April 30, 2018: Trump Puts the Ignoramus in Ignorance

 

4/30/18: Today might be a good day to give Trump credit for movement in relations with North Korea. President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Kim Jong-un have met to discuss ending a state of war that has existed since 1950. Kim is talking about denuclearizing the peninsula. 

Naturally, Trump and his supporters believe this proves the president is the greatest leader ever. At a rally over the weekend the audience chanted, “Nobel, Nobel.” Still, it’s hard to imagine Trump – who often talks cavalierly about touching off nuclear war – ever receiving the Peace Prize. 

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Iran has no nuclear weapons. North Korea does.

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Of course, the president had to be a dick in discussing such matters. First, he insisted he shouldn’t have been left to deal with North Korea, as if he wanted to be elected president, but didn’t want to have to handle complicated problems. Mostly, he wanted to talk about his greatness, a greatness that rested on the many impressive skills of his great self. He would solve the North Korean nuclear puzzle when no one else could. “The United States has been played beautifully, like a fiddle, because you had a different kind of a leader,” Trump said. “We’re not going to be played, okay? We’re going to hopefully make a deal. If we don’t, that’s fine. The United States in the past was played like a fiddle.” (See: 12/24-25/18; 12/8/19.) 

Trump couldn’t just admit that previous administrations faced difficulties too. North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon when George W. Bush was in office. Pressure to force the North to halt testing failed because neither China nor Russia would back the U.S. up. North Korean missile tests while Obama was in charge increased the danger. Tough economic sanctions were imposed. China remained unhelpful. So long as China traded with the North, sanctions failed. 

Meanwhile, the Obama administration managed to put in place crippling sanctions on Iran. By 2015, Iran had enough enriched uranium to build an estimated 8-10 atomic bombs and the skill and capacity to build its first bomb in 2-3 months. In the face of danger, China, Russia, Great Britain, France, and Germany signed on along with the United States for a deal to end sanctions in return for Iranian agreement not to pursue a nuclear weapons program for ten years. Iran shipped 98% of its enriched uranium to Russia. The Iranians agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor facilities to ensure compliance. The IAEA has consistently reported – fiddles aside – that Iran has abided by the agreement. 

Iran has no nuclear weapons.

 

So, what does the Trump administration plan to do? Trump would like to tear up the deal, which he recently called a “disaster” and “insane.” The French, Germans and British say the deal is working as intended. 

In fact, two of Trump’s favorite people, and we do not mean Playboy Bunnies, agreed in a phone call today that the Iranian agreement should be preserved and fully implemented. Those buddies: Vladimir Putin, Trump’s Secret Santa pal, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

 

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TRUMP loves Macron – as we saw recently during the first state visit of Trump’s tenure in office. With reporters looking on, the President of the United States appeared to have a foreign policy boner. “We have a very special relationship,” Trump continued, referring to Macron, who stood by his side. 

“In fact,” Trump said, glancing at his best French friend, “I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off.” 

With that, he flicked some speck on the French president’s shoulder and grinned at TV cameras like some lovable dope. “We have to make him perfect – he is perfect,” the Big Orange Buffoon explained. 

 

“Against ignorance we have education.” 

The next day, in a speech to Congress, Macron went out of his way to point to the critical foreign policy mistakes of the Trump administration. Vox highlighted five times Mr. Perfect rebuked the Buffoon. When it came to climate change, Macron explained the different paths one might take. “I believe that against ignorance we have education,” he began, implying that Trump put the ignoramus in ignorance. He listed other dualities, finishing with this: “Against the threats on the planet, science.” 

Climate change wasn’t a “hoax, or a communist ploy dreamed up to hurt the United States. Macron explained: 

Some people think that securing current industries and their jobs is more urgent than transforming our economies to meet the global challenge of climate change. I hear these concerns. But we must find a smooth transition to a low-carbon economy. Because what is the meaning of our life, really, if we work and live destroying the planet [emphasis added]…What is the meaning of our life if our decision, our conscious decision, is to reduce the opportunities for our children and grandchildren?

 

By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO₂ emissions, and destroying our biodiversity – we are killing our planet. Let us face it. There is no planet B.

 

Macron also mentioned the dangers of “Fake News.” With the greatest liar in U.S. history occupying the Oval Office, you knew he was thinking of Trump when he warned, “Without reason, without truth, there is no real democracy, because democracy is about true choices and rational decisions. The corruption of information is an attempt to corrode the very spirit of our democracies.” 

How about scrapping the Iran deal? Good idea or bad? 

We must ensure stability and respect sovereignty of the nations, including that one of Iran, which represents a great civilization. Let us not replicate past mistakes in the region. Let us not be naive on one side. Let us not create new walls ourselves on the other side. There is an existing framework called the JCPOA to control the nuclear activity of Iran. We signed it at the initiative of the United States. We signed it, both the United States and France. That is why we cannot say we should get rid of it like that.

 

Or to put it more succinctly, in terms of foreign affairs, the Trump administration really sucks! 

The sun sets over Washington.

May 24, 2018: Trump Thinks People Who Protest in Ways He Doesn't Like Shouldn't Be in the Country

 

5/24/18: Let’s get another day in Trumpistan off to a rousing start. Fox & Friends is running a taped interview with the president. He’s stoked to hear the NFL will fine players who kneel during the National Anthem! 

After all, nothing says, “I love the land of the free, and the home of the brave” more than squelching the right to protest. 

The NFL does say players can remain in their locker rooms if they prefer. 

Trump can’t talk long before making it clear how he feels about the rights of those with whom he disagrees. “Well, I think that’s good,” he tells the three hosts, Larry, Curly, and Ainsley, referencing the fines. “I don’t think people should be staying in locker rooms. But still, I think it’s good.” 

Then Trump takes it ten steps too far. “You have to stand proudly for the national anthem, or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.” 

 

“SPYGATE - a terrible thing!” 

Trump doesn’t have much chance to celebrate the news because he has a spy problem on his hands or in his head. In Trump’s muddled thinking, the F.B.I. and other federal agencies were spying on his campaign. He tweets out “evidence,” which often means he’s making it up. 

At 7:21 we get: “Clapper has now admitted that there was Spying in my campaign. Large dollars were paid to the Spy, far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE - a terrible thing!”  

The meeting between members of Congress and representatives of the U.S. intelligence community, to get to the bottom of this Spygate mess, is on for later. (See: 5/23/18. Trump has already told the same lie about what Clapper said.)

 

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BEFORE THAT MEETING can take place, Trump learns another lesson. Diplomacy, like love, is hard. 

The much-ballyhooed June 12 summit with North Korea is canceled. 

Here, your favorite blogger should be clear. He would not fault Trump on most foreign policy matters, were Trump not so gleeful in bashing predecessors for “failures” identical to his own. Trump will take credit for every step forward the United States makes on any front. He will blame everyone else for any step back. 

This much is true in 2018 and has been true for years: None of the options to contain Kim Jong-un’s rogue regime are good. Trump is simply the latest U.S. president to discover that fact. 

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History shows that diplomacy is always messy and complex.

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This blogger would point out that history shows that diplomacy is always messy and complex. The Spartans and Athenians could not resolve their differences 2,500 years ago. The Peloponnesian War dragged on for twenty-seven years. The Israelis and Palestinians can’t settle their differences today. And, despite Jared Kushner’s best efforts, they won’t anytime soon. North Korea has been a nettle for the U.S. to grasp since attacking South Korea on June 1, 1950. 

This is the way the world works, always has worked, and always will work. Diplomacy is hard. 

China has been both an active and silent actor in what is a long-running play. In the winter of 1950, the Chinese sent hundreds of thousands of troops crashing across the Yalu River and smashed into American, South Korean and U.N. forces. Harry Truman was the first president to learn that North Korea, backed by China, would present a challenge to the interests of the United States. 

It may still prove that Trump and his team have a good backup plan despite the cancelation of talks, that perhaps back channel movements are likely. Still, it’s hard not to laugh at a fool like Trump, who wants nothing so much as to be praised. Gone for now is his chance at a Nobel Peace Prize, which, if you believe the Big Orange Buffoon, everybody was saying he deserved. 

In order to cancel the summit, Trump sends the following letter to the Chairman of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:

 

 

Like a weird breakup letter. 

The missive reads like a weird breakup letter. “I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me,” Trump writes. “I look very much forward to meeting you” someday, the lovesick U.S. leader moans. He can’t forget Kim’s “beautiful gesture” when the romance seemed strong. He can’t believe the “tremendous anger” now directed his way. 

Like a jilted lover, Trump makes his deepest feelings clear. If he can’t have Kim, no one can! He’ll blow him to bits. “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.” 

Of course, there’s a reason no nation has exploded an atomic bomb on an enemy in 73 years. If we use our “massive” nuclear arsenal we’re going to roast millions of men, women, and children. Most would be innocent human beings who don’t like Kim any more than good Americans do. 

Kim has the capacity to hit targets in the continental United States, which is new, and not Trump’s fault. Yet we must remember, previous presidents had to consider a similar dilemma. They knew Kim had the ability to turn Seoul (and possibly Tokyo) into a smoking hole in the ground. The only difference between 2006, when North Korea got its first nuclear bomb, and 2018, is that Los Angeles is now in range. 

But at least we’ve got a few cool medallions (coined before the meeting was canceled) we can toss and flip. 

Naturally, they show Trump’s face. (See: 6/1/18.)

 

 

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WITH HOPES for a Nobel dashed, Trump can console himself knowing there’s a meeting scheduled to consider spying on his campaign. 

 

“Nothing particularly surprising.” 

According to the propaganda people at Fox News, this meeting will allow Congress to get to the bottom of the Spygate mess. For some odd reason, Democrats in Congress think they should attend. 

One meeting becomes two. 

Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy attend the first. Speaker Paul Ryan tags along. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats arrive. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has secured a seat, after Democrats point out that Trump’s interest in “total transparency” (see: 5/23/18) might be more believable if members of both parties were allowed to take part. 

But then the tale takes an odd twist. Remember, this is a meeting called because Congress has a duty to exercise oversight over the Executive Branch. To the surprise of nearly everyone, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Trump defense lawyer Emmet Flood appear. 

Flood is indubitably not a member of Congress. He has no reason to be sitting in a meeting such as this, unless to get the scoop on what investigators might know about his boss. 

And if Congress is trying to ensure proper oversight over the Executive Branch, why is Kelly there? 

Kelly and Flood, at least according to White House Press Secretary Pinocchio, speak briefly and leave. 

A Republican congressional staffer, hearing they appeared, says, “That’s the craziest shit I ever heard.”

 

A second meeting is required because several top congressional leaders were unable to attend the first. Those present are Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer for the Democrats, Nunes again, Sen. Mark Warren, a Democrat, and Sen. Richard Burr and Sen. Milksop Mitch for the Republicans. The same three intelligence heads give a similar briefing to the group. 

On Fox News, soon after, Brett Baier asks Milksop Mitch to describe the meeting just ended.  

“Were you surprised by what you learned?” Baier wants to know. Were there, like, dozens of spies!!!! 

“Nothing particularly surprising,” Milksop replies. “But again, it was classified, so there’s no real, no real report I can give to you.”

 

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MEANWHILE, DETAILS about the idiocy and mendacity of President Trump continue to spill out. 

Two days ago, after watching too much cable news, Trump claimed the F.B.I. informant who talked to three members of his campaign had been paid “a massive amount of money … many times higher than normal” to spy on his campaign. That informant, now revealed to be Stefan Halper, looks a lot less suspicious if one turns off the television and searches for truth. As Politifact notes, his biography impresses. Halper is “professor emeritus at Cambridge University in England where he lectures on international security issues. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Political-Military Affairs in the Reagan administration.” 

At the time he was being paid to talk to three members of the Trump team (see: 5/21/18), he was also working on a study of Russian-Chinese relationships, and Halper was paid by the Pentagon, not the F.B.I. 

The tab for all his work, both “spying” on Trump and doing Pentagon research, came to $244,960. 

Guess how much Halper earned working for the Pentagon from 9/29/2017 to 3/29/2018, while Trump had his fanny planted on his Oval Office throne? Halper earned $411,575 on Trump’s watch.

 

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IN RELATED NEWS, the president told allies earlier in the week that he wanted “to brand” Halper a “spy,” not an informant. According to the Associated Press, he told confidants he thought that sounded more ominous, and would stir up his base. Typically, whether he had the facts straight or not, never entered into the calculations of the President of the United States.

April 7, 2019: Trump Nominated for Nobel Prize - Cheating at Golf - And Screw the Handicapped Kids

 

4/7/19: In news too good to miss we learn that Trump has been nominated again for the Nobel Peace Prize! This honor puts him in the running with 216 other individuals and 112 organizations. 

There’s only one glitch. 

For a second time, the committee which awards the prize discovers that the president’s nomination has been forged. 

(I’m blaming Mike Pence.)

 

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WE ALSO LEARN, according to Rick Reilly who has written a new book about Trump and golf, that Mr. Trump cheats as much on the links as he cheats on his wives between the sheets. 

 

“If you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.” 

“To say ‘Donald Trump cheats’ is like saying ‘Michael Phelps swims,’” Reilly explains. “He cheats when people are watching and he cheats when they aren’t. He cheats whether you like it or not. He cheats because that’s how he plays golf.…If you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.” 

Typical of Trump’s behavior, here we have one of many stories related to Reilly for the book: 

Mike Tirico, the former ESPN football announcer, said that he once hit a great shot that he knew was close. But when he got to the putting green, it was much farther away than he expected. Tirico didn’t understand what happened until Trump’s caddy spoke up. “Trump’s caddy came up to me and said, ‘You know that shot you hit on the par 5?’” Tirico said. “‘It was about 10 feet from the hole. Trump threw it in the bunker. I watched him do it.’”

 

And if Trump isn’t cheating at golf, he’s defeating Time itself. In his latest trip to the border, the Liar-in-Chief claims he’s scoring immigration holes in one and building ten thousand miles of new wall. Alas, the “new” section of wall he chooses for a photo op is an old section being rebuilt – and that rebuilding process was approved while Obama was in the Oval Office. 

CBS is blunt. “Mr. Trump has yet to complete any new mileage [emphasis added] of fencing or other barriers anywhere on the border.”

Golfing in the days before he was president.

 

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ANYTHING ELSE that might keep you awake at night? F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray testifies before a House panel and has this to say: 

The danger. I think, of white supremacists, violent extremism or another kind of extremism is of course significant. We assess that it is a persistent, pervasive threat. We tackle it both through our joint terrorism task forces on the domestic terrorism side as well as through our civil rights program on the civil side through hate crime enforcement.

 

In 2018 almost every victim of a terrorist attack in the United States was killed by a home-grown white supremacist nut.

 

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WE ALSO LEARN that President Twitter Thumbs has picked some gems to represent us as ambassadors round the world. His nominee to the Bahamas testifies in Congress that the Bahamas are part of the United States.

 

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WELL, THEN, how about a shout out for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who justified recent spending cuts in her department, saying, “We are not doing our children any favors when we borrow from their future in order to invest in systems and policies that are not yielding better results.” With that, and Team Trump having run up a trillion dollar deficit in the last fiscal year, she announced that funding for Special Olympics would be ended, because, let’s face it, those kids…they’re still handicapped when the contests are finished. 

We need “better results.” 

This decision is so crass and despicable that even Trump realizes it looks bad and overrules DeVos. 

Naturally, he blames her for the idea.   

August 14, 2020: Second Nobel Peace Prize for Trump?

 

8/14/20: I’m not going to deny that President Trump sometimes gets policies right. It’s mostly dumb luck. 

But he does.

Attorney General Bill Barr - or a banana cream pie?

 

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Trump in line for second Nobel Peace Prize!

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The decision to stop a shipment of Iranian oil headed for Venezuela this week was a good one. The four tankers halted by the U.S. Navy were carrying 1.1 million barrels of oil. That sanctioned oil will be forfeit and sold, with proceeds earmarked to go to victims of Iranian terror attacks.

 

At first glance, it also looked like a good deal when Israel and the United Arab Emirates, with U.S. diplomats pushing for an agreement, moved to normalize relations. The UAE would recognize Israel’s right to exist. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “I Am Not Corrupt Up to My Eyeballs” Netanyahu would pause annexations in the West Bank, keeping a two-state solution alive. 

Team Trump was so excited by developments that talk began of Donald Trump getting a second Nobel Peace Prize. 

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien appeared on Sean Hannity’s show to make the case. The president “brought forth the...vision for Middle East peace to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan back in play and he’s brought peace to Afghanistan, at least between the U.S. and the Taliban,” O’Brien said. “We haven’t lost a soldier in Afghanistan since February 29 in combat and we’re going to be down to 5,000 troops in Afghanistan. And now he’s brought peace to Israel and the UAE.”

 

Alas, this award may prove as ephemeral as the one Trump “won” in 2018, when he convinced North Korea to give up all its nukes. 

(The North has since given up exactly 0 nuclear weapons. Rather, they built a few more for fun.) 

As always, diplomacy in the real world can be a bitch. Mr. O’Brien seems to forget. For starters, the U.S. might be getting out of Afghanistan. Our Afghan allies are stuck. The bloodshed is unabated. You don’t win a Nobel Peace Prize for quitting a war you can’t figure out how to win. 

Trump’s “vision for Middle East peace” also lacks an essential component: Palestinians. They took one look at the new agreement and accused the UAE of “betrayal.” To make that point clear, they recalled their ambassador to the Emirates and asked for an emergency meeting of the full Arab League. 

Netanyahu then cast a pall over the deal, saying that he had not agreed to end annexations in the West Bank – only to suspend them.

 

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IN OTHER NEWS, the president did manage to squeeze in a visit at the hospital, with his ailing younger brother. Then it was off to Bedminster, N.J. again. A round of golf, and a hard day as president was ended. 

The CDC reported another 56,397 new cases of coronavirus for the day. Friday, another 1,229 Americans died. Since the start of the pandemic, 134,397 healthcare professionals have been infected and 628 have perished. The national tally of dead, according to CDC has reached: 

167,546.

 

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THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE announces that the two top officials at the Department of Homeland Security are not serving legally in their posts. Neither Chad Wolf, the acting head of DHS, nor Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy head, has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate, as required by the U.S. Constitution.

 

Cuccinelli is actually serving in two positions, without being confirmed for either. He’s also acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

 

The virtue of ignoring the Senate and sticking whomever you like in top roles in government (if you can get away with it) is you could put suck-ups and sycophants in places of power and … oh … maybe break a few laws while they ignored what you were doing. You could reward toadies by giving them important positions and you could just say, f**k it, and appoint your son, Don Jr., as Secretary of Defense and appoint a banana crème pie to be the next Attorney General.

 

(Actually, a crème pie might not be as bad as Bill Barr, the current occupant of that position.)

 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Sen. Mitt Romney offered biting assessment of President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis this week. “Short term, I think it’s fair to say we really have not distinguished ourselves in a positive way by how we responded to the crisis when it was upon us,” he said in an interview Friday. “And the proof of the pudding of that is simply that we have 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’s deaths due to covid-19.”

 

“And there’s no way to spin that in a positive light,” he added. (See: 8/16/20.)