The Many Dangers of Donald Trump

What we have is a problem, a person, who attacks or wants to attack virtually anything and everything--all institutions, virtually all nations, including our allies, everyone and everything, as i said except some dictators like Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong Un and the Philippines' Duterte.

This article, coincidentally, just broke yesterday from Bloomberg.

Trump Continues Destruction of the U.S. Government

Think about it. Think about all the people and organizations and nations this man, this Republican President has verbally attacked. The list is stunning.

• Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and that simply because she doesn't agree with him completely, as he attacks everyone who doesn't
• Robert Mueller, a Republican, simply because he, Mr. Mueller, was doing his job
• "The Squad", four Congresswomen who happen to also be of minorities (besides just also being women) because, again, they disagree with him
• Member of the House of Representatives Frederica Wilson, D-Florida, because her recollection and description of a meeting and conversation with a widow of a fallen US soldier
• He famously and horribly attacks the media and repeatedly, First Amendment be damned
• In fact, he infamously attacked a reporter with a disability (see link to video below)
• China, and repeatedly, over trade, keeping in mind they are one of our two largest trading partners, second only to the UK
• Members of NATO, our allies
• the G20, again, our allies
• The UK's Prime Minister Theresa May, one of our biggest and oldest allies
• Fox News. Yes, he even attacked Fox. They didn't agree with him totally so he went after even that lapdog of his

The New York Times rather famously compiled this list. Because it's now dated, it's no longer complete.

The 598 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List

Here's what just one of the results of his attacks has resulted in and cost the nation.

Markets fall sharply as Donald Trump attacks China over trade talks

So, questions.

WHO DOES THIS? 

I mean, besides a 3 year old, who does this? 

Worse, what leader of any nation does this? And can you believe this is OUR leader? Or at least, he's supposed to be.

And then, how do you lead by attacking all the time? And how does one lead by attacking virtually everyone that doesn't already agree with you completely?

How is this productive? 

How is this good for the nation? Good for the people? Good for our futures, both the peoples' and nation's?

If this were the average person on the street, if it were, say, someone at our office we were supposed to work with, we'd certainly avoid them, at least, if we didn't also think they were crazy, legitimately.

Then, how is this good for our nation? It can't possibly be argued it's good for us in any way. 

I ask again, now, as others have rightly asked, what kind of a precedent is this for our nation and for our government? There's no way this is good.

All I can say is, as ever in the last two years of this nightmare, 

THANKS, REPUBLICANS!

Bad as all this is, as bad a President and leader as this man has been, this is what concerns me most.

2020 Election: Why Trump's Second Term Would Be Irreversible

Vote, folks.

And may God, if there is one, and common sense and logic and intelligence and education and maturity and anything and everything good, one day rule again.

And very soon.

Additional links:

A list of Trump's attacks on prominent women

Donald Trump mocks reporter with disability

Trump attacks CNN's Don Lemon over debate question

Trump launches bizarre attack on US allies

The 23 people, places and things Donald Trump has attacked

Trump casually Jokes About His Chaotic Destruction of the US Government

Trump's chaotic leadership drives people to the exits

Trump Should Stop Coddling Misbehaving Dictators

Trump threatens to retaliate against countries like Japan, Canada, Uruguay that issued travel warnings

The Trump Administration Killed a Self-Driving Car Committee — And Didn't Tell Members

The Trump administration wants to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management

EPA dropped salmon protection after Trump met with Alaska governor

On This, the Anniversary of 9/11

Lest we forget.

George W. Bush was president, Dick Cheney, Vice President.

Then-President George W. Bush had ignored daily presidential briefs, warning him of a possible attack by air and by terrorists in general and Osama bin Laden specifically.

One Kansas City area resident, Tomas Young, was inspired to join the military after the attack and did so:

Two days after the September 11 attacks, Young was inspired by President George W. Bush to enlist in the United States Army. There he hoped to earn money for college through the G.I. Bill and, in his words, "exact some form of retribution" on those who caused 9/11.

On April 4, 2004, five days after being sent to Iraq, Young was shot while riding in an open, unarmored truck during an ambush staged by rebels in Sadr City. One of the bullets pierced his spine and left him paralyzed from the chest down.

He returned home to Kansas City, Missouri and joined the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). He later became a public critic of the Iraq War.

The movie, Body of War, was based on his life and eventual opposition to the Iraq war.

Before his death in November, 2014, he penned the following letter to that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

I post it here, on this anniversary, in hopes of teaching some and so that more not forget what occurred.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

—Tomas Young

Why you don't mix the police and the military

This is what mixing the military and police gets us, along with  attacks on citizens. Oh, and deaths:

On Mayor James speech today

Can we now get the kind of security for the mayor of Kansas City that we ought to already have?

Thank goodness nothing more serious--or worse--happened.

Because it certainly could have.

Jimmy Carter, telling it like it is (guest post)

From the The Gazette last evening:

U.S. drone attacks amount to human rights violations, Carter says

America's citizens accepting human rights violations never imagined before 9/11

Former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that America is engaging in – and its citizens are accepting — human rights violations that “would never have been dreamed of” before the terrorist attacks that occurred in this country 11 years ago.

The nation’s 39th president said the U.S. government under both Republican and Democratic administrations has violated 10 of 30 provisions set out in a universal declaration of human rights that was forged after World War II, including perpetually detaining people in prison without informing them of any charges, providing them access to legal counsel or bringing them to trial and more recently by killing people via the use of unmanned drones.

“We have now decided as a nation that it’s OK to kill people without a trial with our drones, and this includes former American citizens who are looked upon as dangerous to us,” Carter told a group of Drake University students involved in a social-justice learning program.

“Not just terrorists, but innocent participants in weddings and so forth that happen to be there. I think this is acting in a way that turns people against us unnecessarily because there is a great deal of animosity about the United States that is unnecessary, in my opinion, because our drones are performing these things” in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and even in the Philippines, he said.

“These are the kinds of actions that would never have been dreamed of before 9/11,” Carter noted, referencing the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I think we need to go back to the purity of the guarantees of basic human rights,” he added. “Most Americans either don’t know about it or accept it. I’m not criticizing one leader compared to another because both Democratic and Republican leaders are participating in these violations. We should all look upon human rights as something that is precious to us because we need to get back and be the champion of human rights and I believe the champion of peace as well.”

And he's so right. This is all a horrible travesty and no way to operate in the world.

Full story here: http://thegazette.com/2012/09/13/u-s-drone-attacks-amount-to-human-rights-violations-carter-says/

The world needs to declare a worldwide, 365 day holiday

Apparently the entire free, Western, intelligent and educated, open-minded world is going to have to be on "high alert" for the foreseeable future, on the outside chance that someone, somewhere on this planet makes some unappreciated reference to or about Mohammed.

I say we all, worldwide, declare a 365 day holiday that is "Make Fun of Mohammed" Day until they realize it's not important.

The killing and attacks need to end.

Great question, really

Another ad the White House may play next Fall

The next step in international cyber-warfare?

There is a really interesting article out right now about the possibility of a water processing plant's computers having been hacked and shutting down the plant last week: U.S. probes cyber attack on water system (Reuters) - "Federal investigators are looking into a report that hackers managed to remotely shut down a utility's water pump in central Illinois last week, in what could be the first known foreign cyber attack on a U.S. industrial system." If true, this is some pretty fascinating, international infighting and leaves to many, many questions. The first being who would have done it. Would it have been the Chinese? Soviet Union? Someone else? A random hacker somewhere in the world? And then is whoever did it just "fishing", so to speak, to see if they could get away with this, in possible preparation for a far larger strike? Is the system the water treatment plant on Microsoft? If so, should all plants automatically get off it if they haven't already? How vulnerable are we all, around the world, let alone the US? It seems that all the nations in the world should get together, maybe through the UN, and declare that we won't do this to one another except it looks like the "Stuxnet" virus makes that moot. These are fascinating times we live in. I hope it doesn't get too "fascinating." Link: http://news.yahoo.com/u-investigates-cyber-attack-water-system-201719205.html

On 9/11 coverage

If you want to see what I believe is the most comprehensive, informative and ultimately beautiful and even inspiring coverage of the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US, get a copy of this past Sunday's The New York Times. Even the advertisements companies took out as tributes to the people and event are simple and, again, beautiful, but they have a separate foldout section, too, called "The Reckoning" that is brilliant. This is one thing, too, that isn't repeated nearly as well online. The paper version is the one to see for the full effects. Any library in the area should have it. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2011/09/11/todaysheadlines/index.html

Whatever makes you happy, Muammar

In phone call, Libyan ruler Gadhafi vows to fight until death

Or as Patrick Stewart's character, Captain Jean Luc Picard, would say on "Star Trek: Next Generation":
"Make it so."


He was quoted as saying:  "We are stronger than your missiles, stronger than your planes, and the voice of the Libyan people is louder than explosions." 


We'll see about that.


Trouble is, we'll also be the suckers rebuilding the place, too.

Hot potato!!! Comin' through!!!

US pressures allies to take Libya mission now (AP)

enjoy your evening, y'all

Americans: crazy or stupid or what?

That last president took us into a huge, hugely mistaken, wrong war by ATTACKING ANOTHER SOVEREIGN NATION  unprovoked all the while his (our) 13 intelligence agencies told him the leader of said country (Saddam Hussein, Iraq) was NO THREAT TO THIS COUNTRY but did the American people, by and large, say much?

Hell, no.

Sure, some of us protested, ahead of time, the attack on Iraq and the Iraqi people but by and large, the American people--including the people in Washington, a lot of whom should have known better--were behind the lying president and his administration.

Heck, the media--including The New York Times--all but lay down and roll over for the guy so he could go in and attack.

Now?  This time around, with this president, who only loaned some of our planes to attack a lunatic leader of another nation because he was outright KILLING HIS OWN PEOPLE?

This is what's happening:

Obama taking heat from all sides for Libya action

You bloody hypocrites.

You idiots. 

You morons.

You've got to be one of the 3.

And this coming from a peacemonger like me.

Sure, he'd better keep his promises that the attacks our planes are making are only short-term and that we're going to get out "in a few days" and sure, I'm skeptical about it and want to make sure we keep him to it, sure.

But for everyone on the Right and Left, his own political party and opposing ones to now come down on him this hard for doing what a week ago people were calling for and saying he was "going too slowly" and being "indecisive" is just hypocrisy or insanity or hypocritical insanity.

Dubya and "Darth Dick" must just be laughing their asses off right now.

Link to original story:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/obama-taking-heat-from-all-sides-for-libya-action;_ylt=Ahi_PY6jT1oIQcCUFTTvbiVnhVID;_ylu=X3oDMTRudXNvMm5vBGFzc2V0A3libG9nX2V4Y2x1c2l2ZS8yMDExMDMyMi9vYmFtYS10YWtpbmctaGVhdC1mcm9tLWFsbC1zaWRlcy1mb3ItbGlieWEtYWN0aW9uBGNjb2RlA3VzbmV3c3ZpZXdzaGFyZQRjcG9zAzMEcG9zAzMEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNvYmFtYXRha2luZ2g-

China---wth??

News out this morning:

5 preschoolers hit with hammer in new China attack

BEIJING – A farmer attacked kindergarten students with a hammer, injuring five, before burning himself to death Friday in China's third such assault in as many days and prompting the government to demand stricter school security nationwide.


More:

The hammer attack follows a rampage Thursday by a 47-year-old unemployed man armed with an eight-inch (20-centimeter) knife at a kindergarten. Some 29 students, aged 4 or 5 years old, were wounded, five of them seriously at the school in Taixing city in neighboring Jiangsu province.

And on Wednesday, a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in the city of Leizhou in southern Guangdong province and wounded 15 students and a teacher with a knife. The attacker had been on sick leave from another school since 2006 for mental health problems.

Really. What the heck?

What would cause anyone, especially any adult, to attack children like this?

What is it about the Chinese culture, it would seem, that would cause grown adult men to attack virtually totally defenseless children with knives, as in the first two attacks, and now, here, with a hammer?

I would love to have some psychologist and/or sociologist who knows the Chinese either explain this or study it and get back to us as to why these people acted out like this.

There is this from the article:

Most of the recent school attacks have been blamed on people with personal grudges or mental illness — seen as a growing problem because of feelings of social injustice and alienation in the fast-changing country.

But children? Attacking children?

To save my life I can't figure it out. Mental illness would have to be the closest I could come to 'splainin' this one.

Link to original story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100430/ap_on_re_as/as_china_students_attacked