dressing room. Trump tells reporters he has no idea who she is or was and wouldn’t have attacked her since “she’s not my type.”

Did Trump just say he would attack a woman if she was his type?

He kind of did.

Two of Carroll’s friends confirm that she described the rape at the time the alleged crime occurred. Initially, they told The New York Times they wanted to remain anonymous.

In a series of denials, Trump insisted that Carroll was “totally lying.” “She is — it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that,” he whined. She was “trying to sell a new book.”

And…wait for it…Trump said Carroll’s story was “Fake News.”

For context, consider the Hollywood Access tape, recorded in 2005, kept secret for a decade. Trump talks about hitting on a woman other than his wife, Melania, who, in 2005, he had recently married:

“I did try and f--- her. She was married,” Trump tells Billy Bush and several others, to general mirth.

“And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

Ha, ha: In his pants!

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

No longer his type?

So: The word of three women vs. Trump, 3-1 (and Trump’s words seem to validate their case.)

How does Trump treat women if he thinks he can get away with it?

How does Trump treat women—what is he willing to try when he thinks he can get away with it? We know he has cheated on all his wives. That’s what detectives might call corroborating evidence. Here’s more:

Kristen Anderson: She says Trump reached up her skirt at a nightclub.

4-1.

*

Mariah Billado: Miss Vermont, 1997, said Trump walked into a dressing room while she and others teen beauty contestants were undressing. Three other young women anonymously supported her claim.

In fact, Trump once bragged to Howard Stern that he did just that. He could drop in on contestants who were undressing because he owned the pageant—so, what could they do? “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good,” he told Stern.

He and Stern shared a laugh.

8-1; again, Trump’s own words validate their case.

*

Rachel Crooks: She worked as a receptionist at Trump Tower in 2005. When introduced to Trump, he kissed Crooks, 22, on the cheek and then the lips. Not long after he asked for her number. He claimed it was to give to a modeling agency. 

Also, did she need any furniture?

Okay, that last part is a joke. Trump had just married Melania, his third wife, on January 22, 2005.

9-1.

*

Tasha Dixon: She says, when the Miss USA 2001 contestants were changing into bikinis, Trump “just came strolling right on in” to their dressing room.

10-1.

*

Jessica Drake: Drake an adult film star, met Trump at a golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006. She says he “hugged her tightly and kissed her on the lips.” Later, he invited her to his suite. Drake says she was offered $10,000 to have sex. Drake was friends with Stormy Daniels—the adult film star who claimed she had consensual sex with Trump around the same time. We do know Daniels was paid $130,000 to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the fall of 2016.

Again, around that time, Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal had a lengthy affair with Trump. She says after she and the future president first had sex, he offered to pay.

According to McDaniel, on one occasion Trump invited her back to his penthouse and they had sex. During their tryst, Donald pointed out a room which he described as “Melania’s room,” saying “she likes to have her alone time” there.

McDougal says cheating on Melania in her own home creeped her out and she apologizes now.

Since we’re on the topic, yet another Playboy Bunny, Barbara Moore, has claimed to have had a six-month affair with Trump. Moore, Miss December 1992, said she hooked up with Trump in 1993. Trump was engaged to Marla Maples at the time and Maples was already pregnant. (See: 4/19/18.)

The “good news,” in this case, is that Moore was not accusing the future president of sexual abuse.

The bad news—proven again—is that where women are involved, Trump has always been a serial liar.

13-1.

*

Jill Harth: She says Trump made repeated sexual advances, including trying to put his hand up between her legs during a business meeting. In an incident at Mar-a-Lago, she says he “pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again.” 

Harth sued Trump in 1997, accusing him of sexual harassment. The suit was dropped after Trump settled a breach of contract suit.

14-1.

*

Cathy Heller: Heller says Trump tried to grab her twice and kiss her, while she was celebrating Mothers’ Day (irony, there) at Mar-a-Lago in 2005 and working on a story about Donald’s and Melania’s first anniversary. She says Trump pushed her against a wall, kissed her, stuck his tongue into her mouth, and said, “We’re going to have an affair.”

15-1.

*

Ninni Laaksonen: The former Miss Finland, says Trump groped her behind in 2006. “He really grabbed my butt.”

16-1.

*

Jessica Leeds: She says Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to reach up her skirt when they were riding in business class on a flight back in the 1970s. Trump was “like an octopus,” she added. Trump denied having octopus hands.

He said Leeds wasn’t his type. But if she was….

17-1.

*

Mindy McGillivray: McGillivray, 23, was helping a photographer friend with an event at Mar-a-Lago. She says Donald Trump groped her behind.

18-1.

*

Jennifer Murphy: Murphy, a contestant on The Apprentice, says Trump kissed her on the lips without asking permission.

19-1.

*

Cassandra Searles: In a Facebook comment, Searles, Miss Washington 2013, said that Trump “grabbed my ass” and repeatedly invited her up to his hotel room.

Ladies: the moral of the story, back out of Trump’s presence, unless there are witnesses in the room.

20-1.

*

Natasha Stoynoff: Stoynoff, a writer for People, was working on a story about the Trump’s, including Melania’s pregnancy in 2005. “Donald wanted to show me around the [Mar-a-Lago] mansion,” she said in 2016. “There was one ‘tremendous’ room in particular, he said, that I just had to see. We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.”

Trump responded—as always—calling Stoynoff’s story “Fake News.” It couldn’t be true, Trump said, because, again, she wasn’t hot enough for him. “She lies! Look at her, I don’t think so,” he said during a 2016 campaign rally.

People noted, that Stoynoff had confided in friends and colleagues in 2005, as soon as the attack occurred. She did not want to hurt a pregnant Melania, if the story got out. Six individuals, including her former journalism professor, corroborated her story.

That makes 27 individuals who say Trump acted inappropriately, or back up friend who told them at the time he had.

27-1

*

Bridget Sullivan: Miss New Hampshire, 2000, says Trump walked through the pageant dressing room while women were naked.

28-1.

*

Temple Taggert: As Miss Utah, in 1997, she was introduced to Trump, who kissed her directly on the lips. She found it “gross.” He later promised a modeling contract and grabbed and kissed her on the lips again.

Trump was, of course, married to Marla Maples, his second wife, at the time.

29-1.

*

Summer Zervos: The former Apprentice contestant says Trump kissed her on the lips when she visited his office in New York. He invited her to dinner, “but instead took her to a hotel bungalow, groped her and tried to have sex with her.”

Trump called Zervos out by name during the 2016 campaign. He referred to her as a liar. She has a pending lawsuit against him for defamation.

30-1.

As for their word vs. Trump, three women won settlements of some kind or were paid hush money to bury their stories.

And Zervos has had the courage to haul Trump’s ass into court.

Postscript: News breaks on July 7 that Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested again. Epstein got off lightly, (13 months in jail, with “work release,” so that he only spent nights behind bars) despite horrific charges of sex-trafficking girls as young as 13.

What prosecutor cut him such a great deal? Alexander Acosta—currently Secretary of Labor in the Trump administration.

And who was accused of violently raping a 13-year-old girl in 1994—and then threatening her and her family if she talked, reminding her he was a very powerful person? Yes, Epstein, of course.

And Donald J. Trump.

The girl in that case said she was lured to Epstein’s mansion by “promises of money and a modeling career [emphasis added].” She had two witnesses who corroborated parts of her story; but her case was dropped.

That would bring our tally to 33 to 1.

Zervos with Mr. Pussy Grabber.

6/22/19: President Trump would like us to believe that the Mueller Report clears his name and nothing sneaky, involving multiple Russians, followed by repeated attempts to obstruct justice, occurred.

It turns out another big name on the right was doing his part to thwart investigators. That would be the pompous, patriot windbag, Sean Hannity.

It is well known that Hannity and Trump talk nightly, just before the president shuffles off to bed. That made the Fox News commentator the perfect go-between when Trump wanted to get a message to Paul Manafort, when Manafort was in the crosshairs of investigation.

As the Mueller Report makes clear, Manafort would have been the critical witness if he revealed all he knew.

Keeping him quite was paramount.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has now ordered release of 56 pages of text messages that passed between the two men. What we quickly learn is that Hannity was repeatedly assuring Manafort he had a very good friend in the White House.

A sampling, with editorial comment in italics:

8/9/17

Hannity: Please know you are in my prayers.

Manafort: Thank you. I need them. I feel so violated.

Manafort’s home has just been raided. Those dirty rats from the F.B.I.! Just because they have evidence to indicate Manafort might have been working with Russian agents during the 2016 campaign.

8/11/17

Hannity: I am truly frightened the constitution is being shredded, (no 4 th Amendment protections) no equal justice under the law. I am truly frightened for the future of this country we love. God help us and the world if we don’t get this straightened out. I pray that God give you grace and peace in this difficult moment. I sadly know from experience that in times like these friends will abandon you…

If you just ever want to talk, grab dinner, vent, strategize—whatever, I am here. I know this is very hard. Stand tall and strong.

Hannity is on his side. And he won’t abandon him. And if Hannity is on his side, it is implied that the president is on his side. Let’s “strategize.”

Hint: let’s obstruct justice.

Manafort: I appreciate what you tried to do [on your show]. Mueller is trying to intimidate me. The raid is just one example. I won’t let him succeed but it is very lonely fighting this fight. I feel all alone out there. Except for you and a few others, our side is not engaged.

Hint: Can you help me? Can you make sure the president is thinking about ways to save my money-laundering, tax-cheating, witness-tampering ass?

Hannity: Call me, text me, email me. Let’s eat talk and anything I can do to help… I’m not a fair weather friend.

Hint: I’m in your corner. You know I speak for Trump.

Hannity: Paul, like u, I don’t give a shit about me. I do care about this amazing country that is soooo sooo off course and experience real corruption. And I’m gonna fight for the country I love...Then poor Gen Flynn. What they did to HIM WAS ILLEGAL.

Flynn has been fired for lying to Vice President Pence. Hannity and Manafort are texting at 3 a.m.

Hannity: I made more this year than my mom, dad and all their brothers and sisters and my grandparents made combined in their lifetimes.

Manafort: Your life story, and mine, are the reasons this country was created.

Manafort has been working for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs for a decade. His main guy eventually flees to Russian after the Ukrainian people revolt in protest against massive corruption. Manafort has millions hidden in offshore bank accounts in Cyprus. He’s a tax cheat. That’s not why this country was created.

Several weeks elapse. The “friends” don’t text again till late September.

9/26/17

Hannity: “How are u holding up?”

Hint: We’re still thinking (you know I talk to Trump almost every night) a pardon might be nice in the end.

10/25/17

Manafort: Thank you for fighting for our country.

Hannity: I’m sick of these lies. COME ON WITH ME WITH YOUR ATTY BEFORE THEY TRY AND ATTACK U MORE

Hannity wants Manafort to come on his show and he’ll help spread the Manafort version of the truth.

Hannity really likes this guy who has been a tool of Russian-leaning Ukrainian oligarchs. Manafort was also a founder of a lobbying group that promised to burnish the image of various tyrants and authoritarian governments. He and partner Roger Stone, who also worked for Trump in 2016, acquired a reputation for amorality and questionable ethics. In 1992, The Center for Public Integrity, reporting on their work, listed them as one of the top five groups comprising “The Torturer’s Lobby.”

Manafort and Stone’s group made at least $3.3 million representing the kinds of governments who torture and kill their own citizens.

10/30/17

Hannity: Hey You OK?

Manafort: Yes. Rough day but yes. Their [federal prosecutors] case is totally BS. Wrong on law and wrong on facts.

We learn soon the case is strong, the evidence voluminous. Manafort’s own tax accountant will testify against him.

11/8/17

Manafort: I am dealing with this gag order on me and my lawyers. Building a plan B.

Hannity: Ok. Can we talk tonight?

Hint: Let’s ignore the gag order.

11/14/17

Manafort: They are still f’ing with me on bail. Getting close [to being able to come on Hannity’s show]. Once dine then we need to sit and build a plan…Hopefully Sessions moves on new Spec Pros

Hannity: He has to [do?] it [or?] he is gone…Talked to a friend.

Hint: The president is going to fire Attorney General Sessions. A new AG will get rid of Robert Mueller. Hold on, Paul, we’re going to rescue your ass.

Manafort: Fingers crossed you are right.

11/28/17

Hannity: Hope you had a great thanksgiving

Hint: I am really spending a lot of time caring about you, even though the free press has revealed your meeting with Russian agents in Trump Tower.

(It will later be proven that Manafort met secretly with a Russian agent in August 2016, as well.)

Manafort: I did. Spent it with my family and my 3 month old grandson…Hope you had a good one.

Manafort: But I cannot allow them to win. It would empower them to go after DT [Trump] and lots of others.

Hint: I need help. I have damaging information. I could tell investigators that Trump knew about both my secret meetings with Russians.

Hannity: The country can’t allow it.

Manafort: Plus i plan on helping on the re elect!

Manafort is serving seven years in jail. He won’t be out in time to work on the 2020 campaign. Or the 2024 campaign, probably.

12/7/17

Manafort: Your monologue was the best summary ever of the case against Mueller and his team

Hannity: F him

Yeah, “F him.” All Mueller ever did was head the F.B.I. for years and build a reputation for integrity. Also: Mueller is a decorated war hero who was wounded in Vietnam. But Super Patriot Sean loves Paul!

Neither served this country in uniform.

12/25/17

Hannity: My brother, thinking about you. Merry Christmas and 2018 is the year of exposing the TRUTH!!!

Manafort: Sean, your ears must have been burning. Just told my relatives who you will not give up ever! Merry Christmas to you and your family. Paul

Hint: My brother! We—Trump and I—are thinking about you. We should have sent you a present. A nice Christmas sweater maybe, the kind that lights up.

1/3/18

Manafort: I told my lawyer that i want him to find a way to give you an interview on this complaint [one of numerous legal moves in the case]. He will need to navigate carefully re not violating the gag order in the criminal case, but i think we can figure that out. He said he will give me a sense tomorrow of how we can do it.

Hannity: We can tape it.

Anything for you, brother. We are on the same side, protecting you…and protecting the president.

1/17/18

Manafort: You were awesome last night.

1/24/18

Manafort: In a fair world you would get a Pulitzer for your incredible reporting.

Hannity: LOL. I’ll take those assholes going to jail.

1/25/18

Manafort: They [the Mueller team] are running out of time…and have nothing but BS charges on me. They are threatening me with more charges because they realize their case is weak and I am not bending to their pressure. JK threats [threats to indict Jared Kushner] may be another way they are trying to get DT to agree to interview.

Hannity: He won’t agree. The lawyers will fight tooth and nail.

Trump’s guilty. He can’t testify under oath because he’ll lie so many times, even a crack team of investigators will have a hard time keeping track. You’re guilty, too. We both know it; but we will stymie these guys together. Sean and Paul! Like Batman and Robin, only committing crimes, not stopping them!

Hannity: Weissmann [Andrew; one of Mueller’s investigators] is a piece of shit…This is a National fing disgrace.

Yep. Pursuing a tax cheat. What an “fing disgrace.”

1/26/18

Manafort: Great show tonight. This story on Trump wanting to fire Mueller is another OSC [Office of Special Counsel] leak—which is illegal.

The president later denies he ever told the White House Chief Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn says he did. Someone is lying.

(It’s Trump.)

2/3/2018

Manafort: …Thank you and God bless you for what you just said about Flynn and me.

Hannity: Later [on the show] I say charges need to be dropped.

Manafort: I know they are scared because they have been pressing me and I told them to fuck off.

Hannity: I’m in campaign war mode every day…I am disgusted at this corruption. It should not happen in the USA I can tell u POTUS is disgusted too

Hint, hint, hint: Hang tough. Trump is on your side.

Manafort: I live in a nightmare every day…But I won’t give in

Hannity: Flynn agreed to “lying” because they said they would go after his son.

Flynn absolutely lied to Vice President Pence; he also took $530,000 from Turkish interests while serving as Trump’s National Security Adviser, which would be an absolute conflict of interests.

Hannity doesn’t care. Save Trump!

2/22/18

Manafort: The SP [Special Prosecutor] just filed more charges against me. They are BS but it is still depressing…Taxes and bank fraud. Honestly, it’s pure intimidation …[Rick] Gates new lawyer is going to be fine. Gates is in for ling haul

Hannity: Nobody has any idea what this guy is up to. I keep warning everyone

Manafort: Gates is totalky united with trump and m

Hannity: They want Trump BADLYa

Manafort: Yes and they are pummeling me to cave These charges are so crazy. They are meant to destroy me

Gates, Manafort’s business partner for years, cuts a deal and pleads guilty. He later testifies that he and Manafort both knew they were communicating with Russian agents during the 2016 campaign.

3/7/18

Hannity: We r all on the same team [he has just mentioned Roger Stone]

Manafort: And we will prevail

Keep lying, we are Team Liars, you, Stone, the president, and me. I will lie to my viewers. I will tell them I love America when I’m almost conspiring with felons.

3/14/18

Hannity: Why don’t u get a sweetheart deal like Gates

Manafort: They would want me to give up Dt [Trump] or family, esp. JK [Kushner]. I would never do that.

Hint: Tell Trump when you call him tonight. I really need a pardon. Or: I might have to cut a deal.

3/23/18

Manafort: Ok Call me on 917-562-0567

4/10/18

Hannity: Time to say F u and go to war.

Manafort: Yes

Hannity: They will get Jared…And try to get Potus to explode…Maximum damage to country. Deep state wins

Manafort: Sessions is totally worthless…By the way, [Judge Amy Berman] Jackson denied me bail today. Declared most of my hard assets couldn’t be used, all on BS reasons…So I may be stuck if I can’t find 2.5 m.

Hannity: It’s horrible. Michael [Cohen] is a total mess.

Manafort: These guys started with me, but Cohen isn’t the end. They are fascists. And true criminals. Sessions needs some balls.

Trump fires Sessions the day after the midterm elections in November. He’s angry because Sessions hasn’t “protected” him. Cohen pleads guilty to eight felonies and says Trump ordered him to commit two.

5/4/18:

Manafort: It was a big day. This judge really came down hard on all the key points on illegal delegation [a judge has expressed concern that the case being built against Manafort is really being built to get at the president], anti DT motives, improper over reach. If he rules correctly everyone benefits from me to DT to JK et all.

Hannity: Massive. Tune into radio now

Manafort: Next week I do my motion to tgrow out gag order as violation if my 1^st amend rights. I will win it. Then you are the first appearance I do

Hannity: I am told DT is pumped

Manafort: Do you think you can use today to give my defense fund a promote?

Hint: I need cash, or I might have to talk. Trump is pumped because he thinks he might get away with lies and obstruction.

5/7/18

Manafort: S I have a favor to ask. I am going live with both a GoFundMe and Facebook defense fund sight tonight around 7:00pm. Do you think you can do a tweet or a like to the site?

Hannity: Paul it would be problematic with Fox. I need to get the ok. Hope u understand.

Even Fox News has ethical standards. Hannity has none.

5/18/19:

Hannity: Brought up your case with Rudy [Giuliani]

Manafort: Rudy seems to get it

Hint: Trump’s newest lawyer is on your side. Remember, keep your mouth shut if you want a pardon.

6/5/18

Manafort: S I know you know this but for the record: This Mueller claim of jury tampering is a total lie. It is the latest squeeze. Just wanted you to hear it from me.

Hannity: Ok. Got it. Understand. These real crimes committed and ignored disgust me. Fisa HRC [Hannity believes Hillary Rodham Clinton is a criminal; and the FISA courts were wrong to allow an investigation into conduct by several members of the Trump 2016 campaign.]

*

On August 8, 2018, a jury finds Manafort guilt on eight felony counts. A lone juror hangs the jury, 11-1 for conviction, on ten more counts.

In September, Manafort pleads “guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and one count of conspiracy against the U.S.” That gives him ten felonies. He agrees to a plea deal and admits that the other ten felony counts (which resulted in a hung jury) were correct. He says he will cooperate with the Mueller team.

In November, Mueller accuses Manafort of breaching the plea deal and adds a charge of witness tampering.

On February 13, 2019, Judge Amy Berman Jackson rules that Manafort did indeed violate his plea agreement. First, he lied about, “interactions with the former Russian intelligence operative Konstantin Kilimnik and Kilimnik’s role in the alleged conspiracy to obstruct justice by trying to influence the testimony of two witnesses in February.” Second, he withheld information that was “pertinent to another Department of Justice investigation.”

The bromance comes to an end, at least in any traceable form. Hannity may have been spooked after Manafort was convicted.

As far as we know, all text messages cease.

With Hannity you get witness tampering.

 

6/23/19: President Trump loves to talk tough. So, what about Iran? Having called off one attack, he wants fans to know he’s still itching to kick ass—and slaughter untold numbers of human beings.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Bigger!

You will see “fire and fury” like…no, scratch that. That was Trump’s last threat, also, not acted upon.

Interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the president explains why he called off the Iran attack. “What happened is, I said, ‘I’m not going to do it. I’ll save it. If they do something else, it’ll be double,’” he tells host Chuck Todd. “I’m not looking for war and if there is, it’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before [emphasis added]. But I’m not looking to do that. But you can’t have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good. Otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years.” 

With Trump you get cavalier threats of thermonuclear destruction.

6/24/19: Trump likes to insist Democrats and those who disagree with him on how to address problems along the southern border don’t care about crime.

This is ludicrous.

Sometimes, our side just cares about human beings, whereas the President of the United States doesn’t.

Today, more than 300 migrant children, all of whom had been separated from their families, were removed from an overcrowded facility in Clint, Texas. Some had been held for almost a month. Conditions at the station, meant to hold 100 people, have been described variously as “appalling,” “filthy,” “perilous” and “inhumane.”

Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, was one outside observer who came to help. After touring the facility, she described what she saw.

None of the children had access to soap or toothpaste…Almost every child I spoke with had not showered or bathed since they crossed the border—some of them more than three weeks ago. There is a stench that emanates from some of the children because they haven’t had an opportunity to put on clean clothes and to take a shower.

I have never seen conditions as appalling as what we witnessed last week. The children are hungry, dirty and sick and being detained for very long periods of time.

Children who are young themselves are being told by guards they must take care of even younger children.

Mukherjee saw children as young as seven and eight caring for toddlers in filthy diapers. Almost all the children had been separated from adults with whom they crossed the border, aunts, uncles, older siblings, grandparents, even parents. “They don’t know where their loved ones are who they crossed the border with.”

Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University, described a chaotic scene. He saw children sleeping on concrete floors. A flu outbreak was made worse by the lack of soap. Another observer noted, “We saw many, many sick children. We immediately saw children who were coughing and had runny noses. They had mucus all over their shirts.” Attorneys who had come to fight for the rights of the children described seeing a “four-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days, and hungry, inconsolable children struggling to soothe one another. Some had been locked for three weeks inside the facility, where 15 children were sick with the flu and another 10 were in medical quarantine.”

Most Americans were horrified. But what really riled up Republicans was not the terrible conditions in which hundreds of elementary age and younger children were being held. No. It made them angry when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Trump administration was operating “concentration camps” for children.

That hurt GOP feelings.

Meanwhile, desperate families continued to stream toward the border. The president continued to stoke irrational fears. These were dangerous criminals, he warned, hoping to invade our country.

Two of those dangerous criminals, Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, 25, and his daughter, Angie Valeria, 23 months, never made it.

The Martínez family made it as far as the northern Mexican border city of Matamoros last weekend, where, according to relatives, they hoped to cross into the United States and apply for asylum.

Told the bridge was closed, however, they decided to ford the Rio Grande on Sunday afternoon instead.

Mr. Martínez went ahead with the couple’s daughter, carrying her on his back, tucked under his T-shirt. His wife, Tania Vanessa Ávalos, followed behind, riding on the back of a family friend, she told Mexican officials.

As Mr. Martínez, carrying their daughter, approached the opposite bank, he was visibly tiring in the rough water, Ms. Ávalos told the authorities. Unnerved, she decided to swim back to the Mexican side, but she saw her husband and daughter, close to the American riverbank, sink into the water and get swept away.

One wonders, if one has any human feeling, what the last thoughts of this poor father and his little girl might have been.

We do know they weren’t coming to kill us all. They were coming because they wanted a chance for a better life.

Martinez and his little girl.

6/25/19: The party of “family values” gets another kick in the nuts when prosecutors reveal fresh details in the case against GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter. In case you’ve forgotten, Hunter was the second member of Congress to come out in support of Trump’s candidacy. Sadly, he and his wife Margaret were soon indicted for misuse of campaign funds. Famously, on one occasion they paid $600 (using campaign donations) to fly their pet bunny on a family vacation to Italy (also paid for with campaign donations).

At the time, President Trump—and here the “party of law and order” gets whacked upside the head, as well—complained because Hunter and a second GOP member of Congress, Chris Collins, likewise had been indicted. Collins, the first member of Congress to support Trump for president, got nailed on charges of insider trading.

So, Twitter Thumbs had to tweet:

Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......

“Jeff,” as in Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has since been fired and Collins is scheduled for his day in court in September.

By now we know Hunter is in a serious jam. First, his wife has already pled guilty and has agreed to testify against him. Second, prosecutors have revealed that Rep. Hunter was using campaign cash for more than just flying his wife and kids and the bunny on vacations.

He was allegedly financing five separate extramarital affairs.

Five.

Even Fox News can’t do much to make this story sound any better. But they try:

The Monday filing alleges Hunter spent campaign money to fund trips, hotel rooms, bar tabs, Uber rides and meals during his meetings with several unidentified women. In one case, Hunter flew to Reno, Nevada in January 2010 to ostensibly to attend a convention for a nonprofit group. After stopping at the convention, Hunter and a female lobbyist traveled to a ski resort in Lake Tahoe.

He billed his campaign $1,008 for the hotel stay and room service and another $180 to fly back to Washington D.C.

In March 2010, he also took a “double date” road trip with the same lobbyist to Virginia Beach, according to federal prosecutors. He spent $905 in campaign funds to pay for a bar tab and shared hotel room for the weekend, the filing said.

A spokesman for Hunter did not immediately return a Fox News request for comment on the allegations.

In another example, Hunter allegedly charged his campaign $93 to take a congressional aide out for drinks and billed another $21 for an Uber ride back to his office.

(Blogger’s note: Prosecutors say Hunter and the aide spent the night there.)

Still, Fox injects as much doubt as it can:

Hunter has called the case against him a political ploy and has denied corruption allegations. He previously said his wife handled his campaign's finances.

The filing did not say whether Hunter’s relationships with the women were sexual. Prosecutors did say the “sequence of romantic liaisons is so far removed from any legitimate campaign or congressional activity as to rebut any argument that Hunter believed these were proper uses of campaign funds.”

Overnight stays with various women—not sexual—sure, Trump fans might fall for that.

We who do not care for the Trump administration and this sorry crowd, anxiously await the trial.

6/26/19: Every so often a day goes by and the president says nothing stupid and does nothing illegal.

Today is not such a day.

Trump warms up early, speaking at a meeting of the Faith and Freedom Coalition—which is ironic, since he’s just been accused of rape, and he’s been a serial adulterer, a business cheat and a liar his entire life.

Yet, he’s still a favorite of the Christian faith crew.  

Once again, pettiness proves to be his stock in trade. He decides it would be fun to insult a dead war hero, albeit without naming John McCain.

As Vox explains, “President Trump gave a dizzying, rambling speech to an evangelical group on Wednesday, including a very weird aside about the late Sen. John McCain.”

McCain, who died last August, cast the decisive vote against repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the summer of 2017, which is still a personal sore spot for Trump.

“We needed 60 votes and we had 51 votes, and sometimes, you know, we had a little hard time with a couple of them, right? Fortunately they’re gone now. They’ve gone on to greener pastures,” Trump said, “… or perhaps far less green pastures, but they’re gone ... very happy they’re gone.”

Yes, Trump is very happy another human being is dead. And maybe they went to hell, just to make it even better.

*

AS IF THAT wasn’t enough, Trump decided to attack an individual U.S. citizen. The attack came in the form of a Twitter tirade aimed at Megan Rapinoe, a star forward on the U.S. National Women’s Soccer team.

I mean, why not? Why salvage the last shreds of dignity of the office? Why remember that you represent all Americans, not just the ones who cheer at your rallies or kiss your lard ass on Fox News?

“I am now inviting the TEAM, win or lose. Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her & the team.”

President Trump, after soccer star Megan Rapinoe, makes it clear she doesn’t want to visit the White House

What exactly got Trump fired up? Rapinoe made it clear in an interview, after the American team defeated Spain 2-0, that she would not be visiting the “fucking White House” if the U.S. won the World Cup. 

Ms. Rapinoe is a lesbian.

And you can see why she might not want to visit with the leader of an administration that if, for example, she was a teen soccer star and wanted to attend the school where Vice President Pence’s wife works, would not be allowed to play or attend. No gays or lesbians are allowed. That might rankle. It might bother her that this administration has barred U.S. embassies from displaying the rainbow flag. Rapinoe might not feel personally welcome in Trump’s White House.

In any case, Rapinoe makes it clear she isn’t going to visit—and notes that Trump probably won’t invite the team anyway.

It takes Trump six of the fifty tweets and retweets he issues in one day to carry out his attack. At 9:27 a.m. he makes his first strike:

Women’s soccer player, @meganrapino, just stated that she is “not going to the F...ing White House if we win.” Other than the NBA, which now refuses to call owners, owners (please explain that I just got Criminal Justice Reform passed, Black unemployment is at the lowest level...

....in our Country’s history, and the poverty index is also best number EVER), leagues and teams love coming to the White House. I am a big fan of the American Team, and Women’s Soccer, but Megan should WIN first before she TALKS! Finish the job! We haven’t yet....

...invited Megan or the team, but I am now inviting the TEAM, win or lose. Megan should never disrespect our Country, the White House, or our Flag, especially since so much has been done for her & the team. Be proud of the Flag that you wear. The USA is doing GREAT!

So, let’s sort this out. First, Trump has never invited a team that didn’t win a championship to the White House. He’s only trying to score cheap political points—on penalty kicks, as it were.

Second, at 9:42 he repeats the same three tweets, meaning he devoted a good part of his morning to tweet-hating a female athlete who had the audacity to show him the disrespect he deserves.

Third, Ms. Rapinoe can talk if she wants. The First Amendment assures her that right. She doesn’t have to “WIN first.” She scored both goals in the victory over Spain, or the U.S. team might be headed home.

Rapinoe was also a star on the U.S. women’s team that won the World Cup in 2015. So, she doesn’t have to “finish the job.”

Fourth, she’s not disrespecting the flag. (You could argue easily that Trump is the one disrespecting the flag: what with cozying up to Putin, and with his 2016 campaign courting Russian help.)

Fifth, she’s not disrespecting a building. She’s saying she doesn’t want to come to the “fucking White House” because of the fucking idiot in the Oval Office.

Lastly, she’s not disrespecting the country.

Trump isn’t the country. He represents Rapinoe and all his critics and should never forget that all are protected by the freedoms he and his MAGA hat crowd claim they care so much about.

Postscript: Rapinoe is far from alone in her disdain for the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Ali Krieger, a teammate, makes it clear she stands with Rapinoe.

Nor are these women alone. Several teammates are on record, indicating they won’t show at the White House if an invite comes. The Golden State Warriors, winners of the 2017 NBA championship, made it clear their team would not visit. LeBron James said if the Cleveland Cavaliers, their Finals opponents, won, he’d skip a trip. The Minnesota Lynx, winners of the WNBA championship in 2017, weren’t invited. The Golden State Warriors weren’t any more anxious to show up after they won again in 2018. So: No invitation. Danny Green of the Toronto Raptors, the 2019 NBA champs, says if an invite is in the mail, he’s not coming. Only half the New England Patriots appeared after winning the 2018 Super Bowl—although some may have begged off, having been to the White House before. At least five players, however, made it clear that they stayed away in a protest over Trump administration policies. They weren’t showing disrespect to the country or flag or mom or apple pie.

Trump policies and Trump, personally, were the problem.

Still, that was a better showing than 2017. When the Philadelphia Eagles were invited, after winning the Super Bowl, the number of players willing to stand behind Trump for a photo could have been counted on one hand, with the middle finger left over.

In his typical petulant way, Trump disinvited the entire team. Then the White House tried to cover up the embarrassment by promising to hold a celebration for all “Eagles fans.” The Business Insider explains what happened next:

The mayor of Philadelphia then called Trump “a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size.” The White House instead hosted a ceremony for “Eagles fans” to celebrate the American flag. When most of the 1,000 fans showed up in business suits and only one Eagles jersey was observed [emphasis added], many speculated that the event was staged.

Tim Furlong, a Philadelphia TV reporter, was skeptical from the start:

It didn’t help when he asked six “Eagles fans” to name the starting quarterback on the Super Bowl winning team.

Not one could.

(Nick Foles, you fools!)

Still, harsh reality never bothers Trump. For the sake of TV cameras present, he bragged, “This is a beautiful, big celebration. Actually, to be honest, it’s even bigger than we had anticipated.”

(Sure.)

So, is it the flag that’s the problem? Or the country? Or the White House? North Carolina won the NCAA men’s basketball championship in 2017. They were invited but cited “scheduling problems” and never showed. The South Carolina women won the NCAA women’s basketball championship that year. They were not invited. The Houston Astros won the 2017 World Series. Two Hispanic stars refused to visit. The problem was and remains Donald J. Trump.

In fact, let’s give the last word to Alex Cora, manager of the Boston Red Sox, winners of last year’s World Series. After Boston was invited, the Puerto Rican-born Cora made it plain he wouldn’t go. Several players also refused, including Mookie Betts, reigning American League MVP, David Price, a star pitcher (both African American), and Hector Velazquez (a native of Mexico). None of them spit on the Stars and Stripes or insulted the country. Cora explained why he stayed away. He had no problem with America, and was in no way disrespecting our men and women in uniform. He had a problem with Trump. He had a problem with a man who called Puerto Rican lawmakers “grossly incompetent,” said they “only take from the USA.” (Trump seems to forget Puerto Rico is part of the USA.)

He didn’t like Trump tweeting that Puerto Rico wanted to be bailed out “with your tax dollars,” again forgetting that the island was part of this country and that the people of Puerto Rico were U.S. citizens. 

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley didn’t help matters, when in an interview on MSNBC, he twice referred to Puerto Rico as “that country,” as if the island had not been a part of the U.S. for a century.

(The U.S. Women’s National Team defeats France, 2-1, the next day. Rapinoe again scores both U.S. goals. You know, in his heart, the president was hoping the U.S. would lose and Rapinoe would break a leg.)

6/27/19: If you like insults, President Trump is on a hot streak. Thursday, he insulted a star on the U.S. women’s soccer team and insulted the memory of a dead American war hero. He also insulted Robert Mueller, and claimed without evidence that Mueller broke the law.

Today, Trump insults the U.S. Supreme Court, calling a decision to block a question on the 2020 Census, asking whether people living at a given address are citizens or not, “totally ridiculous.”

In a 5-4 vote, the majority said the rational cited by the administration for asking the question was “contrived.”

So, let’s go to the U.S. Constitution. 

Article I, Section 2, requires that a census be taken every ten years, counting all “free Persons,” excluding “Indians not taxed,” and tossing in “three fifths of all other Persons” to establish state populations.

Those “three fifths” were slaves. That meant every five slaves counted as three white persons in determining population.

These populations become the basis for purposes of representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and for apportionment of any direct taxes.

Okay. I’m checking Article I, Section 2 again. Nope. The words “citizen” and “citizenship” do not pertain. In fact, every census, starting in 1790, counted non-citizens for purposes of determining population. A German immigrant in Pennsylvania at that time, an Irish immigrant in Massachusetts in 1850 and a Chinese immigrant in California in 1890 counted. They might someday become citizens—save any of the Chinese, who were permanently excluded—but they were counted.

The slaves were counted till 1860, even though they weren’t legally persons, but, rather, property.

*

IN OTHER COURT NEWS, Paul Manafort, the president’s favorite felon, gets hauled before the New York State Supreme Court. Manafort pleads not guilty to 16 new felony counts. These include mortgage fraud, business fraud, and just about every kind of fraud you can think of, including flossing fraud.

*

ANY MORE COURT NEWS TODAY? Yes! And thanks for asking! Reporters from The New York Times convince two women, friends of E. Jean Carroll (who lodged a rape allegation against Trump last week), to go on record. For several days, they had hoped to remain anonymous.

Today the Times convinced both, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, to corroborate Carroll’s accusation.

On the day of the alleged rape, Ms. Carroll called a friend at work. It was around 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

From the sidewalk, she phoned Lisa Birnbach, a friend and author of “The Official Preppy Handbook.” Ms. Carroll was laughing at first as she described an encounter she said she had just had in a Bergdorf dressing room with Donald J. Trump that began as cheeky banter. But what she was saying didn’t strike Ms. Birnbach as funny. “I remember her being very overwrought,” Ms. Birnbach said in an interview. “I remember her repeatedly saying, ‘He pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights.’” When Ms. Carroll finished her account, Ms. Birnbach said, “‘I think he raped you.’”

“Let’s go to the police,” she recalled telling Ms. Carroll. But Ms. Carroll refused. A day or two later, she described the episode to another friend, Carol Martin…She advised Ms. Carroll to stay silent.

Ms. Carroll around that time.

Ms. Birnbach explained why she had decided to step up. “I saw some horrible things that people were posting on social media,” Ms. Birnbach said. “I believe E. Jean in this episode that she recounted to me in 1996. Yes. Without hesitation. She’s not a fabulist. She doesn’t make things up.”

Ms. Carroll told reporters she had not wanted to relive the incident; but the #MeToo movement in 2017 shook her up. In a book coming out next week, she explains how the incident played out. 

The Times tells the rest:

…she and Mr. Trump had recognized each other at Bergdorf’s [an upscale department store in New York City], talked playfully about what gift he might buy for a woman, and ended up in the lingerie department, challenging each other to try on a lilac bodysuit. She remembered thinking it would make a great story.

But in the dressing room, with no one nearby, Ms. Carroll said Mr. Trump pushed her against a wall, pulled down her tights and put his penis inside her. “It was violent, I fought, but didn’t think of it as …” she trailed off, never saying “rape.” “I have a hard time even saying that word,” she said.

She said she blamed herself for going into the dressing room with him. “What an idiot,” she said. “You don’t combine lingerie and going in a closed room.”

You might say you don’t combine attractive women and Donald J. Trump in any setting where he thinks he can get away with sexual assault.

6/28/19: Once again, President Trump steps onto the world stage and disgraces himself, this time repeatedly. At the G-20 Summit in Osaka he sits down for breakfast with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and helps burnish the prince’s image. Trump describes MBS him as “a friend of mine.” Speaking to a group of Saudi men seated across the table, Trump describes the prince as a man who has “opened up things…especially what you’ve done for women.”

Our president has been watching what is happening in Saudi Arabia. It’s a “revolution,” but “in a very positive way.”

“I want to thank you,” the president continues, as reporters and TV crews look on. “You’ve done a really spectacular job,” he tells bin Salman. And, oh, the meetings they’ve had! “They’ve been terrific!” Saudi Arabia—boy, the president says—they buy U.S. military equipment, “the best in the world,” and those purchases, he claims, “create a million jobs” in the U.S.A.

There are only a few problems with Trump’s take:

1.     Saudi women may not apply for passports without permission from male relatives.

2.     Child marriages and arranged marriages are the rule.

3.     Husbands can unilaterally divorce wives.

4.     A woman was recently stoned to death for adultery.

5.     The Crown Prince has instituted a crackdown on “dissidents, human rights activists, and independent clerics,” often accusing critics of treason.

6.     Jamal Khashoggi, a fierce critic of MBS, a permanent resident of the United States, with children who are U.S. citizens, was brutally murdered by Saudi agents last year.

7.     Trump makes jobs numbers up. In March 2018 he claimed Saudi arms sales would create 40,000 jobs in the U.S. That didn’t seem to impress.

8.     He upped the claim to 450,000, to 500,000, then 600,000.

9.     Finally, he decided a round million sounded about right.

The disgrace only grows worse. During a photo opportunity with Putin, Trump looks at the reporters filling the room and jokingly says to the murderous Russian autocrat, “Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it. You don’t have the problem in Russia. We have it; you don’t have it.”

“Yes, yes, we have it,” Putin responded. “The same.”

Only, they don’t. In Russia, critics get bludgeoned, strangled, stabbed, gassed, hanged, gunned down, thrown off balconies, poisoned, and tortured and killed in police custody.

Soon after, a reporter asks Trump if he has told the Russian Killer not to interfere in the next U.S. election. Trump has already said he’d be willing to take foreign help in 2020. He laughs off the question.

Here’s how the Associated Press describes the scene: “‘Of course’ the president replied.

Then he turned to Putin and facetiously said, ‘Don’t meddle in the election.’ He playfully repeated the request while pointing at Putin, who laughed.”

For a handy refresher, here’s what the Mueller Report says:

6/29/19: It’s official, President Trump is running for reelection. Big Coal is saved! Planet Earth is screwed.

First, the good news, if you’re a right-winger. Trump is rolling back rules put in place by Obama to address the issue of climate change. States will now decide whether they want to require stricter emissions standards for coal-fired plants. As the Associated Press explains: “The EPA move comes despite the agency’s own analysis that it would result in the deaths of an extra 300 to 1,500 people each year by 2030, owing to additional air pollution.”

Well, screw those people—and screw the other 7,600,000,000 who reside around the globe.

Trump is saving coal jobs. That is why, since taking over, he has helped send coal mining jobs soaring, from 50,800 to 52,900.

*

ANY OTHER CONSIDERATIONS we might want to balance against those 2,100 jobs? (And, as a good liberal, let me say I’m happy to see the workingman or workingwoman find good paying jobs. That would be especially true if the jobs are unionized, guaranteeing better pay and benefits.)

It turns out a research team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks has been monitoring permafrost layers at three sites in the far north since 2003.

Damn scientists and their evidence!

They report that thawing has accelerated, between 150 percent to 240 percent, compared to rates from 1979 to 2000. “We were all quite surprised when we went back later and saw how the landscape had been transformed,” one researcher told reporters.

“It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years [emphasis added],” said a second scientist.

For comparison purposes, when Trump talks climate change, first he denies it’s happening. Then he mixes up climate change with efforts to protect clean air and water. (See: 6/8/19.)

*

IS THAT IT? Or are there more scientists out there, gathering data, releasing studies, and lying about what they discover? Is climate change a “hoax,” as President Twitter Thumbs insists?

Damn it! There’s more chilling data (cheap pun). After combing through satellite photographs from the last 40 years, scientists warn that glaciers across China, India, Nepal and Bhutan have been losing a foot-and-a-half of ice on average every year, since 2000. That rate is double the rate observed from 1975 to 2000. In the near future, a key source of drinking water for hundreds of millions of people across South Asia will be threatened.

*

IN RELATED NEWS, a third group of scientists—damn!—warned this week that, well, even more shit is melting.

Another study, released Wednesday, based on NASA’s Operation IceBridge airborne observations, suggests the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than estimated. In the next 200 years, Greenland melting could add 19 to 63 inches to rising ocean levels—enough to swamp Miami, threaten Netherlands dikes and render swaths of Bangladesh uninhabitable. Within fifty years, Tangier Island (pop. 727), in the Chesapeake Bay and several Pacific island nations could disappear. But, hey, Trump has saved 2,100 coal mining jobs.

So, who cares about the planet?

*

APPARENTLY “FAKE THERMOMETERS” are at work, making Trump’s stand on climate change seem ever more dangerous.

In southern France, yesterday, the highest temperature ever recorded in that country’s history was reached: 45.9°C (114.6° F).

In Gallargues-le-Montueux, where the record was set, Mayor Freddy Cerda said it was just something the village had to learn to deal with. “We have to put up with this climate, and that’s what the future holds for us, don’t forget. The south of France is going to become tropical,” he warned.

6/30/19: Picking apart any president’s diplomatic moves is easy, mainly because diplomacy rarely bears fruit—and when it does, it’s often sour. U.S. presidents, for example, have been working on an “Israeli-Palestinian solution” since 1967. It’s no surprise if Jared Kushner can’t work out the bugs now. Neither could anyone else.

So, President Trump’s decision to step across the DMZ into North Korea today could work out for the good—or could prove a costly mistake.

Talking is better than bombing, in almost every situation.

On the other hand, Trump’s continued friendly relations with dictators should worry even the MAGA hat crowd. (Somehow it does not.) Kim Jong-un is one of the most brutal leaders in the world today. By visiting with him, shaking his hand, touting the “beautiful letters” Kim writes, and even tweet-complimenting him, Trump elevates his foe’s stature on the world stage. He makes Kim look better, even at home, where North Koreans have little reason to cheer.

North Koreans must cheer, however, or they end up locked away in Kim Jong-un’s massive gulag.

Or: dead.

So, when reporters ask, would Trump invite Kim to the White House, you wish he might be circumspect. Circumspect, he is not. If an idea percolates to the surface of his brain, no matter how stupid or inane, it’s going to spill from his tongue.

“I would invite him right now…to the White House,” Trump responds.

In a complicated world, where anything can happen, it’s possible Trump’s decision to cross the DMZ will prove a clever move.

The “Trump Appeasement Tour?”

Or it may turn out to be akin to saying you’d invite Hitler to the White House in 1938. You’d have to ignore his territorial grabs up to that point and pretend he hadn’t started building a massive system of concentration camps. For once, this blogger will quote a Democrat to make a point. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) labels Trump’s moves regarding North Korea, the “Trump Appeasement Tour.”

That word choice is no coincidence. “Appeasement” was applied to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, after he caved in the face of Hitler’s threats in 1938, in hopes of avoiding all-out war.

There are plenty of other worrisome signs. The president was accompanied on his latest jaunt by such key foreign policy experts, as daughter Ivanka and General Tucker Carlson. What tangible results Trump’s photo op will bring remain hidden in shadows. There are hints his administration may agree to a nuclear “freeze” of some as-yet-to-be-determined duration. This would allow talks on North Korean denuclearization to resume. Again, talking is generally better than bombing; but you never know what Trump might do. Even Trump doesn’t know, from moment to moment, what Trump might do. If you haven’t noticed the pace of denuclearization hasn’t accelerated since Trump plumped his fat fanny down in the White House.

And…now Iran has announced that it has breached the accord worked out under the Obama administration.

It is enriching uranium again.

So: Who does Trump bomb first? Iran, which might start work on its first nuclear weapon?

Or does he bomb North Korea, which already has an estimated 20-60 nuclear devices? More to the point, does the president have a clue? In August 2017, he threatened “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if North Korea didn’t give up its weapons. “Vague threats of nuclear war?” Foreign Policy magazine wondered at the time.

Naturally, Trump threatened Armageddon from the comfort of his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he was relaxing at the time.

Then Trump and Kim talked and “fell in love.” (Imagine FDR saying he “fell in love” with Hitler.)

In June 2018, Trump claimed North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat and Americans could sleep soundly through the long nights. Again, that stunning news—that diplomatic home run—was announced via tweet. The president and his fanboys at Fox made it clear. Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

Then North Korea secretly ramped up its development program and agreed to hand over exactly zero nuclear weapons. Trump was in fact nominated for a Nobel—but even that turned out to be illusory. For the first time ever, and then a second time the following year, fake nominations were made in Trump’s name. Like the fake tan of denuclearization, you might say.

More recently, Trump launched an attack on Iran, called it back again, yo-yo style, and said he didn’t want to kill 150 Iranians because they shot down an unarmed drone. Two days later he said he’d “obliterate” Iran if they didn’t watch out. “Vague threats of nuclear war?” Again?

Finally, Trump claimed that Mr. Obama was “constantly begging” for a meeting with the North Korean dictator, when he was in charge. “Begging,” is his way of making Obama sound weak. It’s a Trump quirk. He’s compelled to downgrade predecessors, raising his status by comparison.

So far, in terms of nuclear diplomacy, Trump has less than nothing to show for all his bluster.

Kim Jong-un has all the nukes he started with the day Trump took office and even a few more.

Iran is threatening to build its first.

Of course, Kim looked “really well and very healthy.”

Speaking of “clueless,” on his return from North Korea, Trump tweets (have complex foreign policy issues ever been resolved in tweets, of 280 characters or less) out his “plan.”

Tweet 1: “It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend. We had a great meeting, he looked really well and very healthy - I look forward to seeing him again soon....”

Of course, Kim look’s “really well and very healthy.” He’s a maniacal killer and can stuff his fat face with every delicacy in the world. His starving people dare not complain. Roughly four in ten are malnourished. Near-starvation levels have caused the stunted growth of one in five North Korean boys and girls.

Tweet 2: “...In the meantime, our teams will be meeting to work on some solutions to very long term and persistent problems. No rush, but I am sure we will ultimately get there!”

No rush? What is the timeline? What is the plan? Or, is the plan to pretend the North Korean arsenal doesn’t exist—and claim “victory” again?

As we often say on this simple blog, diplomacy is a bitch. It’s a bitch for every president. But Trump is different. Every time he’s stymied in some way, he blames his problems (“very long term and persistent”), even ones like Iran he created himself, on previous U.S. administrations.

We also learn, via North Korean news media, that Ivanka Trump was included in the meeting with Chairman Kim.

And we start to hear rumblings from foreign diplomats who are panning her performance at the G-20 meeting in Osaka. Once again, Ivanka shows up, oddly enough, alongside her father, in pictures of the world’s most powerful leaders. Commenting on First Daughter Ivanka’s qualifications for her role, a diplomat from India tells a reporter, “We regard Ivanka Trump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes. It’s in our national interest to flatter them.”

The French also go out of their way to post a video showing an awkward moment when the First Daughter tries to join in conversation with real world leaders—which seems to be a shot at Ivanka from a key U.S. ally:

Finally, Slate reports on Trump’s claim that President Obama was “begging” for a meeting with Kim.

Ben Rhodes, who served as Obama’s deputy national security adviser took to Twitter to contradict Trump. “Trump is lying,” Rhodes wrote. “Obama never sought a meeting with Kim Jong Un. Foreign policy isn’t reality television it’s reality.”

Rhodes went on to call Trump’s foreign policy a “a failure,” adding that “photo ops don’t get rid of nuclear weapons, carefully negotiated agreements do.”

James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, also dismissed the claim during a television interview Sunday. “I don’t know where he’s getting that,” Clapper said. “In all the deliberations that I participated in on North Korea during the Obama administration, I can recall no instance whatever where President Obama ever indicated any interest whatsoever in meeting with Chairman Kim. That’s news to me.”

If Trump has evidence, he’s not showing it….

Oh, hell! Why bother trying to make a case founded on fact or logic. We know Trump lies endlessly, about big matters and small.

June Nuggets

Let’s see just how much shit one administration can pack into a month, counting stories you probably missed.

*

June 5: Trump wraps up his second trip to Great Britain and heads for home. Business Insider, an American news organization, interviews a dozen Brits in an effort to sample opinion. Save for one young man who admits he wasn’t aware Trump was visiting, the reaction is universally negative.

Catherine Philips, 60: “I think he’s appalling. I think he’s a sexist, I think he’s a misogynistic disgrace, really, that brings shame on the US.”

Nicholas Peters, 22: “I don’t really like Donald Trump, to put it lightly. He doesn’t seem like a very nice person.”

A young woman named Danielle Barry describes the visiting president as someone who has shown “blatant disregard for common, civil, and human rights.”

Thalia Renucci, 24, says she’s sorry her country’s leaders had to follow protocol and treat Trump with the same respect as any other president. “I really wish he wasn’t here,” she sighed. “I have a lot of friends who are American, a lot of them live here, and they are losing all trust in democracy.” 

*

June 14: Scientists report that Greenland lost two gigatons of ice in a single day. That’s two billion tons of ice.

How much ice are we talking about melting in one 24-hour period? That’s enough to cover the National Mall in Washington D.C. to a height eight times greater than the Washington Monument.

In a day.

That would be a large pile of ice.

*

June 15: Apparently, not all Mexicans who come to this country want to rape and kill and join gangs and terrorize old white people who love Donald J. Trump.

Twin brothers Octavio and Omar Viramontes, who came with their family to this country at age 10, and once devoted their days to picking grapes in California vineyards, both graduate from medical school. Octavio gets his doctorate from Harvard, Omar from UCLA Medical school.

*

June 18: Patrick Shanahan, Trump’s Acting Secretary of Defense gets bounced from his job after Trump tries and fails to get him confirmed for the permanent post. It turns out Shanahan once justified his then-17-year-old son’s use of a baseball bat to knock out his mother, and Shanahan’s ex.

Admittedly, mom sounds kind of nuts. But a baseball bat? Mom suffered a cracked skull and was left in a pool of blood.

*

June 20: A bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives has been introduced. (You thought Congress could never get anything done!) The bill would require cellphone carriers to offer screening and call-blocking technology to customers, free of charge, within 18 months of the bill’s enactment.

In May, alone, Americans received an estimated five billion robocalls from telemarketers and scammers.

If the House and Senate can get a bill worked out and passed into law, it may boost the average approval rating of Congress at last.

That average currently stands at 19.4 %. The last time it was as high as 30 % was August 29, 2009.

*

June 21: In the wake of a trip to China in late 2017, President Trump touted business deals with the Chinese, reportedly worth $250 billion.

According to “Art of the Deal” Don, China’s largest state-owned energy company was going to spend $84 billion over the next twenty years, building facilities in West Virginia to extract natural gas.

So, let’s get out our calculator and start totaling up the cash. As of this moment, eighteen months after Trump bragged about deal-making prowess, China Energy Investment Corp. has spent…

Sound of calculator buttons.

Um…ZERO dollars in West Virginia.

Even 2020 Republican gubernatorial candidate Woody Thrasher, one of three signatories to the deal, can’t manage to make an empty glass sound half full. “It’s not an enforceable document,” he admits, “where we can make them spend their money.”

It was a pseudo-deal that temporarily made President Trump look good.

*

June 23: Danny Green, of the 2019 NBA champion Toronto Raptors, makes it clear he won’t be visiting the White House if the team is invited. He doubts his teammates will be lining up for the “honor,” as well.

“I just don’t think that we accept,” Green said when asked what his team’s response would be to an invite. “To put it politely. And I try to respect everybody in every field that they do regardless of how crazy things are. But he makes it really hard. He makes it very, very tough to respect how he goes about things and does things.

“To put it politely, I think it’s a hard no.”

He’s not criticizing the United States of America. He’s not disrespecting the U.S. military. And he’s not trampling the flag.

He doesn’t like Trump.

*

June 23: An investigation by Politico reveals that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been refusing “to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change.”

Once again, political stooges in the Trump administration ignore science and do their best to keep all Americans, particularly Trump supporters, from having to face the implications of unpleasant news.

“The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change,” said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented super storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves.”

In one research effort, scientists from the USDA, China, Japan and Australia spent two years studying the effects on rice of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Protein, vitamin and key mineral levels all decreased, potentially threatening the diet of 600 million people.

The political hacks in charge at USDA blocked release of the study and asked research partners not to mention the results to anyone else. “Why the hell is the U.S., which is ostensibly the leader in science research, ignoring this?” one USDA scientist asked rhetorically.

“It’s not like we’re working on something that’s esoteric…we’re working on something that has dire consequences for the entire planet.

“You can only postpone reality for so long,” the researcher added.

*

June 24: Carl Cameron, one of the first hires at Fox News, and a correspondent who covered politics at the channel for twenty-two years, criticizes his old employer. “The idea of fair and balanced news appealed to me,” Cameron explained, when he joined the network. “But over the years, the right-wing hosts drowned out straight journalism with partisan misinformation.”

*

June 24: U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Robert Ashley appears on Fox News. “We still continue to assess within the IC (intelligence community) that Kim Jong Un is not ready to denuclearize.” 

This comes one year, one week, and four days after President Trump announced that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat.

Same day: Eli Broad and seventeen other billionaires pen an open letter to all the presidential candidates, asking them to impose “a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans — on us.”

These signatories join Warren Buffett, who advocated a similar tax increase on billionaires in 2011, and Nick Hanauer, a Seattle-based entrepreneur, who in 2014 penned an open letter to “My Fellow Zillionaires.” He too said it was past time to raise taxes on people like him.

As The New York Times reports,

A recent analysis of a Federal Reserve report found that over the last three decades, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their net worth grow by $21 trillion, while the wealth of the bottom 50 percent fell by $900 billion.

*

June 26: Bill Wehrum, the head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, and David Harlow, the office’s senior counsel, are resigning.

Democrats launched an investigation into whether the two men “improperly aided former energy industry clients after joining the EPA” and rolled back air quality rules their clients had demanded.

In any case, putting these kinds of people in charge at the EPA is kind of like putting the drug cartels in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

“Wehrum did more damage to the Clean Air Act than any other person in the last 40 years,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “His legacy will be more premature deaths, more hospital visits and more asthma attacks to our most vulnerable citizens.”

Same day: Trump will soon head for the G-20 summit in Osaka. Naturally, he decides to have fun insulting another allied nation.

Or all of them, combined.

First, he targets Japan, hosting the gathering.

See also: Trump insulting the mayor of London before visiting Great Britain, Trump insulting Angela Merkel of Germany, Trump insulting Justin Trudeau of Canada and Trump insulting NATO members, despite death and wounds to their troops, backing us in Afghanistan.

(See also: Trump NEVER insulting Vladimir Putin.)

In a rambling telephone interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the president explains how the whole world takes advantage of old Uncle Sam. He complains that Japan is getting a free pass on America’s back. “If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will go in and protect them with our lives and with our treasure,” he says. “But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us. They can watch it on a Sony television.”

But wait, why insult just Japan?

Trump adds: “Almost all countries in this world take tremendous advantage of the United States. It’s unbelievable.”

Yes, forget those countries who helped us in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the First Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan (ongoing) and the War in Iraq. Forget allies who helped us work out a deal to keep Iran from going nuclear (deal now terminated by Trump) and helped us bomb the crap out of ISIS of late. Forget our allies who often add their strength to ours to keep large parts of the world’s population free. According to Trump, they take “tremendous advantage” when their young men and young women die fighting in wars they didn’t start—so that the young Trumps of every generation can remain home, safe and sound.

*

June 28: National Geographic notes that Europe has experienced five “500-year” summers since 2003, and 2019 may make six. In other words, the continent’s five hottest summers in five centuries, have all come in the last fifteen years.

New heat records have been set this month in France, Germany, Poland and Spain, with temperatures easily topping 100° F across a continent where air conditioning is rare.

According to scientists, melting Arctic ice and a general warming in the far northern regions is affecting jet stream currents that have always moved cooler polar air across the Northern Hemisphere.

These extreme heat events are all connected to a slower jet stream that locks weather systems into place, says Michael Mann of Penn State University. Mann co-authored a study last year that linked the slowdown in the jet stream—the band of high-altitude winds that sweep around the globe from west to east—to last summer’s unprecedented droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and flooding events across the entire Northern Hemisphere. And it is likely behind India’s weak monsoon rains and the widespread flooding in the U.S. Midwest this year.

*

June 28: The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dali Lama, tells BBC News that President Trump’s comments show, “I think, lack of moral compass.”