Donald Trump recently put out a tweet defending his writing prowess. Not before everyone had a field day with his spelling error which caused him to remove and fix the mistake. I personally found the spelling error less funny than the content of the tweet. Trump suggested that he doesn’t Tweet anything without considering every word, every capital letter. While the media “pours” over his tweets, looking for mistakes, he claims they will find none, because he is a genius writer. As he reminds us all, he has written many books, and those books, by his estimation, are groundbreakers. All of them. Hmmm…even, if we accept at face value that his books are any good, the level of credit he can really get for writing them is…questionable AT BEST. We know, for a fact, that he had little to do with actually constructing art of the deal. Tony Schwartz, the “co-author” has gone on record about the process of how that book came into existence. Most of the story involves Donald Trump rambling incoherently, Schwartz trying to make sense out of what he could, then basically making up the rest as he went along. The idea that Donald Trump is some gifted writer is a bigger fib than his claims that his Access Hollywood tape was just “locker room talk.”
Donald Trump wants us all to know that he DEFINITELY has the upper hand in this whole trade mess. I mean, well respected economists say Trump’s trade policies harken back to policies undertaken in the 80s, namely with Japan, that grew the trade deficit by like 500% in 10 years, but Trump is totally confident, so we all should be too, right? When he says that every country is every day calling him to deal on trade, we can take that at face value, right? Though it has been pointed out that back in the 80s, when we were playing a similar game with Japan, and things got worse, that Japan largely played ball, unlike say China and Canada, who are definitely not, imposing large tariffs of their own. LISTEN! Clearly everything is under control! I mean, what reason can we possibly have to think that Donald Trump, master deal maker, doesn’t know what he’s doing?
Despite Donald Trump’s constant self back pats about his unprecedented success in North Korea, there seems to be a growing cause for concern that MAYBE Kim Jong Un isn’t as committed to de-nuclearizing the peninsula as he first might have seemed. In fact, intelligence reports seem to indicate the exact opposite, with him expanding nuclear research sites and funding into fuel for nuclear weapons. Basically the EXACT opposite of what Trump “negotiated”. Now, pettier people might go for a fun little “I told you so!” number complete with laughter and finger pointing, but I do feel like it’s appropriate to point out that he’s not the first guy to get that promise out of a Kim on the exact same thing that never came to fruition. Though it might ache a little harder for Trump considering he couldn’t help talking up how unprecedented this whole thing was. I just wonder how long Trump will feel it’s appropriate to stay in denial about it before he finally decides he’s been had?
So while Trump continues to toot the horn of Kim Jong Un, insisting that he’s a good, true leader with integrity and loyalty, Kim Jong Un continues to show why he is very much none of those things. Recently a story broke that Kim ordered the execution of a Lieutenant General. Not for insurrection or corruption. Not for going off the rails as a military leader. No, this man’s crime was feeding his soldiers and their families. The Fiend! Seriously, in case anyone had forgotten, Kim Jong Un is a cruel dictator who keeps his people scared, hungry, and traumatized. The very last thing anyone, most especially the leader of the free world, should be doing, is trying to sell the merits of a monster.
So I feel like Trump might be starting to get a taste for pardons, even if they don’t constitute a political maneuver. In the last month he’s commuted the Sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a woman who was in prison for a non-violent drug offense, at the urging of Kim Kardashian after a fun little meeting, and he also posthumously pardoned boxer Jack Johnson, with a room full of celebrities including Sylvester Stallone. When discussing the pardons, he talked about the “thrill” of these pardons, and it makes me think it’s just one of those random Presidential duties he’s taken a liking to. That said, it seems like there is a risk of him going…rather overboard. He’s openly admitted that he has a list of about 3000 names he’d like to look at pardoning, and if we’re being honest…I don’t know that I necessarily trust his judgment when it comes to who is deserving.
So Monday night, Trump went on stage during a rally in South Carolina, and riffed the way in that magical way that only Donald Trump can. He talked about all the things bugging him, he talked weirdly about David Lynch, Trade Wars, his wife’s non-facelift, some North Korea stuff, and then he weirdly got into late night comedians. I guess there was thing with Fallon where he came out to say he might have regretted aspects about his interview with Trump, and how he would have handled things differently, and Trump wasn’t too thrilled, especially since late night hosts in general have really made mocking Donald Trump’s behavior and actions a regular part of their nightly monologues. He went on to say that these guys just aren’t funny. No, it’s not that he doesn’t have a sense of humor. Donald Trump has a great sense of humor. And he’d be in pretty big trouble if he couldn’t laugh at himself…really? I can’t recall a time prior to or after the election that Don too a moment to laugh at himself. In fact, in his Comedy Central roast, an event where the sole purpose was for him to laugh at himself…well Trump largely looked offended the whole night, and rather famously complained that people pegged him wrong or just weren’t funny. Sound familiar?
So, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling on Trump’s travel ban. Despite his rhetoric clearly indicating what it is, the Supreme Court decided that his public statements shouldn’t count in determining the legality of the ban. It’s frustrating and Un-American at it’s heart, but here it stands. The swing vote on this verdict, as is historically the case in these situations was Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy, in his statement wanted to assure everybody, that he hates religious and racial intolerance, and that this was not about that. This was about the constitution dammit! Also, he wants everyone to know (in a very subtle way, without using anyone’s names explicitly) that this isn’t the court’s permission for important people to disregard the constitution. Because that’s still what’s important! No one is above the law! And yet, those words probably fall on deaf ears. Or at least distracted ears, distracted from the loud gloating of the President, who sees this as nothing less than a win for him.
I was kind of wondering when Donald Trump was going to comment on the whole situation with Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant. It was just one of those events that would be a perfect little distraction for him to talk about something ultimately unimportant, but still something he could make sound like some kind of personal injustice. Of course the way he was going to see this was as a supreme injustice. I mean, how unfair of someone to refuse to serve another because of personal beliefs! (No one on his side of the aisle seems to see the irony regarding their stance on this and their stance on allowing the refusal of service to gay people for the very same reason). But the hilarious part was that Trump basically attacked the restaurant for being gross. I mean, he’s never set foot in the place, so his claims are baseless, but for him to attack the cleanly standards of a restaurant, and implying shady health and safety standards is deeply hypocritical. For the record, from all indication, the Red Hen is a lovely little spot, that looks perfectly sanitary, and their health and safety record reflects that. On the other hand, You have Trump brand restaurants including the dining establishment in his precious Mar-a-Lago, with health violations a mile long, many of them long standing issues that never get fixed. As late as last November, the kitchen in Mar-a-Lago had as many as 15 violations. And some of the long standing ones are pretty bad. We’re talking cockroaches bad. So it’s hard to take him seriously as a judge of good health and safety standard.
So I’ve been reading articles about trade negotiations with China, and one of their big complaints is consistency. They’re frustrated because Donald Trump doesn’t seem to know what he wants out of a trade deal, and keeps moving the goal post, regardless of how willing they seem to be in dealing. And the more I think about that, the more I can put into context things like Trump declaring that illegal immigrants should be kicked out of the countries, no due process, despite that being unconstitutional to the extreme. Trump is basically a toddler. He has expectations that he’s going to be taken care of in every aspect of his life. If he wants something, like a toddler, he doesn’t take into consideration what it takes to get it, or even if it’s permissible. That doesn’t even cross his mind. He just knows that he wants something, and that the people around him, like a toddler’s understanding of his parents, are there to make that happen. But unlike actual parents, the people around Trump are ACTUALLY there to make his whims happen, which has meant skirting the law and the very foundations of what is allowed.
Mind the Exit 