The more he tries to cover his tracks, the more he makes himself look guilty. Let's think about this a second...he fires 46 attorneys from the attorney general's office. It's very suspicious that one of them was investigating New York connections with Russia.
This is a real problem. It's no longer "if" Putin will start trying to take advantage...he already is. And why not? There's a long list of people that Trump has yet to put into place. That means that the government there is is not functioning efficiently, if at all. Add to that the daily circus of a Trump presidency, the blame game, the buck-never-stops-here strategy, the lack of credibility, and the resounding defeat of the AHCA...well...it's no wonder that he has spent fully 1/3 of his time as President in one of his hotels. Think about that: he's spent 1/3 of his time away from Washington at a time when Washington needs him most. Millions of dollars spent playing golf. See...it's not just Trump playing golf. It's Trump and all the other people on the 5 planes that fly to Florida when he goes there. $3 million per weekend. Pure self-indulgence and waste of taxpayer resources...but what a money maker for the owner of the Mar-a-lago. One of the first things you learn when you have a business is that a bad employee can drag the whole shop down...harming productivity, poisoning the attitudes of everyone around them, and generally harming any future the company may have. The only way to keep the company moving forward (or even surviving) is to fire the new employee, as quickly as circumstances permit. Fire them fast, and don't look back. One can argue whether Trump gamed the system to get in. One cannot argue that he's failing as a President. 63% of voters now realise that Trump's agenda is not our agenda. It's high time for us to realise we have a poison employee. He's not going to get the AHCA in. Even if he does, he's not going to cut health care costs as the AHCA is an incredibly poorly disguised tax break for the rich, so that when he does the tax break part of his agenda he can *really* make them money. He doesn't care about the environment, at all. He doesn't care about the little guys out there who voted him in. He won't accept any blame, and he keeps ruining the credibility of himself and his team. Bottom line: he's a poisonous employee that's got to go.
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Sometimes an article speaks pretty much completely for itself.
I was thrilled when the abomination that was Trumpcare was pulled. It was an evil bill that would have removed medical insurance for the 24 million people most in need of it.
And once again, Trump has employed his second-best skill (after bombast and blather): blame. The buck never stops with this guy. Ever. Nothing is ever his fault. He's congenitally incapable of admitting he was wrong. When he was a failed businessman who could con people out of their money, that's one thing. His businesses could go into bankruptcy, and the world continued to turn. He's now got his finger on nuclear weapons, yet is incapable of letting the government function so we don't have to use them. He's sparked trade wars, threatened our major alliances, and gotten into bed with America's enemies. He's gotten more power, but he hasn't gotten more wisdom. He hasn't learned that, as President, he can't just say "because I said so". He hasn't learned that Presidents must represent the absolute best behaviour that our country has to offer, rather than the worst. He hasn't learned that do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do is *not* a valid political philosophy. Until we can get Trump out off office, America will look ever more a lame-duck, struggling, incapacitated beast. We should remedy that sooner rather than later. The wolves are at the door. Do you honestly trust Trump to defend us against them? Facebook has started to roll out its fake-news fighting software.
Predictably, Trump's supporters are up in arms. The only reason I can imagine to be really worried about being called "Fake News", is that you are, in fact, fake. You know: made up for someone's gain. Not real. We all can admit that we've got some major problems. Why in the world would we add to them? Let's actually fix some of our problems, rather than holding another campaign-style rally, or having another round of golf. 'kay Donny-boy? It's lovely to hear that Trump's a "real" family man. So much so, that the security detail that protects his wife and son, allowing them to continue to live in Trump Tower, will cost $30 million next year.
According to MarketWatch, it costs roughly $2,765 to feed one elderly person for a year. That means that were Melania and Baron to live in Washington, Trump could: feed almost 11000 people in New York for a whole year Cancel budget cuts for education ...that's completely, thoroughly shameful. Why are American taxpayers putting up with this nonsense? Under Trump's new budget, we'd all have to tighten our belts, but not the Trumps? This is why you can't let the Republicans run an investigation of Trump.
Nunes (who is the chair of the investigative committee meant to be investigating any possible Trump/Russia connection) has found out that incidental collection of Trump's staff happened during the last year. "Incidental" means that Americans were recorded while the targeted foreign national was recorded. This, according to the way government spying works, is perfectly legal and above board. There is no new news here. In any case, this is *not* the wiretapping Trump is on about, though he's sure to spin it that way. What we're seeing is that the person who's supposed to tell us that the President is not, in fact, a traitor, has run to the President to tell him that this collection happened...scuppering any chance any results that arise from the investigation are valid. This is tampering, pure and simple. If you wanted to get away with a crime, this is how to do it: you make a political deal with the devil, and then appoint the devil to "investigate" your crime. The *only* way we're going to see a real investigation of all this...Russia, wire tapping, intelligence, etc...is to appoint a fully-independent investigator to pursue the facts. Nothing that Congress is involved in will ever be clean at this point. There's very choppy waters ahead if this keeps up. The fact checker by the Washington Post has noted that Trump has lied 247 times in the 62 days since he took over the white house.
These generally aren't the half-truths that you'd expect from politicians. In true Trump style, he likes to go for the big lies. Yesterday I saw this article.
In it, Trump claims that controversial NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick hasn't yet been signed by any team “because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump.” Really? The President of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet, has the time to not only argue with this man, but to make his feelings public enough to affect this man's life, and then further to crow about it. Okay, let's get past the obvious buffoonery here. Trumps a bore, and I'm not going to delve into that. What truly concerns me here is Trump's thought process: 1) He didn't like Kaepernick's choice to not stand during the anthem. Fair enough...everyone is entitled under democracy to their choice. That's enshrined in our constitution. 2) He has taken time to let it be known that he's displeased. Again, I don't have a problem with him having his own opinion on Kaepernick's choice...but he's got a hell of a mess, most of it his own making, to sort out. Why has he got time to go golfing 10 times in 8 weeks (much less bother with Kaepernick)? 3) He's gotten it in his head that coaches are afraid of going up against Trump. Just how many times has Trump spoken to coaches about this guy? One of two things has to be true here: a) the number is near zero, and Trump is claiming responsibility for something he's got absolutely nothing to do with, b) he has spoken to a bunch of coaches who've put the word out. WTF!?! Why is the President bothering with a Quarterback, when there's real problems to be solved? 4) Let's assume that that he did speak with enough coaches for word to get around...why would the coaches then be scared? Is it rule of law? Is it because of Trump's winning personality? No, Trump is suggesting that a negative tweet from him could have a material effect on the coaches or their teams. Where does this go? If Trump is able to sway things simply by making threats...isn't that blackmail? How is it any different at all to someone calling you and saying "I have this leverage over you, now you have to do what I want"? I've seen it written that Trump is a bully. I've called him a coward. He's demonstrated he cannot admit wrongdoing under any circumstances, and is willing to burn any bridge, no matter how fundamental to our society, to stroke his own ego. That's far too close to being a tyrant or dictator to me. Trying to control society simply by expressing his displeasure. He's proving us more and more right. This really can only end one of two ways: He either grasps power completely, and gets rid of the sham of Democracy that the US has, or he's impeached and removed from office. Do it because he's demonstrably unfit to be in office. Do it because he colluded with the Russians and the ends justify the means. Do it because he's a colossal ass-hat...but do it, before it's too late. It's time for us all to realise a few things about Trump: He's a coward.
All those times he hasn't been able to admit he's wrong? It's because he's afraid that if he admits, even once, how stupid he is, he'll have to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of his own flaws. This whole Obama wiretapping thing? A 3am "night-terror" kind of fear gripped Trump, so he reached for his Android phone and twitted (everyone else tweets, he's such a special kind of fool he twits). Everyone admits it's stupid, baseless, pointless and fruitless...harming both the Presidency in general and Trump in specific. What does Trump do? Doubles down, and causes a major international diplomatic row by blaming the intelligence arm of one of our oldest and most-trusted allies. *Then* tries to drag the German PM into the issue. Finally, as a cherry, he refuses to apologise, saying instead "go talk to that very smart guy on Fox". His stupidity runneth over...Trump admitting he's wrong will never willingly happen. This is a problem. He's so painfully desperate to be seen as being right, wise, and all-knowing, he's putting out lots of executive orders. Some of which have been stopped in court, but far too many have not. He doesn't seem to think at all when he puts them out, and he doesn't admit when they are more damaging than he first intended. On top of it, he's got an authoritarian view that is at odds with evidence and reality. His desire to build the wall? Won't have the effect he thinks it will. Asking the Mexican government to pay for it? Puh-leez. This abomination of a healthcare bill? Simply a way to provide a massive tax-break to the rich. Hurts the poor something terribly, but they can't speak, so who cares about them? Between hamstringing the US government by first shutting down all hiring, and then threatening with his budget to cut discretionary spending on anything that's useful (State department, for instance), and instead spending it on something that's not (the military increase...even his generals are telling him it's a Bad Idea), Trump is systematically weakening the USA. I don't know why he's doing it...but this level of destruction and threat is simply not possible without a concerted effort. Statistically speaking, at least *some* of his bills should be net positive for the USA...but...I believe a strong case could be made that every single thing he's doing is to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies at a cost the rest of us will be paying for a very long time indeed. In this damning article, perhaps the most dangerous allegations yet against Trump are about to break.
If Trump fires the lawyer who is investigating him, the Russians, and other major scams on Wall Street, how will we ever get to the bottom of his shenanigans? Seriously, a man with nothing to hide doesn't behave this way, if for no other reason than he doesn't want to appear as if he's covering up his misdeeds. THIS is the news. Trump's not been impeached. Yet. But with more smoke like this, the fire is spreading. |
AuthorEngineer, Dad, Concerned Citizen. Watching the America I love fading and eroding before my eyes. Archives
November 2018
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