Only an Idiot Like Trump

Only an idiot would…

…believe windmill noises cause cancer.

…think raking a forest floor will prevent forest fires.

…want to use nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes.

…think you need a photo ID to buy cereal.

…claim Continental Army soldiers captured the airfields around Washington DC in 1776.

…think he can buy Greenland. (This idiot can’t even take care of Puerto Rico, a much smaller island)

…retweet and endorse a post that referred to him as the King of Israel and like the second coming of God. (Since the Jews aren’t waiting for God again, he probably meant Jesus.)

…admit on camera he is willing to break the law to stay in office, by accepting foreign assistance and by telling government employees to violate the law and he’ll pardon them after they seize private property illegally using Eminent Domain, ignore impact reviews, destroy local infrastructure, defile a historic cemetery…etc, in order to build a wall that simply panders to his base.

         This idiot tweeted a highly classified photo of a failed Iranian rocket launch that had not been cleared for publication by the Dept. of National Intelligence. To avoid charges of illegally exposing highly sensitive material to our adversaries, ex post facto he asserted an “absolute right” to release it as president as if there was nothing wrong with doing so. It's the same as in 2017 when from the Oval Office he confidentially bragged to the Russians about highly classified information from a spy inside ISIS. We found out about this from the TASS photographer in the room and then from the Israeli government. Trump brushed it off by asserting he never mentioned Israel by name, while in Israel. H R McMaster was forced to go out before the public and further muddy the waters to cover up Trump's massive security blunder. Two weeks earlier it was revealed that in a phone conversation with Rodrigo Duterte, he nonchalantly mentioned that two US nuclear subs had been positioned just off the coast of North Korea, a serious violation of military procedure. Again the White House scrambled to issue an after-the-fact justification that explained 'of course Trump had the right to do so as president.' How is any of this serving, protecting, and defending our country? And this idiot has our nuclear codes.

        Only this idiot would pose with a thumbs up next to Melania holding a child survivor of the Aug. 3rd El Paso mass murder whose shooter had cited Trump’s word ‘invaders’ to murder that child’s Hispanic parents.

Only this idiot would rail against socialism then turn around and dole out $28 billion taxpayer dollars to farmers who have been financially ruined by his trade war with China.

Without any evidence this idiot accused the Clintons of being complicit in the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

Without any evidence this idiot accused Ted Cruz’s father of being involved in the assassination of JFK.

Without any evidence this idiot claimed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered.

Without any evidence this idiot said Hillary Clinton got almost 3 million more votes than he did only because 3 to 5 million illegals voted in 2016.

Without any evidence this idiot claimed a judge who was born in Indiana of Mexican parents could not do his job because Trump was building a wall on the Mexican border.

Without any evidence this idiot claimed Barak Obama created ISIS.

Without any evidence this idiot accused Barak Obama of wiretapping his phone in Trump Tower.

Without any evidence, this idiot accused Barak Obama of being foreign-born for five years. Then, when the proof was demanded, he simply said he didn’t find anything. So to Trump, no evidence = fact.

Like a five-year-old, this idiot insults the physical appearance of rival candidates and their spouses or makes up a childish playground bully type of name to call them. He even fat-shames his own supporters.

Only this idiot would think that since we have nuclear weapons in our arsenal we should use them…and not just on hurricanes.

This idiot doesn’t even know what 5G means yet brags incessantly that no one knows more about technology than he does.

This idiot still claims Alabama was threatened by Hurricane Dorian and defaced an official weather map to maintain his fiction that it was in danger even though the National Weather Service showed the storm would stay well off the eastern seaboard two days before he made the claim.

This idiot makes up phone calls with world leaders, brags about letters he’s received but can’t prove he actually has, and can’t even operate an umbrella. He lives in a make-believe world where facts don’t matter, where truth doesn’t matter, where integrity doesn’t matter, nor does character matter. Only he matters. This man does idiotic things that wouldn't amount to a hill of beans if he weren't president. But he is and those actions endanger us and the world. 
Cabinet members, you took an oath of office to defend the Constitution and the nation, not Donald Trump. It’s time to take your oath seriously and save our republic from what this idiot is doing. History expects nothing less from you.

In Trump's America - Who Needs that Pesky First Amendment?

Apparently, free speech in America is only that which is approved by Donald Trump. Trump thinks people should be punished and even deported for showing a "lack of patriotism" by refusing to do something that has always been voluntary in our country regarding the flag. Where was all of Trump’s patriotism when he invented that bone spur in his foot to avoid military service during the fighting in Vietnam? Shouldn’t that be a punishable or deporting offense? How about it, Trump?

When the First Amendment was adopted in 1791, our Founding Father’s apparently needed to include “This article is not subject to re-interpretation by any future president or official” to protect coming generations from the whims of some dictator who managed to attain the White House. One of its provisions was to allow unpopular views to be spoken or written…like, say, when writers in the mid-1700s vented about King George III or British actions. The writers and speakers were to be allowed and encouraged to disagree with mainstream thought so public debate could determine what course of action was best for the colonies. That’s why we had people arguing in favor of, and against, the British. It’s why we allowed many different religious practices (although hindsight has shown that the tolerance was primarily limited to Christian-style religions). It’s why newspapers were not subject to censorship by the government. It protects you from the government punishing or censoring or oppressing your speech. Symbolic speech is protected by the constitution, too. Simply put, you have the right to not speak. You have the right to silence. So if you were to be fined or punished by your employer for not standing during the national anthem, that’s a major First Amendment issue. But now, Trump has redefined what that amendment really means. Stand, or get out of the country.

Here we are trying to contend with major issues around the nation and the world, including powerful hurricanes, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, unprecedented flooding, rising sectarian violence, record droughts, suicide bombings, health care, tax reform, and threats of nuclear war (thanks to our president acting like a third grader taunting the second grade bully in North Korea, and then unzipping his pants and flipping out his tiny member at Iran to taunt them as well)...and what does Trump want to address? He decides to escalate a non-issue by attacking the NFL, calling on fans to boycott NFL games until players who refuse to stand for the national anthem are suspended or cut from the team.

So which is it...do fans stop going to games, or are the team owners supposed to fire the players? 

On ABC TV’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin defended Trump’s attack on NFL players. “You know, the NFL has all different types of rules.You can’t have stickers on your helmet. You have to have your jerseys tucked in. I think what the president is saying (Mnuchin doesn't really know, he just made this up on the spot) is that the owners should have a rule that players should have to stand in respect for the national anthem. This isn’t about Democrats, it’s not about Republicans, it’s not about race, it’s not about free speech. They can do free speech on their own time.”

Mnuchin (who never served in the military or as a first responder) needs a thorough lesson on the creation of the First Amendment. He makes the same mistake so many others do about the intent of the amendment - and what the NFL players kneeling represents - by erroneously claiming “This is about respect for the military and so many people who put their lives at risk and what the country stands for, and the owners should meet and they should decide on this rule the way they decide on any other rule.”

Incredulous, ABC’s Martha Raddatz immediately asked: “Is it not about their first amendment rights? Is it not about the first amendment?”

“No, it’s not,” Mnuchin replied. “They have the right to have the first amendment off the field.”

Free speech is only to be enjoyed in private, on your own time, away from everyone and everything. So voluntary standing, voluntary putting a hand over your heart, voluntary singing of the anthem is no longer acceptable. Now it must be coerced and if the NFL players don’t like it, they should be penalized or thrown out of work - or out of the country.

When former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick initially knelt rather than stand at games in 2016, He was NOT disrespecting the flag, the military, or our nation. He was protesting racial injustice and police brutality. That’s all.  He recognized the U.S. as his country too and he knew his First Amendment rights. In his display, he was calling attention to the increase in the number of police shootings of unarmed blacks as well as more overt discrimination against non-whites - yet there seemed to be no concern for it by government officials. There's even less under the Trump administration.

Thanks to Trump’s ignorant tweet and Mnuchin’s failure to understand what was the intent of the First Amendment, protest events and comments were commonplace at NFL games this weekend. At the day’s very first contest, a London showdown between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens, more than two dozen players knelt, as did Ravens owner Ray Lewis. Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan, who had been a Trump supporter, locked arms with his team in a show of unity. So did Ravens coach John Harbaugh. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers posted a photo on Instagram of him kneeling with several of his teammates. The Pittsburgh Steelers sidestepped the anthem entirely by staying in their locker room to demonstrate unity. (Only Alejandro Villanueva broke with them and went out to stand on the field.) LA Rams owner Stan Kroenke, a Trump supporter, released a statement affirming the players’ “freedom to peacefully express themselves”  as did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner. Over half of the Denver Broncos kneeled on the sideline at their game while numerous members of the New Orleans Saints remained sitting. The Houston Texans locked arms in a show of unity...the New York Giants locked arms too as several players took a knee. Yes, there were boos from the stands, but that is the fan’s First Amendment right. No one said they can’t do it because it might offend someone.

What Trump is calling for is a new interpretation of the First Amendment. If you live or work in the U.S., you must stand when the national anthem is played. You must stand and face the flag. You must show respect no matter what. And only Trump gets to interpret what “respect” means. When just one man gets that kind of power, it’s called a dictatorship.

So what the hell have we become?

Trump Finally Chalks Up a Victory - He Saved a Hat

What a courageous, unprecedented and outstanding service Trump has provided the nation. On Saturday Trump retrieved a Marine's hat after it was blown off his head by a gust of wind. It's something any 5-year old would do but naturally with the bar set so low for Trump, conservatives are celebrating and treating it like Trump just won the World Series. 

A jackass trifecta

Sarah Palin tweeted “Thank you President Trump.” Former game show host Chuck Woolery added his two cents with “NOT AT ALL SURPRISED IT’S WHO HE IS…” in all CAPS no less - so we know how proud he is of Trump's hat rescue.  In case Chuck Woolery forgot, this is ALSO who Trump is...

Trump leaves Melania to fend for herself when they meet the Obamas at the White House on inauguration day.

        Fox News used the hat incident to blast Obama because at a rainy Rose Garden news conference in 2013 (yes, they had to dig back through 4 years of video) Obama’s umbrella was being held by his Marine guard, rather than Obama holding it. So Trump was praised for rescuing a Marine’s cover while Obama is chastised for rudely allowing a Marine to do what he was supposed to be doing when the Commander-in-Chief is speaking in the rain. (How dare Obama allow the president's Marine Escort to do exactly what they are supposed to be doing?) This is worthy of scorn, but if your name is Trump and you bend down to get a hat, that's presidential.

Obama thanks the Marine for holding the umbrella - how unethical is that?

A Virginia Wesleyan University student wrote about the hat pickup “It shows respect and it goes a long way when it's a president showing respect.” How about all the respect Trump showed our intelligence services over the past year, even comparing them to Nazis just a week prior to his inauguration? Or the respect he showed CPO William Ryan Owens when Trump ordered his SEAL Team 6 into Yemen on January 28^th which caused the death of Owens and Trump couldn’t even bother to be in the situation room while the mission was underway? Did Trump show any of that respect when he invented his “bone spur in the foot” excuse to get out of military service in the late 1960s? 

Trump's official "Medal of Honor" photograph.

The video of Trump went viral on Saturday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as Trump was boarding a helicopter to return to the White House. Walking along the tarmac, a Marine's hat flew into the air, prompting Trump to grab the hat, pick it up, and place it back on the Marine's head. Trump then patted the Marine's arm like he was a good dog. But the deed was short-lived. Moments later, the hat is seen once again flying into the air, sending Trump after it for a second time. This time Trump gave it to another official and then boarded the helicopter.

The second time Trump just picks it up and hands it to someone else.

             Is picking up a Marine's cover somehow akin to moral purity or upstanding citizenship? Does this compensate for his grabbing women by the genitals? Is this how the conservatives offset Trump’s less-than-stellar G-20 European visit? Will it cause Kim Jong Un to re-think developing a North Korean nuclear ICBM? Does it equate to passing meaningful legislation or coming up with health care to benefit all Americans? Does it trump (pun intended) months and months of Russian-collusion-denial that his son Jr. just admitted to on Tuesday? 

             Like father, like son...a lie is a perfect band-aid.

              So a hat flies off - 'predisent' Trump picks it up and returns it. Most children do that. When you have nothing better to rally around, picking up a wind-blown hat must be as good as conservatives can hope for to show how Trump is Making America Great Again.

               Or you could say it is exactly two letters and a period too long.

Enemy of the People

In order to be a successful authoritarian, totalitarian, dictator, or whatever you want to call it, you must have an enemy. Someone or something you define as evil for your supporters to focus on. That way, no matter what happens or how badly things might go, you can deflect them back to the real problem, the enemy.

For Hitler, it was the Jews. They were “outsiders", "an alien race", and "degenerates”. He added to their demonization by tossing in that they were the brains and the money behind the rise of Communism. Two enemies now rolled into one. It was the Jews who were to blame for Germany’s defeat in World War One, for the “stab in the back” to the German Army while in battle - by their government back in Berlin that ended the war, and for robbing the German people since the Jews supposedly controlled the nation’s financial institutions. First, it was just small attacks on Jews; bullies beating them up, smashing shop windows, and mocking the Jewish people thanks to a compliant press. Then, laws were passed to restrict where the Jews could work, shop, and live, synagogues were destroyed, and Jewish businesses burned down. Then the Jews were rounded up…it was for their own good, of course, to protect them from righteously angry Germans, put into work camps or banned from universities, hospitals, and any government function. And finally, when war came, which was again blamed on the Jews who now had no power at all in Germany, a Final Solution. At least six million paid with their lives.

For Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, it was teachers, college students, intellectuals, people who owned small businesses, anyone who was educated or successful. After the fall of the capital Phnom Penh, they wasted no time rounding them all up, putting them in horrific re-education camps that became killing grounds. By small groups, so as not to arouse suspicion, those prisoners were then taken out and executed. At least 2 million people, a quarter of Cambodia’s population, were slaughtered in this manner. That happened in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge was forced into western Cambodia by the 1979 invasion by Vietnam and did not completely die out until 1999. Cambodia has STILL not recovered from it.

For Donald Trump, it is the American free press.

In a tweet he sent twice on Friday, February 17, 2017, Trump called the media “The enemy of the American people”. He is setting up the press so that criminal acts against them will be justified. Remember how easy it was for Trump to encourage violence against protesters at his rallies? Reporters at several rallies have already stated they have been harassed, pushed, spat upon, screamed at, and Trump supporters pointing their fingers like a gun and firing at them.Think it will be very long before someone actually carries that out?
          On February 16th, Trump had his first solo press conference. By all accounts, it was a wild, mind-boggling, grievance-filled rant. He spent his time justifying his election win…four months after winning, belittling the press over and over, making up statistics, showing his crass, bigoted side, and giving evidence that he has no understanding of what uranium is, the effects of nuclear weapons, or how government works. Others thought it was great entertainment and really put the press in its place. Right-wing radio commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity sang his praises on the air. The media got what it deserved. (The irony was lost on both of them that they are the media too. It will only take a small point for them to run afoul of Trump and they will not be spared anything the other media is now suffering.) Less than a half an hour after the press conference ended, Trump tweeted out that he wanted his supporters to know how dishonest the press really was and that they would not tell the American people the truth about his press conference - even though anyone watching TV or listening to the radio could hear it live with no filter. How is that dishonest? 

The “dishonest media”, “the failing press”, “the fake news” "part of the problem" and "part of the corrupt system" are phrases Trump is using in his initial demonization of those who have a First Amendment right to ask him questions. Unless you agree with Trump 100%, you are the enemy. Trump has never read what one of our greatest presidents had to say about the press. "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." -The words of Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington in 1787.
         There will now be physical threats toward the media and violence is the next logical step. Trump will also pursue new and unique methods through the courts to close down or severely curtail the free press. And his supporters will willingly give up much of their First Amendment rights without a whimper.

The Wall              The Muslim Ban            Unregulated oil and gas pollution

Trump means what he says. He will do the things he has threatened to do. He is not concerned with other people's happiness or well-being, not even his supporters. He is concerned only with his own and to a lesser degree his family's. If his billionaire friends can enrich themselves off the corpse of the American economy, that’s okay too. But the lesson of Michael Flynn should give anyone who works for him pause. If someone makes Trump look bad, even if Trump is the cause of it, they will be thrown under the bus…or overboard with weights tied to their legs.

Those of you who don’t take Trump's words and actions seriously, keep in mind, in 1932, few people in Germany seriously thought that Adolf Hitler would become their chancellor. And when he did win constitutionally the next year, they deluded themselves into thinking various branches of government would keep him reigned in. Sound familiar?

When Trump Advisor Stephen Miller went on nationally televised shows last Sunday, and in his best Joseph Goebbels impersonation, warned the viewers that Trump’s authority “will not be questioned”, you can clearly see where things are headed.

Knowing what you know now - if you were Jewish in Germany in 1935, what would you do? 
         In 2017, what should Americans do?