22 V 2018: Must speak the Trump’s English; “Is that going to be on the quiz?”

I read that two U.S. citizens were detained for about 40 minutes by a border guard who became suspicious of them because they were speaking Spanish in Montana. I do not like to think how long the border guards might detain citizens whom they hear speaking any language that sound like Arabic. Indeed, eventually anyone who does not speak ungrammatical English using a Trumpesque lexicon will be viewed as a threat to homeland security.

I also read that Trump’s shysters are trying to find out what questions the Special Prosecutor might ask Deceitful Donald and to limit the range of these questions. This reminds me of students who, as the date of a scheduled quiz approaches, keep asking the teacher “Is that going to be on the quiz?” I always answered this question by saying “Yes,” no matter what the topic, and I hope Mr. Mueller will do the same thing.

21 V 2018: Misc

1) Trump: What a discourteous little shit! It seems he can do nothing without disparaging someone from the previous administration. If this should require lies and falsifications, well, that’s where Tweety Boy excels, if not in the sophistication of his deceits, at list in their number.

2) U.S. and Israel: What can I say? Two rogue states that share the motto: “If you want it, take it.”

3) It is said that a monkey with a typewriter, given enough time, could type out all the world’s classics. Well, monkeys with guns, given enough time, will commit mass shootings and worse.

4) I think that the Trump “base” and Trump’s election should be blamed ultimately on America’s pathetic schools. Many lament the dumbing down of public education in recent years. For nowadays most adults can barely read, cannot write, and can speak and understand only an adolescent dialect, like Mr. Trump. But this decay is only the most recent of the failures of public education. We see that the members of the Trump base, even the much talked of “male college graduates,” have not been taught, or have not been motivated to THINK, an activity that a democratic society must require of its citizens if they are to vote responsibly.

10 V 2018: Enthusiasm for torture

The process of confirmation of Gina Haspel has re-opened the issue of the use of torture by the government of the United States. We failed to deal severely with this issue back when John Yoo, now a professor of law at Berkeley, and Jay S. Bybee, now a judge in the federal appellate court, were cooking up the so-called “Torture Memos.” 9/11 made the people of America pee in their pants and surrender their rights, morals, and dignity to those who claimed they could keep us safe. We were and ought to be ashamed of ourselves. But what we have now? An antinomian president who is a torture booster, with some of the old crew of torture-enthusiasts to cheer him on. Nomination of a veteran of the torture era to the directorship of the C.I.A. has summoned up a number of demons from Hell. That amoral ghoul, Dick Cheney, has appeared singing again his old “hurt ’em bad” song by way of claiming yet again that he was right all along. And Lt. General Thomas McInerny, making his pitch for torture on the Fox Channel, uttered some gratuitous insults against Senator John McCain for which the General deserves to be horse-whipped.

I will repeat now what I said back in 2002-2003, aged advocates of torture ought to volunteer themselves as laboratory subjects for the development and refinement of torture techniques.

9 V 2018: “Israel expels Human Rights Watch official”

This was the header of a brief notice in today’s paper. The state of Israel has given Human Rights Watch’s Omar Shakir two weeks to leave, claiming that he is an activist for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, a group that is trying to bring about Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories.

It is no surprise that Israel is expelling the local director of Human Rights Watch, given its record in human rights. Israel may have started as one of those “tolerably repressive” regimes that Jeane Kirkpatrick used to talk about, but it has long ago ceased to be tolerable. Israel has become a garrison state, with a vast nuclear-equipped military complex that has been funded by the U.S.A. as its principal military base in the Mediterranean. Israel has been allowed to treat the Palestinians much as the U.S. treated the native American populations, driving them out, expropriating the good land, and crowding those who remain of the former inhabitants into reservations, denying them all political and civil rights.

American is to Israel as the U.S.S.R. was to communist regimes in Eastern Europe that could not have crushed their people and built up their military without Soviet aid and protection. The U.S. pretends to be even handed in its dealings with the Middle East. But who is so gullible as to believe that, given America’s funding of Israel, its blind tolerance of Israeli repression and colonizing? Who also is so gullible as to believe America’s assertion of the inviolability of human rights, when we turn a blind eye to Israel’s outrages, and support the State of Israel however heinous its behavior.

7 V 2018: Oliver North, Now and Then

The NRA has announced that Lt. Col. Oliver North, U.S. Army Ret., will be its new president. I read this online:

“This is the most exciting news for our members since Charlton Heston became president of our association,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said. “Oliver North is a legendary warrior for American freedom, a gifted communicator and skilled leader. In these times, I can think of no one better suited to serve as our president.”

So, “a legendary warrior for American freedom.” You can read of Col. North’s slightly distinguished military career in a Wikipedia article. I rather think what Mr. LaPierre means by “legendary warrior for American freedom” is that North lied to Congress, has had a long career on the extreme-right vaudeville circuit, and worked for Fox News, among other gigs hosting a show called “War Stories with Oliver North.” A more correct description of Col. North might be “has-been bull-shitter for right wing causes.”

I remember Col. North’s appearances before Congress’ Irangate hearings, back when he was running guns to our Iranian friends. In his testimony, when he was not issuing challenges to ordeal by combat, he spun so many impossible yarns that Senator Daniel Inouye was overheard saying of North “This guy is Joe Isuzu,” the comedic compulsive liar featured then in Isuzu television commercials. We must not dismiss this as a narrowly partisan evaluation, for the real leader of the Republican Party at the time, Mrs. Nancy Reagan, is quoted as having observed “Ollie North has a great deal of trouble separating fact from fantasy.”

I am not at all surprised that North is to be president of the NRA. He is for many an anti-factual figure of manufactured legend and lore, and he will bring more energy to the job than Charlton Heston who always seemed more dead than alive. What does surprise me is that such a glib liar and t.v. show patriot was not recruited early on into the Trump Administration where he would be such a good fit.

6 V 2018: Misc.

1) I read that Trump plans to appoint Dr. Oz to the Presidential Council on Sport, Fitness, and Nutrition. Dr. Oz will be a perfect fit in the Presidents circle of friends. The Trump crew prefers its own pseudo-science to any authentic science, and Dr. Oz is one of the principal purveyors of pseudo-science in America today. Some have called Dr. Oz’s credentials and ethics into question, but most members of Trump’s “Evangelical Advisory Board,” mega-churchers, TV spielers, preachers of the gospel of prosperity, gay-baiters, seem to be short on credentials and ethics also. Dr. Oz is a creature of the bogus world of television and that gives him a lot in common with the retired reality-show host, Donald Trump.

2) The NRA did not forbid its members to “carry” at the national convention, but at least one of the convention venues forbade firearms. I saw a cartoon portrayal of this: a group of NRA members with their AK47s standing in front of a building bearing a sign “No Guns.” The way the excluded NRAers stood there cradling their weapons made me think of little children who have just been told they cannot bring their favorite toys to a party.

3) President Trump addressed the NRA convention. Satan addressing the other fallen angels had not so great a rapport with his audience as did Trump at the NRA.

5 V 2018: Newt Gingrich Again

I read an opinion piece by Newt Gingrich that’s being peddled by Fox News. He says Trumpy should just say “no” to that bully Muller’s questions. Trump is too busy, says Newt, to have a detailed memory of events of the first year of his presidency. Try asking Trump what his golf score has been over the last several years.

I have a good memory of Mr. Gingrich’s unremitting efforts to introduce extreme polarization and intolerance into American political life. Though he left public office under a cloud after the House voted (395 to 28) to reprimand him for an ethics violation, he has continued to pop up from time to time to display his corrosive views and personality. As I wrote in an earlier entry, I was hoping that he would fade into a life of silent repose at the Vatican with Mrs. Gingrich III. How wrong I was! The era of Trump has brought many bugs of the woodwork, Gingrich among them. Old reactionaries never fade away.

3 V 2018: Misc.

1) Now we learn that Mr. Emmett Flood had been on Bill Clinton’s legal team during the impeachment crisis. So he’s moving on from Slick Willy to Duplicitous Donald, after defending however many indefensibles in the intervening years.

2) CNN reports: “This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature is in jeopardy over a sex scandal.”If charges of sexual misconduct are enough to derail the prize for literature, mightn’t they have some impact on the prize for peace. The Trumpites have been heard chanting “Nobel! Nobel!” – a word not usually found in their lexicon. And some Republican members of the House who share Mr. Trump’s esteem for the truth and his skill at fooling the rubes, have written a letter urging Trump’s candidacy. The recommendation of such grave and sober legislators is bound to carry weight, though I’m certain that if I were to make a big enough contribution to their campaign funds, they would nominate me for a Nobel Prize.

3) Now Giuliani, a figure so widely respected for his sobriety and credibility, is peddling new versions of the Donald – Stormy – Michael ménage à trois. Cohen bought Stormy’s silence for $130,000 that he paid out of his monthly retainers of $35,000. Some devotion! That’s 3.7 months’ of a hardworking fixer’s pay. Oh, but Trump, who, of course, knew nothing of this payment at the time it occurred, later reimbursed Cohen for the money he had paid out of his retainer or, according to an earlier version, from his home-equity line of credit. The bond between Cohen and Trump must be a strong one, for behavior more typical of Trump would have been to stiff Cohen, and call him a sucker and loser.

2 V 2018: Sleaze and contagion

So Trump has a new mouthpiece, a man hailed as “a veteran white collar defense attorney.” Now Emmet Flood can’t have agreed to work for Trump because he needs money. I cannot even imagine the vast income of someone in his line of work, who defends the sort of people he represents. Maybe he accepted the job because of the staggering challenge of defending Trump, a client far more irresponsible and garrulous than any Flood usually represents. Will Flood succeed where all others have failed? Will he stop Trump’s mouthing off? Will he take away his Twitter account? Will he cajole Trump into concentrating on something?

Mr. Flood will have developed a strong stomach from dealing with wholly unprincipled and sleazy people in his legal practice, but he is sure to be retching for the first few days of his service in the Trump Gang. He will be nauseated, but he will be lucky if that is all the sickness he suffers. Mendacity, contempt for law, utter selfishness, and disdain for all that is decent are diseases that are cultivated in the Trump world, and Mr. Flood will be lucky if he is not infected.

28 IV 2018: The King of Tarts

We’ve now seen what I’m sure is only the tip of the iceberg of Trump’s bought and paid for love affairs. Some Trumpites from the mega-churches assert that Trump has been born again and has been forgiven all his past sins. I cannot imagine how they know. But whatever the state of his soul, more and more evidence of Trump’s serial polygamy is coming to light and fleshing out what we already know of this weak, impulsive, and mendacious character. Forgiven or not, Trump’s fundamental character remains unchanged and renders him unfit to hold the office or President. If he truly has had a change of heart, he should follow Richard Nixon’s example and put himself where he will no longer be a danger to others.