The battle for gun control goes on. I find it hard to understand anyone who believes that universal healthcare is not a right but that the ability to carry a machine gun is.
The battle today seems to be over background checks. Yes, we already have a background check law but it doesn’t seem to work. Why? Because the problem isn’t about doing the checks, it’s about the information not going from the FBI to the ATF after it is generated.
So when the FBI, who are doing the checks, finds out that subject “A” is a raving psychopath with homicidal tendencies, the ATF doesn’t get the information so they okay this nut for a gun license. That’s what has to be fixed.
But that’s secondary. The primary issue is you can’t mow down multiple citizens if you don’t have an automatic weapon. Any kind of auto or semi-auto weapon and that includes many handguns are capable of multiple murder and they have to be taken off the market.
******
Everyone is yelling about Jeffrey Epstein’s death. Anyone who really believes it was suicide is lining up to pay for his new bridge. Epstein was mixed up with all kinds of important people, many of which appeared to have the same penchant for little girls. Those who try to sell suicide are really barking up a tall tree.
Just to illustrate the problem we have Donald Trump’s series of Tweets in which he tries to point to Bill Clinton as an Epstein collaborator. Yes Clinton had dealings with Epstein but Trump’s relationship with Epstein seemsfar more intimate than Clinton’s.
This isn’t conjecture. Trump and Epstein have posed for myriad pictures together. They co-sponsored a party where a few dozen young girls entertained the two of them. Sure Clinton had a reputation for getting involved with women other than his wife but they were usually adults. Trump had a stronger reputation of getting involved and abusing any woman who came within grabbing distance and many were very young i.e. the teen aged contestants in whose dressing rooms Trump liked to hang around.
At this point it would be a little too adventurous to accuse Trump of having Epstein killed. There are many who had much to gain by killing Epstein but no one had the ability to do it that Trump had as President.
The latest version of what caused their breakup is that Epstein made a pass at the very young daughter of one of Trump’s big donors. The father complained to Trump and Trump dumped Epstein. That may actually be what happened. That or something involving a blackmail attempt. Who knows? So much bullshit comes out of the Trump White House that nothing can be believed. And that’s a huge part of evry problem.
****
I watched Corey Booker, one of our most eloquent speakers against the white supremacists being questioned by George Stephanopoulos and was distressed when he refused to answer the most important question asked. Stephanopoulos asked him if those who supported Trump, who Booker has already accused of being a racist, were racist themselves, Booker refused to pull the trigger. It was as if he was afraid to lose those redneck votes he will never get anyway. For Christ’s sake, Corey, call a spade a spade. If you support a racist you are a racist. Just say it.
Booker had the same kind of reluctance to target those who are preventing gun laws from happening. He made an elegant presentation on why we need stronger gun laws but when George left it open for him to plunge in the knife, he refused to say that we have to vote out those who oppose those laws.
It’s very simple. You want stronger gun laws. You want to eliminate auto & semi-automatic weapons; you have to vote out those who have opposed that happening. Booker has to stand up on his hind legs and say;, you have to vote Moscow Mitch out of office. You must vote those supporting the NRA out of office. If no one has the balls to call the shot, no one is going to get anything done. Cowardice is the reason no one has been able to get anything done up to now. You can’t beat around the bush. You have to burn it to the ground and stomp on the ashes.
******
Saw Chris Christie defend Trump on his decision to consider background check and red flag legislation. Christie seems to think we should be grateful to the sick liar in the White House and eagerly accept his mega offerings. We’re not Trump’s base, Chris. We can, and do think, and any legislation that doesn’t include significant machine gun bans just won’t fly. Guns kill people, people just pull the trigger. If the killer in El Paso had walked into that mall with a revolver and started pulling the trigger he probably would have been gunned down in 30 seconds. That’s why we must ban machine guns. What Christie doesn’t mention, mainly because he doesn’t want us to think about it, is the reason why Trump is now willing to consider background checks and red flags. They don’t cost him anything. The gun manufacturers will still shell out millions as long as their guns are not banned from sale and that’s what is keeping those votes in the Senate. Trump wants that gun manufacturer money to keep flowing into his campaign coffers, and it will, as long as we don’t ban any gun sales. The gun manufacturers know that background checks and red flags will only cut out a miniscule number of potential buyers they would be the potential troublemakers anyhow. The manufacturers would benefit if we were able to keep the nuts from buying. It would cut down on negative publicity. They don’t want a ban on any of their product, no matter how deadly. Christie knows that. He’s just too smart and too evil to mention it.
******
Despite all the stupid, brain dead, non-functional decisions that Trump has made while infecting the White House, he has still managed to hold onto a significant minority of the nations voters, mainly due to their prejudicial views or their inability to understand that a good number on the Dow does not indicate a burgeoning economy.
Now it seems that fallacy is going the way of the rest of his lies as the Dow plummeted over 800 points the other day. Without benefit of: “the Market is the Economy” lie, what’s left for Trump to brag about? If they had the education to understand it, his backers would know that the GDP, which has fallen from 2.8% when Trump took office to 2.1% now, is a much better indicator of how we’re doing economically. So what does he have to fall back on?
Not much as evidenced by the “Trump Recession” hash tags that began appearing as soon as the Market plunge began. But it did explain the Sick Liars latest attack on two of our liberal congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib, both Muslim and both black, two of the racist bigots favorite targets. He started putting pressure on Bibi Netanyahu last week to prevent them from visiting Israel. Then, not satisfied to attack his enemies, he proceeded to stab his staff in the back when he allowed his press secretary to state that he wasn’t trying to stop the women’s visit and then had the Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, make the same statement. Once that was on record he jammed in the knife by letting Bibi announce that the women would be banned.
This created the necessary chaos, and from Trump’s POV it hopefully would make his followers forget about the plunging Dow. Will the Dow continue to plunge? Probably not, but it just shows the fragility of Trump’s whole position on trade. His insistence on pushing the tariffs has been disastrous for farmers. Suicide in that community is at an all time high. Any recovery, no matter what is done from here on, recovery will take decades if not generations to sort itself out. The real goal, elimination of China’s criminal patent violations is not going anywhere so Trump has nothing to fall back on to get a win.
Trump inherited a growing economy from Obama. It was already six years into a rising tide. All he had to do was maintain it. All he has done is try to destroy it. Almost everything Trump has done in two and a half years, from his disastrous tax bill, to his failure to get any infrastructure built, to his backing of a losing fossil fuel industry to his preposterous trade policies has hammered at an American economy that so far had been strong enough to fight it off. Now that’s over.
Finally Trump has been able to loosen the last screw and if it all begins to come apart his last prop will be kicked out and the house of cards will fold.
Trump’s boasts about his great economy are, of course, hollow. Jobs are up only because it takes three of them to support a family where once only one was needed. Wages are at an all-time low percentage and he’s dumb enough to fight to keep them there as he opposes a higher minimum wage and battles to defeat the unions, who have always been his enemy. If the phony icon of the Dow stays down he is finished. He’s probably finished anyhow but that will be the stake through his heart. If that happens, no amount of crass attacks on his enemies will save him. They just won’t mean anything anymore. And when Trump goes down he will take Moscow Mitch and the rest of the cowardly crumbs that follow them with him.
*****
Those of us who are looking forward to the September Democratic debates understand that last time the Democrats managed to waste almost six hours of TV prime time during which no one ever mentioned foreign policy, Donald Trump’s weakest area Maybe none of them except Biden and Buttigieg knows anything about it, but if they don’t and they want to be president they better learn about it and fast.
Trump’s ignorance of what is going on in the world coupled with his embrace of dictators and America’s enemies have put this nation in its worst position since before WWII. Brilliant statesmanship after WWII resulted in The Marshall Plan, which saved and rebuilt Europe, and NATO, which set up barriers against nations with expansionist tendencies like Russia. If Trump had been president when either of these vitally important measures were instituted we would have neither. It’s incredibly important that the Democrats attack Trump on his inability to do anything right on the international scene.
When questioned about North Korea launching new missals, Trump tells us he has it under control. That’s a joke. He has neither the capacity to understand what “under control” means nor the intelligence to do the research to find out what the North Koreans are really doing, nor the patience to listen to our own intelligence services in order to know what’s going on in the world. That is what the Democrats should be using against him. The debates should be about who can best illustrate how ignorant, incompetent and warped this racist sociopath really is, especially compared to any of the Democratic candidates.