#22march2017

I am certainly not a friend of Donald Trump, but I am not his enemy either. I didn’t vote for him, but he is my president. He is the President of the United States of America. It pains me when I see and hear my president continually stating and tweeting ridiculous, obviously incorrect assertions; assertions that are quickly refuted by valid facts. Many are so ridiculous no one bothers fact checking him. When he was just a political pundit and when he was just a candidate, it could be laughed off. But now, when he does it, it hurts. He is damaging his integrity and the integrity of the office. Not only nationally, but worldwide. The world listens when the President of the United States speaks (or tweets). Unfortunately, he is not likely to change. He has been doing this his entire life. His latest ridiculous tweet(s) asserting that Obama “wire tapped my lines” in Trump Tower during the campaign has apparently angered both the GOP and the Democrats and they are doing their utmost to make The Donald admit that he made a mistake. He is not likely to do that. It is not in his character to admit fault. It is actually humorous to hear Sean Spicer and Mike Pence try to answer questions about it. I think everyone in Washington knows how it came about and they just don’t want to say it. The story originated with an article in Heat  Street, a far right website owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and started by Louise Mensch, a former Conservative Party member of the British Parliament. The article, based on anonymous sources, alleged that the FBI sought and obtained a warrant to investigate Russia’s interference in the US presidential election. This part of the article is true. The article alleges that the warrant involved a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign. A far right radio talk show host, Mark Levin, laid out a theory based on the Heat Street article on his radio program. His ‘theory’ postulated, without further evidence, the idea that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. Impossible, of course. No president can do that. The theory and accusation was heard by Joel Pollack, Breitbart News Editor. Joel took the ‘theory’ and the accusation and embellished it with his own unsubstantiated information for an article he posted on Breitbart News. A White House aid placed a copy of the Breitbart News article in Donald’s daily reading pile. Then, fueled by that Breitbart report, Trump unleashed the series of astounding tweets* that accused Obama of spying on him. (The tweets are at the end of this blog). Instead of tweeting, why didn’t he call FBI Director James Comey and ask if it was true? Unfortunately it is not his nature to do so. His public life, especially since he became a candidate, is a litany of ridiculous, unsubstantiated statements and accusations. It is a paradox because Trump is a voracious consumer of media news in spite of his ridiculing and disparaging the media. He often tweets immediately after a TV news segment. The TVs are on all day – Fox News a constant, CNN and MSNBC intermittently. He deems CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC ‘fake news.’ FOX News is the only valid source. The media is not Donald’s problem. It is facts. I know my wish is wishful wishing, but I wish The Donald would verify his information before dispatching it to the world. Even in his recent address to the Congress, he distorted the facts on jobs, immigration, health insurance, war spending and more. His statement that his inauguration crowd was the biggest in history was indeed sad. Some humor came out of it though. Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase “alternative facts” in defending the indefensible. The daily White House news briefing by Sean Spicer borders on ‘comedy central’ frequently. Trump has long disparaged the ‘jobs created’ and the ‘unemployed’ numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as fake, but when the jobs created numbers exceeded the forecast under his administration, Donald tweeted that they were good and valid statistics. Spicer replied to a query regarding the disparity with a smile and said “they may have been false before, but they are real now.” The latest Spicer involved ridiculous W.H. news brief involves Britain. Evidently Trump sent him out to the Briefing Room with the revelation that Obama had requested the British Government to spy on Trump. Usually they don’t give a source for this type of ‘news,’ but in this case Spicer said the source was a report on Fox News. Trump repeated the revelation at his news conference with Chancellor Merkel, saying it came from a very good lawyer on Fox News. The UK immediately responded, calling the allegation absurd and ridiculous. Then Fox News responded saying they made no such allegation. As usual, Trump will not admit to fault or allow Spicer to admit to fault. This type of activity by The Donald is difficult to accept and it seems that both the GOP and the Dems have decided to tolerate it no more. They seem determined to “hold Trump’s feet to the fire” in the Obama ‘wire tapping’ episode. I recall when he said that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination. On this one, he finally admitted that he was repeating an article he read in the National Inquirer. Did he believe the article? Repeating a tabloid article as fact is bad enough, but believing the article is fact is much worse. Which is it with President Trump? He said his Inauguration crowd was the largest in history, quickly refuted with photos. He said he won the popular vote if the 5 million illegal votes were not counted, but provided no evidence of illegal votes. No one else has been able to find any evidence of illegality either. He said there was a terrorist attack in Sweden when there was none. He said Obama released 122 vicious prisoners from Gitmo who returned to terrorism. There were 9. The rest were released by George Bush. His spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway was documented three times referring to a nonexistent Bowling Green Massacre. Both Trump and Sessions claimed that murder is at an all time high whereas the data shows it at its lowest in decades. Trump declares China a currency manipulator whereas the facts refute this. He chastises China for not helping on North Korea. China has discontinued coal imports from North Korea which is one third of North Korea’s exports. He said he would demand that Japan pay for the US troops stationed there. Japan already pays for them. Trump said that he would renegotiate the trade agreements with Germany. The US has no trade agreements with Germany. The agreements are with the EU. He praised the LA Times for predicting his victory. Actually the Times predicted that he would win the popular vote, which he didn’t do. Trump says that his Electoral College win was by the largest margin in history. The facts say otherwise. Both Trump and VP Pence state that Trump’s victory was overwhelming, giving him a strong mandate to lead the country. Trump has used the word landslide in several tweets.  Kellyanne Conway tweeted ‘landslide, blowout, historic.’ He received fewer votes than Romney did in losing to Obama. His overwhelming majority fades quickly in the details. Trump won Michigan by 10,704; Wisconsin by 22,177; and Pennsylvania by 46,435. Therefore if 39,659 votes in those states were switched, 46 electoral votes would have flipped to Clinton and she would have won 278 to 260. To give that even more perspective: the University of Michigan football stadium seats 107,000. The deciding votes would not fill half that stadium. So much for landslide, overwhelming mandate. Trump objects to the media’s use of anonymous sources, but he seldom sources his tweets and statements. His staff in the WH continually holds “on background” conversations with reporters with the condition that officials names not be used. Trump said “I know more about Isis than the generals. We are going to eliminate Isis very quickly after I’m elected.” He was asked by an NBC reporter for his Isis plan. He said he would ask his generals for a plan. The reporter followed up with ‘is that your plan – to ask someone else for their plan?’ That ‘general’s plan’ was just released to Congress. It was characterized by a congressman as a Plan B to Obama’s Plan A. Plan B being to intensify Plan A. Trump said his cabinet has the highest IQ in history. He also said that his nominees are the greatest in history.  General Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor, was fired by Trump for lying about his conversations with Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, especially to VP Pence. Pence probably demanded it because Pence then repeated the lie on national TV. Flynn also was acting as a foreign agent in dealing with congress and he did not register as such which is a crime.  Trump named as a replacement Vice Admiral Robert Harwood, a former Navy SEAL, but he rejected the offer. Then Trump named General H.R. McMaster, who accepted. Good choice, good man. Betsy DeVoss, Secretary of Education, plagiarized in her written confirmation statement and then used misspelled words in her apology for the ‘error.’  Andrew Puzder, Secretary of Labor, withdrew his nomination after it was known that he had used an illegal alien as a housekeeper for several years without paying FICA and his ex-wife accused him of domestic abuse. Tom Price, Health and Human Services, was under scrutiny for insider trading because of a mountain of circumstantial evidence.  Monica Crowley withdrew from the position of Senior Communications Director of the National Security Council. She plagiarized in her Harvard Ph.D. Dissertation and in her book on politics. Etc. So, Trump has the best nominees in history? While I am on personalities, I notice that Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues. This is in violation of Indiana law. This after his relentless attacks on Hillary about private emails during the campaign. Trump, in reply to reported start-up problems, said “my administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.” Right from the start we saw President Trump busily signing documents, appearing to be accomplishing great tasks. Thankfully most of that activity consisted of memorandums, proclamations, and orders directing agencies and departments to conduct various reviews such as: calling for the Pentagon to conduct a 30-day review of readiness, recommending that the NSC and the HSC restructure, directing the Commerce Department to streamline the permitting process, etc. However, one Executive Order signed on Friday night 27 January 2017 created chaos at international airports and world wide protests.

The order blocked the entry of citizens from Syria indefinitely and blocked for three months entry from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These are seven mostly Muslim countries. On Saturday morning lawyers were in court and got a federal judge to issue an emergency stay blocking the implementation of the order. However, the Department of Homeland Security shrugged off the court rulings on Sunday, saying the orders will have little impact on the implementation of Trump’s order, saying “the order remains in place – prohibited travel remains prohibited.” Rallies erupted all across the US, especially at airports in a groundswell of fury at the order. There was no advance warning or planning for this order. Trump moved without the traditional consultation with members of his Cabinet, leaders in Congress or even the government lawyers who customarily review the language and legal basis for executive orders and memorandums. The 9th Circuit Court quickly blocked the implementation of the order nation-wide on a permanent basis. Trump appealed, but finally withdrew the appeal and filed a new order with some modifications. However, the Federal Court quickly halted the implementation of this one, also. Trump said that he would appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary. This is not the only poorly conceived and poorly planned action by Trump’s “finely – tuned machine.” Just five days after taking office, Trump had dinner with Kushner, Bannon, Flynn, Mattis, Dunford and Pence. They approved a special operations raid by SEAL Team 6 on what the US now calls a terrorist compound in Yemen. The local people call the structure a family house. In Yemen most men always carry weapons. The attack resulted in a ferocious 50 minute firefight in which William Owens was killed and 3 other SEALs were wounded and a $75 million aircraft was destroyed. The SEALs were pinned down and only escaped when air strikes were called in. This operation was never raised to operational status by Obama. It was one of a series of proposals. The attack by Trump obviously was not well planned and obviously did not have accurate intelligence. It appears that the Trump team just wanted to impress with a quick raid on terrorists. Then in haste to justify the raid and report that valuable information was obtained, Trump released information that they claimed was new, valuable and obtained on the raid but in fact was information that had been posted on the internet in 2007. Then they said they were after an al Qaida leader who wasn’t there. The number of casualties varies from US to locals to NPR reporters. Best estimate is that there were 14 combatants killed along with over 38 civilians including children. The survivors said that the family was working with the Yemeni government that the US and KSA have been supporting against Houthi rebels, who are armed and supported by Iran. Now Yemen has banned all US military activity in the country, whereas they were assisting the US war on terror prior to the failed raid. The raid destroyed much of the village of Yakla. Spicer characterized the raid as “very, very well thought out and executed.” He also essentially intimated that “if you call the raid a failure, you are unpatriotic.” So, a “fine-tuned machine” is it? I see chaos at home and chaos abroad. Trump did say “There has never been a presidency that has done so much in such a short period of time.” I would agree with that. Some of the other things that Trump and the GOP have done since taking office are: an executive order blocking an Obama order that would have reduced the cost of mortgages for millions of home buyers, an executive order blocking the implementation of the fiduciary rule requiring banks and investment advisors to act in the client’s best interest, an executive order making it easier for mentally ill people to buy guns, an executive order removing the requirement that mining companies demonstrate financial resources to cleanup their pollution, and an executive order removing the ‘sludge discharge into local streams’ restriction on coal companies. We never expected Donald Trump to be a compassionate conservative ala George Bush, but he did promise to be an uncompromising populist who would fight for the forgotten poor, rural Americans. His actions and his budget blueprint is a betrayal of those people and his populist message. From my viewpoint, this presidency is a rolling disaster. The result so far has been the most chaotic and incompetent White House I can remember. The GOP prides themselves in having fiscal responsibility, but what about decreasing taxes, spending $1 Trillion on infrastructure, increasing defense by $54 billion. This is like my saying ‘OK, my salary is cut so I’m going to buy a new car and a new house.’ After all the promises and threats, it seems that the GOP has no choice but to repeal and replace the ACA in short order. But they could not have gone about it in a less competent way. After all those years of attacking it, they still were not ready with a replacement – now they are doing so in scramble mode. Is it better to pass a bill for party integrity, or take time to create a bill that is good health care and good for the country? Take time to review the health care systems of the industrialized nations and try to incorporate their proven, good points into our system! I don’t like the idea of tax credits aiding the purchase of insurance. Most people take the standard deduction; therefore a tax credit is of no value to them. They say they want to make health insurance available. Available and affordable is the key. A $10 million house is available to me now, paying for it is the problem. I am for single payer, universal coverage, essentially eliminating insurance companies. All our competitors have it. We don’t have to invent the health care wheel. Take what has been proven to work and form our system. Every medical provider office you enter in the US now has from 1 to 5 people handling only insurance for that office. And each office has several receptionists, also. It is estimated that from 20 to 50 percent of the money we spend on health care as a nation goes to administration. We need to take health care away from the insurance companies and from the pharmaceutical companies and give it to the citizens. I’ll not see it in my lifetime, that’s for sure. Most of what gets done in Washington is done by the congress. Unfortunately the GOP can’t say to Donald “Donald, thank you for getting us in power, now put your feet on the desk in the Oval Office and be the President – we’ll take it from here.” They don’t have the courage for that and are put in the awkward position of either defending the latest bit of stupidity from the WH or being honest about how ridiculous it is, which they know would win them the president’s ire. Because he talks and tweets before he thinks and then he cannot admit that he was wrong, Trump drags out these ridiculous issues endlessly. This distracts his staff, distracts the congress and they have to spend endless hours pretending that its serious and legitimate and are forced to answer questions about it for weeks. This is important time taken away from advancing the GOP agenda. What does Rush Limbaugh have to say about all this Trump stuff? He says “it’s an Obama conspiracy to execute a ‘silent coup’ to unseat Trump and render him ‘effectively immaterial’ as President. Obama has advanced the pretext of Russian interference to justify his illegal wiretaps and illegal leaks of information.” There you have it, from the guru himself. Steve Bannon couldn’t have said it better.

Donald Trump Memes are Making the Internet Great Again! On the internet when there is a blank piece of paper, sign or poster, the internet will reliably find a way to turn that canvas into endless possibilities. Internet users have transformed the GIF of Trump displaying a signed executive order into executive humor. I created a few of them myself. I include them at the end of this blog. Before I close perhaps we could benefit from the words of the famous basketball coach, John Wooden: “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”