Kim Jong Un to Donald Trump - "THANKS"

Donald Trump is raising Seoul’s financial obligation for continued U.S. military presence in South Korea by 500% starting next year or he’s pulling all the troops out.

Think Seoul will agree to Trump's extortion scheme?

If starting tomorrow you had to pay five times as much for any food you purchased what would be your response?

But North Korea's Kim Jong Un could not be happier with this turn of events. He might achieve what his father and grandfather could never achieve, the complete removal of the U.S. from the Korean peninsula.

And he gets to keep all his nuclear weapons.

Kim says "감사합니다, 트럼프 대통령."

Trump Embarrasses the United States on the World Stage...Again

While in Hanoi with the world’s press gathered after the US-North Korea talks abruptly ended, Trump was asked about whether he spoke with Kim Jong Un about American Otto Warmbier who had been held for months by North Korea and was brutally tortured until he was comatose, then hurriedly released to the U.S. so he could die hours later at home.

Trump answered the reporter’s question by saying Kim “tells me he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word.”  

Trump could have made a statesman-like appeal to Kim and ask him to launch an investigation to find out who ordered and carried out Warmbier's torture - because who would have the nerve to do something that besmirched and sullied Kim's reputation and make him look like a blood-thirsty monster to the world rather than a great leader? Trump would have finally looked presidential with that one request. But Trump just doesn't have it in him.

Once he was safely back home where he thinks he can massage whatever message comes out and do his own damage control he reinvents the moment and claims it was a misunderstanding, tweeting “I never like being misinterpreted, but especially when it comes to Otto Warmbier and his great family. Remember, I got Otto out along with three others. The previous Administration did nothing, and he was taken on their watch. Of course I hold North Korea responsible…”

Trump didn't “get Otto out.” That's just Trump hyperbole. Only days before Warmbier died, panicky North Koreans contacted the U.S. and demanded they take the dying man off their hands. Trump didn't lift a finger. Trump also played the “blame Obama” card in his tweet - as though passing the buck to cover his own shortcomings in defending Kim's implication in murder is a rational and adult way to explain why Trump is not to blame, for anything. Trump ends the tweet almost in a whisper “Of course I hold North Korea responsible…” 

Of course you do. 

 

Yet when Trump had the opportunity to say that on the world stage he crumbled. He showed everyone his true colors; he defended the regime that killed Warmbier, and he actually used the world stage to praise that regime. What does that say about the United States with Donald Trump as our president?

Worldwide approval of U.S. leadership has already floundered and remains low after a dramatic drop during Trump's first year in office, while China's rating ticked up to its highest in almost a decade. That’s according to a new Gallup poll released Thursday, February 28th that measures how adults in 133 countries feel about the global leadership of countries like the U.S., China, Germany, and Russia. The low approval rating for the U.S. "suggests that the doubts sowed in Trump's first year about U.S. commitments abroad have taken root," it reads. "Russia is now on a more even level with the U.S." Trump is the reason we are at this new low point.

Trump has repeatedly embarrassed the U.S. on the world stage.

He shut down the U.S. government over Mexico not paying for his border wall. When that didn't work, he declared a National Emergency when there was no emergency at all, even according to his own military commanders. It was such a serious situation that, after declaring it, Trump spent the next three days playing golf at Mar-a-Lago.
        In Helsinki he validated Vladimir Putin’s interference in the 2016 election…interference that got Trump into office. Trump used the same opportunity to defend Putin, taking his word over the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus. All the while Putin stood next to him and proudly boasted "Yes I did, yes I did" want Trump to win.

Trump validated Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ordering the execution of U.S. legal resident Jamal Khashoggi. What is one death when measured against the billions U.S. defense contractors, and real estate moguls like Trump, make off the Saudi government?

He defended as "fine people" racists, White Supremacists, and the KKK at the Charlottesville Virginia march even after a White Nationalist had killed a protester and injured 19 others. 

He referred to African nations as “shithole” countries, just as he did with Haiti and El Salvador. Even after being told the correct pronunciation, he still repeatedly mispronounces Namibia as ‘Nambia’, Tanzania as 'Tan-Zay-nee-uh, Bhutan as “Button,” and Nepal as “Nipple.” He doesn’t understand that Colombia and Columbia are not the same things.

Trump was actually laughed at by the entire world…literally, on September 25, 2018, when he bragged about phony accomplishments before the U.N. General Assembly.

His administration still uses the terrorist tactic of ripping children away from parents who’ve crossed the border into the U.S. attempting to flee terror in their own country. Several of those kids have now died as a result of maltreatment while being held in U.S. government facilities. The Trump administration doesn’t care.

That is because Trump doesn’t care...about America or anything else. Trump only cares about Trump. The entire Trump presidency is one long get-rich-quick scheme.

We will pay for Trump’s enriching himself at our expense far into the future unless we use our Constitutional right to demand enactment of the 25^th Amendment to remove him from office and indict him as soon as he steps outside the White House. He should face the consequences for his lifetime of unethical behavior, criminal activities, and treasonous actions taken as president. 

For his massive corruption, dishonesty, deceit, fraud, sexual assaults, money laundering, numerous Emoluments violations just to name a few, Trump should become the first U.S. president to die in prison.

It will be cheaper for us.

Trump Threatens to Unleash a Nuclear War - After all, why else do we have nuclear weapons?

“President Fire and fury” Donald Trump is still in office because he thinks he has support from the Republicans, the very party most of his own supporters hate almost as much as they hate liberals and Democrats. Those supporters consider the GOP a “do nothing” party. After all, it’s a party that only has a 24% approval rating. The GOP is part of the swamp Trump was supposed to drain, a party that only looks out for its own self-interests, only helps big business, only passes tax cut legislation to aid the richest people…etc.

But why do these Trump supporters continue to cling to Trump? Why do they still support him? Apart from lying incessantly to them, he has done nothing for them. He has passed no legislation that helps them. He has saved no jobs or gotten jobs returned from overseas. He hasn’t built the useless southern border wall. He hasn’t repealed the ACA. He has his own state-run TV news on his Facebook page to spread Trump-approved propaganda, but it doesn’t appear to be changing anyone’s mind. So what do Trump’s supporters see in a Trump presidency? Are they going to jump up and down and cheer when Trump orders our military into action in a backwater, out-of-the-way, piss-ant little country like North Korea? Place your money on it. The whole “North Korea is a rogue state and deserves our wrath” is a smoke screen. Trump is hiding something else. But his supporters will say it shows he’s a strong, tough man that won’t blink before Kim Jong Un.

Trump is going to get us into a war…a war that will involve nuclear weapons. Trump doesn’t understand nuclear weapons. He thinks of them as “well if they are in our arsenal, then we must use them like they are aircraft carriers, armored vehicles, or bombers.” That’s as deep as Trump has thought about the issue. He did not study the Second World War. He does not understand the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He knows nothing about our nuclear triad. He only knows he has the power to launch them and soon he will find a reason or will be provoked or goaded into using them.
           Since the 1950s the Kims have been trying to stay in the public eye. They refused to sign a treaty ending the Korean War. They have been launching missiles of one sort or another since 1988 when Reagan was in office. They developed a nuclear weapon in 2006 when Bush was in charge so Obama cannot be blamed for this. The current threat is nothing new from the North Koreans. Even our latest satellite reconnaissance photographs of North Korea show no preparation for war. South Korean intelligence has indicated there have been no changes made anywhere along the border. It’s the same thing North Korea has done since the 1950s, make meaningless gestures while blowing off hot air. But this is the first time they’ve dealt with Trump and Trump knows nothing about North Korea or how to react so he thinks putting on his tough guy act is the correct course.

On July 31^st  Trump said he wasn’t worried about a possible nuclear threat. “We’ll handle North Korea,” Trump told assembled reporters “We’re going to be able to handle them. It will be handled.” The president offered no specifics about how he would “handle” North Korea. It seems he has no game plan and thinks that if he says “handled” three times it will solve the issue as if it’s Beetlejuice.

On August 5^th National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster ratcheted up the heat by saying “The United States is preparing for all options to counter the growing threat from North Korea, including launching a “preventive war. It’s impossible to overstate the danger associated with a rogue, brutal regime." How ironic that McMaster could also be talking about the Trump regime.,

On August 7^th, from his Bedminster Golf Club, Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it continues to threaten the US as tensions grow. The White House and Defense Dept. are caught completely off guard by Trump’s comments and so far have not issued clarifying statements, just support for Trump's bombastic idiocy.

And then, as Trump does repeatedly because he is a complete amateur or nitwit, on August 8^th he gives away more classified information when he tweeted out a link to a Fox News report about North Korea that contained what U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said was confidential information regarding North Korea mounting anti-ship missiles onto their patrol boats.

Our military forces are already fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and naval forces are ready to strike off the coast of Iran, in the South China Sea against China, and our navy and air force reconnaissance aircraft are being challenged repeatedly over the Black Sea by the Russians. How many hair-triggers do we need? Now Trump wants to add the volatile North Koreans to the mix.

Will General Mattis (known colloquially as “Mad Dog”) challenge Trump not to launch nuclear weapons? He is the one who used the Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb in Afghanistan for no apparent reason, and Trump approved it after the fact. Will General H. R. McMaster? Will new Chief of Staff Kelly? Will NSA Director Admiral Rogers? Will Director of Intelligence Dan Coats? Or even CIA director Pompeo? These men are all sycophants who have pledged their loyalty to Trump…not to the country or to the Constitution…but to Trump. Therein lies our problem, as if Trump’s lying isn’t enough. These men are confusing loyalty to Trump with loyalty to the country and its Constitution. Those could not be more different. And that misguided loyalty will get us into a war “the likes of which the world has never seen” to use Trump’s own words.

Trump supporters need to come to the realization that Trump will get them - and/or their sons and daughters - killed in a war he’ll launch strictly to stroke his ego. He’ll blame it on the North Koreans as though he alone finally has to do something about them obtaining nuclear weapons. But we didn’t launch a war to stop the Soviet Union from obtaining theirs…or China...or India...or Pakistan...or South Africa...or Israel...or anyone else.

Keep Trump away from the nuclear codes. Resist this man. Fight this man, Remove this man from office. Our future as a species depends on it.

Trumpus Maximus - The Greatest Military Genius of all time

All hail our great military leader Donald Trump. The man who said no one is better at “the military” than he is. The man who said he knew more about ISIS than the generals and he even had a plan right then and there on how to destroy them. The man who, because of attending a military school, said "I always felt like I was in the military." Feeling like it and actually being it are two very different things, except in Trump's mind. He is also the man who, as late as October 2016, demeaned our military as weak, crumbling, and failing. The man who, when he had the opportunity to serve in our military in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, couldn't because he had a bone spur in his foot. When asked in 2015 which foot, he stammered and then said “It’s in the records. You’ll look it up in the records.” Does that sound like a man who actually had a bone spur…in either foot? It was only later he changed it to spurs (plural). And there is plenty of photographic proof that the bone spur didn’t stop Trump from doing ANYTHING else - other than serving his country.

But now that he's the Commander-in-Chief, despite that painful bone spur, he has the opportunity to show us how his military prowess is second to none and makes astoundingly perceptive and strong moves that showcase our military. Suddenly U.S. armed forces are the best in the world and getting so much better under his leadership. Here are just a few examples…

He sent Navy SEAL Team 6 to Ghayil in Yemen on January 28^th and 29^th to grab Al Qaeda’s number two man hiding there. Later the Defense Department said they were also to snatch any laptop computers and cell phones they could locate. But it turned out the SEALS were sent without a proper strategy in place, the necessary support, or an extraction plan. They ended up in a fight for their lives. When the raid was launched, Trump couldn’t even be bothered to be in the situation room. Instead, he was in a White House bedroom tweeting that he would be on the Christian Broadcasting Network that night and urged people to watch. Then at precisely the time Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens was dying, was Trump checking out what measures could be taken or how quickly Owens could be rescued? No. The time-stamp on his tweets shows he was deleting his previous message and resending it to correct the time – that folks could see it the next night. At no time did he give a damn about the men he sent in harm’s way. The following day, Trump declared the mission a huge success that gathered important information in the fight against terrorism.

Ghayil, Yemen after Trump's poorly planned raid 

But U.S. military officials told Reuters the operation was a disaster. It was approved “without sufficient intelligence, ground support, or adequate backup preparations.” They returned with no cellphones, no computers, and no al-Qaeda operatives. It was also revealed that Central Command had initially denied any civilian casualties until Yemeni authorities began releasing grisly photos of mangled, dead children killed in the raid. Over 20 Yemeni civilians died, six Americans (not the original 3 as claimed by a military spokesman) were injured, a $75 million dollar OV-22 Osprey was destroyed, and of course, Owens was killed…all for nothing.

The late CPO William Ryan Owens - Bill Owens holds a photo of his son.

On February 26^th, the Miami Herald published an article that Bill Owens, the father of William Owens, refused to meet with Trump on Feb. 1st when his son’s body was flown back to Dover Air Force base and issued a statement from his home in Miami saying “Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation…I want an investigation…the government owes my son an investigation.” To date, Trump has not authorized any review or investigation into the botched mission, nor is there any investigation being conducted by anyone in the military. Of course, that’s what great military leaders always do.

A beautiful piece of chocolate cake kept Trump from concentrating on tomahawk missiles aimed at Iraq...or was it Syria?
        On April 6^th, Trump authorized the U.S. Navy to launch 59 tomahawk cruise missiles at airfields and infrastructure in Syria. Congress was not notified to approve military action, nor do we know by what legal authority the US launched the strike. Later, the White House admits that the Russians were forewarned, and they promptly warned the Syrians who cleared out of the base. Trump said the strike was in the “vital national security interests of the U.S.” but then conceded on Sunday that it was an “impulsive action” prompted by a video earlier in the week of gassed children. Post-operation reconnaissance photos show several partially destroyed buildings, four destroyed aircraft in their shelters and 16 older jets around the airfield damaged. The runways were left completely intact. Syrian jets even use them later that morning for another bombing run on rebel-held territories in northern Syria. So how effective was this attack?

On April 13^th, a MOAB (Massive ordinance air blast) is used for the first time in combat. It is a 21,600-pound air-dropped non-nuclear bomb with a blast radius of one mile. No Pentagon explanation is offered as to why this type of bomb was used, supposedly against an ISIS underground cave system in eastern Afghanistan (strangely, not Taliban or Al Qaeda positions.) Asked about it at a WH meeting Trump didn’t seem to know what it was but claimed he “authorized” it by allowing ‘his military’ to do what it needs to. The bomb had actually been authorized for use by the Obama administration. But Trump - being a military genius - took credit for its use and for U.S. military proficiency in dropping it. Without explaining how the numbers were arrived at, Defense Department officials said only ISIS fighters, first 36 and then upping it to 96, were killed, no civilians were harmed. It is later revealed that the information is wrong. At least two Afghani civilians, one a child, were also were killed in the blast. But Afghani children slain by a  U.S. bomb won't generate Trump's outrage like gassed Syrian kids do. (Update April 21, due to a US military request, Afghan government officials have retracted their earlier statement that two civilians were killed by the MOAB blast.)

Trump is ignorant about where the USS Carl Vinson is while threatening Kim Jong-Un

And then we have the icing on that beautiful piece of chocolate cake. On April 11th as tensions with North Korea rose, Trump said on Fox News that he was “sending an armada, very powerful” to the Western Pacific. It was going to be saber-rattling at Kim Jong-Un and warning him that the U.S. was prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korean nuclear and military facilities. But photographs released by the Navy showed the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its escort ships sailing through the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java on Saturday, April 15, and later they are in the Indian Ocean conducting an exercise with the Australian navy. White House officials blamed the mix-up on the Defense Department, describing a glitch-ridden sequence of events, from a premature announcement of the deployment by the military’s Pacific Command to erroneous explanations by Defense Secretary Mattis and NSA Director H. R. McMaster, both of whom fed the false narrative that an American armada was racing toward the waters off North Korea. US Navy officials state “We made no such statement.” Mattis and McMaster are supposedly some of our best military minds.

Nothing will confound our enemies and reassure our allies more than bullshitting them at every opportunity. Make no mistake, our enemies are watching...gleefully. They are taking the measure of just how this administration operates.To the world, it appears this administration is either completely incompetent or the biggest pack of liars to ever be assembled in one location. And the Liar-in-Chief is Donald Trump. We are forced to trust this bumbling, amateurish, short-attention-span braggart with the nuclear codes. Until he is removed from office, I can’t sleep well at night. Neither should you.

Update April 20^th: U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis addressed confusion over the aircraft carrier group on Wednesday, saying "The bottom line is, in our effort to always be open about what we are doing we said that we were GOING to change the Vinson's upcoming schedule. [No he didn't.] We don't generally give out ships schedules in advance but I didn't want to play a game either and say we were not changing a schedule when in fact we had.” The U.S. military's Pacific Command explained on Tuesday that the Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a planned period of training with Australia, but it was now [April 19th]"proceeding to the Western Pacific as ordered.” This was an after-the-fact explanation; the subterfuge was just the Trump administration being 'transparent' according to Mattis.