Bits & Pieces #94

After the mess in Charlottesville recently all the pundits seem to agree that Trump is loath to attack the bigots and white supremacists because they are a significant part of his base. Maybe they are, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is that he is a white supremacist and a racist himself. Just look at his history. His violation of housing rules, his Birther nonsense, his attacks on Latin Americans, just about anywhere you look you see Trump the racist, Trump the bigot.

Trump never backs off taking sides on most situations. It’s only with Russia and the alt-Right that he backs off. It’s obvious that he does this because either the Russians have something on him or he wants to be Putin when he grows up and because he sides with the alt-Right in his views of race relations. Our president is scum, a vicious punk and bigot.

This stance of supporting racism and bigotry is the main argument as to why Donald Trump is not fit to be the President of the United States. This is a country, at least in philosophy, whicht has always stood for freedom and human rights but Trump in his racist stance inverts every decent principal upon which our country is built.

Trump was very vocal in attacking Obama for not using the phrase Radical Islamic Terrorism, so where is his ability to name these radical racist terrorists of the Klan, the Nazi party or the white supremacists for what they really are?

Many Republicans have stepped forward to accuse Trump of not sending a clear message and to condemn the alt-Right for being un-American. Now it’s time to forget they made the mistake of nominating this bigot and come out in full force to condemn him for his lack of clarity on how destructive the alt-Right really is.

It isn’t like Trump wasn’t honest, it may have been the only time, in his campaigning. It isn’t like he pulled the wool over the GOP’s eyes. He was clearly a racist from the git- go. They took him anyway, after knocking off all 16 of their other candidates he as their only chance and they really didn’t care who or what he was. So they went with the low-life slug, the degenerate who grabbed women by the crotch and bragged about it, and the sleaze who cheated naïve clients with a phony college degree and stole from his workers. The GOP somehow managed to overlook all this because the thought they had a deal maker who could push their agenda. Okay, how many deals has he negotiated in almost nine months? Pathetic!

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If there is really anything that has punched a hole in Trump’s boat in his first term it is the ungodly inept way he handled the above-mentioned Charlottesville. But why did Charlottesville happen in the first place? Why, a hundred and fifty years later, are we still fighting the Civil War? Maybe it’s because there was never a clear reason to fight it in the first place. Maybe it’s because revisionist history has blurred whatever those reasons were? Maybe it’s just because half the country lost that war and never wanted to deal with that.

The monuments, which have become the primary cause of tension, were not put up immediately after the war as monuments generally are. They were the result of a racist movement that gained traction in the 20’s and 30’s when groups like the Klan gained inordinate power in this country. They were not about honoring the leaders of the confederacy but about institutionalizing segregation. They have lasted this long mainly due to our national ability to twist history to the needs of the writer or of the moment.

Lee and the other confederates were not heroes who fought to free the South from the economic chains of the North. They were traitors who instituted a civil war to extend the curse of slavery. They did this for the only reason possible; to make money off the backs of their slaves. These were immoral, greedy, traitorous pigs that thought nothing of betraying their nation for their own greed. In that, they are like many current politicians who look to the benefits provided by lobbyists for various harmful interests instead of looking to the safety and welfare of their constituents. The statuary is depicting those who were traitors to this country. It should have been taken down long ago but neither the courage nor the will existed until now. Those who want the statuary to remain can only be functioning under the, historically mistaken, revisionist concept that the men depicted are somehow worthy of honor despite their traitorous and morally reprehensible acts.

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Trump has now announced our new policy in regard to Afghanistan. New? It sure looks familiar. Unless someone is hiding something, a distinct possibility in a Trump administration, it is almost exactly like the one Obama and Bush before him had been working on for far too long.

Our ”new” policy should keep us firmly on the road to another 16 years of useless war in a country that has very little that we want. We will continue to lose our kids and trillions of dollars that we could better use here. Trump was very careful to announce that we would not be nation building. Of course not, that might solve the problem or even, God forbid, end the war. Right now there is no solution to Afghanistan mainly because there is no one to actually run the country. On our side we have what might be the most corrupt government on the planet and on the other a bunch of religious terrorists with a seventh century mentality.

Logic tells is that somewhere in that mess there has to be someone, or some group capable of taking over a country and running it but so far logic has all been illogical.

When Bush went into Afghanistan he went into the wrong country and he went in on the wrong side. This blog has already explored why if he invaded anyone it should have been Saudi Arabia, but more importantly, when Bush did launch an invasion he picked the wrong side to attack. Neither Bush nor Cheney had any idea of who was providing succor to the men who attacked us on 911 but like many U.S. government before them, glaringly in South America, they picked the established government against the men who we had supported in their war against the Russians. The Taliban were just the Mujahedeen, to whom we gave money and arms so why not go to their leaders and make a deal. Sure they were religious fanatics but at least they have some little sense of honor. The government we picked to back were just crooks. This was all so reminiscent of Central and South America in the 1970’s where we constantly backed the wrong side because their opponents were Commies. Now the opponents were Religies and we were making the same mistake again.

Maybe we should step back and reevaluate our choices in Afghanistan. It’s okay to build a nation as long as you start with a strong foundation. The current government isn’t a strong anything. It’s just a bunch of cheap crooks with big bank accounts in Switzerland.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, well known for his reprehensible approach to his job, is now being investigated by the Inspector General’s office for threatening to withhold federal resources in order to pressure Senator Lisa Murkowski on her vote on the GOP’s healthcare initiative. But Zinke is just small time. The real deal is billionaire Carl Icahn, a backer of Trump who was appointed as a Presidential aide by Trump. Icahn immediately put together a crooked piece of legislation that set him up to make billions. Previous to taking his post in the White House, Icahn shorted stock in bio-fuel credits held by his company. Once he was appointed by Trump, he set up legislation allowing him to sell those shorts, an action that is strictly forbidden in all but banana republics. It would be really juicy if a guy like Icahn actually had to do time. It would balance any number of poor slobs who get busted for carrying a couple of ounces of drugs.

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A week ago, as a major catastrophe was happening in Texas, where a hurricane did its best to wipe out the entire coastline, Donald Trump, our racist President was spending his time pardening Joe Arpaio the ex-sheriff and criminal who went to jail for violating the rights of Latino American citizens he continued to arrest without cause thereby violating court orders to cease. If anyone ever deserved to be in jail it is Arpaio.

Trump issued this pardon in the middle of a national disaster, which just shows he is more interested in keeping racists out of jail than he is in taking care of the people of a state that went heavily for him in 2016. The big question: did this action mean Trump is abandoning any recognition of civil rights or is he making a statement about pardoning anyone who is convicted of helping him when he is brought to trial for comsorting with the Russians.

On the same night, in a bizarre move that more than anything else represented political infighting in the White House, Sebastian Gorka, the pseudo Nazi that sounded like a Yugo spy but demanded that he was an American citizen with Nazi ornaments, was dumped from his job as an advisor. This is good news for anyone who roots for America but it was expected when Steve Bannon went.

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Watched Thomas Bossert, Homeland advisor to Trump as he went from excusing Trump for his pardon of racist pig Joe Arpaio to the President’s idiotic decision to shut down the government unless they vote money to pay for “The Wall.” He slips and slides around the Arpaio mess by claiming no knowledge of anything. What he, like everyone else should know is that Arpaio promoted the Birther lie, ignored a court order to stop harassing Latino Americans and ran a jail system that tortured and sexually assaulted prisoners.

But it’s on “The Wall” that Bossert really goes under the bus, trying to sell the idea that if we pay for “The Wall” we’ll get Mexico to pay for it later. That’s laughable. First of all, he thinks “The Wall” works! How? It’s a wall. You can climb over it or as has been happening for years dig under it. What Bossert refused to acknowledge is that Mexico will never pay for “The Wall” and Trump’s current posture, that we will build “The Wall” and he will get Mexico to pay for it later because he’s so loveable and such a great negotiator is laughable. Bossert looks like a fool trying to defend this position but like all of Trump’s lackeys he is willing to give up any sense of self-respect that he might have had before going to work for the President. It’s depressing because Bossert isn’t an idiot, he’s doing what looks like a great job in Texas right now, but even when he makes an intelligent statement he seems like a robot who has been programed to react to certain stimuli a certain way. It’s too bad.