24 VI 2019: America’s UNembarrassment.

So, Trump learned only ten minutes before the jump off that 150 people might be killed by American ordnance launched at Iran. (What did the fool think would be the results of the attacks he planned?) Then, deeply moved, he called off the attack. (Does anyone really believe that criminal gives a damn about 150 Iraquis?) But lest anyone think he’s going soft, he also added some more sanctions and threatened Iraq with “obliteration like you’ve never seen before.” Can’t our bully boy come up with something less trite? Yeah, eblitertion like youse nevah seen before!

Isn’t America finally embarrassed by this ninny? I guess not. We’ve become inured to marathon amorality. Witness the case of E. Jean Carroll. She is the 22nd woman to accuse Trump of sexual misbehavior and the country manages to blow it off! Trump’s morals or lack thereof do not matter to the pseudo-evangelicals who have decided that Trump must be some kind of righteous gentile, like Cyrus of Persia, who, one supposes must have raped lots of women in his time and even so got a good write-up in the Bible. Then there are all those people who voted for Trump and cannot bring themselves to admit what a monster they have created. Then, the rest of the country has not registered much shock over this latest allegation because, well, it is the 22nd, and, more than that, we know damn well that our Predator President will get away with it. 

Trump, Cyrus of PersiaWe won’t call Trump to account for one accusation of sexual misconduct. OK Will we call him to account for five accusations? No, these may be politically motivated. OK, how about ten accusations? Let’s give him the benefit of a doubt. What about fifteen accusations? Look, he is a rich and famous man and surely women just throw themselves at him, and don’t call him immoral — he has been married three times! Then will we not investigate after more than twenty accusations? No. As Kellianne would say, “Blah! Blah! Blah!”

22 VI 2019: When the search for truth amounts to treason

I watched on YouTube a superb lecture given at Hillsdale College by the military historian Anthony Beevor entitled “The Soviet Role in World War II.” Towards the end of his lecture Beevor reported that in the contemporary Russia of Vladimir Putin research into the embarrassing truths of the “Great Patriotic War” is now regarded as treasonable. I was, of course, reminded of Putin’s great admirer, the President of the United States, who routinely shouts “treason,” “enemies of the people,” and other big-lie denunciations of his critics who seek to discover and publish the truth.

21 VI 2019: Trump’s birthday card from Kim Jong Un, greetings from a dictator to a wanna-be dictator.

Trump received a birthday greeting for Kim Jong Un. The White House said that the letter lacked substance and was merely an expression of good wishes.

Trump flashed this letter before some Time correspondents, not allowing them to read it and threatening a photographer he thought had tried to take a photo of the letter with prison. So I suppose Trump’s birthday cards are top secret, even if he parades them before reporters.

Today, following up on Trump’s twitter-boast that in the next week ICE will begin to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, ICE has announced raids in ten cities on this coming Sunday. So anyone at risk should lay low on Sunday, and again Trump’s boasting has caused a security breach.

“Millions” sounds like Trump’s earlier boasts at Trumpite Party rallies, and I wonder now, as I did then, how Trump proposes to accomplish such a mass deportation. Mass deportations are routine projects for mass murderers, so Trump will have to consult Hitler’s and Stalin’s playbooks to see how many cattle cars he will need to deport these millions.

20 VI 2019: State security applies only to Trump’s misdeeds

The device that has kept Trump from becoming even more notorious than he has is the non-disclosure agreement. If it were possible to identify the many times that Trump has used non-disclosure agreements to conceal his many dishonesties, infidelities, and outright lies, we would find that Trump’s life has been papered with non-disclosure agreements.

Trump’s more recent abuse of office has renewed and strengthened this pattern, for surely “executive privilege,” as applied by Trump to everyone who has entered the White House, is the biggest and best non-disclosure agreement that anyone can imagine. What Stormy Daniels dared to do, Hope Hicks has not.

But non-disclosure seems to apply only to Trump’s sins, not to national security. When the NY Times learned of the secret attacks on Russia’s electronic grid, they made every effort to be certain that security would not be compromised by publication of the story. The Times was told, in effect, “no problem.” This suggests that the Trump administration is far more zealous about concealing Trump’s misdeeds that maintaining national security.

17 VI 2019: Apt nicknames for “The Donald”?

Trump is fond of assigning nicknames to his opponents, so here are a couple of nicknames for him:

Deep Fake Donald— this nickname becomes ever more valid as we find out more about the phenomenon of “deep fakes.” Trump has been has been running deep fakes throughout his life, but they have become more frequent since he entered politics.

Trump Jim Crow— the term “Jim Crow” came originally from the title of a demeaning song popular on the minstrel show circuit. Trump’s insensitivity to racial issues and his esteem for white supremacists are such that he seems to surpass the Jim Crow laws of old. So maybe we could change the title to Trump Jim Crow:

                    Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

                    Ebry time I weel about I Trump Jim Crow.

4 VI 2019: White House conspiracy to obstruct Justice

The behavior of the White House, that is to say Trump and his people, is not “stonewalling” as the news media call it, but an ongoing obstruction of justice.

Why would government employees and former government employees refuse to testify? The latter group no longer work for Trump, but have been emancipated and no longer must obey the little Despot. Why does one branch of government refuse to comply with the legitimate requests of another branch of government?

I think it must be clear to anyone not blinded by Trump’s radiance that there is a conspiracy, yes a conspiracy, to obstruct justice by silencing and hiding the evidence.

The laws have equipped Congress with means to coerce cooperation. These tools should be employed to the maximum extent. The whole crew of Trumpians that refuse to cooperate should be jailed. Defense of our country demands this.

1 VI 2019: Anti-abortion machismo

I found on the internet a list of states that have lately enacted repressive anti-abortion legislation or are planning to do so. Of these twelve, seven are states of the Old Confederacy (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas) and two (Kentucky, Missouri) are former slave states. Is this a coincidence or a sign of a male chauvinism that is as strong in these states as residual racism?

This flurry of legislation is partly due to pressure by a coalition of Right-to-Life groups that call their carefully plotted lobbying campaign “The Blitz,” as in Blitzkrieg.But these new laws that flout Roe v. Wade arise from another cause as well. Of course, the vast majority of people in the Right-to-Life movement are sincere, But there are always operators and opportunists who cynically exploit the longings and efforts of sincere people for their own ends. I suspect that some legislators who don’t much care about abortion are supporting ever more severe anti-abortion laws merely to get some votes at home and to outdo other state legislatures in their affected zeal, as if to say: “My anti-abortion bill is longer than yours, my misogyny more potent than yours!” By politicians like the Right-to-Life movement has been corrupted and gravely discredited.

27 V 2019: Conspiracy to bring down Trump

Various conspiracy addicts, monarchist Trumpians, and Trump-lickers in Congress, led by the Father of Lies himself, are urging that investigations into the Russia business were part of a conspiracy to “bring down the president.” Hired hacks like Corey Lindowski, as ignorant as Trump of what treason really means, toss about the term “treason” because it is it is Trump’s defamatory term of the month. Of course, they will be proven wrong, but that will not matter to them, and they will continue to defame people with impunity.

If there is a “conspiracy” to being down Trump, it is the open agreement of conscientious American people that Trump has to go before he destroys our country, either by a needless war or by a right-wing takeover of the government.

P.S. Trump has come out in open support of a political party in another state, sc., the coalition of Bibi Netanyahu, a fellow criminal and despot. Netanyahu has ruled Israel with a coalition of right-wing parties and religion-freaks, not unlike those who brought Trump to power in the U.S.