Tag: Donald Trump

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Christiane Amanpour says she prepares for a trip to the United States now like she is preparing for a trip to North Korea.

I believe that her preparations may be different with Trump and his cronies in charge but North Korea — a country so backward that there are no lights on at night and where there is no political opposition whatsoever seems a bit of a stretch. More importantly it obviously isn’t the least bit true. The lights are very much on in the USA and the opposition to Trump is both active and vigorous. The mere fact that she is saying this while in the United States undermines her own statement.

She has a point. Unfortunately it got lost in the hyperbolic nature of her statement. This is especially damaging for someone who is a journalist. Maybe a comedian could get away with the North Korean comparison but someone who conveys important information to the public it calls into question their judgment. And, to be clear, she wasn’t joking so can I trust what this journalist is saying?

Now I think I can because of her long record of accurate reporting but what about red America? People who are already deeply suspicious of journalists. They might think if she believes that traveling to the USA is akin to North Korea, she is clearly someone who has lost her senses or, at least, her ability to reason.

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The most mind boggling aspect about Qatar’s gift of an airplane to Donald Trump is his seeming lack of understanding that this is wrong and why he should pass on the gift. This isn’t a bottle of whiskey or a box of chocolates, this is an airplane.

There is a difference and, if he had paid attention to the HR presentations that most working stiffs suffer through every year, he would know why. The last company I worked for repeatedly reminded its employees that they never should take a gift over $100 because, even if everything is above board, it looks suspicious.

The best case scenarios on this, and I mean by that you can still plausibly claim to be honest, are still wrong. If someone has been kind or generous to you, you are more inclined to help them. This is unfair to other less generous customers and, more importantly, may cloud your judgment on what is right for the company. It shifts the power dynamic in a business relationship. The gift giver has this little bit of extra power over the gift receiver when making difficult decisions.

Trump, despite his unsubstantiated claim of being a good businessman, is clearly ignorant of modern business practices which are both pretty basic and universal. That he is unable to see the problem with this is shocking because I absolutely believe him. He doesn’t understand the power shift. He doesn’t understand why it would be wrong to give consideration to a country who has given him plane. I am sure he thinks it is all right to scratch your back if you scratch mine.

This should be more than troubling to Republicans. And lets face it, the Democrats just aren’t in any position to do anything about it. It has to come from Republicans. The sad thing is they think they are clinging to power. But whatever power they had is long gone. The only person who holds significant power in the Republican party is Trump. The rest are his lackeys. Sadly, they appear to be really suited for the role.

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Dear God. Donald Trump has sent out a picture to his many fans as him dressed as the new pope. Isn’t this really disrespectful to Catholics? I think so but then I am just not sure any more. That is how jaded I have become about Trump’s behavior. I really don’t know what is acceptable behavior any more. It seems wrong for the President of the United States to do this but I could see a comedian doing it and being perfectly fine with it. Where is the line?

And forget Hitler, I think we have moved into Caligula territory now. I am pretty sure we are pretty close to Trump announcing a horse to the cabinet.

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Matt Margolis, a conservative columnist, was talking about the left wing threats to Donald Trump. Unfortunately, these are real and not particularly helpful. Many people believe that he won the 2024 election when he stood up after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

I am no fan of Trump but I think assassinating him is a bad idea and wrong. First, he is a human being. It is vitally important for us to recognize that unlikeable people will always be a part of our lives. Yes, he is an asshole, but assholes deserve the same rights as we do — even if they are acting pretty dangerously.

This is why we respect the rights of murderers despite their unforgivable behavior. Murderers deserve to be heard. This is particularly important when the sentence is death. So this means I have to accept Donald Trump, as a fellow human being, shouldn’t be killed because some person, acting on his own judgement, decides Trump must die.

Let’s forget the Hitler comparisons too. Trump is disturbing. He has authoritarian instincts and needs to be checked at every possible opportunity but he fails miserably as a Hitler. Comparing Trump to Hitler is unfair to Hitler. Trump doesn’t even come close to Hitler’s evil machinations. Judges are still independent, the press is still free and the Democrats are still vocal, if a little ineffective, in opposition. He also has, after almost universal criticism, backed down on tariffs.

Cutting off the head to end Trumpism is a rather naive and lazy. It allows you to think the problem is handled when it hasn’t been handled at all. Half the country voted for the man. They will all still be alive after Trump’s death. How will they respond to an attack on their man. Something tells me it could bring on more violence. Once there is a body count it is difficult to see how things will end well.

Here is the bottom line for me: You can be both appalled by the attack on Governor Shapiro and be OK with Luigi Mangione killing a CEO at the same time. The same applies for Trump. Once you accept political violence as OK for your side, you also are tacitly approving it for anyone who disagrees with you. You don’t abhor violence, you abhor violence being used against your side. This is why anyone who uses political violence has to be condemned.

Is it a gamble. Yes it is a better bet for me than the alternative.

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Since Trump’s election, I continue to be puzzled by the passivity of the Billionaires Boy’s Club. The system, though imperfect and could be a lot better, has worked reasonably well for a broad swath of the American people particularly the wealthy. The very same men who explicitly or tacitly support Trump’s rampage against the Federal Government are attacking the system that made them rich.

What more can these people at the very top of the heap want? Despite their frequent complaints to the contrary, the American people, and the rich in particular, are taxed very little. These billionaires act as if the government has actually hobbled their chances on obtaining wealth. Musk has in the neighborhood of 244 billion dollars. Bezos has 197 billion. You can see the whole list here. They are billionaires for Christ’s Sake. What has government deprived them of? A 15% Federal tax bill?

Also, notice how Musk and his DOGE buddies are only going after programs that help the poor and the Middle Class — Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare — while remaining silent about tax breaks for billionaires. Tax breaks, which almost exclusively benefit the wealthy with no expectation that the money they save from eliminated taxes are reinvested into industry, are good. While government programs that help the poor and the middle class are bad. Helping people only encourages dependence on the Federal Government.

So, the already wealthy are demanding even more sacrifices from the less wealthy in order that the already wealthy can make even more money so that they will, hopefully, reinvest this money into the economy. Why are the already wealthy so dependent on the Federal Government for investment money? Of course, few people phrase the question that way.

More troubling is that there is no credible plan on how to replace this functioning system other than the economy will be so good that there will be no need for the federal government. I find it a little difficult to believe that the homeless will be shocked so profoundly by these new limitations that they will suddenly become employable. I, for one, would like a little more detail. What happens to the poor? What happens when Social Security is gone? How does this support better public education? How will healthcare became more accessible? Nothing but silence.

These people, who have benefited most from the present system, are just hoping that their immense wealth will protect them from the fallout of this chainsawing frenzy. The rich no longer have the idea of noblesse oblige that, because they have benefited from the system, they also have an obligation to help other people. They will watch the carnage from a safe distance. At least this is what they hope.

Burn it all down. None of it is any good anymore. We will figure out how to rebuild later. The old Viet Nam war adage applies here — we had to burn the village in order to save it.

Thanks for nothing.

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Steve Witkoff, the man President Trump charged with negotiating the end to the Russian/Ukrainian war, says there are two sides to the story and we should be open to hearing Putin’s side. WTF. I mean WTF. Putin does indeed have a story. He has been telling this story for some time now. The problem is his story fails to make the case for an armed invasion of a sovereign country. Nobody is buying what Putin is selling.

Well, that is until Trump and Witkoff come along to tell us that we haven’t given poor Vlad a fair shake. Witkoff tries to remind us that traditionally the Ukraine was a part of Russia. The border areas between the Ukraine and Russia have a lot of native Russians. People in these border regions voted recently to join Russia instead of staying in the Ukraine.

So what? The Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union against the will of the Ukrainians. To say that should factor in to Russia’s claim on the Ukraine seems absurdly unfair to the Ukrainians. They didn’t like it then and they don’t like it now.

The border regions between any two nations have people on both sides of the borders. There are Ukrainians on the Russian side of the border as well. Do the Ukrainians on the Russian side of the border give the Ukraine a rightful claim to parts of Russia. Borders are messy businesses. There is no way to put up a border that makes everyone happy. Somebody is going to be on the wrong side. Always.

But, then, when Putin invaded the Ukraine, he was after more than the border regions. He wanted the whole kit and kaboodle. So after invading the Ukraine, bombing Ukrainian cities, and failing to achieve his real objective — the whole of the Ukraine, he will settle for the border regions. Why should he get anything?

Trump say says the Ukrainians are unable to win this war. He might be right about that but neither can the Russians. Neither side can win the war so why is Trump asking the Ukrainians to eat the shit sandwich while Putin steals Ukrainian land and hobbles their ability to join in a larger European security network? And what does the Ukraine get in return — empty promises that they won’t invade again.

Trump will say they will get peace. Putin has already invaded the Ukraine twice, so really, this is nothing. Peace, you say. Well, not likely to be a very lasting one.

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Well, it looks like somebody in the Trump Administration is reading my blog about how insulting it was to send the vice-president’s wife to woo the people of Greenland. That blog was up for less than 24 hours when Trump changed his plans. Vice-President Vance is now going to Greenland with his wife.

It is nice to think my words have such power but people in the know are saying Trump is looking for some positive publicity after the Signal Group Chat Fiasco and it has absolutely nothing to do with my blog.

Just for the record, and based on no real evidence, I still think it was my blog.

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Joe Rogan wants to add Mexico to the Trump land grab which made me laugh because well isn’t this the same Mexico that Trump is building a wall for the specific purpose of keeping Mexicans out of the USA. Talk about your crossed wires here. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of building the wall in the first place? It would be easier to let the Mexicans that want in to the USA in and leave the rest of them in peace.

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For those still wondering why Trump got elected, look no further than the news that a lab leak was the likely cause of COVID19. Liberals and Democrats greeted this seemingly bombshell revelation with a sang froid that borders on indifference.

Now things would be different for me if the government scientists, at the time, were open to the possibility of lab leak being a possible explanation but they weren’t. They vehemently denied the possibility of a lab leak and accused any one who suggested it of being a racist. There is a big difference between an I don’t know and a they are wrong and shouldn’t be spreading such nonsense.

It is a big problem and the Left is ignoring it as if it never happened. Like if we don’t talk about it, it will somehow go away. Why would Trump and his buddies drop such a good example of government malfeasance? These people are not idiots. They also seem to have their pulse on a large segment of the American people. So I guess underestimating Trump and the wreckers will go on for the foreseeable future.

This is the only conclusion you can have when you consider:

  1. Trump was right about something very important. He claims that Dr. Fauci and the government scientists were lying about COVID and, it turns out, he was correct, at least about the lab leak theory. Yes there is still a low confidence that a lab leak is the culprit but it is now considered the most likely explanation of all the known possibilities. This isn’t what the government was saying in 2020. They were saying a Lab leak couldn’t be responsible and people who claim that a lab leak was responsible are racists. Trump has every right to gloat.
  2. It gives credence to every new crackpot theory that comes down the pike. All the crackpot has to say is well they lied about the lab leak theory. How do your respond to that? They are correct which is really bad news because too many people already listen to these crackpots. Now the voters have evidence that the crackpots are right. This is why the truth is important when dealing with people in a democracy. How does it help your cause to lie today when people will eventually discover you are in fact a liar?
  3. Belief in Government is already painfully low. This admission confirms every bad thing that the anti-government types claim our government does. If the Government wanted to momentarily placate the Chinese government while they got more information, I get it. This is a completely reasonable position. Withholding information, however, is different from a lie. The government could have said, and rightfully so, that they just don’t have enough information to determine the source of COVID and they are keeping an open mind. I can live with that. But no they aggressively denied any possibility of a lab leak. This turned into an overkill involving character assassination and dissembling. This was wrong especially since many of these scientists knew that a lab leak was the likely cause.
  4. Finally, it is an incredibly stupid lie to tell. If many scientists believed that a lab leak was responsible for COVID then this information was destined for revelation. Someone eventually was going to spill the beans. This should have been obvious as soon as scientists began sharing their suspicions with other scientists. So why lie in the first place? To keep the Chinese happy? Why? The Chinese stopped co-operating with UN officials fairly early in the crisis. Once this occurred what possible benefit could come from keeping the Chinese happy? But everybody in the know just kept their mouths shut. They may know a lot about biology but they are crap at public relations. They have damaged their reputation for being trustworthy. Why would the world believe these people when they announce the next pandemic?

This bothers me personally. I put my trust in these people because I saw no reason for them to lie and they knew more about viruses. Boy was I wrong. It is an unforced error that has done great harm to Liberalism, Science and Government — pillars of our democracy that are already under siege.

And, yes, I hold people on the Left to a higher standard which makes this so much more disappointing. I think democracy and liberalism are the best route to take for a better world. It hurts when my own side fucks up so royally. The good news is that you can’t say you don’t understand why some people voted for Trump. They believed they were being lied to and it turns out, in this case, they were right.

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Whenever I think of Donald Trump, I remember that Americans actually admire swindlers. How do you explain vacation time shares? Or must try diets? Or Alex Jones vitamins? Amway? Telephone Sales? Trump University? Swindlers, grifters and telesales people, whatever you want to call them prevade the American landscape.

The problem for Americans is the victims of the grifter. They are an annoying lot. Whining about being taken advantage of when they simply should have just been smarter. Or more suspicious. Or more assertive. Or something better than they were in order to stop themselves from being taken advantage of. Americans may pretend to take a dim view of the grifter but really they are more upset with the mark.

Think about a story where someone takes advantage of someone. Invariably you will hear: how could someone be so stupid as to fall for a story like that. The grifter is just doing what grifters do but the victim, now there is where the trouble is. They let their guard down. How could they do something so stupid?

There is an admiration for the grifter for coming up with such an ingenious grift. But the mark. There is no sympathy for the mark.

Think of the society we have created. We tolerate grifter behavior, even say it is the grifter’s right to grift. They can phone us, email us, text us and even, if they are old fashioned enough, knock on our doors. If you don’t want what they are selling, all you have to do is say no. Some of us are so good as to be actually polite to these assholes trying to sell us things we don’t need or want.

The poor grifter is just trying to earn a living. Yeah, right, off of the gullible. More troubling is that grifting is a rich person’s crime. Time shares. Crypto coins. Life Insurance and any number of suspicious business practices are initiated by the rich to take even more money from the poor and the gullible.

This is where our real estate developer president comes in. He is a known grifter. He was convicted of being a grifter in regards to Trump university. He provided his students with a college degree that was meaningless. He also has a history of stiffing trades people right at the point when a non-payment becomes a misdemeanor instead of a felony. Misdemeanors are handled in small claims courts and are rarely worth the money you have to spend to get the money owed. Ka-ching. This practice by the rich has become so pervasive that trade’s people are now marking their prices up in order to recoup what they are rightfully owed. The lesson here is you have to grift in order to deal with grifters.

Since Trump is know to be such a talented grifter, people might think that here is the man to deal with our corrupt system. Yes he is grifter but, then, so is everyone else. Who better to handle the other grifters than a fellow grifter. The problem, as with all marks, is that people have a tendency to think that they can spot the grift and will save themselves from the grifter. That, is, of course, what all marks think.