There Is No Doubt Anymore For Anyone – Beloved Leader Is A Complete Brainless Disaster For Our Country

Day 173. 

I hate to say this, but all I can say about the last few days is holy shit!  Yesterday trump went on an interview tour of some kind, and we came away shaking our heads, again.  One thing he did do was to officially tell us that “I stand by nothing”.  Imagine, we now have a so-called president who admitted that he doesn’t have any policies or ideas.  He simply doesn’t stand by anything.

This little quote came when CBS pressed him about his “Obama tapped my wires” tweets.  They were trying to get a firm idea from trump that he stood by his comments, which have been disproved time and again.  Our beloved leader got angry, as he usually does when pressed to retract some stupid thing he said, and blurted out that “I don’t stand by anything”.  Then he abruptly ended the interview, another trumpian tactic.

Also yesterday, he showed his total ignorance of our country’s history.  He asked “why did we have the civil war?  Why couldn’t we have avoided it?”  Well stupid, we had a civil war because the choices were simple.  Allow the southern states to secede because they wanted to keep slavery or stop the practice on our continent once and for all and keep our country whole.  He even questioned Abraham Lincoln, who is regarded as one of our best presidents ever.

Then he went on to say that if Andrew Jackson had been president then, we wouldn’t have had the civil war.  That Jackson was “very angry about the war”.  I must admit that it is hard for me to believe that Jackson was angry over the war since he was already dead for about 17 years before it even began.  But then, maybe trump uses his Ouija board and talks to the man.

He also seems to forget, of just doesn’t care, that Jackson was a slave holder.  He hated Native Americans so bad he signed the “get out” bill and forced all Native Americans from the east coast.  Thousands of them died along the “Trail of Tears”.  It would be easy to predict that if Jackson had been president at the time, we would have two different countries right now instead of one.  But, maybe that is what trump thinks should have happened.  That way he wouldn’t have to deal with all those “black people” who are just too much trouble for him.

Only the stupidity doesn’t end with him.  Steve Mnuchin claims that the stock market rises are all due to him.  He even told a bunch of investors yesterday that they should thank him for the rise in the stock market.  Apparently, Mnuchin didn’t read the memo that only trump can claim anything a success and all successes, of which there are none, are his alone.

We had Wilbur Ross declare that when trump announced that he was sending missiles against Syria, “we were just starting our desert.  It was even better than after-dinner entertainment.  And, it didn’t cost anything”.  So, the Commerce Secretary thinks that launching missiles is “after-dinner entertainment”.  And, according to him, everyone had a great laugh over it.  I can just imagine what a knee-slapper it will be if we attack North Korea.

Then we have Rep. Brooks who is defending the Americans Without Health Care Act.  He said he supports the idea that states can opt out of the “pre-existing” protections under the ACA.  He said that way “people who live the right way and are not sick don’t have to support those who are sick.”  He thinks that insurance companies have the right to charge people with pre-existing conditions more than others.

Just one problem with his argument.  Everyone with pre-existing conditions are not sick because they didn’t “live right” or “do the right things”.   Using his argument, my grandson who has autism must have done something “not right” because he suffers from this terrible disease.  Only, he was two years old when he was diagnosed, so what could he have possibly done “wrong”?

Brooks showed us that he has no clue what he is talking about.  He has shown us that the only thing that matters to him is the profits of the insurance companies and not the health of the people of this country.  It falls right in place with the trumpian and Republican mantra that if you are poor, you are not in “god’s favor”.  If you are sick it is because you have not “lived right”.  If you are not rich, you are to blame for all ills facing our country.

But, not to be outdone, beloved leader had to also weigh in on the pre-existing condition aspect of health .  In the process, he showed us that he has no idea of what is in the bill he is supporting and hoping his Republican Politburo will pass for him this week.  In that same CBS interview, he claimed that pre-existing conditions “will be protected.  I mandated that it be in the bill”.  Only, it isn’t in the bill.

What is in the bill is that states can opt out of that part of insurance and charge people with pre-existing conditions astronomical premiums to get coverage.  Also in the bill is a sections that says states can opt out of the “essential coverage” portion as well.  Meaning states could declare that maternity health coverage need not be part of insurance plans.  Or for that matter, they can exclude cancer treatment.  All in the name of saving insurance companies money.

The problem is trump either doesn’t know what is in his Americans Without Health Care Act, or he simply doesn’t care and is lying.  With beloved leader, it is impossible to tell which one it is.  But, it really doesn’t matter since according to his own words “I don’t stand by anything”.

Then to prove his point about not standing by anything he also said that he thinks our Constitution, you know the paper that conservatives always point to when they want to deny people benefits or civil rights, is “archaic”.   There are to parts of the Constitution that really annoy him.  The first is the separation of powers.  He believes that if he submits any idea or bill to Congress, they should simply pass it without question.

The slowness of Congress is really getting on his nerves.  Actual debate on legislation is a bad thing according to beloved leader.  Not that the Americans Without Health Care Act was ever debated on the floor of either House of Congress.  It is just the idea that he has to wait for Congress to make his “agenda” the law that annoys him.

The other thing that really gets under his skin is that very annoying thing called the First Amendment.  Who the hell ever came up with that one?  Why would anyone want to let the people and the press have the right of free speech?  What the hell were our founding fathers thinking?

One thing that trump really wants is to bully our press by making it easier to sue them for articles that they publish that he doesn’t like.  Even his Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus believes the same thing.  He said that they “were looking at that” matter and believes that it should be easier to sue the press for stories that they say are false.  They believe that if a news story is about something like, oh I don’t know, evidence surfacing about the Russian Hacking and possible collusion with the trump campaign, they should be able to sue the press organization that dares to bring that to light.

The major hurdle in their plan, is that they either have to change or eliminate the First Amendment to the Constitution.  But, they don’t think that is a real problem since trump called it archaic anyway.  Republicans and especially trump think he should have the last say on what is real, what is fake, and what should be published.  If the people don’t like that, too bad.

I hate to say this, but if anyone out there is still willing to give trump the benefit of the doubt, you are either kidding yourself, or you would prefer to see the end of our country as we know it.  Beloved leader has told us many times that “I am a very smart man”.  Well moron, being a smart man means you have to be at least smarter than a fourth grader.  Using that simple definition, you till fail!

If this kind of behavior continues, what are we supposed to expect in the coming months.  Will trump actually try to destroy our democracy to establish his monarchy?  I say monarchy because he obviously believes his family should run the country by itself.  Will we see a Reichstag incident in this country like we saw in Germany?

If people are still willing to swallow the bullshit that trump throws at us everyday, then the possibility of that happening grows every day.  A dictator cannot take control without the help of the people of the country.  Which is why the resistance movement cannot end.  It must endure and it must keep us aware of the stupidity of what our beloved leader does.

Sorry, but I gave 20 years of my life in service to my country.  I served because I chose to do so.  I served that long because I believed in our country and our values.  I believed in our democracy and our people.  What has been going on since trump became president is not the country or the values I served to defend.  I will not blindly go along with this clown.  Ignorance is no excuse.

And, the shirts keep marching along.

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The First 100 Days Are Finally Over With Nothing To Show For Them

Day 171. 

The first 100 days of beloved leader’s presidency are finally over.  In those 100 days about the only thing we learned about beloved leader is that he is a total clown with no idea of what the hell he is doing.

The three main items about trump we have learned are Bluster, Incompetence, and Complete Ignorance.  If those are his three main traits, we are all in deep shit.  Included in those three traits is one more.  He is an absolute lousy negotiator.  He couldn’t negotiate his way out of a men’s room.

But, don’t just take my word for it, look at each trait individually.  The day after his inauguration, he complained that no one was giving him credit for “having the largest crowd in history at my inauguration”.  Photographs of his inauguration proved otherwise, but what the hell, he believed it so we should.

Just last night at a rally in Harrisburg, PA he bragged that the crowd set an “all-time record for the arena and that there are thousands of people standing outside who couldn’t get in”.  Only photographs showed the arena was not at capacity.  It holds about 7,000 people, and photographs from the event show about 15 percent of the seats were empty.

Look, there was a large crowd there.  They were even loud and supportive of beloved leader.  But, his bluster couldn’t allow that to come out, he had to openly lie to the people in the arena who could see it was not full.  Yet, they still cheered him and agreed with him.  I guess the arena was never full for any event in its history.  If that is true, then he was right when he said it was an all-time record setter.  If that is not true, then neither is his comment.

He loudly tells us that he is for the “little people”.  But, his first executive order was to increase the cost of mortgage insurance for first-time home buyers making it harder for them to get the mortgage they need.  I am sure all first-time home buyers are thanking him for his support every time they write their mortgage checks out costing them $500 per year more than if he had not signed that stupid order.

Then he allows his EPA chief to let Dow Chemical’s pesticide that affects the development of brains in children and fetus’ to be used on food crops.  This pesticide was banned from food crops under the last administration, but who cares if you child’s brain developes like it should.  Dow Chemical’s profits are far more important than your children’s development.

The EPA has also taken down all of the information about climate change from its website.  It thinks that there is no such thing as climate change so why bother with putting up all of that scientific information that shows they are wrong.

Then under his incompetence, we only need to look at all of the vacancies in the Federal Government.  Of the roughly 459 positions he is required to fill, less than 60 of them have been filled.  There aren’t even any nominations announced for the remaining vacancies.

Additionally, his empty suit Rex Tillerson said that he expects to lay off over 2,000 state department employees.  Beloved leader apparently doesn’t believe that an active state department with real professionals can stop wars.  Which is exactly what their job is.  As whimpering dog Mattis over at Defense actually said “if we don’t have an active State Department, I will need a lot more bullets”.  Even whimpering dog knows we need a State Department that engages with the world.

During his time in office, our beloved leader has managed to piss off our allies like Germany, England, France, Canada, and even Australia.  All the while he is praising the murderer Putin for being a “great leader” as trump likes to call him.

He and his administration told the American People that “we are sending a great armada to the South China sea to show North Korea we mean business”.  Only, that “great armada” was actually heading for exercises with the Australian Navy thousands of miles south of the South China Sea.  The Commander-in-Chief and his whimpering dog Mattis didn’t even know where his fleet was or what they were doing.

Mattis even told us that they made the announcement because the exercise was cancelled so they had to give a reason for cancelling it.  Only, it wasn’t cancelled, and the Vinson and her fleet didn’t head towards Korea until it was over.  How incompetent can you be?

In Syria, his administration said they didn’t mind that Bashaad was in power and that it was up to the Syrian people to decide if they should get rid of him.  Then, Bashaad used chemical weapons on his own people.  So, trump launched a handful of missiles at one of Bashaad’s air bases with very limited results and bragged about being “presidential” over the incident.  He claimed that he had to send the missiles because of the pictures of all of those “beautiful babies” he saw being gassed.  Yet, he won’t let any of those “beautiful babies” to come here to get away from the war.

Then we get to his total ignorance.  We have been staring down North Korea for about 70 years.  Beloved leader seems to want to draw another “red line” in the sand over North Korea.

North Korea has artillery aimed at and in range of Seoul where about half of South Korea’s population lives.  So, in order to show we mean business again, he ordered that a missile defense system be installed in South Korea.  Sounds reasonable especially considering we have over 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea.

Then, he fell back on his gangster mode and claimed that he told South Korea that they should really pay for the missile defense system.  He seems to have left out the part where he would pull it out if they didn’t pay, but the possibility remains loudly in the minds of the South Korean people.

Then, to make matters even worse, he said he would tear up the trade agreement we have with South Korea.  This ignoramus doesn’t understand just how bad he is making relations with one of our best allies.  Does he really think that the South Koreans will be so “strong” in supporting our moves against North Korea if he is going to “tear up” our trade agreements with the South?

Additionally, there are Presidential elections going on in South Korea since their last President was removed from office over corruption charges.  Does he really believe that the winner will be the one who calls out the name trump as a “great leader”?  Rather, it would appear that the winner will be the one who defies and distances themselves from trump the most.  Boy, isn’t that a smart way to win friends.

But, let’s be fair.  He has accomplished a lot in his first 100 days.  He failed to get his Americans Without Health Insurance Act passed because he is a lousy negotiator.  That is a positive for the country.

He was able to get his nomination to the Supreme Court approved.  Of course, his patsy Mitch McConnell had to change Senate rules to achieve that, so it really doesn’t count as a “victory” to me.

He has made “town hall meetings” for his party members almost unbearable.  As a matter of fact, many of his party’s members won’t even hold town halls anymore because they are afraid to face angry crowds.

He has placed a gag order on the employees at EPA so you can never find out about the real effects of climate change or the “sweetheart deals” that Pruitt is making with the fossil fuel companies.

He has removed worker protections from companies who do business with the government.  So if a contractor is guilty of sexual harassment, unequal pay for women, or has a horrible safety record, we won’t know about them and they will get to keep their contracts.

He hired, and then was forced to fire, an unregistered foreign agent to be his National Security Advisor.  Before he was fired, Flynn sat in on highly classified briefings even on briefings that were about the countries for which he was an unregistered foreign agent.

A total of 15 people of his administration have either been fired, resigned, or withdrew their names from consideration for high level posts.  That surely is a record for a president in his first 100 days.  And, we all know how much he loves records.

He has signed more executive orders in his first 100 days than any other president since World War II.  Remember when Republicans claimed that executive orders were nothing more than “a political overreach that flew against the Constitution”?  Funny, we don’t hear the same thing from them now that beloved leader is using executive orders instead of actual legislation.

Finally, he has managed to become the first president who is the subject of a counter espionage investigation concerning his campaign’s collusion with Russia in hacking our national elections.  He managed that in his first 100 days.

All of this shows that we probably have the biggest asshole sitting in the White House in our nation’s history.  The only thing he hasn’t done, yet, is follow his hero Andrew Jackson’s lead who tried make the east coast all white by shipping out all of the Native Americans who lived there.  Only, trump will ship out all Mexicans and Muslims instead of Native Americans.

He has named a fossil fuel company puppet as the head of the EPA.  He has named a public education hater to head up the Department of Education.  He has named an openly proud racist as our Attorney General.  He has placed former Goldman Sachs heads in positions to run our budgets and finances.  You know the company that was the lead in destroying the economy in 2008.

He named a person to head up the Department of Energy who doesn’t even know what the department does, and wants to “get rid of it” anyway.  He fired every District Attorney and has yet to fill one of those vacancies.

He gave a speech about not “tolerating anti-Semitism” in our country, but won’t name one White Supremacist or Neo-Nazi group as domestic terrorists.  Of course these groups all say they are acting as real Christians.  As he liked to say during the campaign, “our president won’t even say the term domestic Christian terrorist”.

The first 100 days of beloved leaders’ administration are finally over.  I won’t blame you if you think it has felt more like 100 years instead of days.  We are saddled with a do-nothing blusterous, incompetent, ignorant idiot in the White House.  Every time he gives a speech using his tele-prompter, I get the feeling I am listening to a first grader reading “see   spot   run”.

That is what we have learned about trump during the first 100 days.   The only question left is will we even have a country left by the 2018 elections?  Considering the first 100 days, that is a reasonable question to ask.

And, the shirts keep marching along.

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What Will Be Beloved Leader’s First Major Victory?

Day 163. 

We are quickly approaching the 100 day mark in beloved leader’s presidency.  All through the campaign and at the very beginning of his presidency, he has said over and over that he will accomplish so much in the first 100 days.  He even had something called his contract with America on what will be accomplished during his first 100 days.  I believe there were something like 10 legislative bills he said would be passed.

Well, so far, nothing has been passed.  He made a very feeble attempt at passing a replacement for the ACA, and it crashed and burned even before it could get to the floor of the House and have a vote.  He hasn’t released any information on his tax reforms which he claimed would be passed by now.

He ordered a 90 day review on cybersecurity and promised we would all be very pleased with the results.  No results have come forward, and no one seems to know who is even supposed to conduct this review.  So, one hasn’t even started yet.

Beloved leader claims to have “done more in my first 100 days than anyone in history”.  Which is a blatant lie.  Now he claims that the “first 100 days” thing is a bunch of bullshit.  Maybe because he hasn’t done anything yet.

About the only thing he has accomplished so far is to destroy the EPA and our environmental protections.  He has made it much easier for coal companies to pollute rivers and streams but not at producing more coal.  He has tried to implement his Muslim Ban but has failed at that as well since it was blocked in the courts more than once.

Yes, he did get his terrible nomination to the Supreme Court.  But, as usual, the Republicans had to change and break the rules to get it done.  They proved once again that “they don’t need no stinking rules”.  Something trump loves to hear.

Oh, he launched some missiles at Syria after saying that the dictator could stay as far as trump was concerned.  The damage was so minimal that the Syrian Air Force was carrying out air strikes against the rebels the very next day from that airfield.  Maybe that is because he warned the Russians and therefore the Syrians we were coming.

And, of course, we cannot forget that his administration is under FBI investigation for possibly colluding with the Russians hacking during our elections last year.  I guess that is something he is real proud of as well.

So, as we approach his first 100 day mark, we need to ask what will be his first major “victory” of his administration.  Here are my choices.

First, will he start a war with North Korea?  All of the signs are leaning in that direction.  Only, he doesn’t seem to understand that a war with North Korea would probably include nuclear weapons.  That could cause a global catastrophe.  I really doubt if he fully understands that threat.  I am more inclined to believe that he thinks that would be okay since the nuclear weapons would only be used on Asians anyway.

Second, will he manage to start a war with Iran.  Republicans and trump have been itching for a war with Iran for a very long time.  He want’s to “review” the nuclear deal with Iran even though his own State Department put in writing that Iran is complying with the accord.  Since when does this country pull out of an agreement that is being followed?  Does our word mean nothing anymore?

He claims that Iran isn’t complying with the “spirit” of the accord.  What he really means is they aren’t complying with his “spirit” of the accord.  So, he can just pull out and let Iran get the nuclear weapons this accord has prevented them from getting.  Does that mean that if we pull out of the accord, are we then going to invade Iran on the premise of them wanting nuclear weapons and we are just trying to stop them?  Doesn’t that sound a lot like the second Iraq War that W. got us into and trump blasted during the campaign?

Third, will he finally manage to toss 24 million people from their health care coverage.  He and Republicans are going to try again to pass the Americans Without Health Care Act.  Only this time, because the have allowed the so-called Freedom Caucus to name the conditions, more than 24 million people will lose their coverage.

The Freedom Caucus wants a provision that allows states to opt out of the coverage part for people with pre-existing conditions.  The provision says they must have a “High-Risk Pool” for these people.  But, it doesn’t say how it is to be funded.  Meaning, when a state opts out, insurance companies will have license to price pre-existing conditions out of the market.  So instead of just 24 million people losing their coverage, the number will most likely double.

But don’t worry, trump calls this a “wonderful bill” that will make coverage cheaper for everyone.  People with pre-existing conditions, and those who will lose Medicaid coverage are not considered as part of the “everyone” trump keeps talking about.  Or he believes that having no insurance is “cheaper” since you don’t have to pay premiums.  So what if you get sick.

Fourth, will the administration allow those retired miners to lose their coverage and pensions as we talked about the other day?  Is he going to step up to the plate and ensure they keep their retirement benefits or just throw them to the side of the road like everyone else who isn’t rich?  Can we consider that a “major victory” for trump because it will save a whopping 200 million dollars per year?

Fifth, will he cause a government shutdown at the end of next week.  As of midnight next Friday night, the government money will run out.  If there isn’t a continuing resolution, the government will shutdown again.  And, if it does shutdown it will be trump and the Republicans fault full stop.

The only thing that needs to be done is a continuing resolution that funds the government through the end of the fiscal year.  That is all.  But, Republicans and now trump love to throw in “poison pills” that hurt people just to say they are “standing on principle”.  They simply cannot allow a continuing resolution to pass cleanly and try to get their pet projects through normal channels.

This time, trump seems to be the trigger.  He wants his money to build his damn Berlin Wall.  He is even threatening to stop paying the subsidies in the ACA if he doesn’t get the money.  That would mean that millions of poor people, working poor people, and middle-class people would immediately lose their health care coverage because they wouldn’t be able to afford their premiums.

I mean really?  Beloved leader hates Latinos so much that he is willing to let you lose your health care coverage?  There are ways to fund projects, but holding hostage half of America is not the way it is supposed to be done.  You simply put together a plan and a bill, take it down to Congress, and fight like hell to get what you want.

The problem with this simple legislative way the government is supposed to work is that Republicans abandoned that principle 40 years ago.  Now, they simply want to hold America hostage and hold their breath until they get what they want.  They think it is much easier that way.  And, the only people who will be hurt by their tactics are the “little people”, not themselves.

Those are my five favorites of what would be trump’s “major victory” during his first 100 days in office.  He hasn’t proposed any meaningful legislation.  He hasn’t issued any Executive Orders that does anything except help pollute the planet and make the rich richer.

He has made sure that the “swamp” he promised to drain is overflowing its banks right now.  Corruption and unethical behavior are running rampant in his administration.  So, maybe he is right when he says that he has done more than anyone else in history.  I haven’t seen so much corruption and unethical behavior surface so fast in an administration in my lifetime.

I have said before that the first 100 days thing doesn’t mean much to me.  I am more interested in being shown that the person in the White House has some kind of plan and is ready with some real legislation to push the plan forward.  Beloved leader doesn’t seem to have a plan, and he has no legislation to put forward.

His backers say he is “learning on the job”.  I say it shows his incompetence.  He has shown me only that he is interested in making the rich, like himself, richer.  He is interested in destroying our planet by tearing down environmental protections that have taken decades to implement.  He is interested in allowing a foreign oil company take land away from private farmers in America to build a pipeline that will produce not one drop of gasoline for our country.  It is all going to be exported.

He has shown disdain for the Average American by trying to take away their Health Care Coverage and polluting their drinking water and poison the air they breath all in the name of profits for the insurance companies and the polluters.

I seriously doubt that trump will manage to accomplish even one of these five options.  He doesn’t have the competence to accomplish anything and he is proving that day-by-day.  Which could be a good thing for us.  Because any one of the five options above would be disastrous for the American People.  Especially to most of the very people who voted for him.

And, the shirts keep marching along.

 

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America’s Biggest Fool Has Declared April 18 As The Official April Fools Day

Day 159. 

From now on, April 18 will be known as the real April Fools Day.  Our beloved leader has decided that today would be a good day to show his total lack of integrity by signing an Executive Order to “Review Buy American, Hire American” policy.

If you think that beloved leader is really interested in enforcing such a policy, you have not paid attention to his family’s own businesses.  Oh, I know that he is talking about Buying American and Hiring American when it comes to government contracts, but he even lied about that.

When he said he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline he said both would have to use American Steel.  Only, they aren’t using American Steel.  As a matter of fact, the entire Keystone XL Pipeline will be made using German Steel.  And, he said that was okay with him.

As you know, the day above is the count of days since he was elected president and still has not moved his own business manufacturing to the U.S.   All of his products are made overseas.  Including his family’s products.  Except Junior’s wine business.

The review will also look at the H-1B visa process.  You know, the very same process that Junior has hired over 1600 people using at his winery.  Meaning the majority of his winery is made up of immigrants, not American Workers.  Then we have trump himself hiring foreign workers for his resorts, specifically his Mar A Lago resort where he spends more time than just about anywhere else.

How is junior going to keep his winery stocked with employees if he can’t use the H-1B visa program?  How is trump going to keep his resort stocked with employees if he can’t use the program.  You can bet it will either not be changed, or it won’t affect certain industries.  That way, he can exempt himself and his family from any changes on the horizon.

It has also been reported that Ivanka got her three trade marks approved in China the very same day she was sitting next to the Chinese President at dinner at Mar A Lago.  Her and hubby Jared were both there and surprise surprise the trade marks were approved right then and there.

Beloved leader says that he is exempt from “conflict of interests” but his family isn’t.  Ivanka could seriously be suspected of conflict of interest when she sat in at the dinner and miraculously she gets her trade marks in China.

The problem is that everyone is falling for this shit.  The media, the people, and especially the trump supporters are all falling for this shit.  They think that he really means what he says.  But, he doesn’t mean a damn word.  He simply says what he thinks they want to hear and then does something different that will benefit himself.

One of the craziest things I heard at a press briefing the other day was when the propaganda minister, Sean Spicer, said that the White House will keep the visitor logs secret and not be transparent.  The reason that the trump White House will not be transparent at all is because Obama wasn’t transparent enough.

President Obama put the visitor log online so everyone could see it.  He was the first president to do so.  But, he did block out certain names if it meant national security or other potential secret work.  This president who claimed to be even more transparent says that gives him the right to just not follow his predecessor’s lead.  He claims that no other president made the visitor log public, and he is right.  Only, the other Presidents did not claim to be so open and transparent.  Or in trump’s own words “this will be the most transparent presidency in history”.  Another lie.

There is nothing transparent about trump’s presidency.  He won’t release the White House visitor’s log.  He won’t release his own tax returns on the bogus excuse that they are under audit.  He doesn’t do anything to make his presidency “transparent”.

Now, in what will probably be a wonderful photo-op, he will sign an Executive Order about Buying American, Hiring American.  Only it won’t be anything that will affect his own businesses.  Why?  Simply because his is a brazen liar!

While Congress is on break, trump is hiding out in the White House or at Mar A Lago doing nothing, as usual.  Republicans are being battered at town hall meetings across the country, and trump is trying to look presidential at an Easter Egg Roll on the White House Lawn.  While Vice President Pence is trying to look “stern” at the North Korean border, and trump is playing golf.

Oh, he launched missiles at Syria that didn’t take out the military airbase like he said.  It destroyed about 20 planes while his administration tried to claim that it took out 20 percent of the Syrian Air Force.  A lie.  Then he decided to show off and dropped a huge bomb in Afghanistan on ISIS.  His followers all hailed him as being “presidential”.  But, he hasn’t said what he will do next or what he even thinks should happen next.  That would entail some real thought.  Something that is really foreign to trump.

No, singing this Executive Order will be another empty photo-op that won’t do a damn thing to help the American People.  It won’t help make sure that contractors use and hire Americans when working on government contracts, because if they cry it will cost too much, trump and the Republicans will give them a pass and let them use whatever material and whatever workers they think will be cheaper.  That is how they have handled everything so far.

The man is such a fool his foreign-born wife even had to remind him to place his hand over his heart during the national anthem at the start of the Easter Egg Roll yesterday.  Where are all the conservatives slamming him for being anti-American like they tried to do with President Obama?  But, as usual, there is not a peep from the right-wing wackos.  Which only proves to me they are the ones who are anti-American.

So, go ahead and mark your calendars.  April 18 will now officially be known as April Fools Day.  It has been declared so by the number one American Fool, our beloved leader.

And, the shirts keep marching along.

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Sometimes Falling In Love With Your Military Is A Bad Thing

Day 155. 

All of a sudden, our beloved leader has fallen love with our depleted military and our stupid generals.  That is what he has said about our military for almost 2 years now.  Suddenly, the military isn’t so depleted that he can’t use it as a toy, and our generals are all really smart and “outstanding”.

But, that also leads us to potential “big time” trouble as trump would say.  Now that he has fallen love with our military, the next possible target would be North Korea.  And, that is where the big time trouble would be.

North Korea is not Syria.  North Korea is not Iraq.  North Korea already has nuclear weapons.  And, they have a child version of trump as their beloved leader who has killed his own family members because he thought they were a threat to his power.

That means that all of the talk about “taking care of North Korea” that trump has been uttering is even more dangerous.  We have a carrier group near the peninsula.  What if their child killer decides to make a preemptive strike against that group with nuclear weapons?  We have thousands of our sailors in harm’s way like we haven’t since the cold war ended.

And a preemptive strike if North Korea should test nuclear bomb places the entire peninsula in danger.  Ever since the Korean war ended with its cease-fire, we have treaded carefully there.  The leaders of that country have been belligerent for years.  They continuously bluster about how great their military is and how wonderful they are.  They tell their people that means they would win any war against the south and the U.S.

North Korea has one of the largest standing armies in the world.  They are willing and many of the hard-liners are eager to fight.  Yes, it is most likely that a war in Korea would result in a win for us and our allies, but at what cost?

Is it worth starting a war because of the behavior of North Korea?  You must remember, Seoul is just 35 miles from the North Korean border.  There are about 20 million people who live in and around Seoul.  That means the city is in range of North Korea’s massive artillery. That means even using conventional weapons, the North could kill millions of South Koreans.

Don’t forget our forces stationed in South Korea either or the American business people who live and work in Seoul.  On top of that, South Korea is the 11th largest economy in the world.  If there is a war, the country would be devastated and need to rebuild again costing billions of dollars.

Every year the U.S. and South Korea holds exercises in the country.  One of the objectives is to determine what would happen if a war did break out on the peninsula.  All of the exercises so far has shown there is no good option for a war.

Something does need to be done about getting North Korea to get rid of their nuclear weapons.  But, is war the answer?  It may come to that point.  But are we there yet?  For the first time, China is starting to put pressure on North Korea where it hurts.  North Korea gets most of their money from selling coal to China.  China just sent back all of their coal shipments and told North Korea to keep them.

China is not looking forward to a war in Korea either.  Assuming that the U.S. and its allies would eventually win such a war, do you really think that China wants a border with a unified Korea that is backed by the U.S. with possibly U.S. troops on its border?  Which means, would China decide to send troops in if North Korea is on the brink of defeat as they did in the 1950s?

Then we have the agreement with South Korea.  In that agreement we are not supposed to use any military force against North Korea without consulting South Korea first.  The people in South Korea are getting very nervous as tensions on the peninsula rise.

Even if we do consult with South Korea, what if they say they don’t want the U.S. to use a preemptive attack on the North?  Do we ignore our ally and do it anyway?  Will our beloved leader play chicken with the lives of millions of our ally’s people?

And, what about Japan?  Japan is already in reach of North Korea’s missiles.  What happens if the North decides to attack Japan as well?  There is no doubt that Japan will retaliate, and we will have no choice but support our ally there as well.

Finally, what about our own Congress?  Any attack against North Korea would be considered an act of war against a foreign country.  Only Congress has the authority to declare such action.  So, an unannounced preemptive attack by the administration against North Korea would be unConstitutional.

So I hope beloved leader is consulting with the leaders of Congress right now and letting them know what he is planning on doing.  Otherwise, he will break the law if he goes ahead with a preemptive strike.

But, more than that, we need to look at and understand what other enemies might do if we attack North Korea.  What might Russia do?  What might Iran do?  Will Russia take a preemptive strike against North Korea as a sign they can go ahead and invade Ukraine?  Maybe Iran will decide it is a good time to invade Iraq to take over that country?

Maybe Iran would think it is a good time to actually attack Israel.  What then?  That could totally destabilize the mid-east.  Then we would be looking at war across the board.

Handling North Korea is not the same as bullying your political opponents.  It is not the same as sending missiles into Syria after telling the Russians and Syrians to leave the area.  It isn’t the same as dropping a huge bomb on ISIS.

We are talking about striking a country that has a large and competent army.  We are talking about striking a country with a leader even more unstable than our leader.  We are talking about a real war with potentially tens of millions of people being killed.

All of the talking heads, especially on the right are talking about how trump is learning on job and getting better.  I wrote yesterday I don’t agree with that analysis.  I still don’t.  We will get a real understanding what trump has learned and whether or not he has any idea of what his job is when we see how he handles North Korea.

If he continues with his “gut” and makes a rash decision concerning this situation, it cold spell disaster for the Korean peninsula and for the world.  If it is true that trump only listens to and does what the last person he speaks to says, we better hope a sane person is that last one.

This weekend Christians are celebrating Easter. Jews are celebrating Passover.  North Korea is celebrating the 105th birthday of the country’s founder.  The first two celebrations are celebrations of peace.  The third is a celebration of dictatorship.  The third could be the only one worth watching.  Will North Korea simply hold their parade and go home, or will they do something like test another nuclear weapon, launch test missiles, or launch a preemptive attack on our carrier group or South Korea?

The first two scenarios would be bad, but not something to start a war over.  The last two would mean war.  And, how trump reacts to one of the first two scenarios could also mean war.  We can only hope that cooler saner heads prevail.  Unfortunately, the actions so far from these two leaders don’t give us too much confidence.

We can only watch and wait.  Despite all of the stupidity in the world over the last 70 years, this is the closest we have come to worldwide disaster since the Cuban Missile Crisis.  We averted that disaster because there were two leaders who understood the consequences.  Both leaders were able to overrule their hawkish military leaders.  Does trump have the guts to say no to his Generals like Kennedy did?  Will he even order them to get clearance from him before launching any attack against North Korea?

This issue is way beyond politics or trying to look and talk tough.  This is a situation that could lead to life and death for millions of people.  This is when real leaders stand up and resist primal instincts to simply attack.  Rational thought needs to be used.  That is where our problem is.  We haven’t seen a lot of rational thought from trump so far.  If he really is learning his job, now is the time to show that he has learned to rationally think.

 

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The Four Words That Prove You Cannot Trust Trump On Anything

Day 151. 

Yesterday, the news media was still all agog about the strike on Syria.  Still too many of our media were trying to show that trump was being “presidential” when he ordered the attack.   However, there were four words that prove you cannot trust trump, and that his administration will spin anything to try to make him look good.

Those four words came from Nicky Haley who is the UN Ambassador for the U.S.  She was on Jake Tapper’s show when he asked:

He was worried about starting World War III over Syria. Why is that no longer a concern? And why was the 2013 chemical weapons attack, which, as you know, was deadlier, not a trigger for him in terms of the principle of inaction in Syria?

In typical Republican fashion she replied:  “He wasn’t president yet”.  She went on to say:

But I don’t know what his thought process was then.  I can tell you what his thought process was this week, which was, he is not going to condone chemical weapons use ever.

I can tell you that of the conversations I had this week, he knew what the risks were, he knew what the situation was, he looked at the history of the situation, and he decided.

But, it was the first four words that she uttered that are the most scary.  She admitted that trump cannot be trusted to follow through on his “promises” that he made on the campaign trail.  See, it wasn’t just in 2013 that trump said attacking Syria would be wrong, he kept that up through the entire campaign.

He kept up his anti-interventionalist attitude and even went so far as to say that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, would start World War III over Syria.  The 2013 comments were not one-offs.  They were expressed as his foreign policy.  Just a week before the chemical attacks, his administration made it clear that it was not our goal to oust Assad.

Then, when he does intervene in Syria, it is okay because when he made all of those comments “he wasn’t president yet”.  And, unfortunately for us, that leaves a whole lot of questions about other promises he has made.

For example, all during the campaign, he said that he would “repeal and replace Obamacare” with something great.  He said that his health care plan “would cover everyone”.   But, his backing of the Americans Without Health Care Act proved he didn’t mean that either.  Is that because he “wasn’t the president yet”?

Then we have his promise not to touch Medicare or Social Security.  Are we to believe that he will keep Ryan and Price from gutting those two programs?  Or, are we to believe that he can dial those promises back too because “he wasn’t president yet”?

That can go for just about everything he promised during the campaign.  We are already hearing from his Secretary of Homeland Security that his “beautiful wall” probably won’t be a full “physical wall”.  We are still waiting to see how his infamous “infrastructure bill” will look like.  He has not given specifics on that one either.  Are we to assume that he wasn’t telling truth because “he wasn’t president yet”?

Then we have to consider the simple fact that he said he conducted the attack because he was so moved by those “beautiful babies” being killed in the chemical attack.  Yet, he still says that he won’t allow those same “beautiful babies” to immigrate to the U.S. in order to keep from dying in the next chemical attack.  That is because all of those “beautiful babies” are a real threat to America.

The unfortunate part in all of this is that our wonderful media did not press the issue.  No one asked Haley if the fact that he changed his mind so easily was simply because when he said he was against such actions “he wasn’t president yet”.  No one asked if that included his promises on everything else he said during the campaign.

We are only three months into the trump presidency, and we already see that he cannot be trusted with anything he says.  When he breaks his promises to his majority of supporters and guts Social Security and Medicare, he can always fall back on this absurdity of “he wasn’t president yet” when he made those promises.

I know that everyone thinks that politicians all lie to get into office.  However, we have not had a president who so blatantly has lied to the people and then use the lame excuse of “he wasn’t president yet”.

As we speak, he has sent a naval fleet off the coast of North Korea to “show our strength”.   Russia and Iran are rattling their swords saying the attack on Syria “crossed many red lines” in their opinion.

Are we going see his “America First” policy really meant “America First In War” policy?   Will he then use the excuse that “he wasn’t president yet” when he said he wouldn’t drag us into another war?

Since Republicans are having a hard time to really defend the “moron in chief”, they are grasping at straws to defend him.  However, every time they open their mouths, they give us another reason not to believe or trust our beloved leader.

Yesterday it was Nicky Haley who blurted out that we cannot trust trump with those four little words.   All kinds of pundits have been claiming that she is the “rising star” in the Republican party today.  If those words are any indication of her qualities, we still don’t have any “stars” in the Republican party.

The party is filled with political hacks who are not interested in governing.  They are only interested in the power of being in office gives them.  And, as usual under Republican rule over the last 40 years, we all lose.

And, the shirts keep marching along.

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Sorry Folks, But Blowing Shit Up By Itself Does Not Mean You Are “Presidential”

Day 149. 

In the last twenty-four hours we have heard lots of people talking about how “presidential” the attack on Syria was.  Pundits are falling all over themselves congratulating trump for his “presidential stand” against the dictator in Syria.  You are even hearing how the bromance between trump and putin has ended because of the attack.

I don’t agree with either of those assessments.  I know that just because you use the most powerful military in the world to blow some shit up does not make you presidential if that is all you have.  And, so far, trump has shown us that is all he has.

What everyone is missing is that we have bombed and blown shit up in Syria for a while now.  President Obama sent in bombs more than once in Syria, but he was attacking ISIS not the Syrian government.  When he requested authorization from congress, something he should have done, to attack Syria after the chemical attack in 2013 with basically the same target and plan as this one, he was rejected by the same Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell who claim that now it is being “presidential” because their lackey bombed Syria without asking them to stick their necks out on the issue like Obama did.

And, for all of you “pure constitutionalists” out there, Obama followed the Constitution in getting approval from Congress to launch an attack on a sovereign nation.  Beloved leader did not seek approval which means he did not follow the Constitution.  Which also means he used “executive overreach” to launch his attack.

Yesterday I asked, what next?  We still don’t know what is being planned next, if anything.  We hear that if Assad uses chemical weapons again, he will be attacked again.  But that is all.

Additionally, we don’t know how much damage was actually done.  It was reported yesterday that Syrian planes were taking off from the airfield that was attacked less than 24 hours later.  They were flying attack missions against the same area of Syria that they chemically attacked earlier in the week.  So, it would appear the attack, in Mitch McConnell’s own words, was a “pinprick”.

But, even more importantly, we need to know, and we have a right to know, just what beloved leader plans to do next.  He has officially dragged us into the civil war in Syria.  Bombing ISIS as Obama did was one thing, bombing Syrian forces is another.  Since we have now more or less picked sides for the whole world to see, what will he do next?

Just a couple of weeks ago we were told by the empty suit, Rex Tillerson, that who runs Syria is up to the Syrian people.  Things changed Thursday night when trump attacked that leader directly.  So, are we now fighting on the side of the rebels and are we going to try to oust Assad?  Are we going to increase air strikes against not only ISIS but the Syrian military as well?

If we manage to oust Assad, what then?  Who will run Syria?  Will Russia have a say in who is the new leader?  What happens if Syria becomes another Iraq?  Will we continue the western policy of putting together countries without regard to what the population is and what they want?  Or, will we consider splitting up the country so each ethic or religious sect gets their own country?

If we are going to expand our presence in Syria, does that mean ground troops?  If there are ground troops, how will that affect things with Russia and Iran who already have troops in the country?  Will we decide to split up the country under American, Russian and Iranian zones like we did Berlin after World War II?

That would mean that each of the three countries would be forced to keep their troops in Syria for a very long time.  Are we willing to do that?  If we do, what does that mean to the rest of the middle-east?  What if Iran demands the zone bordering on Israel?  More importantly, what will Turkey say about that?  Would we need to include a zone for them?

Syria is a mess.  The civil war has been raging for six years.  A lot of the country is in total ruins.  Even if we find a peaceful solution to this mess, how does Syria recover economically?  How does Syria recover from this horrible situation?  Who will be responsible to help rebuild the country?  Will we even consider helping them, or hide back in trump’s “America First” slogan?

Beloved leader has put himself in a real mess as far as I am concerned.  The problem is he has no clue how to get out of it.  We are facing lots of problems and we don’t have the people in place to handle all of these problems and offer proper solutions to them.

As we have talked, the State Department and the Department of Defense are horribly undermanned because trump hasn’t even named anyone to fill the empty desks that smart people who could analyze and help solve these problems usually fill.  Thursday night trump officially became a war president.  And, he is ill prepared to be a war president.

Finally, trump claimed he launched the attack because of the heart wrenching videos of the victims of that horrible chemical attack.  The very same people who have been hoping to come to the U.S. to get away from the war and be saved from becoming victims of future attacks.  If he was so moved, why is he still banning refugees from coming here?  That just shows me he really isn’t “moved” by those videos, he just used them as an excuse to blow up some shit for some good press for a change.

As you can see, just blowing shit up does not make one presidential.  Having a plan, knowing what you will do next, and be able to explain those two things to the American People make you presidential.  I am afraid we will be waiting for hell to freeze over before trump becomes presidential in any meaningful way.

Remember his “secret plan” to defeat ISIS?  We still haven’t seen that plan either on paper or in action.  That tells me he has no plan to follow-up his attack on Syria with.

The major reason Iraq is such a mess goes back to George W. Bush and his neo-con VP Dick Cheney.  They launched an attack on Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein without a plan to follow once that happened.  As a result, there has been 14 years of civil war in that country, too.

If trump thinks that blowing shit up is being presidential, what can we expect when he looks at North Korea?  Will he decide to blow shit up there too without a real plan for follow-up action?

Sorry folks, but without thinking things through beforehand and having a real plan for what to do, blowing shit up is political not presidential.  We need a president not a continuous political candidate at this critical time in the world.  Problem is trump only wants to be a continuous political candidate.  He has shown no real interest in becoming a real president.

And, the shirts keep marching along.

 

 

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Attack On Syria – What Is Next?

Day 148.

Thursday night, our president ordered a missile attack on Syria.  The target was a single airfield that was supposedly used to launch the chemical attack by Assad on his own people.

It should be noted that this attack was probably a good thing.  However, there are a lot of questions about the attack and how it was coordinated with our allies, and if Russia was notified just prior to the attack.

Notifying Russia would have been a good thing because Russia has advisors all over the country as well as thousands of troops in the country.  By warning them, even if giving a very short time period, it would have given them time to get out of the way and save their people in the attack zone if any of their people were there.

Our beloved leader just made his first decision on the international stage, and we can only hope he took the necessary steps necessary to keep personnel from countries like Russia and Iran out of harms way.

I am not going to criticize the president for the attack.  I do believe that we cannot just sit back and watch a country break international law by using chemical weapons.  However, I also cannot help but worry about how it was handled, and what he plans to do next.

I urge you not to be too overly excited or overly damning about the attack.  This dictator has been brutal in the civil war, and killing innocent civilians is bad enough.  Using chemical weapons against women and children is inexcusable and should be punished.  But, we also must consider many things that could result from this attack.

First, we have to wonder what Assad will do in retaliation, if anything.  For example, it would not surprise me if he launched another chemical attack on the rebels in retaliation.  Dictators have a tendency to retaliate against their own people if they are harmed in anyway.

Secondly, we have to wonder if he might target our ground troops that are in Syria.  Will he decide to attack them, maybe even using chemical weapons?  As I mentioned the other day, we have approximately 1500 troops in Syria fighting ISIS.

Third, we need to wonder what Russia and/or Iran will do in retaliation, if anything.  Especially if we didn’t warn them and their people were killed in the attack.  It was reported they notified Russia, but what about Iran?  There wasn’t anything said about them yet.  We have to be honest, if our people were killed by another country, we would be extremely pissed off about it, and there would be lots of calls for retaliation.

Fourth, what are the cowards in the Republican Controlled Congress going to do?  One of the biggest reasons President Obama didn’t do anything in Syria was due to law.  He did not have an Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) from Congress.  There were bills introduced by Democrats to get an AUMF at the time, but our cowardly Republicans refused to even vote on them.

If it becomes necessary for us to do more in Syria, especially if they use chemical weapons again, the president will need an AUMF to legally take additional action.  Yes, the biggest “hawks” in Congress are all in the Republican Party.  However, when they are asked to put their necks on the line with a vote on any AUMF, they run and hide.  So, what are they going to do after this attack.

Fifth, what about Hezbollah?  What will they decide to do, especially against Israel.  The biggest ally and arms supplier to Hezbollah in their fight against Israel is Syria and Iran.  For that matter, will Assad decide to attack Israel itself in order to attempt to drag Iran and other Arab nations into the fight to save his skin by trying to escalate his civil war into a war on Israel?

The real concern is that if Assad were to attack Israel can bet you last dollar that Israel will retaliate.  And, I don’t believe they will be too worried if they kill any Russians and/or Iranians in the process.  That could be a real problem.  Can our president keep Israel out of the conflict or not?    Would he even try.

Sixth, we have to wonder if this attack was also a signal to North Korea.  We need to wonder how the baby dictator in North Korea will react to this attack.  Will he think this is just a first strike and he is next?  If he believes that, will he launch a preemptive attack on South Korea?

The President of China is with the president right now.  Will he call North Korea and tell them it doesn’t affect them and don’t do anything stupid?  Has our president even asked him to make such a call?  Since trump has gone on record and said “If China won’t do anything to stop North Korea, we will” we need to wonder what North Korea is thinking right now.  If we don’t, we can be caught with our pants down in South Korea.  I am not going to be just watching Syria, Russia and Iran.  I am going to be watching North Korea as well.

Seventh, did trump tell the Chinese what he was going to do?  The Chinese President is with him, and I believe it would be very poor diplomacy not to inform him before the missiles started flying.  I am hoping that since as of this writing China has been quiet about the attack, he did.

Please be clear.  I am not denouncing the attack.  I am not denouncing trump for the attack.  Nor am I cheering it either.  I am merely wondering what he did before launching the missiles, and who he notified before the attack.  The answers to those questions will help determine what will happen next.  A real leader would have taken such steps and considered everything I discussed above before acting.

People like General Mattis should know this too.  I am hoping that for once trump actually listened to him before he fired off the first missile.  All we can do now it to wait, watch, and wonder what is next.

 

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Trump: “I Think It Is Going To Be The Biggest Story”

Day 147. 

For once, that quote from our beloved leader may be right on the nail.  Only, I don’t think it will be what he thinks it will.  He made that comment talking about Susan Rice, but I think it will be more about his incompetence than anything else.

Let me start here by explaining why all of the hoopla he is trying to place on Rice is a false narrative.  He is trying to make you believe that if Susan Rice requested redacted names be released to her is the same as leaking the information.  He is telling you in reality that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

I will try to explain the process as best I can.  It works like this.  Several people who are cleared receive intelligence reports about FISA warrants,.  When they get the report any U.S. citizen caught up in the warrant has their name redacted in the report.  If that person reads something that is disturbing, they can request the name of that person to better analyze what took place.

Once that request is made, it goes through a thorough process to determine if giving the name is necessary.  The person making the request is not involved in the process.  The National Security Agency has the final say so if the name will be given to the person requesting it.  It must also go through the intelligence agency who collected the information in the first place.

If it is decided that the name can be released to the person requested, that person cannot share that information with anyone else.  Except, maybe the President if necessary.

Secondly, a recipient of these reports, cannot request the reports of all incidents of a U.S. citizen being incidentally surveilled.  The reports are filed under the name of the person on the FISA warrant, not the people they are talking to.  So, the idea that anyone could ‘request” all reports dealing with a certain U.S. citizen is bogus.

One of the people who receive these reports on a daily basis is the National Security Advisor.  It is simply a matter of that person doing their job if they feel they need the name of a redacted person.  So, this idiocy over Rice is nothing but a political game being played by conservatives.

But, let’s get back to the quote.  We are sitting on the edge of two major international crises.  One is in North Korea where their version of trump is planning to go nuclear in the real sense.  And, the other is in Syria where the dictator has heard trump say he is safe from us.

Beloved leader has made a lot of political statements about these two problems, but he has yet to say anything about what he might do about them.  He has blustered and threatened with his infamous quote of “all options are on the table”.

That is one of the most ridiculous statements that can be made by a leader of any country.  Syria has used gas in attacking the rebels about 5 – 9 times since trump has taken office.  This is the first time he has even recognized the attack.  And, since he loves Putin so much, it is doubtful he will do anything without Putin’s permission.

You must also take into consideration that trump has said over and over for at least four years now, that “Syria is not our problem.  We need to let Russia and Iran settle the problem there”.  Now he claims to have had “a change of heart”.

We also have to look at what he did yesterday with the National Security Council.  He relieved Steve Bannon from his permanent seat on the NSC Policy committee.  The thing that struck me most about this move is the feeble excuse for the move given by the White House.

The White House said that Bannon was on the council to “keep an eye on Michael Flynn”.  Now that Flynn is gone he isn’t needed there anymore.  That only shows the American People that trump’s judgement of people is absolutely horrible.  How in the hell can a president name someone his National Security Advisor and then have to put someone on the council in order to  “keep an eye” on him.  That fact would tell any sane person that the nominee isn’t qualified to be the National Security Advisor in the first place.

To put in in terms trump might understand, that would be like naming someone the CFO of a major corporation, and then having to hire someone else just to make sure the CFO doesn’t try any embezzlement against the company.  It would be stupid business practice, and it is dangerous when it comes to national security.

The executive branch has over 500 positions that need Senate approval.  So far, trump has not even named a nominee for 512 of those position.  At least 38 of those positions are in the State Department.  These positions lead departments that are supposed to feed information to the president on international issues that he needs to make informed decision.   Beloved leader, by his own incompetence of not filling these positions, is not getting the information he needs at this critical time.

This week he sent his son-in-law to meet with Kurdish leaders in Iraq.  He did not send anyone with any real experience in the area to help advise him.  Kushner’s main sidekick on this trip was “trump’s private body-guard”.  And, he wasn’t there as a body-guard, he was sitting at the table with the Kurdish leaders.

I can only imagine what the Kurds thought of their counterparts at the meeting.  In one picture, you can see one of the Kurds staring at the body-guard and it is clear to me that he isn’t impressed with him.

Today beloved leader is supposed to meet with the President of China Xi Jinping.  He says that he will have frank discussions with him about North Korea.  We have been told by trump that “if China doesn’t do something about North Korea, we will”.

That can only be taken by China as a warning that trump will start a war on the Korean Peninsula.  My question is who is going to attend this “meeting” with the Chinese and trump?  You can bet that Kushner will be there.  But, who else is going to be there?  Especially who will be there that actually has experience dealing with China and knows something about the whole situation there and in North Korea?  Are we gong to be led by an incompetent leader with inexperienced advisors?

We have a president who has no experience in governing.  He promised the American People that he would “hire the smartest and best people available” to help him.  Instead, he has hired incompetent people with no experience in governing or international affairs.

Let’s be honest, being the head of a major oil company and bribing country leaders to get contracts to take the oil out of their country does not give you “international experience” that is required to be Secretary of State.  But, that was trump’s best pick for the job.

Whenever we have a change in Presidents, we get tested by our adversaries.  We are being tested right now, and I am sorry, but I have very little confidence in our beloved leader to make the right moves.

These tests come now because our adversaries know just how incompetent our beloved leader is.  They know that he has bashed NATO and our closest allies.  They know that he refused to shake the hand of the German Leader, but glad handed the dictator of Egypt.  They know that trump has weakened our national security like no other president before him.

They figure that now is the time to strike.  North Korea is blustering like a real country.  Although they are an enigma, they are nonetheless dangerous.  The capital of South Korea is in range of North Korean artillery.  We have thousand of our own troops stationed in South Korea.  This area has always been a powder keg waiting to explode.  Making the wrong moves right now will touch off that powder keg.

If trump cannot get China to realize they are in the same boat as we are when it comes to North Korea, that could mean not only a war with North Korea, but also a war with China, North Korea’s only real ally.  We need someone in those meetings with Jinping who understands this simple fact, and keep beloved leader from leading us to a war that could be devastating.

Syria is testing us mainly because trump gave him the green light to behave as he wishes.  There is no accident in the timing of the chemical attack the other day when you consider the “hands off” policy trump has been following for several years.  And, especially when his Secretary of State and UN Ambassador said we would not do anything to overthrow Assad.

Once Assad heard those words, again, he figured now was the time to strike.  Republicans are showing confusion as to why Assad would choose now to use his chemical weapons that Russia assured us were removed.  They claim that using chemical weapons is the behavior of someone losing and Assad is not losing.

Using chemical weapons is also a tactic used by a dictator to eliminate his opposition.  Even if you are currently winning, you need to make sure you totally eliminate the opposition so they cannot regroup at a later date.  That is why he is using chemical weapons now.  That and the fact that trump has said we won’t overthrow him.

But, again like with North Korea, we need to understand the real dangers.  If trump shoots from the hip and attacks Assad, there are real dangers there too.  Both Russia and Iran have troops inside of Syria.  Only, contrary to what beloved leader is telling us, they are not fighting ISIS, they are fighting the rebels fighting against Assad.  So, if we start bombing and kill Russian or Iranian soldiers, what will they do?  If you think they will sit back and let it happen, you are very badly mistaken.

The next few days or weeks are going to be almost frightening to watch.  Our incompetent president is being placed on the world stage and everyone will be watching how he will respond to these incidents.

This is the time that we need a president who is willing to learn his job, listen to real advisors who know what they are talking about, and be able to talk to and negotiate with our adversaries.  Diplomacy at the end of a gun is not the answer.

Instead, we have a president who is too worried about tweeting unproven accusations against those he considers his political enemies.  Instead, we have a president who relies on the advise of people with absolutely no experience dealing with hostile countries.  Instead, we have a president wo gives a speech using political rhetoric instead of defined policies.

Every time trump speaks about international affairs, the entire world, friends and enemies alike, scratch their heads and wonder what the hell he is talking about.  That is not what we need right now.  We need sober, intelligent, clear thinkers who understand the full complexities of these situations.  Instead, we have a spoiled brat as our leader who thinks that giving a campaign speech is policy setting.

So, he was right when he said “I think this is going to be the biggest story”.  When facing real crises, incompetence is the biggest story.  If it wasn’t so serious, I would find it very humorous when Republicans say “he is going to lead us where he wants the country to go.”  Because, he has no clue where he wants the country to go, because he has never thought about the country, only himself.  Is it any wonder his approval rating has hit a whopping 35 percent?  But, at least his numbers are higher than Bannon’s and Spicer’s.  So, he still leads the pack of his incompetent administration.

Beloved leader has said that he believes in “enhanced interrogation” or torture.  He keeps proving that belief.  Every day under his administration has been pure torture for the American People.

 

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Republican Party Is Paying The Price For Their Pact With The Devil!

Day 136. 

You can point to a lot of reasons that the American Without Health Care Act failed.  For one it was a really bad bill.  Secondly, the president can’t figure out that dealing with over 400 people in the House is not like threatening some other contractor that he fails to pay.  Third, Ryan is a lousy leader.

But most importantly, you can look at the Republican Party as the major fault.  And, I am talking about something that began years ago.  Things started becoming really partisan under Ronald Reagan.  But, once Barak Obama was elected President, things really went from bad to worse.

That fact that a black man could actually win an election and become President was too much for the wacko fringe of the Republican Party.  They started organizing under different banners, but the one that stuck out was the Tea party.  With huge money backers like the Koch Brothers, this movement gained momentum.

In 2010 the ultra-conservative nut jobs known as the Tea Party started pealing off seats in the House.  In 2010, the Republicans took control of the House and things started to get worse and worse.  Obstruction became the normal political practice of the Republican Party.  No matter what President Obama wanted, it would be voted down or simply ignored in the House.

This became the entire policy of the Republican Party.  After the Sandy Hook shooting and 70 percent of the country wanted universal back ground checks on gun purchases, the House said no.  When the Senate passed a bi-partisan Immigration Reform Bill that was really good, the House put it in a drawer and it has remained there since.

These actions were not because any of the bills that reached them were bad, it was simply because the House made a concerted effort to declare that nothing that was supported by President Obama would see the light of day.  There would be no hearings, no discussions, and especially no votes.

The Republican Party simply rolled over and let the wackos take charge of their party.  They allowed the so-called Freedom Caucus run Boehner out of town.  They failed to fight back for the principles that the majority of Republicans in the country stood for.  Instead, they let the wacko fringe begin to dictate policy.

They could have stopped all of this simply by talking to the Democrats in the House in order to get things done that would move the country forward.  In the past, they were able to work with the Democrats and there were compromises in legislation that helped everyone.

However, the party stuck to a Reagan Era rule known as the Hastert Rule that said no bill could go to the floor of the House without the party ensuring passage without Democrat help.  That was a huge mistake.  As a result, the wacko Freedom Caucus found themselves with way too much power for their little number of members.  The Freedom Caucus has about 40 members in total.

Only, that number of people is just enough to kill any bill they don’t like.  If a bill is going to help anyone but rich people in the country, the Freedom Caucus simply says no, and the bill fails.  If the party reaches across the aisle, the Freedom Caucus starts complaining that they are RINOs and fires up the country’s fringe against the party.

This whole mess came to light this past week.  In their absolute hate for the Affordable Care Act, a bill one of their own wrote in the 1990s, they ran on the “promise to repeal and replace” the ACA.  They have had seven plus years to put together a plan that would replace the ACA.  Only, the Freedom Caucus wackos would not support anything but a repeal with no replacement.

Being too afraid of the caucus running to Fox News and complaining about how establishment Republicans are trying to pass a health care bill that helps poor people, they simply sat on their hands and did nothing.  They complained and complained about the ACA.  They did everything they could to undermine the bill.  They did everything they could, except write a decent replacement bill.

Then came the election surprise of 2016 and donald trump became our president.  Here they were with control of both Houses of Congress and a Republican, well sort of a Republican, sitting in the White House.  Repealing and replacing the ACA was going to be a slam dunk.

Only they didn’t have anything to replace the ACA with.  They never even bothered to write a plan.  They showed their total incompetence when it comes to actually governing.  As a result, Republican leadership locked themselves in a closet and wrote a bill in secret.  Then a couple of weeks ago they held a Press Conference to show off their work.

The bill had some things that most Republicans loved.  They did away with the mandates in the ACA.  They cut way back on the subsidies intended to allow poor people, poor working people, and the elderly get health insurance which would have either thrown people off their health care or make it so expensive they would pay half of their income to keep it.  And, of course, they eliminated the taxes on the rich and corporations that paid for the ACA.  And, finally they were going to gut Medicaid.  Everything was smelling like roses for Ryan and his leadership team.

But, as usual when Republicans are in charge, something happened on the way to the Forum.  First, people found out that they were going to be severely hurt by the plan, especially trump supporters.  They would either lose their insurance or see their premiums go through the roof.  Then it was figured out that up to 24 million people would lose their health coverage mostly due to the gutting of Medicaid.

That was bad enough.  People started showing up at town hall meetings and blasting their Representatives for taking away their health care.  They demanded they vote against the bill.  But, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The Freedom Caucus showed just what freedom they were interested in.  Freedom from poor people.  They dug in their heels for one reason only.  The tax credits that were in the bill to help people actually purchase health care coverage.  Forget that these tax credits were miserly compared to the subsidies, it was still something that the “little people” could use.  Their whole philosophy on health care is that it is a privilege not a right and if you can’t purchase it on your own, simply get sick and die.

Republican Moderates went into a tizzy as well.  They started realizing that the bill would surely mean they wouldn’t get reelected.  They started to realize that the old white people they counted on to keep office would be the big losers and that would certainly mean a loss in their next election.

Ryan and company were in trouble.  They started negotiating with the two different groups one by one.  They even relied on trump and his “great deal making” abilities to help them out.  Ryan and his cronies talked to the moderates, and trump would bring along the Freedom Caucus wackos.

The problem was every time Ryan made a promise to the moderates, the right-wing wackos dug their heels in deeper.  When they made promises to move even further right to appease the wackos, the moderates said no even louder.  In order show how things are done, trump sent his hitman, Steve Bannon to speak with the right-wing wackos.  Rather than speaking with them, Bannon threatened them.

A presidential threat of support or taking away support in the upcoming elections would usually work.  But, with trump’s approval rating at just 36 percent, the wackos were not afraid of him.  In the end, the Republicans had to pull the bill without even a vote.  The wackos claimed victory.  The president blamed the democrats who were never even asked to participate in the process.  Ryan said that “governing is hard, but we were really close”.  No shit!

I don’t care if you like Nancy Pelosi or not, but she had some good advice for Ryan and the president.  She said” You don’t pick a date for a vote and then try to ramp up support.  You get the support you need and then hold a vote.”  The one thing about her is that when she was the Speaker of the House, she knew how to get legislation passed.  Something Republicans apparently forgot how to do.

After the calamity of this loss for the Republicans, trump said that Ryan did all he could and he doesn’t blame him.  Only on Saturday, trump told his followers on twitter to watch a Fox News show that night.  The show was Judge Jeanine.

During the show, she directly went after Ryan and said he should step down immediately.  She went after Reince Priebus for having just as much blame as Ryan.  She claimed that trump had no blame in this disaster.  So much for trump backing Ryan.  Obviously, Judge Jeanine is backing the wacko fringe.

This is what happens when a political party puts party over country.  It happens when a party decides to complain and not rule.  It happens when they allow the fringe groups of the party take control.  In the name of obstruction and hate the Republican Party made a pact with the devil and they are now seeing just what that pact has done to its soul.

Instead of looking for ways to work with Democrats for the last eight years, they sold their soul to the wacko fringe groups in order to gain numbers to they could get power.  Now that they have power, they are being defeated by those very people they thought would make life beautiful.

The problems Republicans are facing in the House and Senate are of their own making.  The very fact that our president is trump, is all because Republicans sat quietly back and let the wackos into the mainstream.  They made a pact with the devil, and now they are paying the price for that pact.

This is not going to end with the Americans Without Health Care Act either.  The whole mess over climate change, the environment, education, the economy, North Korea, Iran, Russia, and a whole host of issues will meet the same fate if Republicans keep to partisan politics instead of governing.  The wackos are driving the policy of the party in these matters as well.

If the Republicans are really interested in moving the country forward and governing in a way that will help the average person on the street, they need to cast off of their fringe wackos and start to talk to the Democrats.  They will need to understand that compromise is the best solutions for the country.  They need to get over their hate and start to act like reasonable people wanting to do the best they can for the American People.

Until Ryan and his cronies in the party understand this simple fact of life, we will continue to be held hostage by the wacko so-called Freedom Caucus.  True Republicans with real policies for the country need to grow a spine and fight back against their own fringe groups.  In normal times, I might think this would be possible.  However, since the Republican party is more interested in power than they are in governing, I don’t expect anything reasonable to come from them.

It is a very simple fact.  Republicans will not be able to govern until they wipe out their opposition.  That opposition is not the Democrats, it is the wacko fringe of their own party.  Unfortunately, they don’t have the will or the courage to take them on.

As a result of their cowardice, the shirts keep marching along!

 

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