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.

Trump Supporters Still Want Their P*ssies Grabbed

At a recent Trump rally, women (and one guy) wait to have their genitals fondled.

Trump in 2005:  “…when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

In Trump’s mind, being a star means being above the law. So pussy grabbing by Trump is not illegal. 
Trump even admitted, "I was aware at the time that I was being recorded by a TV program".

However, this was just “locker room” talk, remember? He meant every word of it, he just didn’t mean for you to find out. It’s his way of puffing up his street cred with other serial sexual predators – by exchanging ideas for violating women safely behind locker room doors. You weren’t supposed to catch him admitting what he really did to his victims. But he thinks what he did was okay. He told the world he “could get away with anything.” Getting caught voicing his preferred method was his only miscalculation. And the people who voted for him approve that message!

Does he care if you disapprove? Does Trump care about anything other than making money off of gullible people? Trump has a simple five-word response that sums up his attitude. Verified by numerous named sources in Bob Woodward’s book Fear: Trump in the White House, one of Trump’s most frequent responses to a variety of issues is “I don’t give a fuck”, "I don't give a shit", or “I don’t give a damn.”

Case in point: Money trumps the law.

Trump in November 2016, to Chris Christie (when he and Steve Bannon explained to Trump that legally the money raised for the Trump transition team could only be used for actual presidential transition team tasks as it prepared to take over the government): “Fuck the law,” Trump shouted. “I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.”

THIS IS THE REPUBLICAN’S LEADER - AND THE BIBLE-WIELDING EVANGELICAL’S CHOSEN MORAL REPRESENTATIVE.

Congratulations GOP and Christians, this is the man seen as the embodiment of your values around the world. This is the man you believe God picked to lead the U.S.

Does he care about presidential optics he has created? Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, shoving aside Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dusko Markovic so Trump could be in front at the NATO members photo op in May 2017, being laughed at when falsely bragging about his accomplishments in front of the UN General Assembly. 3000 Puerto Ricans are confirmed dead from Hurricane Maria and its after-effects, which were criminally mismanaged by the Trump administration, yet Trump gives himself an A+ and told reporters "I think we did a fantastic job in Puerto Rico."  Trump proudly says he’s a nationalist…even though he admits he shouldn’t say it. He doesn't care that nationalism has strong negative connotations and is closely associated with white nationalism and in particular National Socialism…you know, Nazis.

Did Trump really hire “the best people” to work for him? Recent Trump administration departures include Nikki Haley, Don McGahn, Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, Tom Price, David Shulkin, Rob Porter, Dina Powell, Scott Pruitt…many left under a cloud of corruption…and those names are just the most high-profile ones. These are Trump’s hand-selected “best people” and they have been either forced out or found they cannot work with him. Why would they no longer want to help Trump make America great again?

What about that massive parade that was supposed to showcase our great military (and by extension, it’s Commander-in-Chief), right down Pennsylvania Avenue…uh, soon, how 'bout July 4^th, no, no, Veteran’s Day on November 11^th, no wait…? Never mind, it’s been cancelled. As usual, Trump didn't give a damn about the cost until the Pentagon released figures showing the parade that Trump wanted would cost nearly $90 million. Then, to save face, Trump claimed he cancelled it due to budgetary concerns after Democratic politicians falsely inflated the price. That’s how Trump honors our military…with a false show of force designed to stroke his ego that would have wasted millions of dollars, it would have added nothing to military might or readiness, and that money would have been far better spent on our military families and veterans.

Does Trump actually care about helping our military? Trump has gone golfing at least 70 times since taking office yet hasn’t once visited troops in an active zone he sent them to. So far, all "General Bone Spurs" has done is use our soldiers, sailors, marines, and air force crews for photo opportunities or to send them off secretively - like they're a bunch of pawns or playthings - while he flexes his muscle and uses his military school background to play-act as the new sheriff in town. He told everyone on live TV he was smarter than our generals.
We lost four Green Berets in Niger October 4, 2017, because Trump added Chad to the list of seven banned countries - all because they didn’t use the right kind of paper for their passports. Chad troops then pulled out of Niger and the vacuum was filled by ISIS-supporting militants. With no advance intelligence, Trump ordered the US African Command to send lightly-armed US troops into the area with no plan, no support, no backup, and no extraction force available. Then when four Americans were killed (along with several Niger troops) Trump did nothing. Absolutely nothing. He even ignored the Defense Department's statement for him to read to the public about the ambush. Nor did Trump call any of the families of those killed until he was exposed at a press conference on October 16^th lying that he was the first president ever to call all the families of those who died in service to the US on his watch. He further sullied the whole affair by insulting the widow of Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, on her way to claim her husband’s body at the airport, and his off-the-cuff callousness was confirmed by the widow’s mother and her congresswoman who were riding in the car with her. Trump claims they are the ones who are lying about the incident, even though Chief of Staff John Kelly corroborated that Trump had said to the widow about her husband’s death “well, he knew what he signed up for…” 
How and why did we lose a SEAL in Somalia? Why was Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens killed in that botched raid in Yemen just a week into the Trump presidency? Why are we still losing military personnel in Syria when Trump can, and does, launch Tomahawk cruise missiles from the comfort of his golf resorts as his way of resolving issues in that country? Trump even salutes generals of countries we are technically still at war with.

         Taking care of our military starts with our veterans. Yet what has Trump done for them? According to the publication Stars & Stripes, Trump’s approach to the whole Veterans Administration issue was to appoint a trio of wealthy Mar-a-Lago members (those are people who pay him personally hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) who have no military experience to run the VA in secret. And although Trump has repeatedly promised his total commitment to “take care of every veteran”, now, almost two years into his administration, he has yet to detail how he would do that, or when he might start. Meanwhile, wait times at almost every VA facility have increased because Trump froze federal hiring and spending which blocked any additional staff or doctors being added, or upgrading with needed equipment, thereby degrading veteran’s health care even more.

Why hasn’t anyone handed Trump an AR-15 and asked him to show us how he would have confronted the gunman at Margery Stoneman Douglas High School during his killing rampage on Valentine’s Day 2018? Trump said that’s what he would have done, run into the building and confront the shooter. Lead by example, Trump.

Does Trump care that everyone around him considers him an idiot, or more generously, a child? – The transcript of the July 20, 2017 meeting at the Pentagon reveals Trump left a room full of staff members, Cabinet officials, and military leaders stunned after showing he couldn’t grasp simple concepts on diplomacy, and reasons not to launch a war - Rex Tillerson blurted out ‘fucking moron’ as Trump left the room; the West Wing resembles a dumpster fire as seen through the eyes of Michael Wolff in his book Fire and Fury, the September 2018 New York Times op-ed letter that claims others are actually running the government as "the adults in the room" instead of Trump, the entire White House is understaffed and feels they have to be the guardians at the gate to keep Trump from acting on his wildest impulses as chronicled in Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk, reporter/author Bob Woodward, who has an impeccable record for honest and accurate reporting, writes in his latest book Fear: Trump in the White House that many are concerned that the president acts like a petulant five-year-old, or describe him as having the attention span of a 5th or 6th grader, incompetent, completely self-centred, lacking a moral compass. And don't forget, after claiming as a candidate in 2016 that "the world was laughing at us" Trump is the one who actually got laughed at - by the entire UN General Assembly on September 24, 2018.

Does he care about the deficit?

In September 2018, Trump's top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, gave a talk at the Economic Club of New York in which he said that tax cuts aren't to blame for deficits. It’s entirely too much spending, mainly on social programs. Just how could Kudlow make such a preposterous claim? Because the GOP - who rammed through that Tax Cut Bill that transfers the tax savings wealth to the top 2% of people in this country, authorized with Trump's signature - tells him to say that. They don't want to answer for what they did to the other 98% of Americans. But it is Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cuts - and only Trump’s tax cuts - that are fueling the increase in deficits. It is now 17% higher than at this time last year according to his own Treasury Department. And even though Republicans control the Executive, Judicial and Legislative arms of the government, there's been absolutely no spending discipline at all by them. However, Republicans blame what they call “obstructionist Democrats” as causing the spending increases that are ballooning the deficit...and claiming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the culprits that really need radical reductions.

Does Trump care that a legal U.S. resident was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey? Jamal Khashoggi was no threat to Saudi Arabia. He was simply disliked by the Saudi prince over an article he wrote. And the official story, from the Saudi government, and even Trump himself, has changed five times? Is it okay for someone to murder a legal resident, then as president, a shrug of the shoulders is the only requirement in order to maintain a highly profitable financial arrangement (not just for US defence contractors but Trump personally)? Is it okay to kill journalists or representatives of the press? Is it okay to at least body slam them to the ground like Montana Senator Greg Gianforte did last year since Trump told a recent rally crowd that someone who could do that was his “kind of man”?

The presidency is supposed to be the beacon of moral leadership to the world. Instead, we have a president who has thoroughly disgraced, dishonoured, debased and degraded the office.

You in his administration…you in the GOP who cover for him...you evangelicals who CONTINUE to support him…you who voted for this vastly unfit-for-office man…you are all complicit. You are all enablers. You all figuratively lift your skirts every day and encourage Trump to grab your pussy because he's a star. And because he's a star, you support his getting away with ANYTHING by letting Trump just be Trump. As his hands grab your genitals it gives him the courage to imprison babies of migrant parents at the border, let economically-friendly countries kill American residents with no consequence, side with Putin against all of the US Intelligence agencies, sign a tax bill that promptly gave him a $2 billion windfall because tax breaks in the bill were specifically designed to go to real estate developers and people who own golf courses. How did that happen? That is going to make America great again? For who? Trump has not hidden who and what he is from anyone. By voting him into office, you have made this nation the laughing stock of the world. 

Just ask the UN. 

Shame On You For Shaming Trump Supporters

On a recent shopping trip, while waiting in the check-out line, I happened to overhear a ten-minute conversation between two older white males who voted for Trump, and their view of the world and of the man they wanted in office says a lot about these Trump supporters. Fox News had also recently aired a series of interviews their reporters had conducted at restaurants and other gatherings in the Southwest U.S. where they specifically spoke with people who identified themselves as Trump supporters, and they echoed almost exactly what these two shoppers were complaining about. 
        What these people think is that any assault on Trump is an effort to make them feel bad about voting for him. And they can’t stand it. They focus the whole thing on themselves; the hell with the country, the presidency, and the Constitution. All they hear about is the bad stuff Trump does and it’s not fair to hold them accountable. They want people to let “Trump be Trump” but stop reporting all the negative stuff that happens as a result of that. It wasn’t Trump’s programs that bothered them; it’s that those news organizations and people who don’t support Trump talk about them. And it revealed the core of what upset them.

Trump supporters are tired of being shamed.

        So what if Trump is not a role model, if he’s vulgar, if he’s crass, if he cheats on his beautiful wife, if he can only express himself with the vocabulary of a sixth grader, if he threw his support to Putin over his own intelligence agents, if he’s an amoral dummy. Stop shaming them because they chose him.

See, all that callousness, that racism, that sexism and xenophobia Trump expresses is not reflected in his supporters, they say. So turn down the volume and the indignation over Trump’s raising the White House US flag back to full staff as a final dishonor to Senator John McCain before his burial. Trump had that presidential right and could legally do it, so stop fussing about it. McCain was already dead, anyway.

        Stop trying to make them feel guilty over the Trump administration’s terror tactic of grabbing kids from immigrant parents and asylum seekers and throwing the kids in cages inside detention centers. Stop showing those revolting pictures of kids locked inside a cage. Boo-hoo. (Or as Corey Lewandowski said on TV in response to the comment “I read today about a ten-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken from her mother and put in a cage,” Zac Petkanas said, to which Lewandowski responded: “Womp womp.” Clearly, Lewandowski didn’t care.) They are sick of being shamed over not giving a damn about innocent children. It's those immigrant parent's fault, who cares about the kids. Remember, all that callousness, racism, sexism and xenophobia Trump expresses is not...NOT… reflected in his supporters…they maintain. 

        And stop shaming them for Trump saying the government did a ‘fantastic job’ during and after Hurricane Maria which killed almost 3000 Americans. It’s not their fault the Trump administration didn’t take the threat to Puerto Rico seriously and that the lack of response from FEMA was because Trump didn’t consider it a high priority because he barely recognized it as U.S. territory. So what if Trump went and played golf while Puerto Ricans were screaming for help? He has a right to relax. His job is hard. Yeah, they remember how Trump said he wouldn’t have time for golf once he got into office, but going back on his word is kind of what they expected from his unorthodox leadership style. “He’s his own man” is how one of them put it. Stop shaming them because Trump acts like a five-year-old and changes his mind like one. They know it. What are they supposed to do? Spank him?

Trump points to who he'll try to screw again

        Stormy Daniels did and she only got $130,000 for it. They aren’t ashamed that Trump paid off an adult film star, and a Playboy Bunny, and maybe a former housekeeper who bore him an illegitimate child, and maybe others, admitted on tape to forcing himself on women and even implying he grabbed them by the genitals, all while married to his third wife. Why should they feel shame for Trump’s infidelity, vulgarity, denial of payments and then confirming them, and hushing it up in order to sway voters to support him as the more ‘moral’ candidate? So what? At least Hillary isn’t president.

They are sick and tired of hearing about Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, Carter Page…etc. As far as they are concerned, those people have nothing to do with Trump. To hear one person tell it, they are the best people Trump talked about. They’re just being unfairly persecuted because they used to be part of Trump’s campaign or administration. The Democrats were out to get them. Those people were just associates of Trump anyway, and so are thousands of other people. Are they going to arrest everybody?

And don’t get them started about Charlottesville. If people couldn’t see Trump was right, that there were bad people on both sides, then they just weren’t paying attention. Trump called that one correctly. [Translation: Protesting Nazis = Being Nazis.]

        Oh, and stop shaming them because of Trump calling out NFL players who kneel as a quiet protest against the murders of black people by certain cops. You’re just supposed to focus on honoring the flag. Even though the protests are non-violent, the protesters have a First Amendment right, plus kneeling is respectful to the flag (look at what soldiers do honoring fallen comrades), Trump must be right, that the players shouldn’t be allowed to kneel in protest and “get away with it.” The other one felt Trump was, maybe, wrapping himself in the flag to get revenge. It’s that “eye for an eye” thing that Trump considers the most important lesson from the bible. You see, in 1990 when Trump was a part of the United States Football League, he sued the NFL for $1.2 billion…and lost. He was awarded three dollars and 76 cents and a lifetime ban from the NFL.

Now do you understand why he attacks NFL players?

It has nothing to do with patriotism or honoring the military. He’s getting even with being banned from the NFL. Nobody does that to Trump! Stop shaming his supporters for his pettiness. Besides, they’re sick of wealthy NFL players trying to draw attention to something most Trump supporters don’t care about at all...dead African Americans - no matter who killed them. If Trump can make people want to stop going to the games because they don’t want to be subjected to the sight of a person kneeling during the anthem, and maybe even punish all those players by forcing the demise of the NFL, THEN, HURRAY…MORE POWER TO HIM. Trump is getting retribution for that NFL ban by belittling NFL players. So stop shaming his supporters because of what Trump does. It’s what they’d like to do, too, but they aren’t the president. So we have become pawns to a snowflake trying to force standing at attention on everyone in the name of his false patriotism that masks a deep-seated hostility to the organization that banned him...the NFL.

Trump supporters need to explain why they find all these traits in Trump to be desirable. Is it really to hide behind his failings and shortcomings in order to conceal their own? Then shame on them for supporting a bully, a bigot, an adulterer, a traitor, and a man who is teaching our children that dishonesty, arrogance, and narcissism can get you the presidency. So what if it’s turning our democracy into a third-rate reality TV show? Leave Trump's supporters alone. They have a right to be wrong regardless of their choice and to throw their support behind a man unfit to be president!

As I listened to them I wondered when did ignorance become admirable?

        How dare Obama be a decent man? Vote Trump!

What Trump’s supporters don’t seem to get is that the people who elected him, or who knowingly elect anyone they KNEW was a corrupt person, are not victims, but accomplices. Long after Trump is gone, history will remember all his supporters as enablers and cowards who kept quiet and let this travesty go on and on. It’s no longer about whether Trump has any decency, but if his supporters still do.
So own it Trump supporters, YOU are responsible for what Trump does. All these negative stories you hear can be laid directly at your feet because you helped put him in office.

Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton’s Incredible Offer

        On Monday, September 10^th, National Security Advisor John Bolton made a speech where he said the US would do everything "to protect our citizens" and threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court if it goes ahead with prosecutions against Americans. Founded in 2002, the International Criminal Court investigates and brings to justice people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute. The US is among several nations that have not joined the court.

          In the speech given in Washington, Bolton said: "If the court comes after us, we will not sit quietly." And that the ICC “is dead to us.” ICC judges and prosecutors would be barred from entering the US and their funds in the US would be sanctioned. No one is going to mess with any US citizen.

          Couldn’t be clearer how he feels.

          So how does Trump’s self-abasing praise for Putin’s offer at the Helsinki summit last July square with Bolton’s claim that the US would do everything "to protect our citizens?"

           At the summit, Putin proposed what President Trump described as an “incredible offer,” Russia would be allowed to question certain U.S. officials it suspects of interfering in Russian affairs, like former Ambassador Michael McFaul and Bill Browder (who was mostly responsible for the Maginsky Act), whom Trump considered turning over to Putin’s FSB. Trump even seemed excited about the prospect, calling it an "interesting idea."  

"The President's going to meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that," White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

        In speeches, interviews and op-eds, John Bolton has called Vladimir Putin a liar who aligns himself with America’s enemies, and whose country is a long-term strategic threat to the United States. So what was Bolton’s reaction to Trump finding Putin's offer "incredible" last July?

(Crickets)

        It was left to Sarah Sanders to respond. “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it," Sanders said in a statement. It took Trump four days until he finally "disagreed with it." How do we even know Trump disagrees with this proposal, especially since it was made to him in sincerity and he originally said it was an incredible offer? Trump should tell us what was incredible about it. Of course, Trump didn’t bother to verbally disavow it himself, nor would Sanders. Trump didn’t say, do, or tweet jacksh*t. Sanders just issued a statement. When that didn’t put out the raging firestorm it caused, the State Department sent out spokeswoman-apologist Heather Nauert to try to undo the damage by telling a reporter that Russia’s request is “absolutely absurd.” That shows how tough Bolton and the Trump administration can be.
BOLTON...
SAID...
NOTHING

        Bolton will defend U.S. citizens even against the world…as long as Trump isn’t trying to sell them out.

        This is why Bob Woodward’s observations about Trump are so critical. Trump is a very real threat to the safety and well-being of every American.

A Quiet Coup d'etat Has Taken Place in the U.S. Government

We have had a bloodless coup d’état in Washington DC if the anonymous New York Times op-ed author is to be believed. Men and women we didn’t elect are running things any way they want, and they corral Trump like he’s a five-year-old claiming they are protecting us by doing so. They are talking about Trump’s behavior and character as being childish and they must keep him 'cribbed' to prevent him from acting on his impulses.

PEOPLE WE DIDN’T ELECT ARE RUNNIG THE GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT US FROM TRUMP.

One of Trump’s earliest cheerleaders in the Senate, Bob Corker, less than a year ago described the White House as an Adult Day Care Center where they swipe things off Trump’s desk so he can’t sign them and he forgets they were even there, just like what happens with an easily-distractible five-year-old. Corker has not changed his view on that. This past July, Lindsey Graham had to scold Trump on TV that “Putin is not your friend” like he was talking to a kindergartner. Graham has not walked that back. Is anyone in the GOP concerned about the optics of this? The man elected as the head of that party is being handled like a little child, and the GOP basically is saying “Yeah, we know. It’s been that way since day one. But we work around it and we get as much of our agenda crammed through under his name until someone comes along and figures out what’s really going on.”

SO PEOPLE WE DIDN’T ELECT ARE RUNNING OUR GOVERNMENT AND USING TRUMP AS A SHIELD.

Trump, who is being described as an amoral dimwit, is being used by the Republicans so they can do what they want almost unchecked. Keep in mind, the op-ed letter writer is proud of what they’ve accomplished so far, which, all things considered, isn't much. But of course it includes the program to terrorize kids by separating them from their parents at the border, the tax cuts rammed through last December of which 83% of it will benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population - like Trump – and add almost $2 trillion (with a “T”) to the deficit, and are now attempting to rush through a Supreme Court pick who is on record as saying that a president should not be subpoenaed or even investigated. The GOP is going along with forcing through and putting a man on the Supreme Court who will most likely get to decide cases regarding Trump’s criminal liabilities, obstruction of justice, and possible violations of ethics, security, and political power. Because if Kavanaugh says Trump is above the law, then the GOP gets the Putin-installed childish puppet to continue to cover for them for the next 2 to 6 years. Thanks for putting party before country, GOP.

PEOPLE WE DIDN’T ELECT ARE RUNNING OUR GOVERNMENT SO PUTIN CAN’T RUN IT.

Every U.S. intelligence agency (along with warnings from our foreign intelligence friends) clearly identified Russia as having infiltrated and influenced the 2016 election. Who did Putin’s meddling get elected? Trump is indebted to Putin one way or another. 
        And from people inside this administration, there have been repeated whisperings to reporters, analyses of his speeches, and detailed information given to reputable authors about Trump’s unfitness for office. So the adults in the room - these are supposedly Trump’s “best people” - have gently pried the government away from Trump like you take a toy away from a five-year-old. And through this op-ed letter, they have assured us they are doing it to protect us from Trump’s worst inclinations, like, say, aiding and abetting a hostile foreign power or violating his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, the nation, and the people who serve it by saying he believed Putin over his own intelligence people. The GOP wants to protect this charade so they can continue to govern in Trump’s place because Trump doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing. The letter implies they did this for altruistic reasons because they can’t trust Trump’s decision-making. Like we're in a plane with a disabled pilot spiralling toward the ground and the anonymous resistance member is able to reach up and tap the rudder pedals or nudge the throttle every so often to delay the impending crash. 

We did not elect these people. Aren’t Trump supporters upset that there is a quiet resistance to Trump’s inclinations? Doesn’t it bother them that the president is described as, and treated like, an unruly five-year-old? Do they support a coup d’état carried out quietly by unelected people who are now making governing decisions for them? They’re not doing what Trump wants; they are doing what they want. Trump is not in control. He’s being treated like a child because he appears to be acting like a child. They say they are doing it to defend the republic, and make it seem noble that they get to make all the decisions instead of the five-year-old. If you’re a Trump supporter, is that what you want the government to do? Keep him contained in such a way as to minimize whatever damage he can do? If you’re a Trump supporter why would you tolerate that? Either one…that he is being kept from governing or that someone is having to corral him and govern in his place?

WE HAVE HAD A VERY QUIET AND HIDDEN COUP D’ÉTAT CARRIED OUT IN OUR GOVERNMENT.

If Trump is not capable of conducting the affairs and duties of the office of the presidency, then get him out of office legally. That's what you can do. That is what you must do. Don’t take over and then tell us you’re doing it for our own good to save us from what Trump is trying to do. Present your case to the American people. We decide. You don’t.