The New York Times just released an article about how Jared Kushner and his weird story arc in the narrative of the Trump administration. From his high standing, to his water treading, to hunkering down, and waiting for a desperate POTUS to reembrace him, it’s seems he’s been through a journey of sorts. But all of that is frankly boring. Jared Kushner and his duplicitous face don’t interest me. What does interest me in that long story was Trump bragging that he could have had Tom Brady as his son-in-law, and that…that is hilarious. Listen, I don’t know what history exists between Ivanka Trump and New England Patriots’ star child Tom Brady, but I somehow doubt that Ivanka and Tom’s love story was written in the stars. But I can only imagine how much Donald would have loved that. As far as he considers the people around him as a grander reflection of himself, you can be sure that Son-In-Law Tom Brady would have been used to better sell an athletic, strapping Donald Trump, and frankly, people love Tom Brady more than anyone has ever loved a Trump ever. The idea that he still reminisces about what could have been is the best story to come out of the White House in a long time.
Political influencers and real life supervillains, the Koch Brothers, have taken a stand against Trump and his tariffs. Which makes sense. They have their grubby fingers in an alarming number of pies, and undoubtedly this is hitting their bottom line. I can’t imagine they ever pictured Trump’s ego would trump his business sense, but here we are, and I suppose they aren’t happy, and they are spending the money to prove it. Sponsoring farming lobbies and groups to take action, write open letters and in general making a big stink. They even sponsored an ad that featured a down to earth farmer removing his “Make America Great Again” hat, while the ad encouraged good hardworking folk to make their voices heard and remove these harmful tariffs and encourage free trade! I have to admit, I’m conflicted. The Koch brothers are all kinds of shady, and wield an undo amount of power and influence, but I can’t say I would be upset if the result ended in Trump backing off his trade war. The question becomes, which supervillain back down first?
Rudy Giuliani is out selling the new line, and it’s being repeated around the conservative networks like a wild fire…and it’s really disturbing. If we go back to right the early days, post election, the official line is that Russia didn’t meddle in the election, and Trump and team certainly didn’t collude with them to help that happen. NO COLLUSION. When the investigation into Russia’s interference began in earnest, a certain dossier was uncovered, and news of high level campaign staffers and cabinet members having connections and meetings with potential Russian agents, including but not limited to Paul Manafort and even Donald Trump’s own son, Don Jr., the narrative changed a little. Now it was, ok…we might have had some meetings, but nothing ever exchanged hands, nothing shady happened, and Donald Trump was certainly never personally aware of it. Also, still not convinced Russia did anything wrong. NO COLLUSION. Then indictments were made, statements came out, some of Trump’s confidants became willing to testify, and the narrative again made a subtle change. The people indicted were actually not really, truly, honestly THAT big a part in the whole campaign. They were small cogs doing their own thing. NO COLLUSION. In recent days, It’s become increasingly obvious that Trump himself WAS aware of certain events during the time they were happening, and as things are unfolding, the new line has been unveiled. Now the narrative is: If the WAS COLLUSION, then it’s fine. Collusion isn’t TECHNICALLY illegal. Anyone in Trump’s position given the chance would have colluded. Excuse me? Taking potential leverage from a hostile foreign power who could use that as leverage of their own? MMMMno. I don’t think so. I don’t think ANYONE would have colluded. Only insecure manchildren and supervillains, really.
So the official White House transcript and video of the press conference in Helsinki has been doctored to remove a part of a question, asking whether Putin wanted Trump to win the election and directed his officials to help him do that. The edit of the material makes it seem like the first part of the question wasn’t asked, which changes the entire implication of the question. Now, one could argue that in the transcript, this omission could be the result of trying to catch several people talking at once, but the fact that the White House edited it out of the official video as presented by the White House, and even placed on YouTube, is…well it’s disturbing. To consciously edit out that portion shows intent to omit a telling admission from Putin and his government, especially in light of Trump’s recent, very public claim, that Russia did not want Trump in office. Beyond the possible legal implications (I mean, it’s an official government release, and there are specific laws not only regarding the handling of government documentation, but White House and presidential documentation specifically), it shows an alarming willingness to attempt to establish history as something other than what actually happened, and that should alarm EVERYONE. Trump lying is one thing. Trump giving the order for the official record in every capacity be altered to fit those lies is Orwellian in it’s scope.
The San Diego Comic Convention has come and gone, and all the new movie and tv previews are hitting the internet. And I felt like when I was watching the previews for shows like the Walking Dead and Titans…that fiction was feeling less strange than reality. Honestly, if it turned out that there actually ARE Lizard People are running the government and that Donald Trump was one, or that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have been turning Congress into an undead, zombie horde, echo chamber of yes men, that would be less surprising than ANYTHING I saw in the Aquaman trailer. If 5 years ago, I pitched the actual events of the Trump presidency to AMC as their new Breaking Bad, I’d be a wealthy man right now.
Oh Donald. Donald, Donald, Donald! It is truly a bold move to come out and suggest that the Russians would be meddling in our midterms, but they would be interfering on behalf of the Democrats. I mean, honestly, it’s hilariously stupid, and I have to imagine that even your base will have to do some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to follow you on that logic, but I know they’ll get there. They manage to follow you no matter where you go. But this one has the sort of Donald Trump flair that we’ve come to know and hate. It’s truly a “You” move. Suggesting that Russia for some reason wants you and yours out of the picture is delightfully stupid. Putin has said, very vocally, only days ago, how happy he is to have you doing what you’re doing. You say you’re the toughest President on Russia, but the reality is you watch the government around you be tough on Russia, and complain that they’re destroying your budding relationship with a monster. But keep trying to make your sell. I mean, it’s actually even kind of devious on your part. If, by some magical miracle, the Dems have their blue wave, and knock it out of the park during midterms, you’ve started early in building your conspiracy!
Trump is angrily calling out yet another fascist regime with Nuclear capabilities and threatening them with hellfire. This week it was an angry all caps tweet telling Iran not threaten the US or else! One wonders if that’s part of his plan when dealing in these situations. I mean, this fire and brimstone approach was how he started with North Korea, and look how that turned out! And by that, I mean how Trump wants you to think it turned out, because he wants you to think it was an unqualified victory as opposed to the total mess that more accurately reflects reality. Who knows, with any luck, 6 months from now, Trump will be calling Rouhani a total sweetheart and assuring us all that their increase in weapons production does not mean he screwed up negotiations!
Jason Spencer is a Georgia State Representative in the Georgia House of Representatives. A highly conservative Republican, he has a bit of a history in saying some provocative things. No doubt knowing that Spencer had some pretty deplorable views, Sacha Baron Cohen, the man responsible for getting famous celebrities and political figures to expose their most base views as characters like Borat, Ali G, and Bruno, brought him onto his newest show to hopefully provoke an intense reaction out of Spencer. In the bit, thinking he was involved in a training video by an Israeli soldier, Spencer gleefully exposed his rump while shouting racial and homophobic epithets. Now, Spencer is claiming he was stricken by fear due to a previous exposure to terrorism and felt uncomfortable shouting those words…but if you watch the segment, that look of unadulterated joy at saying disgusting and bigoted phrases in a space he thought was going to be an echo chamber is hard to miss. Now, obviously he wasn’t the only person taken in by Cohen and his act. And indeed, many of the more conservative people Cohen has featured while in character, have loudly proclaimed that he tricked them into saying such unsavory and terrible things.
But the fact is that if your gut reaction to someone encouraging you to say something racist or homophobic is anything other than something along the lines of “No, I would not feel comfortable with that,” than you kind of lose your right to complain about someone showing the world your willingness to do such things.
I admittedly don’t know much about French President Emmanuel Macron, but he pulled a great line on Trump and even if It turns out he kicks babies for fun, I’ll still find myself having a bit of admiration for the guy. You see, by all accounts, while Trump was asking Macron to help convince the EU to the trading table as opposed to retaliatory tariffs against the US, Macron validated those actions by regurgitating the Art of the Deal back at Trump, which…I mean it’s the classiest, most elegant burn I could ever imagine. I don’t know that I could have ever thought to do that, and I have to wonder how Trump responded to that. Because I honestly don’t know how that confrontation ended, which is the real tragedy.
The frustrating thing about Donald Trump’s base at this point is that there is literally nothing he can do or say that they won’t either try to explain away or rationalize about why it’s not so bad. Trump’s base is now pro-Putin, where even 3 years ago, such an idea would have been disgusting to them. Trump gets to be racist, screw over our farmers and factories, roll back regulations to protect the environment and people, and any negative reaction to that gets relegated to liberals overreacting or misunderstanding the issue and fake news. The deep level of entrenchment is worrying and makes you wonder how they found themselves there. How much of it is out of spite? Are those of us who wholesale condemned those who voted for Trump in the first place responsible for this behavior? Even in part? I don’t know the answer, but it certainly makes me think about what it takes to put someone in that place. Could it happen on the opposite side of the spectrum somewhere down the line?
Mind the Exit 