January 12, 2021: Trump - A "Criminal" and a "Political Pyromaniac."

 

1/12/21: I am going to venture a guess and say most Trump fans have never read Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. 

I am going to guess, additionally, that their tangerine god-hero has read almost nothing at all during his seven-plus decades on earth. 

Still, Cervantes seems to be describing a man like Trump, four centuries ago, when he writes:

 

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“People like him can’t lie, unless the fancy happens to take them or they find it very convenient to do so.”

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Pompeo and Trump.

Having listened to the president’s ten thousand lies, having fallen for them all, his cult followers find themselves befuddled. The truth is hitting hard – although they are fighting hard to ignore it. Consider, for example, the cruel fate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Trump enabler from start to finish of his term. Pompeo had an exciting trip planned to Europe, to lead off a second four years in office for President Trump. Which Pompeo predicted lay ahead! At one point, he noted proudly that with Donald in the White House, America was “respected again.” 

Then reality smacked him upside the head. 

The North Koreans announced that their greatest enemy was still the United States. Oh, and by the way, they weren’t giving up any nukes.

 

Those “love letters” they sent Trump? Fake out, Donald! Kim Jong-un doesn’t love you and never did. 

As reported by Voice of America, the government agency tasked with spreading truth round the globe: 

In a speech at an important meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim called the U.S. his country’s “biggest enemy” and repeated his long-standing assertion that the U.S. must lift its “hostile policy” in order to establish better ties, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

 

Kim also called for his country to continue developing nuclear weapons. Notably, he said North Korea should acquire new capabilities, such as solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, and tactical nuclear weapons.

 

A reporter for VOA had the temerity to ask Secretary Pompeo if he regretted some of what he had said about Trump and a second term. 

Quicker than you could say, “Pompeo failed on the international stage,” that reporter was reassigned to a new post. 

 

“A criminal” and a “political pyromaniac.” 

Then, the “other shoe” fell, assuming the nations of the world were a centipede. Secretary Pompeo had a trip to Europe planned to talk with allies. Tiny Luxembourg dropped its shoe next, announcing that it no longer wanted to meet with the U.S. Secretary of State. Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, was candid in a way that diplomats rarely are. In a radio interview he called President Trump a “criminal” and a “political pyromaniac,” to boot. 

That had to sting, but there was still a meeting scheduled in Brussels, with representatives of the European Union. Then that shoe dropped. A diplomatic source told reporters that EU officials were “embarrassed” to be meeting with Pompeo, who had stood by Trump so blindly, for so long. 

Iran had a shoe, too, and announced that it would begin enriching uranium to levels not seen since President Obama and several U.S. allies, as well as Russia, and China, agreed on a deal to ease sanctions on Iran. In return, Iran had agreed to halt its nuclear arms development program.

 

Pompeo decided to pick up that particular shoe and hit himself in the face, warning that Al Qaeda had “burrowed” deep inside Iran. There, he said, they had a new operational base. He admitted that the U.S. had few options that would allow for it to be dug out, and hit himself in the face once more, for practice. 

In other words, so much for “respect.” 

It was time, Pompeo continued, “for America and all free nations to crush the Iran-al-Qaeda axis.” 

Suddenly, Pompeo was admitting, while using the shoe to pound on his cranium, that the United States needed help. “America First,” was never going to work. We could have asked the Kurds for assistance – since they had been instrumental in crushing ISIS. But Trump had screwed them for sure. We could ask France, England, and Germany; but Team Trump had ignored their support for the deal with Iran. We could ask NATO allies to do more, but Trump had mocked their sacrifices in Afghanistan, even after they lost thousands killed and wounded fighting by our side.

 

They were probably more than a little sore, too, to have discovered one day that Trump was pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, where they were helping us fight, without asking what they thought. 

Respect? 

“America First” had become “America Lamed and Alone.”

 

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ALSO HEADED OUT THE DOOR: Attorney General Bill Barr tells reporters that while he is “sure there was fraud in this election,” he has seen no evidence to indicate that it was so “systemic or broad-based” that it would change the outcome. He could see “no basis now for seizing [voting] machines by the federal government.” Nor would he name a special counsel to explore the “stolen election” allegations of Trump and his allies. 

“If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would name one, but I haven’t, and I’m not going to,” he adds.

 

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FINALLY, the president heads for the Texas-Mexico border one last time to look at his big, beautiful, still-not-paid-for-by-Mexico wall. Before departing, Rejected-President Trump is asked by reporters. Does he believe he bears any responsibility for the attack on Capitol Hill? 

“If you read my speech,” he replies, “... what I said was totally appropriate. They’ve analyzed my speech and my words and my final paragraph, my final sentence and everybody ... thought it was totally appropriate.”  

In fact, he had never stirred up anyone in all his life, and everyone agreed, even Hillary Clinton. The Democrats, though? Boy, didn’t they want to stir up “tremendous anger” by impeaching him a second time. And didn’t that create a “tremendous danger” for the country!

 

Reuters quotes former Rep. Evan McMullin: “Trump’s threats of more violence by warning of ‘tremendous anger’ and ‘tremendous danger’ in response to potential impeachment, a vital mechanism of our democracy, are further evidence of its justice and necessity,” he says on Twitter. 

Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, is asked why his old boss can’t just admit he made a mistake. 

He replies: “The man does not ever, ever, ever want to appear weak ... or that he might have been wrong.”

 

The former Marine added that “great leaders, good leaders” have to admit when they’ve made a mistake. “He doesn’t have the ability to do that. His manhood is at issue here.” 

Fragile ego, weak man.

 

FUN FACT: Time notes: As of Jan. 4, the federal government has designated $15 billion towards constructing the wall, but only 47 miles have been built where no barrier previously existed. That’s according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Under the Trump Administration, the government built a total of 452 miles of border wall, but roughly 400 miles were reconstructions of existing barriers, primarily in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.