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

Great News Day Yesterday!

The last 12 to 24 hours have brought some pretty fantastic news, frankly, and on two fronts. First, out of the Koreas, North and South.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has agreed to suspend nuclear and missile tests while engaged in negotiations with South Korea, Seoul's government announced Tuesday morning. According to the office of South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Kim has agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit on the border between the two Koreas in late April, the first of its kind since 2007.

South Korea also said that Kim expressed willingness to begin talks with the United States about "denuclearization and normalizing relations"; President Trump has said that North Korea must be willing to denuclearize before negotiations begin.

"The North Korean side clearly stated its willingness to denuclearize," Moon's office said. "It made clear that it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North was eliminated and its security guaranteed."

Now we just need our President to not exacerbate the situation with any tweeting or comments. Good luck to us all and God help us on that. It's starting to look like, of the two, our President Trump and their Kim Jong Un, Mr. Un is the sane one. Let's hope they both are.

Then there is this, regarding the Russia investigation of this President and his White House.

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg spent much of Monday on a media tour, granting interviews to CNN, MSNBC, NY1, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets as he declared his intention to ignore a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller.

The subpoena, which Nunberg supplied to multiple outlets and then held in his hand as he appeared on television, demanded he turn over all documents he had from November 1, 2015 to the present that related to President Trump and former Trump campaign officials Carter Page, Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon.

In his multiple interviews, Nunberg said that it would take too much time to sort through that "ridiculous amount of documents," and that he would ignore the subpoena's demands and an order by Mueller to appear before a grand jury on Friday.

"Screw that," he said on CNN. "Why do I have to go? Why? For what?" Nunberg essentially dared Mueller to hold him in contempt of court and jail him. "Let him arrest me," Nunberg told the Washington Post.

But by Monday night, the ex-Trump aide had begun to change his tune. Nunberg told the Associated Press that he is "going to end up cooperating" with the special counsel, although he would like Mueller's team to narrow the subpoena's scope of inquiry. After a day of publicly proclaiming his intent to defy Mueller, Nunberg appeared to back away from his plan to fight.

Here are just a few of the quotes from Mr. Nunberg yesterday:

• "Trump may well have done something during the election with the Russians."
• "You know [Trump] knew about [his son's Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer]. He was talking about it a week before. ... I don't know why he went around trying to hide it."
• "I was told that [Russian pop star Emin Alagarov] had offered to send women up to Trump's room [while he was in Moscow] but Trump didn't want it. He's too smart for that."
• "I believe [former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser] Carter Page was colluding with the Russians. ... Carter Page is a weird dude."

Finally, this.

Cochran to resign from Senate next month

Another Republican, Senator Thad Cochran, is to resign from Congress. Unfortunately, it's because of poor health which I would wish on no one but hey, at least another Republican will be out of office. That's the upside to an otherwise unfortunate situation.

Incredible. An incredible--and good--day.

Maybe great, even. Here's hoping it continues.

Link:

Wake Up To Politics

What This President Is Concerned With Today

This, of all things in the world today, just this moment, is what's concerning the person who is supposed to be the leader of our nation and the Western world. He tweeted the following this morning.

Donald J. Trump‏
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
Following Following @realDonaldTrump

Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!

I'm glad he's thinking and working on the big stuff.

Guns in America?  Nuclear warheads?  Nuclear war? Kim Jong Un? North Korea? Nuclear weapons?A foreign enemy hacking and influencing our elections? The economy? Health care, affordable health care? Any of that?

No. None of that.

A Saturday Night Live comedian/actor, instead.

Have you had enough, Republicans? Can we be over this soon?

The Attacks and Irresponsibility and Just Really the Insanity That Are All Donald Trump

In the very, very short time this Donald J. Trump has been President, look at all he's come out against.

He's against equal pay for women.

Trump Order Drops Pesky Regulations 

On Equal Pay

He has attacked and keeps attacking women, in fact.

Reinstating 'Global Gag Rule,' Trump Attacks Women

Trump order undoes workplace protections for women

He's against National Parks and National Monuments and so, nature. 

Trump order could undo designation of national monuments

Heck, he's against his own political party and people in it.

Trump attacks McCain and other Republicans

We've seen, this week, he's against National Football League players and they're desire for justice in our nation, a two-fer for him. 

Donald Trump Attacks NFL Players'

Behind Trump’s attack on the NFL football players

Long ago now, he's even attacked our nation's Veterans, for pity's sake.

Trump Attacks America's Veterans

Not done there, he singles out and attacks DISABLED Veterans, as well.

Trump attacks disabled Veterans

He has attacked and keeps attacking the media. 

Trump attacks media in lengthy, combative press conference

Trump threatens NBC licenses after story on nuclear buildup

Not just attacking the media, he has attacked free speech, the First Amendment. This came early this year, in February.

Trump threatens to weaken 

First Amendment protections for reporters

Trump's attack on the First Amendment

Then, he did this in the last 24 hours.

Trump Attacks First Amendment

He's certainly not for clean air nor clean water nor soil.

Trump signs bill undoing Obama coal mining rule

Donald Trump undoes the Clean Water rule

The Trump EPA Wants to Gut California’s Clean Air Rules

There are things he's for certainly. Here's one of them. He's for our local military, across the nation, having military gear. You know, so they can fight us, the American citizens.

Trump to lift military gear ban for local police

He's all for business, that's for sure.

Trump’s Policies Are Already Making Workplaces More Toxic

Another thing he's for and seemingly in a big way is a fight of some kind with North Korea and their President Kim Jong Un. 

U.S. flies bombers over Korea as Trump discusses options

Trump Flirts with Nuclear War

Keep in mind, too, this is only a partial list of what this one man has done and said so far.

So the question is now, when does this roller coaster end? How soon?

And how, exactly?

We Are, As a Nation, Normalizing the Insanity and Irresponsibility That Is Donald J Trump

Lots of us swore we would not, could not let this happen. That is, we swore we would and could not possibly let the normalization of Donald J. Trump and all his petulance and non-logic and emotionalism and rantings and ravings and tweets and self-centeredness and narcissism. We were sure we wouldn't all "go there."

But it's happening. Sure as he's called President, to this day, it's happening.

An example?

This past week.

Donald Trump's last 7 days are just 

mind-bogglingly bad

And then, today, there's this.

Trump calls negotiations with North Korea a waste of time, says U.S. will ‘do what has to be done’

He has no idea, I expect, that he's flirting with some sort of nuclear disaster, at minimum, if not out and out nuclear war.

Bravado is one thing when you're in the locker room and disrespecting women. God knows that's bad enough. But as President of the most ridiculously powerful nation on the planet to, again, flirt with nuclear warheads being rained down on some part of the planet--anywhere, really--is just outrageously stupid, even childish but certainly irresponsible.

We, the United States, can't allow, hell, exist with this, again, irresponsible dolt as leader.

The planet can't, either.

No exaggeration.

What Trump’s Bravado and Bluster Gets Us---and the World

This broke this week—

 Maduro: Venezuela must prepare for war with the United States

Followed by this:

North Korea: 4.7M sign up for military to fight U.S.

Here's hoping the Trump supporters learn and learn quickly.

They would be the first sent off to war, after all.

The Racist, Misogynist, Elitist World That Is Donald Trump's America

It has been quite a week.

It's been nearly stunning what all took place in the last 7 days. First there was this:

Contentious Memo Strikes Nerve

Inside Google and Out

It seems a young engineer at Google wrote not just a sexist memo but a very sexist one, declaring Google's inclusive culture, including women, if you can imagine that, was not just negative but "bad for business."  From the NYT:

His 10-page memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” argued that “personality differences” between men and women — like a woman having a lower tolerance for stress — help explain why there were fewer women in engineering and leadership roles at the company. He said efforts by the company to reach equal representation of women in technology and leadership were “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.”

So women, who make up more than half of our nation's population, shouldn't be included in technology, according to this young man, this Einstein.

Wonderful, right?

The week got worse.

This happened Friday night.

White Nationalists March on University of Virginia

I thought we were better than this. I thought we were smarter than this. I thought we learned all these lessons, especially about race but about sexism, too, certainly.

When you pair this with the fact that a President and an entire political party just tried to pass a "health care law" in our nation's capitol that would have cut between 22 to 32 million Americans from health insurance rolls, it's easy to see that Donald Trump's America, the nightmare come true, is, in fact, a racist, sexist, misogynistic and elitist one. Great for white people and wealthy ones, at that, and corporations but God help you if you're anything else. If you're female or Black or Hispanic or poor or, heck, middle-class and/or working-class, it sucks to be you just now.

And this doesn't even touch the subject of the ugliness and stupidity and vitriol that came out of the White House and this President's mouth this last week. That may get us all, not just the nation but the world into a nuclear war and nuclear winter. I'm not even touching that.

Welcome to Donald Trump's and the Right Wing's and the Republican Party's America.

Again, God help us.

Trump Supporters

Homer and Goober discuss national and international politics.

The Most Insightful Writing On This President?

I do believe, personally, that Michael Gerson may well be writing the most lucid, insightful and intelligent, relevant, nearly important pieces about this current President.

MICHAEL GERSON: Trump's twilight zone

It is sometimes argued that the media should spend less time on President Trump’s transgressive tweets in order to devote more attention to real issues such as North Korea. In fact, it is necessary to focus on Trump’s tweets precisely because they shed light on the mind that is doing the deciding on North Korea. It is a distasteful exercise. But we cannot look away. We need to know the state of mind we’re dealing with.

Trump’s tweets reveal a leader who is compulsive, abusive and easily triggered. Trump describes all this as “modern day presidential.”

What we are witnessing is not a new age in presidential communications. It is an ongoing, public breakdown. And the question naturally arises: Is this the result of mental dysfunction?

Most psychiatrists are (understandably) uncomfortable with diagnosis from a distance. And the particular diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder requires significant impairment – which is a hard case to make of a figure at the pinnacle of American politics.

And yet. There are judgments that must be made about the fitness of the leaders. Citizens are under no ethical obligation to be silent when they see serious dysfunction. The challenge here is not merely the trashing of political norms. The main problem is the possibility that America has an unbalanced president during a period of high-stakes global testing. This is not a clinical diagnosis. It is a civic and political judgment, made necessary by the president’s own words and acts. Trump holds a job that requires, above all else, the ability to unite and steady the nation in a time of crisis. There is no reason to believe he can play that role.

Much of the prudence and courage required to confront this problem will need to come from Republicans and conservatives. Where to start? How about refusing to downplay revolting lunacy?

It is not merely an “occasional ad hominem” for a president to employ the tremendous power of his office to target individual American citizens who oppose him. It is an abuse of power.

It is not merely “uncouth” for a president to tolerate, even to hint support for, violence against political opponents (“I’d like to punch him in the face”). It creates an atmosphere of intimidation.

It is not merely “exaggeration” for a president to issue a series of eye-stretching lies, including that his predecessor spied on him and that a popular vote victory was denied to him by widespread electoral fraud. It indicates either a deep cynicism or a tenuous connection to reality.

It is not being “coarse” for a president to engage in consistent misogyny. It is a sign of a disturbing and deep-seated dehumanization of women.

Many conservatives would respond to this critique by saying, “At least he fights!” The question is: For what? Trump evinces no strong or consistent policy views. He fights for himself – for admiration and adulation – which is the only cause his extreme narcissism allows.

Many conservatives would also respond by saying, “At least he does conservative things!” But if health care is any indication, Trump lacks conviction, knowledge and the ability to persuade.

House and Senate Republicans should be prepared to aggressively challenge unbalanced or unhinged presidential language and decisions, rather than trying to dismiss them as simply a “distraction.”

No one really knows how to deal with this situation, which still feels more like an unnerving political novel than our political reality. Trump has led our country into unexplored territory. If this is “modern day presidential,” all progress moves toward the past.

--Michael Gerson served as President George W. Bush’s chief speechwriter from 2001-2006 and is a columnist for the Washington Post

No Democrat Could Get Away With All This

Imagine:

Hillary Clinton is president. 

• It's learned that she has deep ties to Putin and the Russian spy agency. 
• Additionally, Russia's President Vladimir Putin helped get her elected.
• She puts utterly unqualified billionaires in cabinet posts. 
• She pursues public policies that benefit her and her billionaire friends. 
• She puts her daughter Chelsea in a position of influence in the West Wing, giving her her own office and allows her to use that position to forward her own business interests. 
• Chelsea's husband is her chief advisor. 
• The private business trips taken by Chelsea and her husband are paid for by the taxpayers.
• She refuses to release any tax returns. 
• She blocks access to the visitor logs in the White House.
• Husband Bill refuses to live in the White House so our tax dollars are spent keeping him safe in New York City.
• Hillary spends almost every weekend lounging in her own, privately-held resort. 
• Hillary raises the prices of staying at this/her private resort because after all, she is now President.
• Her private resort gets reimbursed for any and all "official" government functions (including security) because she chooses to conduct all her "business" and personal functions there. 
• She and her family live in three White Houses at the same time.
• In an interview, she names the wrong country she bombed while bragging about the chocolate cake she was eating while she ordered said bombing.
• Hillary starts churning up concerns of war, possibly nuclear, with Kim Jong Un and North Korea.

The Republicans would be eating her alive.

Which all begs the question....

Why are we putting up with this?

Adapted, largely, from a post on FB by one Carmen Norwood

What We've Come To

Where we are now, thanks to this Presidency.

And thanks fo the Republicans and those who voted for and supported this candidate. 

This petulant, unthinking, irrational, emotional, greedy dolt of a man-child.

Links:

Welcome to the "It's All About Me" Presidency

Republicans, The Next Four Years Are All On You