Friday, January 27, 2017

PRESSURE CONFERENCE


The "Press Conference" with British Prime Minister May was the shortest ever. Trump read from cards and took only two questions. Journalists on CNN and even MSNBC are going out of their way to put a positive spin on it for Trump.

In my opinion there is NOTHING positive about it as one cannot believe one thing Trump says. Now he says he is okay with torture and thinks it works. Trump says his Defense Secretary Maddis, the former general, says torture doesn't work so now he is going with him. Oh really? I would believe that like I would believe Chris Christie was doing a "traffic study" when he stopped dead the traffic on the GW Bridge.

No one but no one can trust this president as he has shown time and again he will say what he knows someone wants to hear and change his position from the beginning of a sentence to a different posture at the end.  All of a sudden he supports NATO 100%. I DON'T think so as that is NOT what Vladimir Putin wants to hear. Fool me once .... can't get fooled again.

The press is running scared. HOLD POWER'S FEET TO THE FIRE. The proof is not in what the mendacious president says but by what he does!!!

Stop the World I Want to Get Off

Trump in four days has done much to sink a nation. It will not happen today or even tomorrow but expect planetary destruction if not from permanent Middle East war then from the science of indisputable fact climate change.

I will, instead of creating an opus maximus that talks about the progression of egalitarian democracy to Trumpian tyranny list the planet obliterating democracy the killer Trump is winding up to pitch.

In DC land, Herr Trump is busy exercising his writing small fingers skill showing us his signature, the size of Mt. Everest, on every Executive Order he has signed so we can see how important he is.

The XL pipeline and the Dakota pipeline, stopped by the always thoughtful President Obama, are now in a go-ahead process signed by the stroke of a small finger I mean pen by a know nothing, allegedly mentally ill nincompoop who suffered a popular vote loss to a woman by the name of Hillary Clinton. She received, as we know, 3 million more popular votes that he. That FACT sticks in Trump's craw as the man behind the darkest of curtains, resurrected from death his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, to tell us the news media hater Herr Trump actually won because there are after all, she said, "alternative facts" otherwise known as lies that say the opposite. Statistically determined and certified by the Secretaries of State all over the nation conclude voter fraud was non-existent and that Herr Trump's "alternative facts" are incorrect. They are, of course, real to his Trumpian base who believe Trump when he says voter fraud accounts for the 3 million Clinton popular vote triumph. If he told his supporters Democrats conspiratorially knew about and planned for Democratic Martians to come down on a rocket ship from space to vote illegally for Secretary Clinton, Herr Trump's base would believe that too.

Back to the pipelines: There were, recently two big spills one or both in Canada because guess what? Over time pipes leak and like everything on the planet they succumb to age. Oil pipes can also leak even due to human error like our own biggest most catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf which spewed 210 million gallons of oil they could not contain. The effects of it are felt seven years later to this day. When pipes leak or when there is a spill they are hard and nearly impossible to contain with archaic containment booms or worse sprayed from the air with Corexit oil dispersant which poisons the water, fish and wild life further. According to the Government Accountable Project:

"Conclusions from the report strongly suggest that the dispersant Corexit was widely applied in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion because it caused the false impression that the oil disappeared. In reality, the oil/Corexit mixture became less visible, yet much more toxic than the oil alone."

The XL pipes will extend all the way from Canada to Louisiana crossing the nation's mid section. TransCanada's pipeline, carrying tar sands oil, some of the dirtiest oil in existence, is 1,200 miles of pipeline which is the final piece of a 3,800-mile pipeline network the GAO says. What could possibly go wrong? The pipeline in the beginning of its construction will create 42,000 jobs so says Trans Canada CEO, Russ Gerling but at the end will create permanently only 35 jobs. Other clean energy jobs are taking shape so why take the risk? Try on for size money for the industry and campaign contributions for the politicians that's why. I thought Herr Trump was draining the swamp. He can't he IS the swamp. Who needs the EPA anyway when we know private enterprise will never cover up their mistakes. Will they? Answer: YES, they will.

When pipes leak it fowls wildlife and drinking water killing the ecosystem and humans with it. Lets not honor a treaty with the Dakota Soux Native American tribe preserving their ancestral land. Why would be care about them? Andrew Jackson didn't. Despite Trump instructing his EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to shut down its dissemination of information information still gets out. Under Trump EPA regulations will be all but obliterated and certainly not transparent making the poisoning of our lakes, rivers and streams by toxic waste all but certain. Who did Herr Trump nominate for the cabinet position of the EPA? -- Scott Pruit the former AG of Oklahoma and climate change denier. Did I fail to mention Oklahoma is home to oil drilling and fracking for oil creating hundreds of environmentally impacting earthquakes but who cares about a little shaking? Answer: The earth. It HATES it and so should you!

Today, I can hardly wait to see, Herr Trump is going to start ordering the building the Great Wall of America (like China's 2000 year old one) only on our southwestern border to keep Mexicans and other "undesirables" out diverting funds from one thing to pay for another through executive order. Can he do that without Congress? I thought he said Mexico was going to pay for it.  Suggestion: Make a hefty contribution to the ACLU some of whom say they will be hammering him with lawsuits. Meanwhile the wall will have to wind its way through the courts. Herr Trump will soon be nominating an extremist right wingnut justice for SCOTUS. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, please stay healthy or things will not look good in Glocca Morra.

Some think all his cabinet picks will be approved; Senator Sessions from Alabama is a career confederate racist opposer of minority voting rights who never saw a voter suppression tactic he did not like. Betsy Devos for Education Secretary is a know nothing of education but a know everything about her billion buck business Amyway and a religious fanatic who hates public schools but loves for pay charter schools -- stick the public with the tab why doncha and make more billionaires? Trump's cabinet is a who's who of American billionaires.

Then there is Herr Trump blabbering at the CIA about how he won the election and that stealing Iraq's oil -- a war crime -- putting our soldiers on the ground at risk is such a dandy idea. Oh well, maybe the US will have another crack at it says our bone spur military deferment Commander in Chief. Our Iraqi partners WILL turn in an instant against the US soldier Herr Trump claims to love so much and they will bring I bet some choice extremist followers with them. The US will have exactly zero allies and eternal war or worse. Of course making Jerusalem the capital of Israel and returning the US embassy there will THRILL Palestinians--NOT!

There is always Herr Trump's entertaining bromance with Russia's leader Vladimir Putin who has, it seems, something over Trump. What could it be? Conflicts of interest or a cleverly placed sentence in his congratulatory statement to Herr Trump for his victory. He told us how wonderful Russian prostitutes are. Is this a warning across the Trumpian bow for Trump to play or pay -- dearly? Where is that sex tape when you need it? Expect NATO to be weakened with Trump's lovemaking to Putin letting Russia run roughshod over Ukraine and the Baltic states building back their lost empire once again to the ecstatic joy of Putin's people in his homophobic paradise of Russia.

Almost forgot, Herr Trump will let in no Middle East refugees from "terrorists nations" i.e. Muslims from wars this nation began and were snowballed in the Middle East. Destitute, shattered and demoralized there is no room for them in the Christian Inn of America even though the wars from which they are running have been in large part because of the Iraq (and elsewhere) US policy failure.

Yes, it will be a new day and America will be Great Again. Or in the alternative relegated to the ash bin of history. Meanwhile planet earth is warming much faster than scientists thought as an ice shelf in Antarctica is about to break off sending billion of gallons into our seas and at some point Mar a Largo, Herr Trumpf's Florida estate, will be under water -- hopefully with him in it. Can someone stop the world I want to get off before it ends?

The Implication of the wall and a bit more

If anyone thinks a mega expensive wall on the southwestern border is the answer to the alleged immigration issue they are dead wrong - emphasis on dead. Here are three opinions blogged on Facebook (including my own) about the wall, taxing goods coming into the country, taxing companies that send businesses/jobs to Mexico and what the ramifications of doing these things will be.

One more thing: To add to the chaos of American foreign policy vis a vis Mexico is the fact that Trump this weekend will speak with Putin, his beloved. It is rumored that the sanctions against Russia that Obama reimposed for hacking and other things will be removed or relieved improving the Russian economy leaving Russia the freedom, with Trump looking the other way, to move into at least the Ukraine and the Baltic states embracing a return or at least the beginning of a return to the old Soviet empire. As one American ambassador put it: Trump is moving the world to a "war footing!" Is it too fear-mongering to say Poland, Hungary, Romania, et als beware? Back to the wall:

Larry Brancato We are the ones going to pay for it [the wall], but Trump supporters are to stupid to see it, if he puts a 20% tax on imports we will be paying more for everything from Avacados, to kiwi, from strawberries to tomatoes, from machinery to medical equipment. The tubing my mother uses for her breathing machine come from Mexico. And the workers making products for export to Mexico will also get the shaft, because Mexico will tax imports. So while Trump says their paying for it in the end the American voter will be paying for it [and a trade war will begin.]


Natalie Rosen You are 100% CORRECT, Larry. Mexico will NOT pay for the wall. That is the issue or one of them in addition to the fact that if the Mexican economy is screwed by our action their economy just coming back from the doldrums will again be propelled into an economic downturn. So it means that Mexicans will again be desperate for jobs. Illegal immigration has already been curtailed by a Mexican economy that is improving. IF the US ruins that then it will jet propel more "undocumented" workers coming into this country and this gd wall that people think will work so swimmingly to keep them out WON'T! Life finds a way. This is a CRACKPOT "solution" by a CRACKPOT president to a NON problem that an immigration bill from Congress would fix but as usual Republicans care nothing about doing that or care nothing about anything that helps those in need period but they love their government health care/retirement options, love their government paychecks, and love all their billionaire lobbyists that fill their coffers with millions.

At the heart of Romney's con is tribalism pure and simple. The nationalists want to keep America white and not brown. In every way the American consumer is going to get the shaft! Trump is less than smart, understands nothing or just plain does not care and refuses to read and learn. He is an amoral man who has zero empathy or even curiosity as to what his policies will mean. It means a trade war will begin as Mexico will increase their tax on imports. Our once friendly neighbor to the south will NOT be so friendly and they will find other countries like Nicaragua, China or even Cuba from which to buy and sell their goods. America is NOT indispensable. Joy Reid said it best. It's NOT the Mexican worker that is the problem for the American worker it is and will be AUTOMATION and ROBOTICS that will kill American jobs!

NOT ANYMORE

  I wrote this last week and for the most part sat on it because I did not want my writing to imply anything against Israel. As stated agai...