So I’ve been really trying to process how Trump plays to this Russia backlash. Obviously it’s a big deal when even some of his most ardent supporters are really turned off by his rhetoric. And publicly siding with Russia regarding the election meddling was kind of a shocker. GOP stalwarts were essentially calling his behavior treasonous. It was bad. So when he walked back his statements the next day only by suggesting that when he said “would” instead of “wouldn’t” when saying he didn’t know why it would be Russia who interfered, it was a total slip of the tongue…well I expected such a blatant lie not to work as well as it did. I mean it wasn’t just one switch up of “would” and “wouldn’t”. He went on several diatribes on Monday, both in his initial statement, in his Hannity Interview and his Tucker Carlson interview, shoring up the position that he didn’t have faith in his intelligence community, that he thinks Putin is great, and that Putin’s word holds more water. The idea that he could simply claim this was a slip of the tongue issue is a lie, for no other reason than that it literally contradicts 24 hours of statements to the contrary. Yet, GOP congressmen, apologist pundits, and generally everyone who had this moment of clarity regarding who Trump is, immediately seemed to say “That makes sense” and went back to calling the liberals a bunch of liars distorting the truth. And the world around us all collectively sighed…
Trump isn’t feeling the love in England right now. In fact, according to him, he downright feels unwelcome there. Who would have figured that? But as it turns out, even Trump can take a hint if you throw enough protestors and a literal blimp of him as a giant whining baby at him. Overall, it was a pretty rough weekend for Trump, with the hacker indictments directly mentioning him as inciting the DNC hack, dog whistling White Supremacists across Europe, and just tons of uncomfortable encounters with leadership, and I expect he was planning of things slowing down once he arrived at his resort in Scotland. After all, the people of Scotland totally love Trump, right?
Two days before his summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump declared that the mainstream media would fake news the heck out of his meeting. He assured everyone that he would not be treated fairly. It was a good thing you could get the real, fair and balanced word on the situation from Fox News. If you wanted the real inside dope on Helsinki, Fox News wouldn’t steer you wrong. So what did Fox News have to say regarding Trump’s meeting? Abby Huntsman, one of the hosts of Fox and Friends, Trump’s favorite show, said that he was “throwing his own people under the bus”. Brian Kilmeade, another host of the show said his rhetoric was “ridiculous”. In fact, all across the network, Fox News was breaking ranks to voice their dissent, that is until you get to Prime Time editorial shows. Sean Hannity was sure to try and spin this the best way he could, by bringing Trump on to clarify the things he said, but even Hannity could hide his obvious discomfort at some of the things Trump was saying that night. Trump may have tried to backtrack on his positions the next day, but you can’t stuff that monster back in it’s box.
So Donald Trump thinks he’s the best thing since the Beatles, but everyone knows this. It’s basically his slogan to the world. He’s the best, he’s a genius, a man among men and every woman’s dream. And he wants everyone else to share in on that enthusiasm he has for himself. In an interview he gave during his time in the UK, Trump proclaimed himself the most popular Republican of all time, more popular than even Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator himself. Now there are a few things wrong in that statement, which should make you feel better if find yourself screaming in anger at your computer screen. First off, no one knows what he’s basing that statement on. There was a recent poll that suggested that among about 88% Republicans, he’s pretty popular right now. But that certainly doesn’t make him the most popular Republican in history. In fact, most Republican presidents since the age of polling began have been as popular and more during their time. Secondly, and this is a big one, Abraham Lincoln didn’t live in an era of polling. We have no numbers at all to indicate what the consensus of him was during his time, and I can assure you, during our time? He’s basically considered a superhero. There is an actual blockbuster film centered on the premise of Lincoln being a superhero monster hunter. The fact is, I feel fairly confident that there is only one group of people in Trump’s “base” that would consider him more popular than Lincoln, and I have to wonder, is that where he’s getting his information?
I feel like the term “witch hunt” has taken on a new sort of resonance since the special investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections began. President Donald Trump uses the word publicly several times a week to refer to Special Counsel Robert Mueller III’s investigation because he has decided that it’s a liberal conspiracy to bring him and his administration down (OR he he’s trying to hide his malfeasance and/or criminal behavior…that’s a possibility as well). But you see, the term “witch hunt” is supposed to imply that you’re searching for something that isn’t there or doesn’t exist, and as a result, innocent people get burned. But it’s important to note that if you’re on a witch hunt and you find ACTUAL witches, e.g. You find exactly the bad things you suspected you might find, then it CAN’T be a witch hunt. In the case of the Russia investigation, besides uncovering Russian spies and several conspirators working with Russia who had key roles in Trump’s campaign, it also uncovered specific examples of Russia explicitly attempting to collude with Donald Trump’s campaign. Whether Trump or his campaign did anything wrong remains up in the air, but Mr. Trump! Your witch hunt has turned up witches! You can’t run from that anymore!
He’s still pretending everything is cool with North Korea! Despite literally everything seemingly falling apart, North Korean officials all but saying so. Also, those remains that Trump kept harping on? Where are they? They’re certainly not here. North Korea has continued accelerating their nuclear program on a number of levels…it’s a fiasco guys It’s a FIASCO. And there Trump is, saying “No! No! It’s all cool guys! Seriously, look at this totally legit letter that Kim Jong Un sent me! That’s more legit than literally everything else!” I mean…is he just going crazy now or what? Because at a certain point, he can’t pretend everything is fine, can he?
Right out of the gate at the NATO summit, Trump was working hard to get on everyone’s bad side. If he’s made it his mission to alienate the US from it’s allies, then he is nailing it, and nailing with style. It’s like he’s not off Air Force One 10 minutes and he’s heckling Angela Merkel with accusations that should have made her laugh in his face. Trump essentially accused Germany of being in Russia’s pocket, being under their control, being maneuvered like a puppet and…How could he say any of that with a straight face? Besides bending over backwards to constantly defend Vladimir Putin, his open admiration has caused him to act worryingly sycophantic. Hell, just days ago, he said he was more excited to hang with Putin than those grumps at NATO. So for Trump to suggest that anyone is Putin’s puppet…well I feel like I throw the term “pot calling the kettle black” around a lot these days.
Steven Miller is kind of a monster. Is that an overly biased thing to say? That he’s a monster? But seriously, the dude is a monster. He was one of the chief architects behind Trump’s plan to separate asylum seekers at the border, the people who comprised most of the people affected by the “zero tolerance” policy they enacted. Now, there is this new trend of people confronting Conservative politicians in public places, which is…I don’t really know, if I’m honest. On one hand, it definitely doesn’t feel like the right forum, attacking people while they’re attempting to do something private, but on the other hand, when will there be a “right forum” for people to confront the men and women behind draconian and bigoted policies? Which brings us back around to Steven Miller. Now apparently, Mr. Miller bragged to a colleague that when he was confronted by a bar tender for being a big bag of douche toward immigrants, Miller, thinking he was doing something bold and impressive…threw away his $80 sushi? An act which in no way spurned the person giving him an earful. He was a bartender. He didn’t provide the sushi. So the funniest part of this story isn’t that he wasted $80, or that he actually spent that amount on sushi. The funny thing for me is HOW we know about this story. Because we know about it specifically because he proudly bragged about the act as some weird form of rebellion against his protestor. He was proud of it, and essentially claimed it was a strategy. And jokes aside, I have SO many questions.
A One-Year-Old baby was tried in Immigration court. A baby. Not the family. In fact his father had already been sent back to Honduras. So there was this baby, sitting there in immigration court, and he was, as might be expected, crying hysterically. Because what the hell. The world is topsy turvy and a child who can’t walk or speak can be tried in a court of law so long as they’re not a US citizen. I mean, I just don’t know what to really say about it. Our system has kind of crumbled to this point where tiny children, who have no business trying to represent themselves, much less the ABILITY or cognizance to do so, are sent into court and we all just hope for the best. 3000 kids are still separated from their family, many of them being sent into court without ANY kind of representation, without anyone present to know what’s ultimately in the best interest of the child. The baby, only identified as Johan was sent back to his father in Honduras, which is something, though assuming the family came here in the first place to be granted asylum…maybe not so great?
Mind the Exit 