TRUMP + SAUDI ARABIA + $$$ = MURDER IS A-OKAY

        It’s a great day for murderers! Murder has become tolerable, even chic. According to Donald Trump, murder is acceptable. Not just acceptable, but okay to the point of making money off of it.

Who cares what the Bible’s outdated 6^th Commandment means? Evangelicals who support Trump have to be so pleased that Trump has invalidated “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Whether that means “killing” or more precisely “murder” if you’re a Christian, who needs that kind of restriction or restraint? It’s all for the best that evangelicals encourage Trump to approve of and endorse murder, most especially by a foreign government from which Trump is personally making millions of dollars. White Christians claim God put Trump in the White House. Who are we to question what God does? Sure it throws into question their whole anti-abortion stance, but Trump needs to just be Trump, and if murder is alright, then that’s alright with Christians. They approved of Trump saying “I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes.” And he meant it.

As was predicted in mid-October, when solid evidence established that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman not only knew of Jamal Khashoggi’s torture and murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2nd but actually orchestrated it, Trump would simply ignore it and defend the Saudis. Tuesday, November 20^th, Trump said the U.S. will not levy additional punitive measures at this time against Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. And not just that, in a statement released today claiming that while the U.S. does not condone the killing of the U.S-based Saudi columnist, Trump reiterated that "foolishly" canceling $110 billion in arms sales would only mean that Saudi Arabia would go to other countries to acquire them. See, money is always more important than murder. If Trump stands to lose even a dollar, then murder by necessity must be condoned.

Is any of this really surprising?

Trump, of course, defended Vladimir Putin and validated his interference in the 2016 U.S. election guaranteeing Trump’s victory - even after our intelligence agencies had proof that Putin had ordered the killing of Denis Voronenkov, Boris Nemtsov, Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, and Anna Politkovskaya, to name just a few. What are a few murders between bosom buddies?

He’s the same man who defended Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in Charlottesville, Va. in August 2017…even after one of them used his car to kill Heather Heyer and badly injured 19 others.

He also defended Xi Jinping who grabbed absolute power in China by abolishing term limits which now means he can serve as the country’s president for life. So whatever Xi says or does has the authority of supreme law in China. It means anyone challenging Xi can now be charged with committing a political crime. Political crimes in China are considered capital offenses. As recently as April 2018, Trump demanded that White House counsel Don McGahn order the Justice Department to criminally prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey. Is it any wonder why Trump approves of what Xi has done?

Trump’s repeated pissing on the military included him scoffing at retired Admiral William McRaven who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and tracked down Saddam Hussein in the second Gulf War. Why? For not killing them soon enough. Trump clearly has no issue with killing in any form, but he has to be able to make a buck off of it.

Maybe now Trump supporters can come to understand where their willingness to vote him into office - with an extra nudge from Putin - has led us. We have a president who not only mocks the word of the Biblical God’s commandment but thumbs his nose at common sense and decency as well. Approving of the killing of someone gets Trump another “mulligan” from his evangelical base and the Republican Party.

Because ignoring murder = $$$...and GOP votes.

Here is the key question his supporters now have to answer. If Trump says murder is okay, what is NOT okay?

The Issue is Trump

Of courseTrump CLAIMS the White House is a 'smooth-running machine', but it runs more like this.

The major issue we are currently facing is not about the immigrant caravan heading north out of Mexico City, the great Blue Wave that swept dozens of Democrats and far fewer Republicans into power than ever in the nation's history during the midterm elections, or who on Trump’s cabinet or staff is the next to leave - unwillingly, or breaking all precedent and allowing the first lady to fire, for no clear reason, a member of the Homeland Security Staff. Those are all diversions. The real issue is much bigger.

The issue is Trump himself.

            Trump Indicates Where the Stupid Starts

He doesn’t care about governing, he doesn’t understand the office he holds, his decisions are not made to help Americans; they are made to help Trump, and Trump alone.

He isn’t in it to make America Great. He’s in it to make his bank account great. He admits that at his rallies. “Saudi Arabia? I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million,” he said at a rally in Alabama. “Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.” Trump loves money and he is using his position simply for financial gain and running the country in much the same way he ran Trump University. Scamming, lying, swindling, bait-and-switch, and then denying everything when he gets caught.

In late October, a federal judge in Maryland gave the green light to a violation of the Emoluments Clause lawsuit that charges him with encouraging and accepting government business at his properties. Trump financially benefits directly from his position as president which is exactly what the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause was written to prevent. Trump doesn’t understand the Constitution. It’s a sure bet he’s never read it through.

He’s a man who lied repeatedly promising to provide his tax records before Election Day in 2016. If nobody actually cared about seeing them, as he now claims, why make the promise over 18 times on live TV?

He overlooks a legal U.S. resident being murdered by the Saudi government because to publicly acknowledge it might interrupt the flow of money from Saudi Arabia to Trump’s bank account. (Is there any wonder why he won’t provide his tax records?)

He disparages anyone who is non-white, non-English speaking unless he’s making money off of them. (He won’t even listen to the English translation in his earpiece when foreign leaders speak in their native language at the White House, which strongly suggests he doesn’t care what they say since it won’t make him richer.) Trump is an out and out racist and even the racists say he’s a racist. When someone says “I like Trump because he speaks his mind” they are actually saying “I like Trump because he’s a damned racist, and so am I.”

Trump validated Vladimir Putin’s interference in the election that got Trump elected - by siding with him against the ENTIRE U.S. intelligence apparatus. How does that make America great again?

For all of his bluster about his concern for “the military,” he sure doesn’t show it. Just before leaving for the Armistice Day memorial in France, he took time to disparage President Obama for “what he did to the military. I will never forgive him for what he did.” This was his no-evidence-offered response to a reporter asking him about Michelle Obama’s sentence in her book that she won’t forgive Trump for his Birther lies that threatened her family. He's like a 5-year old going "I know you are, but what am I?" like he's Pee Wee Herman.
        How did Trump show MORE reverence for the military once he was in France? He was a no-show for the wreath-laying at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and the walk with other world leaders in Paris to the Arc de Triomphe claiming it was because the Secret Service wouldn’t allow it. A member of the Secret Service revealed it was because Trump didn’t want the rain to mess up his hair. How’s that for respect for the military? Add to that his skipping doing anything on Veteran’s Day, not even laying a wreath at Arlington, his treatment of the Gold Star Khan family, his refusal to show up at Joint Base Andrews when US military dead are flown back to the US, his treatment of the widow of Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, or his ridiculing Senator John McCain’s captivity and even his death? 
        The ONLY reason Trump displays any concern for the military is that it enriches his defense contractor millionaire friends. He has admitted that that is why he won’t raise an issue of Jamal Khashoggi’s death with the Saudis. The US makes too much money off of them. He has even accepted every one of the constantly changing Saudi explanations – now they state that it was a “rogue operation” which carried out Khashoggi’s murder and that the Saudis will execute the members - as was predicted they would do just after word of the murder got out. It’s to cover their asses to prevent any interruption of cash-oil/weapons flow. Trump benefits personally from this.

Hell, Trump can’t even figure out to operate an umbrella. What makes anyone think he understands how to operate the government?

How is any of this admirable? How is any of it presidential?

Why support such a person?

Donald Trump is as qualified to be president as a 2-year-old is qualified to fly a 747.

Honoring the Great War Dead on Armistice Day 2018

         It was called the Great War because it dwarfed every previous war to that date. So many nations, so many troops, so much cost, so much destroyed, and so much death. It was a war that could have been avoided since three of the monarchs involved; King George V, Czar Nicholas II, and Kaiser Wilhelm II were related to each other through Queen Victoria. None of them wanted to see the destruction of the others. None of them thought it was the only way to resolve international issues. But nationalistic tendencies, petty grudges, interlocking treaties, and a presumption that any war would be quickly concluded led to general support for the war from almost all of the combatant nations in July and August 1914.

 Four blood-soaked years passed that claimed nearly 10 million lives, not including civilian casualties, and it was officially declared at an end 100 years ago today. It became known as Armistice Day and in the U.S. it eventually evolved into Veterans Day. The world is still grappling with the war’s fallout because no one had ever witnessed such destruction. It still deserves our attention, our deep study, our reverence, and our commitment to finding a better, nobler, and more lasting peace with those whom we share space on this small planet.

But today’s commemoration has one giant flaw.

          I object to the United States being represented by Donald Trump at the anniversary ceremonies being held in Paris, France. What a disgrace to have this bone-spur-addled criminal traitor standing in for the American troops and their sacrifice for such a somber event as the end of the Great War. It became known as World War I after an even bigger and bloodier war 21 years later that was the direct result of the Great War. But Trump doesn’t even know THAT! 

Trump travelled to Paris to join other world leaders for the memorial events. What reverence did he show? Did he have the slightest interest in honoring the grave sites of U.S. servicemen killed in that war? No. A light shower on Saturday kept him from a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, the final resting place of many of the 1,800 Americans killed in the battle of Belleau Wood. His no-show prompted a chorus of scorn and derision. Those men died on a horrific battleground, surrounded by unimaginable noise, constant terror, exploding shells, and bullets stinging the air around them. But a light sprinkle of rain was all it took to keep Trump huddled far away from this sacred ground. Maybe it was good that Trump made up a bone spur in his foot because his cowardice on a Vietnamese battlefield might have cost an even greater number of U.S. dead there.

 The White House issued a lie, that is, a statement citing “scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather” for Trump’s decision to ignore American war dead from the fighting at Belleau Wood. It was unclear how the weather impeded Trump’s plans. Maybe he didn’t want to figure out the open and close mechanism of an umbrella again. 

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the trip by car. British Parliament member Nicholas Soames ― a grandson of Winston Churchill ― reacted to Trump’s absence by calling the U.S. president “pathetic.” Did Trump offer any thoughts on the sacrifice of our allies prior to our official entry on April 6, 1917, a sobering speech about how the U.S. became involved, how many Americans were already serving in the French Foreign Legion, the Ambulance Corp, the Lafayette Escadrille, and the Royal Flying Corp? Of course not. Trump couldn’t even tell you where Belleau Wood is. 

Trump doesn’t care how the avoidance makes him look. He isn’t interested in respecting the American dead. He isn’t making any money off of it so why should he bother going? The closest Trump came to acknowledging anything about the Great War was the North Korean-like parade he demanded down Pennsylvania Avenue, originally slated for today that fortunately got cancelled because the Pentagon revealed what it would cost. It wasn’t to pay tribute to the end of the war, to U.S. losses in the war, or as a way to honor our veterans or our armed forces. It was a way to stroke Trump’s massive ego. The parade was meant to be about HIM! 

Compounding his ignorance, he tweeted a debunked story about General John Pershing in the Philippines following the Spanish-American War. 

Trump has no idea what the Great War was about. He doesn’t know when it started, who it involved, nor how many Americans died. He has no concept of serving his country. When he could have in the 1960s and early 1970s, he dodged the draft by making up a fake ailment in his foot to avoid the military. Now he thinks he should stand in for Americans who DID serve? It would have made more sense for General Joseph Dunford or General Jim Mattis to represent us. 

Having Trump represent the United States, especially on the anniversary of the end of the Great War, makes as much sense as having Olive Garden represent Italy.   

How Trump Can Further Show Just What an Extraordinary Military Commander He Is

               There’s a caravan walking at about 2 to 3 miles an hour through Mexico at this moment made up of primarily impoverished families who are escaping the violence and lack of job opportunities in the Central American countries where they are from. Donald Trump is insisting at his rallies, at press conferences, and at brief encounters with reporters outside the White House, that they are a brutal invasion force. They are still over 800 miles from the southeastern border of Texas, but the general direction suggests they are heading toward California which is over 2000 miles from their present location. (They are near a strange place in Mexico that Fox’s Lou Dobbs called ‘Juar-ll-daaaaaaa.' I haven’t been able to find it on a map of Mexico either.) At the rate they are travelling, it will take them at least 2 weeks to a month to reach the U.S. if they come here at all. But to Trump, the danger is now, today, immediately, so he has told Defense Secretary James Mattis to send armed troops…5000, 5200, 10,000, no 15,000…to meet the threat. That’s more than the U.S. has deployed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS.

If you don’t look too closely, the men in that caravan are…(maybe they’re Middle Eastern, who knows?)…of military age, strong and virile (but unarmed, except for some rocks they might be able to throw). Reporters actually travelling with the caravan describe them as mostly thin, underfed young fathers, and teenage boys who are desperately trying to avoid being forced into joining a gang. Trump along with Fox news claims the women are being cowed into marching in the front of this invasion force in order to form a human shield for those men. And even worse, the women are keeping their babies close to themselves, and the young children nestled around them to provide an extra layer of bodies for the mass of terrifying invaders behind them, and those kids are riddled with diseases like smallpox, leprosy, aids, tuberculosis, and even STDs. According to Fox news hosts, Fox news guests, and many Trump supporters, they are all being paid by billionaire George Soros or the Democratic Party. How do they know? They say it is just so obvious and hinting that members of our own congress must also be going down there and urging them on, encouraging them to sweep into the U.S., and make sure to vote for Democrats…so they can rip health care away from law-abiding white Christian Americans, take over our cities, take away all our jobs…and kneel when the National Anthem is played!

These are the dangerous invaders Trump is warning about

From the Oval Office Trump admitted that “nobody knows for sure” whether there are gang members, ISIS soldiers, or Middle Eastern terrorists in among the caravan, but it’s possible…anything is possible. Why he doesn’t say that their pockets are all stuffed with millions in gold coins and they are coming to give it to Americans, free…is unknowable. But isn’t’ that also possible if anything is possible? He says he “tries to tell the truth” but the qualifier is he “tries”, not “does.”

If Trump really thinks this is truly a dangerous invasion force, why doesn’t he use the same tactic that has worked so well for him in the past? The tactic that makes disreputable news anchors wax poetically about how beautiful their launch is, how their use makes him appear more presidential to certain members of Congress, how Ivanka thinks it makes him…I mean, how Melania thinks it makes him more manly and desirable, how the use of them showcases what a strong, powerful, forward-thinking leader he is, all from the safety and comfort of one of his golf resorts?

Launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at them.

Trump insisted that Syria, a country far, far away and no threat to us, deserved to have cruise missiles launched at them…twice. If they were a threat, how much more is a threat just 2000 miles away and getting closer to our border? Since Trump is using the language of war, why not use our weapons of war? Just don’t distract him with a beautiful piece of chocolate cake or he’ll forget at which country he was supposed to launch them. We don’t need to wake up and find we’re now at war with Uruguay because Trump can’t tell the difference between that country and Mexico.

Not just cruise missiles either. Trump has no problem having our military and CIA launching missiles from drones over countries we are not at war with. If U.S. Predators and Reapers can send Hellfire missiles into wedding parties in Pakistan and schools in Yemen, then he can ignore Mexican sovereignty and launch missiles at the migrant caravan, too. Yemen, Pakistan, Mexico…what’s the difference?

But he mustn’t stop there. The world needs to see how tough Trump is. So send U.S. carrier groups into the Gulf of Mexico and down the Mexican Pacific coast to launch air attacks on the caravan. Maybe Trump can even ask for help from the Saudi Arabian Air Force which has lots of experience blowing up kids on buses and in schools in Yemen using U.S. weapons and hardware Trump sold to them. They’ll be able to show our pilots how and where to lay down ordinance to cause maximum damage. U.S. submarines can be included to add their missiles and firepower to the defense of the nation from this dangerous hoard of…poor people trying to escape the same war-like setting in their own countries.

Our F-117s, F-35s, A-10s, B-1s and B-2s can gain valuable experience dropping bombs on them or flying in low and slow and machine gunning them as they are strung out along Mexican roads. Sure, there will be some collateral damage and unintended casualties of Mexicans who happen to be too near a drop zone or target area, but innocent dead Mexicans is the price we have to pay to be free. Last year, Trump claimed he authorized our military in Afghanistan to drop a 21,000-pound non-nuclear bomb called a MOAB onto a suspected terrorist site. It was never confirmed that it was, but that’s immaterial. Plus, two innocent Afghani civilians were killed by it. However, dead Afghanis mean about as much to Trump as dead Mexicans. He can do the same to these violent migrant people. With a blast radius of over a mile, a MOAB will kill a good one-quarter of the first wave and make the rest of them think long and hard about wanting to come to the U.S. for anything.

                   Monkey see...monkey do!

It is certain Trump’s base will love this idea. Nothing makes them happier than to think Trump is killing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of non-white, non-English speaking people. They get giddy with the thought that, even with the massive tax cut that added $1.5 trillion dollars to the national debt - and there’s now GOP talk about gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to make up for some of that debt - that there’s still plenty of money laying around to throw at a military solution to the immigration issue…specifically these immigrants. What difference does a few billion dollars added to that deficit make if Trump can get a couple thousand dead immigrants out of it?

And as a last resort, if any of them do happen to reach the Rio Grande or the New Mexico, Arizona, or California border, and if they can be goaded into throwing a rock, Trump has ordered the 15,000 deployed soldiers there to consider that a weapon and then can now shoot-to-kill the migrants. Because in Trump’s way of thinking, a hand-thrown rock is as lethal as an AR-15 and deserves the return fire from one. That is what happens when you don’t serve in the military and make wild assumptions based on your feelings.

Military genius such as this can only come from someone who avoided service altogether with five draft deferments, suffered from a painful bone spur (or spurs…who knows for sure) in his foot, has never spent a day in the military, but overcame all that, and, using his vast military school background, has deployed the world’s mightiest military force to kill unarmed immigrants walking toward our southern border. We see this in every great military leader down through history. Leaders like…………..well, they must be there because how else would we know how great a military genius Trump is?

Remember, on June 16, 2016, Trump told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News that “No one is bigger or better at ‘the military’ than I am.”

If these migrants really are part of an invasion force, show us you are up to the task of defending the nation by the application of your Constitutional and presidential powers to stop them. Here is your chance to prove you understand it, Trump.