LITTLE FINGERS
& BIG EGOS
91 Days of Trump
By Jack Random
The twelfth week of Trump’s rule was notable for his turn to
militarism as well as the total abandonment of campaign promises. Trump returned to Florida for Easter
weekend and no doubt another round of golf. His twitter feed went strangely silent. One rumor says we are going to war with
North Korea.
I don’t think so.
Trump got what he wanted out of dropping missiles on Syria and a big
bomb in Afghanistan. He is
posturing like a fighting cock with his chest out and his feathers primed. He is enjoying the respect and media
fawning he gets from being “strong” and tempting fate. He is acting a lot like the little
dictator in Pyongyang.
The media has spent much of its time chronicling Trump’s
reversals: China does not
manipulate its currency after all.
President Xi Jinping is Trump’s new best buddy. His policy of non-intervention in Syria
is dead. He now apparently favors
regime change. He has forgotten
about NAFTA and CAFTA. To the
extent he thinks about trade policy at all, he now favors renegotiation over
repeal. He once promised to fire
Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve. Now he likes her.
On and on, Trump is the ultimate pragmatist or an extreme panderer. We have no idea what operates beneath
the curtain of his coifed exterior.
We do know that he is not to be trusted.
This is the thirteenth installment of the Trump
Diaries.
DAY 85: STORM
CLOUDS OVER PYONGYANG
April 14, 2017
With a US naval strike force heading to the coast of North
Korea, a US military exercise with South Korea and North Korea providing a
display of their most powerful weapons, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warns
both sides that they are drifting toward military conflict. He describes the situation as “storm
clouds” over the Korean peninsula.
Head of the Environmental
Protection Agency Scott Pruitt advocates leaving the Paris agreement on climate
change. The White House is
surprisingly divided on the issue with the recently demoted Steve Bannon on one
side and Jared Kushner on the other.
The biggest surprise is that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his
former company Exxon-Mobil support remaining in the accord.
DAY 86: TAX PROTESTS
April 15, 2017
Thousands of protestors take to the streets in an estimated
150 cities across America to demand that our president release his tax
returns. Trump is the first
president since Richard Nixon not to do so. We all know how it turned out for Tricky Dick, who won the
1972 presidential election by one of the greatest Electoral College margins in
history. How will it turn out for
Donald J. Trump?
Vice president Mike Pence heads to South Korea as the
president remains hunkered down in Mar-a-Lago. Would the president approve a shock and awe attack on
Pyongyang while Pence is in the neighborhood?
A failed missile launch by North Korea leads to speculation
that the US sabotaged the effort.
My question: If they did,
did they let Trump know about it?
DAY 87: EASTER
SUNDAY
April 16, 2017
Trump tweets his conviction
founded in the universe of alternative facts that the Saturday tax protesters
were paid. Now that’s a job I’d
like to get: getting paid to march in protest! We could end homelessness overnight. Where do we sign up? Happy Easter!
The Washington Post reports that
immigration arrests rose nearly 33 percent in the first weeks of the Trump
administration. Contrary to his
expressed policy the arrests have not focused on immigrants with criminal
records: 5,441 of 21,362 arrests involved individuals without criminal records.
[1] An internal Homeland Security memo suggests they are mobilizing to create a
national deportation force, including expanded detention facilities and lowered
standards for recruiting 5,000 new ICE and Border Patrol agents.
Anyone who thought Trump would
soften his stance on immigration – considering the acute labor shortages in
agriculture and service fields – is dead wrong. Trump and his attorney general intend to deport as many as
they can as fast as they can and they want to spend a lot of money doing
it.
The mass deportation is coming
and it will create a massive new police apparatus. It will also trigger a massive resistance and feed an
underground economy.
DAY 88: LITTLE FINGERS AND BIG EGOS
April 17, 2017
Vice foreign minister Han
Song-Ryol informs British Broadcasting that North Korea will continue to test
missile technology on a “weekly, monthly and yearly basis.” [2]
Vice president Pence warns the
North Koreans “not to test” the commander’s resolve. Hasn’t the VP heard Trump has no resolve? He has yielded military decisions to
the generals. He loves the
generals. Civilian control of the
military is an overrated and outdated concept – like representative democracy
or separation of church and state.
The pissing contest between the
little dictator and the man with little hands (actually little fingers; his
hands are fairly large) goes on unabated.
It is developing into a classic game of chicken with literally millions
of lives in the balance. I have to
ask those who supported Trump in his march to the White House: How do you feel about the future of the
planet – or at least the planet’s ability to sustain human and animal life –
being in those large hands with little fingers? Is this the gamble you wanted to take? Is this the message you wanted to drive
home to a government that has ignored your welfare for as long as we can
remember? Was it worth it? Will it still be worth it if Trump drops
the big one? Do you still believe
he’s a rational businessman?
Trump has already yielded
control of the military to the generals.
Do the generals want another crack at victory on the Korean
peninsula? Are we counting on
China to rescue the world from global catastrophe? Roll the dice and take your chances. No one voted for the generals. And no one voted for war. I seem to recall a candidate who
condemned the warmongering politicians and promised to extract us from stupid
wars.
A Gallup poll reveals that only
45% of the people believe Trump keeps his word. The number is down from 62% in February. His daily approval rating is up two
points to 41 percent. [3] It seems Trump has to keep bombing people to bolster
his support – a dangerous phenomenon for a man who so wants to be liked.
Trump calls to congratulate
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his success in the recent referendum
transforming Turkey into a dictatorship.
The contested referendum abolishes the office of Prime Minister and
grants Erdogan final approval of nominees for parliament. The vote was conducted under a state of
emergency with thousands detained in the wake of a failed coup last summer.
Trump has a vested interest in
Turkey: Trump Towers in Istanbul
was completed in 2012. The
ceremony was presided over by then Prime Minister Erdogan. [4] It does not bode
well for the Kurds – our strongest ally in Iraq and Syria but Turkey’s mortal
enemy.
The president also has a Trump
Tower in the Philippines, where strongman president Rodrigo Duterte is
committing his version of genocide under the name of a war on drugs. In 2015 Duterte promised to kill up to
100,000 people to eradicate the drug problem and compared himself to Hitler.
[5] Duterte has expressed admiration for the American president and told
reporters that Trump told him in a December phone conversation that he was
going about his drug war “the right way.” [6] If the “right way” is
extrajudicial assassination let us hope Trump never gets the authoritarian power
he seems to admire in other nations.
DAY 89: THE LOST ARMADA
April 18, 2017
Those fighting ships that were
heading to the Sea of Japan off the coast of Korea – the ones described as an
armada by our president – were never headed there after all. Was it miscommunication? Was it a bluff? Has our president completely lost touch
with the military? Or was it a
fleet of Spanish ghost ships from the sixteenth century? No one seems to know.
Trump signs what he calls a “Buy
American and Hire American” executive decree that makes modest changes in the
hiring of highly skilled foreign workers.
Like his stipulation that the Dakota and Keystone oil pipelines use
American steel, it turns out to be little more than lip service. They will not use American steel. It was just a talking point. Buy and hire American is more of the
same.
Trump targets Georgia
congressional candidate Jon Ossoff and takes credit when the Democrat falls
short of winning the special election outright. Ossoff will face Republican Karen Handel in a June
runoff.
DAY 90: KILLING THE DREAM & TILLERSON’S
PAYBACK
April 19, 2017
On February 17, 23-year-old Juan
Manuel Montes became the first dreamer under the protection of DACA (Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals) to be deported by the Trump administration. DACA was implemented by the Obama
administration to protect immigrants who entered the nation as children and who
have since led law-abiding lives.
Immigrant groups rightly fear
the beginning of mass deportations without regard for family bonds or
humanitarian interests. Many of
the immigrants who arrived as children have no family or community ties in
their nations of origin.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina joins the hypocrisy parade, pledging his undying devotion – formerly
reserved for Senator John McCain – to the president. Said Graham on Fox & Friends: “We have got a president and a security team that I’ve been
dreaming of for eight years.”
This from the man who led the
Never Trump movement and refused to endorse the Republican nominee for
president. All it took was 59
Tomahawk missiles and the Mother of All Bombs to turn on Graham’s love
light.
Bill O’Reilly is out at Fox
News. Fellow woman groper Trump
has said he doesn’t think O’Reilly did anything wrong. Of course you don’t, Donald. You can get away with anything when
you’re rich and famous.
Exxon Mobil applies to the
Treasury Department for a waiver to the sanctions that blocked former CEO and
current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s deal with Russian oil giant Rosneft.
[7] Is this the payback both Putin and Tillerson expected when they made the
Donald king? That it comes only
ninety days into Trump’s reign is an indication of their collective
arrogance.
The Trump people do not believe
they will be held accountable for anything: corruption, cronyism,
conflict-of-interest, tax evasion or collusion to defraud an election. They believe Russia Gate is a done
deal. The president can get away
with pretty much anything he wants to do as long as he’s willing to drop a few
bombs and toe the party line. Out
goes Bannon and friends; in come Kushner and the Wall Street Crowd.
We’ll hear no more of
“deconstructing the administrative state.” We’ll get tax reform and budget cuts and military
adventurism.
Lindsey Graham joins the party
but John McCain steps back, tweeting in response the Wall Street Journal’s
story: Are they crazy?
Yes, they are, senator. Crazy like a fox. Billions upon billions are in the
balance – an estimated half a trillion.
If Putin can swing the Arctic deal with Exxon, he would buy a few more
years for the stumbling Russian economy.
DAY 91: NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
April 20, 2017
The day speaks for itself. A new CBS poll finds that 61% favor
legalization and an even greater number support medical use of cannabis. Unfortunately, our antebellum attorney
general Jeff Sessions is not among the majority.
Sessions tells a rightwing talk
show he is amazed that “a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific” can block
the actions of the president. He
was referring to U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii with equal
amounts of contempt for the judiciary and the state of Hawaii.
The Department of Justice is
preparing to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange despite his assistance in
putting Trump in the White House and Sessions in the attorney general’s
office. “I love WikiLeaks” used to
be a virtual campaign slogan.
Trump issues an executive order
calling for a study of the problem of dumping on the American steel
industry. That’s like a study to
determine if smoking cannabis is related to a feeling of euphoria. He doesn’t mention China – his new best
friend – but he has plenty of venom for the Canadian dairy and lumber
industries.
China is on alert and preparing
contingencies in the event war breaks out between America and North Korea.
Secretary of State Tillerson
notifies Speaker of the House Paul Ryan that Iran is complying with the
agreement not to develop nuclear weapons.
Had the Trump administration refused to certify compliance, Obama’s
five-nation deal with Iran – a deal Trump called the worst ever – would have
collapsed.
Clearly, there is nothing Trump
the candidate said that Trump the president stands by. His entire presidency is some kind of
charade, a display of smoke and mirrors, a two-bit magic act or a carnival
trick show. Look as hard and long
as you like, there is nothing there.
He stands for nothing, envisions nothing, understands nothing and hopes
for nothing. In the thirteenth week of his presidency, he is trying to run the
clock out.
Trump swears that his healthcare
program is still alive despite the collective groan emanating from the halls of
congress. He swears they’ll bring
it up again and maybe they will.
They have nothing else.
They can’t push through tax reform, infrastructure spending or
immigration reform. Trump has no
legislative agenda. He expected
Paul Ryan to provide one for him but Ryan wants nothing to do with Trump.
We are witnessing a presidency that
practices incompetence on a level never before experienced. We have had incompetent presidents but
this is a president who doesn’t want the office. Trump wanted to win the White House but he didn’t want to
run it. He has no clue how to
operate government. He has no idea
what to do next. He knows he’s in
over his head. He just wants to
play golf and dream of happier times when he was a billionaire alone in his
tower, groping women and boasting about what he would do if he were in the
White House.
Jazz.
1. “ICE immigration arrests of noncriminals double under Trump”
by Maria Sacchetti. Washington
Post, April 16, 2017.
2. “North Korea ‘will test missiles weekly’ senior official
tell BBC.” British Broadcasting
Corporation, April 17, 2017.
3. “Majority in US No Longer Thinks Trump Keeps His
Promises.” Gallup, April 17,
2017.
4. “Donald Trump Has a Conflict of Interest in Turkey. Just Ask Donald Trump.” By Ashley
Dejean. Mother Jones, April 18,
2017.
5. “How Donald Trump’s Business Ties are Already Jeopardizing
U.S. Interests” by Kurt Eichenwald.
Newsweek, December 13, 2016.
6. “Duterte: Trump Says Philippines tackling drug problem ‘the
right way’” by Ivan Watson, Kathy Quiano and Bijan Hosseini. CNN, December 3, 2016.
7. “Exxon Seeks U.S. Waiver to Resume Russia Oil Venture” by
Jay Soloman and Bradley Olson.
Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2017.
