A WARTIME PRESIDENT

Can Trump Be Trusted?

While television is saturated with the stories about Trump writing the Don Jr cover-up statement and the White House being implicated in a law suit concerning a FAKE Fox News story linking a murdered campaign worker to leaked emails from the DNC, there is another story beckoning our attention. War is on the horizon. You certainly would never want to be in a war or escalated conflict anywhere in the world and the very last thing we need right now is an amateur in the White House to deal with this incendiary situation.

North Korea is a powder keg. Syria is a problem that we have given to Russia, while we fight on in Afghanistan, the forgotten war. For 16 years, the United States has been in that country with no peace in sight. Obama did everything he could to keep America out of war, deploying strategic drone strikes with limited US military casualties. After more than 14 missiles being launched by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, we decided to launch our own test missile from California. (8-1-2017) More sword rattling.

While Donald Trump domestically treads water in the deeper, darker end of the swamp, the world is watching his next move with North Korea. As we get to the first day of August, 2017, the White House is in chaos. The press is hitting Trump and family very hard about their lies and misrepresentations. But that doesn’t change the reality that we are getting to the point where if Donald Trump doesn’t draw a red line in the sand with Kim Jong, he becomes the chess player who freezes and cannot make the next move. If you do nothing you maintain your unpredictability, but you get nothing accomplished.

What is the next move? Has Rex Tillerson really done anything to defuse the potential situation by establishing a diplomatic dialogue? This dance of the mighty with blasting rockets by both parties, is a waste of fuel. When Un propels an ICBM into the sky, we fly our fighters near the boundary of North Korea. If this seems a bit childish and over-reactionary, you have to remember the two players. They are both boy-bullies on the playground.

One positive consequence of having lots of generals on the administration payroll is the added layer of stability to an otherwise chaotic White House. There are those who would fear having lots of generals around, but Trump thinks they protect him from a military coup. Funny how conspiracy oriented the Donald is. Silly man.

There is this political conspiracy theory that Presidents have always done well with re-election when they are in the middle of a war. We trust that the generals would never co-conspire with Trump to pull off a popular war to aid Trump. But think about this. If the White House would stoop so low as to use a murder to cover up collusion with Russia, where is their moral compass?

One of the things that the Trump team says when they are trying to bail out our leader after he offends or misspeaks is, “Oh, he was just joking.” When you are the President of the United States, and you are dealing with risky regimes and rogue rulers, you must be careful not to drop a bad joke. Trump isn’t as funny as he thinks he is, but in front of an adoring audience he gets carried away. This is the guy who has the nuclear codes? God save us.

Donald J. Trump thinks he knows everything. He reminds me of a rich guy who likes to watch baseball and decides he knows enough to buy a baseball team. He believes, “I will show them how to win.” After a few years in the league and millions of dollars lost, he becomes frustrated that winning on the professional level is so difficult. What most people don’t realize is that just because you can watch something on TV, doesn’t make you an expert with it.

Recall that our Orange Leader said, “Who knew healthcare was so complicated?” Well everyone but you knew it’s complicated, airhead. And guess what, Donald. Foreign affairs, political planning and domestic programs are nothing compared to war. Is our President qualified to be the Commander-in-Chief? We think not.

With Trump’s inability to quell what he calls a “witch-hunt” how can he possibly deal with actual witches? Yes, war is a witch, the evilest, most terrible sorceress, who drains your sons and daughter’s blood, rips the gold from your coffers and stains any presidency. There is no dry-cleaner in historical analysis.

While we all watch North Korea develop a nuclear weapons program, Trump will soon be seen for the fake that he is. And if he gets talked into striking first, he won’t be bragging about a great the stock market. Just take a look at a list of the products that come out of Japan, South Korea and China. War is a long, dark winter and if this President takes that step, then we are economically doomed.

THE WORLD JUST GOT SERIOUS

Can Trump Follow Suit?

There is a big distance between rhetoric and action, but in Trump World, our leader thinks that if he says it, it is so. Or even worse, he thinks that if he orders something, then it will automatically happen. This pompous, over-blown self-evaluation of his salesmanship prowess and imaginary ability to get things done is really embarrassing in the light of day.

He keeps telling us how much he has completed and all we see are carcasses of the people he has fired along the way. If these people weren’t good enough to go more than six months, then the guy who picked them clearly doesn’t know what he is doing. Trump creates these “Mission Accomplished” moments every day, which really makes them fade into the sea of bullshit on which he floats.

Congress may have boxed Trump in with the sanctions bill against Russia, but their actions were done for all to see. They are working on shoring up their reputations and getting re-elected. They don’t live in an electoral college world, they sink or swim according to a popular vote, therefore, they must be “popular” with as many constituents as possible.

Trump downplayed Russia’s evil agenda during the election for reasons we will hopefully understand better when all of the dust clears from the handful of investigations currently underway. Trump focused his discontentment on China with his campaign rhetoric. He never accused Russia of currency manipulation, unfair trade practices or unfair treatment of the American worker. He dumped all of that on China.

It was no surprise when our President tweeted away July 29, 2017: “I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!”

And while he thought he had this “great” relationship with China’s President Xi Jinping, Trump can’t be straight forward about Russia, who increased trade with North Korea by 40% since Trump took office. North Korea showed a 4% growth rate. What?

Doesn’t the Donald know he is being played by this punk kid Kim Jong, the KGB spy Putin and all-powerful Xi Jinping? The fact is, Russia and China do NOT want to see a united Korean peninsula. They will both prop up North Korea and Kim Jong Un so that unification never happens. Why does the Donald think he can job-out the responsibility of reeling in Un?

Trump just went through an embarrassing week, vividly demonstrated by the vulgar language of his new buddy, “slick Anthony,” “the Mooch,” Scaramucci. Little Tony, the “front stabber,” revealed the in-fighting and destructive forces in the vortex of Trump’s inner circle. I would even advance the notion here that Trump is being played by his son-in-law and daughter to get rid of all the people who they don’t agree with. Do they think they are “protecting” the President? Well, the apples don’t fall… you know the rest. To fix the general discontent and chaos in the White House, let’s bring in a general. General Mills? General Motors? No, no, a real General.

The final act of this passion play opens with Steve Bannon left dangerous dangling outside of the circle of trust. On the next episode of Reality President, we learn if Bannon will be sent on his merry way, or be given a seat at the grown-up’s table.

Now that John Kelly, the Bostonian former General, is in command of the staff, will he put up with the very thing he hated about Obama: an intellectual approach to solving problems. Generals don’t like thinkers, they get in the way of marching. It won’t take long for Kelly to lose patience with the lack of a chain of command. Those he can fire, he will. The kids, of course, are off limits. The very reason they should NOT be there.

North Korea has tested 14 missiles this year, that’s almost one for every person fired from the Trump administration or government. And as the President preaches about law and order to a group of police officers urging them to not be so nice to people they arrest, his little joke was not taken too well by police federations and departments across this land.

The idea of letting the cops be the prejudger of whether someone arrested should be treated harshly or not during arrest ought to make all Americans nervous. Stop joking around Mr. President. What you suggested is why young Muslim girls get slashed by white supremacists and African-American men get gunned down by over-zealous and nervous cops.

In retaliation for Congress passing a stiff sanctions bill against Russia for meddling in our election, Putin has decided to expel 755 diplomats and foreign service workers from Moscow. Amazingly, Trump says he will sign the bill, which would be a smart and serious move on his part. If he were to veto this bill, he would rip the scab off the wound known as the Russia Investigation. As the investigation takes a break from the front pages, Trump would be wise to press forward and get serious about his role in the world.

Maybe Anthony Scaramucci did something productive when he showed the petty, uncomfortable, back biting working environment that exists inside the White House. This is Trump’s fault. Even privately held corporations would come under scrutiny with this kind of harassment in the workplace.

I still hear Trump voters say how the great Orange one is running the government like a company. Unfortunately for America, he’s running the country like a Trump organization, and all of those loyal Trump voters have never had a chance to work where H1B visa holding, non-Americans get jobs before you do. Boy, what a great boss.

Donald Trump might think he’s doing a great job, but the healthcare fiasco is just one example of Trump failing the test and getting an F for his efforts. He brags about the stock market as if he invented it. The stock market was already on the upward swing before he was elected. The job market opened up in the Spring of 2015, but Trump was too busy bashing Mexicans back then.

One of the things I say to people is this. The stock market doesn’t need Donald Trump to be successful. It was there before he was he was born — the New York Stock Exchange opened in March of 1817 — and it will be there long after he is gone. Just as Obama couldn’t ever take full credit for the stock market, Donald Trump can’t own the bump and then blame any future decease on someone else. If you say you own it, you own it. If Donald Trump was to be impeached and Mike Pence took office, the stock market wouldn’t collapse. It might even go up further. The stock market loves certainty, not unpredictability.

There are many challenges, both domestically and globally, that Trump must confront and manage in a sober manner. Trump has already spent a lot of “serious leader currency” by saying stupid things about world events, organizations and treaties. And back at home, his hurtful attacks on his own people have made it appear to many that he prefers chaos over order. Conflict before country and family before law. This is not the person who will help America stay great.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Now What Are You Going to Do?

One should be proud to be a member of the party that freed the slaves. The President who Donald Trump most admires, Andrew Jackson, was a Democrat. No one seems to mention that. Grant and Lincoln were Republicans, and Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican, but his cousin FDR was a Democrat. JFK was a Democrat, while the disgraced Richard Nixon was a Republican. As times change, parties change, but people need to feel the party they support has a core set of values that they can believe in.

The party’s platform says that the RNC believes in American exceptionalism. Okay, USA, USA, USA, but then they say: “This platform is optimistic because the American people are optimistic. This platform lays out — in clear language — the path to making America great and united again. For the past 8 years America has been led in the wrong direction.” So much for the optimism. I wonder how many people in any party read their political party’s platform.

Research shows that there are many factors that make up the decision on affiliation to one party or another. Your family or where you grew up have a great influence over whether you follow the elephant or the donkey. Not sure why those images are used for the parties, but we also have to remember we have many other independent parties. Make no doubt about it, our government, from the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the rules and traditions of the Legislative branch, works best with two parties. But it should be pointed out here that the first President, George Washington had no political affiliation.

Donald J. Trump changed from liberal New York Democrat to National Republican. The reason for this move, he claims, is because he changed his viewpoints on so many issues that he just morphed into a Republican. Huh? Most political experts know that Trump’s move to another party was purely a political move with an eye on being elected.

Trump’s public comments demonstrated his obvious hate of Barack Obama. The Donald was also critical of George W. Bush’s governance, which didn’t disqualify him as a Republican, but created a wall between Trump and the Bush family. He even called George W. a liar during the debates. Nice guy, team player.

Donald Trump should have started his own party, but it was so much easier to hijack the Republican party and remodel it around his base of right-winged maniacs. There is some wisdom in putting down Washington and people of both parties, people already dislike our government in a generic way.

Here is my question to the Republicans who jumped on the band wagon, either early on or after nomination, what happened to your so-called moral bedrock? When Donald Trump came down that escalator and claimed that “Mexicans are rapists” you had your chance to pick up the phone and tell him that is not our message and we cannot have that in our party. But you were too busy trying to figure out how to win, rather than standing by your code of ethics.

You even let Donald’s people — read: Paul Manafort — change a plank in the platform to give Russia a stronger hand in the Ukraine. Why did you let that happen? Because you just wanted to win. And now, what do you have, a President without roots in your party and with no respect for the history of this country.

The fact that Trump conned the evangelical into backing him from the pulpits of their mega-churches and televangelist platforms is so unseemly that I would ask them, “What does your Jesus think?” Basically, people like Jerry Falwell, Jr. have sided with the money changers outside of the temple. They will be judged by a higher power, but you shouldn’t be fooled by these few money-hungry fools with lots of money.

The Republican Party is now in deep conflict. You still have deep-seated radical Tea Party people who will block most issues based on far-right initiatives (a minority in America) rather than what their constituents really want. You have half-baked neo-conservatives who pray to their Ronald Reagan photo every night but have little understanding of how Ron was able to get things done. Reagan was able to govern, even with tax increases, with professional acting prowess and statesmanship. He was previously the president of a labor union. He understood both sides.

The Republican party has some great members. Lindsey Graham, the Senator from South Carolina, has always told it like it is. John McCain, the Senator from Arizona who’s a bit old-fashioned, understands how it all works and what government is supposed to do. Sure, he sides with his party, but he’s not siding with the nonsense and the sabotage created by political whores like Newt Gingrich.

Winning is great, but you have a poor manager of government in the White House and a godforsaken lousy President. How did you let that happen? You have a president who doesn’t care about law. Where were you during this process of nomination? You have a charismatic show man with his long red ties and his fake hair and makeup trying to be the leader of free world but doing a horrendous job. You slap his back and smile for the cameras, because he was the winner and you didn’t want to lose. You have no balls.

The President and his new consigliere, Slick Anthony, use Twitter to shame and bully employees of the government. This, is not only uncouth but may be against the law. They are employees of the Federal government. Is not harassment against the labor law?

You Republicans have damaged your own party, but I guess you can sleep at night, because you know how dysfunctional the other party is. But in the end, you are going to have to make the biggest decision in 2020. Do you back the incumbent, or do you find someone else to proudly represent your party? You know, it would be a lot easier just to impeach him.