11 II 2020: Enlightened despot?

I read an article in the NY Times Magazine of 12 January about Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates. It reports: “Foreign diplomats have occssionally confronted MBZ (sc., Mohammed bin Zayed) about his country’s lack of democracy, and he has responded by saying something along the lines of ‘This isn’t California’: Lack of education and the prevalence of backward religious attitudes make autocracy necessary, he says.”

Lack of education and prevalence of backward religious attitudes in the U.S. led to the election of Donald Trump. It may be that the U.S. has regressed to the point that democracy has become unworkable.

5 II 2020: Can’t get the smell out so easily

There was no chance of ditching Trump. I knew it. Who didn’t know it? The fix was in. The majority of the “jurors” were either terrified or bought up or didn’t understand what was going on.

I was relieved that Nancy Pelosi did not have to shake Trump’s hand at the State of the Union address. Politicians often have to hold their noses momentarily, but Trump’s aura has the stink of an open grave that clings to anyone he touches for years. 

And the address showed Trump doing what he does best. It is really hard to tell the difference between the Super Bowl half-time show and one of Trump’s performances. If he’s re-elected, maybe the two events could be combined.

26 I 2019: Marsha shoots herself in the foot

Looks like Senator Marsha Blackburn took the gun she always carries in her purse and shot herself in the foot. I refer not only to her telling lies about Lt. Col. Vindman, but also to her “bad little girl” behavior at the impeachment hearings: bolting from the hearing for a television interview, acting out by pretending to read a book during the hearings, and tweeting from the Senate chamber. I guess her background in advertising isn’t working, so she is acting out “bad little girl” in a desperate attempt to win Daddy Trump’s attention.

This trashy woman is a true representative of the current Republican Party.

21 I 2020: Starr and Dershowitz come from the Epstein Sewer

I had not realized that Ken and Alan are old comrades from the Jeffrey Epstein legal team that fixed the deal with Alex Acosta. Working for Trump is, perhaps, a move up. Ken has been very understanding of sexual offenders, and represents the murderers at Blackwater. Dershowitz has specialized in sleaze, and is currently a member of Harvey Weinstein’s legal team. As a rule criminal lawyers are not regarded with the same suspicion and/or loathing as their defendants, but I think Trump, Starr, and Dershowitz are peas from the same pod.

20 I 2020: Impeachment trial as emetic

Tomorrow the trial, but it’s not a trial, it’s a political process, blah, blah.

Tomorrow the trial begins, and I’m trying to figure out how to avoid it. I’m already disgusted. One might think we were having re-runs of the O.J. Trial. Even Alan Dershowitz has shown up again. I think Dershowitz must be the Rev. Al Sharpton of trials, appearing in the right place and time to stay in the public eye. Mr. Self-righteous Ken Starr is going to hold his nose and come out of retirement to help God’s anointed. Both want a part in the week-long soap opera extravaganza in which Trump will be the hero who controls all the others from afar. All we need is Rudy Giulliani coming out of a tiny automobile with a mob of crooked Ukrainians.

And the “jury”! For most Republicans currently in the Senate the common good is of little to no importance — their sole goal is to be re-elected. And for fear of alienating some Trump voters they have enslaved themselves to a childish vulgarian bigot. Trump and his myriad toadies make me think of Rudyard Kipling’s epitaph for a dead statesman of WWI.

I could not dig, I dared not rob,

And so I lied to please the mob.

Now all my lies are proved untrue,

And I must face the men I slew.

What tale will serve me here among

Mine angry and defrauded young?


		


	



			
				



	

		
10 I 2020:  Suggestions and a query
	


	
	

	

A. Here is a short list of people I’d prefer not to see in the news:





1) Lindsey Graham — a complete disgrace.





2) Donald Trump, Jr. — He is not news until the law finally catches up with him. 





3) Harvey Weinstein — He is revolting. Just let us know when he is sentenced.





4) Mike Pompeio — Why repeat his lies, when tomorrow there will be new lies?





5) Same goes for William Barr, a flaming hypocrite.





6) and, most of all, Rudy Giulliani — never has so little managed to go so far.





B. Query: Why does the White House so regularly screw up, as in the assassination of Suleiman? The government is revealed as wholly uncoordinated. We learn that staff of the allegedly threatened embassies know nothing about a possible attack. The Secretary of Defense had no knowledge of imminent attacks. Indeed, evidence of the imminence of an attack is unavailable except to the President’s inner circle. Given the Trump administration’s history for withholding the truth and telling downright lies, why, in the absence of any supportive evidence, should we believe what they say?

		


	



			
				



	

		
6 I 2019: Where are our friends now? Oh, who needs friends?
	


	
	

	

Whether or not Trump’s “America First” policy was intended to alienate our friends and allies does not matter, it has had that effect. He acted against the advice of the military, guided by those seasoned statesmen Mike Pompeio and Mike Pence. Pence, I guess, was able to draw on his experience of Near Eastern Indiana, and Pompeio learned a lot, I’m sure, when he was trying to destroy the CIA. I’m sure Trump did not need a lot of persuading, for if there is any wrong-headed and immature advice to be had, Trump will find and follow it. Trump’s murder of Soleimani was so stupid, so naive, so inflammatory, that even our good friends the Israelis are keeping their distance.





So now, Trump, all alone (except for P and P, and Giulliani) on the Empire State Building is pounding his chest and firing off one grave threat after another, scared shitless of Iranian retaliation. He’s even going to bomb Iran’s cultural sites, a war crime … Trump probably did not know it is a war crime, but now that he knows it surely doesn’t matter.

		


	



			
				



	

		
4 I 2020: Look! What’s that up in the sky?
	


	
	

	

Various outlets of Russian media are claiming that Trump’s impeachment is the real explanation for his murder of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Of course they are right. Trump has not gone so far as to start a war as a distraction from his impeachment, but he is well on his way.





The hit on Soleimani was an assassination, was a Pearl Harbor. Let’s not mince words. Soleimani was planning attacks on American contractors, military and diplomatic personnel. How many others in this troubled world are doing the same thing? Will Trump put out contracts on all of them and reduce our military to the status of hit-men? “The Boss wants Soleimani out of the way. Take care of it.”





Trump alleges that he was acting to protect Americans and American interests.  What’s wrong with that? He was protecting American military whom he has scattered around the Near East. He was protecting American diplomats whose installations are devoted to espionage and clandestine operations. He was protecting American contractors, the shock troops in America’s undeclared wars.





Now I must admit that the first time I heard this term “contractor” used in connection with the Near East was when several American contractors were brutally murdered by the Iraqui resistance. My first thought was: How dreadful! American contractors travel over there to supervise construction, operate heavy equipment, restore the Iraqui infrastructure, and what do they get? But then I learned that “contractor” is a camouflage word for a mercenary, a hired gun. “Contractors'” work is very dangerous — just look at the Wikipedia article “List of private contractor deaths in Iraq” — but they are paid very well for a skill that is of no value at home. These contractors are America’s “militia” in the Near East, a small proxy army. I’m sorry to hear that an American contractor was recently killed in Iraq, but contracting is a demanding job.

		


	



			
				



	

		
30 XII 2019: Unamerican tweeter activity
	


	
	

	

Today we heard again from Mr. Ken Cuccinelli who put his feet in his mouth again in a tweet (Oh, the apple does not fall far from the tree, does it?) in which he said that Grafton Thomas is not as “american” as he ought to be. Thomas is the deranged man who attacked a Hanukkah party in a rabbi’s home in N.Y. state. He is the son of a sometime illegal alien, now a U.S. citizen, whose children are all birthright citizens. But Ken attributes Thomas’ hate crime to a want of amurrican values. He wrote: “Apparently, American values did not take hold among this entire family, at least this one violent, and apparently bigoted son.” Ken might have since deleted this tweet; at least it has disappeared. Why would he delete it??? Because it made even more obvious that he is a xenophobic nutcase.





You know, the name Cuccinelli sounds more Italian than American. Ken’s great-grandfather, Dominic Cuccinelli, was an immigrant. His grandfather, Dominick, was conceived in Italy and born in the U.S. Ties to the old country remained strong, for Dominick got his cousins Mario and Silvio into the United States. Did the Cuccinelli family absorb American values? No doubt they did, but “at least this one violent, and apparently bigoted son,” their famous son, Ken, has not. His career and his atrocious behavior as part of the Trump Gang show clearly that whatever values he holds, he does not share American values.