Bits & Pieces #105

 

Trump was out in Elkhart, Indiana a couple of weeks back, prancing in front of a crowd of the dumbest people in the United States. He cavorted and preened as they shouted, “Drain the Swamp.” Yeah, that’s what these dummies wanted but why did they expect Trump to do it? Trump is already the biggest crook we have ever had in the White House, making money all over the place simply because he is President, something that his processors, who had some hint of honesty, avoided.

Simply by the act of having been President most of them make money when they leave the White House. All except Harry Truman. He and Bess got in their own car and drove back home from D.C. Trump pulls in the dough with his hotels that are full of wannabes who are willing to pay big bucks for contact with the big con man and that’s only the beginning. He has stuffed his Cabinet with the worst bunch of crooks and grifters since the Daly administration in Chicago. This column has already listed the disgusting excesses of the likes of Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke and all the others. Now the President’s ex-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen has been revealed as soliciting corporate funds in order to provide contact with Trump. But that’s not the bottom of the barrel. Anyone who knows Trump knows Cohen wasn’t getting paid to hook up clients with dishonest Donald without Trump getting his bigger share of the pie. Yeah, Trump was going to drain the swamp all right, as soon as he dredged all the money out of it and those suckers out in Elkhart, Indiana sit there like fools, cheering for the biggest crook that has ever infested the White House.

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What doesn’t Trump understand about his Tariff disaster? He can lie all he wants to the American people about how everybody except him, is stealing from us but as soon as the tariffs cause all the retaliation that will certainly follow, we will see a distinct fall in the markets, the measuring stick by which Trump seems to figure his success. Those suckers who have been drinking the Kool Aid will suddenly find their retirement accounts falling short of what they need to live on. And that’s when the shit hits the fan.  That’s when the 60 year old white guy who has retired from his job at the widget factory and is now living on a fixed income suddenly discovers it’s nor fixed at 30% less than it was six months ago and the big drop is due to Trump’s economic policies. That’s when this older white guy will decide that maybe he’s been had again. That maybe he shouldn’t have been so fast to abandon his moral values just so he could bank on a thief and con man like Trump to take care of his fiscal welfare.

But what can he do? He loves Trump. Trump speaks like one of the guys. He wants to bowl with Trump. He won’t like it so much when Trump lies about his score but maybe they can still grab a little pussy.

This is the same asshole that bet on Reagan, bet on two Bushes and never learned a single thing. Maybe this election he can just stay home and watch his IRA turn to shit.

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“We the people.” Sound familiar? It should, especially on the recent 4thof July. It tells us what it’s all about. We the people are who make up America. We the people are who should be getting the country we want. We the people should have our voices heard on every occasion. We don’t!

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In the too dumb to be believable department we have two new contenders this week. The first is the new liberal rallying cry of “Eliminate ICE!” This political cudgel has been taken up even by serious candidates for office this fall and I can’t think of a better way to lose an election than to be shouting about cutting a government agency because of the administration’s policy that governs its actions.

ICE is nothing more or less than a federal bureaucracy that operates in a field that needs such an agency and pretty much acts as whatever administration governs it, tells it to. You don’t eliminate such an agency because you need it to take care of our borders. Getting rid of ICE and having the Trump administration replace it with some new agency will only mean another bureaucracy doing just what ICE did with a different name. You will get the same result and have added the cost of new stationary and uniforms.

During the Obama administration ICE did exactly what Obama wanted it to do. Now during the Trump administration it is doing exactly what Trump wants it to do. Getting rid of the agency won’t change that, and making silly statements that Trump can point to as stupid wont help to get anything changed.

The problems with ICE do not start with the agency but with the administration that gives it orders. You want to change something? Kick Trump out of office along with the rest of the GOP rabble. But remember, to do that you can’t be making dumb moves like trying to get rid of ICE.

The second dumbest statement of the week was Alan Dershowitz whining that he is a victim of a new McCarthyism because his liberal elite neighbors on Martha’s Vineyard are shunning him at cocktail parties. How did this happen? Could it be a result of his ridiculous defense of Donald Trump and the various Trumpian abuses of power? Seemingly what Dershowitz fails to comprehend is that as someone who has assiduously sought the public eye, he must now learn to live with the consequences.  Dershowitz’s history of high concept trials in which he defended those most in need of pro bono like O. J. Simpson, thrust him into the spotlight. He has further pursued the limelight by currying favor with the likes of Trump and now he must stand up for those choices.

It must be a terrible penance not to be fawned over at chichi cocktail parties for the rich and vacuous, but Dershowitz has chosen his side in this battle and now he has to realize that it is the right of others not to continue to befriend a man who chooses to defend a monster.

It’s interesting that Dershowitz should choose McCarthyism as his defense mechanism because in stepping into Trump’s legal arena he replaces Roy Cohen, one of the great villains of the McCarthy team of scumbags. Like Cohen, Dershowitz doesn’t defend the indigent and innocent who need his help, but throws his hat into the ring on the side of the oppressor, the would-be dictator. Now because his party friends see him as he is, he is angry and feeling abandoned. He shouldn’t worry. The people who he feels abandoned him will come back next week, as soon as he does something to curry favor with whatever position they are then espousing.

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America is still, despite the actions of Donald Trump, the leader of the free world. It has maintained that position ever since the end of WWII by means of a series of alliances that have bound our allies and us together to create a force to push back against the evil that threatens peace and prosperity all over the world. Donald Trump doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t understand “who gives what to whom,” is of secondary importance to the strength of the entire alliance because he is always interested in filling his own pockets before anyone else gets a share of anything.

Trump doesn’t understand concepts like the Marshall plan which extended a hand to those in need after WWII so that we could create a strong bond with the rest of the free world and eventually create something like NATO that would help hold all of non-Soviet Europe together. Trump doesn’t seem to have any concept of that kind of world. Since he has taken office he has sought to separate us from those who stand with us for their mutual benefit and ours. Every international move Trump has made has weakened us and shoved us closer to danger.

This has been called the American century because former presidents and those who supported them have crafted the alliances that have stood to protect the weak from the evil. Why has Trump decided to tear all these bastions of liberty down? What twisted gene is infecting his ability to think straight? The TPP, NAFTA, The Paris Climate talks and now NATO, all deliberately undermined by an ego driven ignoramus who has no concept of why these alliances existed or how they have been the building blocks of world peace and prosperity.

And it isn’t just the alliances, it’s also his disastrous trade policies and his mindless tariffs that as surely as day follows night have brought about retaliatory tariffs that will cost American consumers huge amounts of money. They will cost American workers hundreds of thousand of jobs and as surely as the fact that history repeats itself if we don’t pay attention, will bring on, as did the tariffs of the 1920s, a new great depression like the one that crushed the country and the world in the 1930s.