For those who don't have time to read my entire rant, here is the abstract version:
Abstract (sort of):
crazy news every day, today just got crazier. The shell corporation that Trump's private attorney set up to use as a slush fund to 'fix' problems like paying off a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged affair 10 days before the election, also received millions of dollars from corporations like ATT, who payed for 'insight' into the Trump Whitehouse. Oh, and there is money from companies tied to Russian Oligarchs close to Putin. Surprise, surprise. Follow the money. And, Donald Trump, with Iraq war hawk and advocate of war with Iran, John Bolton, as his national security advisor, has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. This, despite the fact our own government said Iran has not violated the deal, that the deal prevents Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, our allies all begged us to stay in the deal, the deal took years of diplomacy to create, and that our promised sanctions will hit our allies and business partners. Not to mention Trump is going against the majority of expert advice and gambling with the possibility of a terrible war or adding fuel to a new nuclear arms race which is already underway. And what is crazy, is that these news stories are just examples of the corrupt, inept, and uninformed actions that this administration makes on a daily basis.
As you probably know, my urge when I hear interesting news is to want to tell others about it. As I have not had nearly enough time lately, to catch up on my 'to do' lists, my 'interesting recent news' blog has remained unwritten. For months, what I have been doing, multiple times a week, is jotting down notes about news that is so crazy I must make sure to include it in my next blog.
There are so many stories, which, under a normal administration would be huge scandals, that get forgotten about because the very next day there is something else just as crazy. Under every president, scandals spill out, embarrassments occur, mistakes are made. But now these things happen so routinely it is more like the Niagara Falls than the occasional spill.
But today, May 8, 2018, the news stood out even in this nonstop crazy news environment. So much so, that I felt the need to write about it. I will do my best to ignore my ongoing list of crazy stories, and just focus on the news of the day. Of course Trump pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran is the one with the most serious ramifications. I will take this on second. First, it is worth talking about today's news regarding Trump's legal problems. I think there are a thousand more important stories, like what is happening to the government behind the scenes. But this is also very important news and it all came together today in a way that is stranger than fiction - or at least fiction anyone would think is at all realistic.
First I gotta say that I think most of the discussion about the Russia investigation(s), that I hear, miss the most important point. I hear people who support the probe trying to argue why it looks like Trump probably did things illegal or at least sketchy. Those against the probe, argue why Trump obviously is innocent of any wrongdoing and therefor the investigation is nothing but a political witch hunt. The investigation(s) have been under constant attack from Trump and his supporters in Congress, Fox News, etc. Fact is, with regards to the legitimacy of the investigation(s) it does not matter if Trump is innocent or not. That is the purpose of the investigation - to find out the truth of what happened. Innocent people should not worry - especially if they tell the truth. There was not enough evidence to charge the Clintons with a crime in the Whitewater investigation - but Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about an extra marital affair. Yes, during big investigations, other crimes previously committed or committed during the investigation, might also get people in trouble. One reason to not commit crimes and/or not to surround yourself with people who have. Trump hired Michael Flynn even though his administration knew he was under investigation by a top espionage lawyer! And surprise, surprise, much of the sketchy stuff he did involved... Russians.
But as to the question as to whether or not the investigation into Russian involvement with the election and possible cooperation with the Trump campaign is a legitimate investigation has nothing to do with Trumps innocence. If there is a enough fishy things going on, then an investigation is necessary to figure out what actually happened. What we did know is that many Russians met with many people connected with the Trump campaign, even more in the campaign knew about these meetings, and many of Trump's team lied about the meetings and took steps to cover them up, interest in back channels for communication with Russia outside the purview of US intelligence was expressed, etc, etc. Point is, there was certainly enough of a fishy smell to justify an investigation. No presumption of guilt. It is very likely the Russians were trying to take advantage of the Trump campaign since many were very inexperienced and easy targets for manipulation (or had past shady business relationships with Russians). The governments of four countries actually were exposed for discussing Jared Kushner for this very reason - he was inexperienced and his family business had financial troubles. Jared actually met with reps from countries like China, without the State Department support, and even, at times, by himself. All this without mixing personal business with official business? Isn't that what the whole drain the swamp slogan was supposed to be about? Jared, even though he had no political or foreign policy experience, was put in charge of: the opioid crisis; Middle East peace; relations with Mexico, China, and two dozen other counties; reforming health care for Veterans, the criminal justice system, and even the entire government to make it run like a business. He did all these jobs, and had access to the President's daily briefings, even though he could not get a security clearance. I digress, but it is worth noting that Trump called for Hillary to be locked up over her handling of classified information and made it a campaign rallying cry - and then it turns out his White House was full of people who had access to classified documents without security clearances! These and other stories only break because of journalists who break the stories - this is why a free press is important and why Trump hates it so much!
So, there was certainly enough questions to warrant an investigation into the connection between Russia and the Trump campaign. I wish everyone would just stop talking about it and let it run its course! When you find lots of people flying around on brooms and then denying it, a witch hunt is understandable.
But today, the news got crazy, from an unexpected angle. Stormy Daniels' attorney dropped a bomb on the news today. An executive summary that ties together many threads of Trumps' legal woes. The shifting story of how the porn star was paid to keep quiet has been in the news of late, thanks in large part to Rudy Gullianni. We knew that the money was funneled through Trump's lawyer via a shell LLC. Until today, we knew that this LLC - which Trump's lawyer - Michael Cohen - set up just before the election - has been used for two things. One, to pay a porn star to not tell her story about sex with Trump, and two, to pay a Playboy model not to tell about her affair with some other rich guy who happens to be friends with Trump. (Trump's friend payed 10 times more!). Interestingly, Michael Cohen represented the two men, while the same lawyer represented both women. Seems the lawyers were working together to facilitate such payments. Now, today, we learn that not only was that shell LLC used to pay off porn stars, it was used to funnel millions of dollars from corporations with big business in front of the government like AT&T as well as a company linked to a Russian Oligarch close to Putin. AT&T said the money was payed to gain 'insight' into the Trump Administration, while a senior official of the drug giant Novartis, said they payed for a promise of 'access to the White House". Hey, maybe there is no 'there there' but saying this smells fishy is an understatement. Big question now - since Cohen is said to be Trump's 'fixer' - and since this LLC was the fund set up to fix things, where did the millions of dollars go? And of course, how was this all reported? Reminds me of when Trump used money from his nonprofit to settle a quarter of a million dollars of legal fees for his for profit business. Did he use AT&T's money to pay Stormy? Classic if he did not even need to spend his own money. And of course, maybe this is all Michael Cohen, trying to get his slice of the swamp while he could. Trump may not have known a thing. Cohen is also involved in lots of other shady business from flipping homes for crazy profit to deals with... people tied to Russia. So, let the witch hunt take its course. Very likely most people on Trump's team were just dumb and never intended to break any laws. Not so sure about Cohen. Time will tell. Interestingly, it turns out Muller has known about all this since November and the companies that gave Cohen the money have been cooperating with him. We knew the judge would have had to see very good evidence of crimes to allow the search warrant on Cohen's office, so it is of no surprise Muller knew.
One thing that the news of Cohen's LLC is another in a LONG list of examples of how what Trump says, is actually a caricature of the absolute opposite of what the truth really is. One of Trump's main slogans was "Drain the Swamp." Come on! Never has an administration been more full of people out to enrich themselves and their friends by taking advantage of their government positions. How many scandals have their been where Trump appointees have been caught taking private jets, going on international trips organized by lobbyists, buying extravagant furniture, etc etc. It is one of the defining characteristics of this administration in fact. Trump set the bar. Ivanka, Jared, Ben Carson, Tom Price, Steven Mnuchin, this list goes on of people acting extremely swampy. And not only are they taking advantage of their positions, they are destroying the very agencies they are working at. And this was the goal! This is the behind the scenes stuff that is scary - industry lobbyists and insiders have been put in charge of dismantling the regulatory agencies that oversaw their industries. Scott Pruitt is the poster child for this. He has consistently violated ethical standards while doing his best to undo as much environmental protection as possible (ironically Pruitt is not only an example of a swampy politician, he is an example of a Trump appointee that can't do his job. Apparently, while he is trying to roll back regulations, legally it is not so easy and he has not been successful in following through on much yet. ) This is a man who does not believe there is evidence for evolution and that we have a god given duty to use nature's resources (even if we destroy life as we know it as we do).
I digress again.
So Iran.
We know Trump does not care for policy details, advice from experts, or international opinion. He acts on gut instinct. Uninformed gut instinct. His instinct is to be a bully, to frame everything as if it is about him, to tear down others in mean ways, even when he has something to be proud of, he frames it by saying how other presidents did terrible jobs. When holding a campaign rally for a Republican running for congress, he talked entirely about himself, put down over a dozen people including Schwarzenegger for low ratings, called Maxine Waters a low IQ individual, and when boasting about his possible meeting with Kim Jung-Un, he criticized Obama, Bush, and Clinton in harsh terms to make the point he is doing something they did not. In fact just as North Korea is set to release three detainees as a good will gesture leading to the meeting with Trump, Trump had to criticize Obama, via twitter, for failing to get the three people released, even though two of them were captured after Trump was president so Obama could not have gotten them released! His gut instinct is great when it comes to knowing what to say to stoke fear and anger in people, to identify 'enemies' he can protect us from, or to inspire economic hope for people who are barely making it. His gut instinct had him calling for an end to DACA, to build a wall, to pull out of Paris, to characterize legal immigrants of color as criminals and to use one brown immigrant who committed a crime as an excuse to call to the end of the type of immigration that allowed that person to come to the US, and at the same time, defending white men in his own cabinet who do commit crimes by saying the are good people and to try and be balanced when talking about violence committed by mobs of white supremacists by saying 'there are good people on both sides'. His gut instinct led him to claim Obama was not born in the United States, to take a full page ad calling for the death penalty for the Central Park five - and even still insisting they were guilty after DNA evidence and a confession proved them innocent. His gut instinct has him praising brutal rulers like Duterte for controlling crime by killing drug dealers and to claim he was going to revive the coal industry (sorry, the coal industry is in decline due to market forces, there is no saving it. It is declining faster under Trump than Obama, despite the deregulation. In fact, renewables are creating jobs way faster, actually 12 times faster than the rest of the economy, maybe if Trump wasn't such a terrible businessman, he would have known that and would not insist that renewables are bad investment. If one argues that he is a good businessman, then he must have known he was lying when he promised to bring it coal back. His gut instinct has led him to make over 3,000 untrue statements since taking office. I think it is very likely he actually believes what he says, which means he is not actually lying. Dumb or lying, take your pick. Or both.
Besides his gut, Trump does turn to one place for foreign policy advice - Fox News. Once when interviewed on Fox, he was asked who he goes to for foreign policy advice. Trump could not name anyone. When pressed, he finally said he likes watching Fox News - he likes the generals they have on - then finally, the name he came up with, was John Bolton. And this is now a scary reality. John Bolton is one of the craziest neoconservative hawks out there. He was so crazy, Bush had to make him a recess appointment to the UN because he knew a Republican congress would not confirm him to that job! Now he is advising Trump and he has publicly pushed for war with Iran and North Korea. Trump pulling out of Iran is another example of him following through on a campaign promise to undo what Obama did. This was great campaign material. The Iran deal! The worst deal ever! I can do better! Just like he said about Obamacare. He promised better coverage, for more people, for less money. Then when he tried to come up with a replacement for Obama care, he said, ''Nobody knew health care could be so complicated". Duh! In fact Trump, you were one of the only ones who did not know that! That is why it took years of bipartisan wrangling (yes, republicans had hundreds of amendments added to Obamacare) and why Trump and a Republican controlled house and Senate could not come close to replacing it with anything close to 'better, cheaper, for more people'. Not even close.
So that was the health of Americans. Now we are talking a new nuclear arms race and possible war with Iran. The Iran deal was working according to the global experts and as part of it, Iran recommitted to the non-proliferation agreement and agreed to never obtain nuclear weapons. This was a deal that was the result of years of diplomacy and worked out with many countries - France, Germany, Great Britain, China, Russia, and Iran. Our allies begged us to stay in the deal. Trump says Iran will want to deal with him. Well it is true, that he has the power of the US to bargain with - both the might of the US military to back up his threats, and the influence of the US on the global economy to use as a carrot. But Iran is not North Korea. He might sway Kim Jung-un with threats and carrots, and Kim Jung-Un might just want nothing more than to be the leader who ended the Korean War and stepped onto the world stage as a legitimate leader, no-one knows. But Iran has a complex government. The government there teeters between moderates who want to work with the West, and hardliners who are not all that unlike Trump. Actions like this, can easily tip the scales to give the hardliners power in the country.
Trump is promising the toughest sanctions against Iran. Problem is, we don't do much business with Iran. But our allies do, and for them to stay in the deal which they helped negotiate, they would need to continue doing business with Iran to keep their end of the bargain. Remember, Iran has been keeping up their end, according to our own government. Our sanctions against our allies could actually force everyone else out of the deal, just because we want out, effectively destroying the deal completely. Regardless, Trump is acting on his gut instinct, betting that Iran will do what he wants. Sure, the maximum pressure on North Korea might have helped. A school yard bully does often get what he wants. The mob often got what they wanted. But Trump is not always right. Obama, turns out, was born in the US, the central park five were innocent, Trump had to declare bankruptcy five times because he made losing business bets. He has said he is the only one that matters. He is the one who makes the calls. He believes his knows best. He actually thinks he can do the job of President pretty much on his own. The Republicans, for the most part, are actually going along with him - to the point of helping him smear the FBI with blatantly false accusations (ironically Nunez did this by doing the very thing he falsely blamed the FBI of doing, cherry picking evidence to purposely deceive people.) Would you ever have imagined that the 'law and order party' would be referring to the FBI as nazi storm troopers because they served out a warrant signed off on by a conservative judge. Trump is stepping into very dangerous territory here with Iran as John Bolton whispers in his ear. And the Republican enablers of Trump are also responsible.
I feel like what I have had time to write is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my case against Trump and his administration. I know that being against something is easy and not necessarily productive. I wish I could just write about good news - the incredible things people are doing around the world to make it a more peaceful, tolerant, and sustainable world for us. But the truth is, paying attention and calling out the terrible things our government does is also important and sustainability efforts of environmentalists won't do much good if we go to war with Iran.
Meanwhile, the First Lady is making cyber bullying her issue. How ironic is that! Is there a bigger cyber bully than Trump??
Abstract (sort of):
crazy news every day, today just got crazier. The shell corporation that Trump's private attorney set up to use as a slush fund to 'fix' problems like paying off a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged affair 10 days before the election, also received millions of dollars from corporations like ATT, who payed for 'insight' into the Trump Whitehouse. Oh, and there is money from companies tied to Russian Oligarchs close to Putin. Surprise, surprise. Follow the money. And, Donald Trump, with Iraq war hawk and advocate of war with Iran, John Bolton, as his national security advisor, has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. This, despite the fact our own government said Iran has not violated the deal, that the deal prevents Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, our allies all begged us to stay in the deal, the deal took years of diplomacy to create, and that our promised sanctions will hit our allies and business partners. Not to mention Trump is going against the majority of expert advice and gambling with the possibility of a terrible war or adding fuel to a new nuclear arms race which is already underway. And what is crazy, is that these news stories are just examples of the corrupt, inept, and uninformed actions that this administration makes on a daily basis.
As you probably know, my urge when I hear interesting news is to want to tell others about it. As I have not had nearly enough time lately, to catch up on my 'to do' lists, my 'interesting recent news' blog has remained unwritten. For months, what I have been doing, multiple times a week, is jotting down notes about news that is so crazy I must make sure to include it in my next blog.
There are so many stories, which, under a normal administration would be huge scandals, that get forgotten about because the very next day there is something else just as crazy. Under every president, scandals spill out, embarrassments occur, mistakes are made. But now these things happen so routinely it is more like the Niagara Falls than the occasional spill.
But today, May 8, 2018, the news stood out even in this nonstop crazy news environment. So much so, that I felt the need to write about it. I will do my best to ignore my ongoing list of crazy stories, and just focus on the news of the day. Of course Trump pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran is the one with the most serious ramifications. I will take this on second. First, it is worth talking about today's news regarding Trump's legal problems. I think there are a thousand more important stories, like what is happening to the government behind the scenes. But this is also very important news and it all came together today in a way that is stranger than fiction - or at least fiction anyone would think is at all realistic.
First I gotta say that I think most of the discussion about the Russia investigation(s), that I hear, miss the most important point. I hear people who support the probe trying to argue why it looks like Trump probably did things illegal or at least sketchy. Those against the probe, argue why Trump obviously is innocent of any wrongdoing and therefor the investigation is nothing but a political witch hunt. The investigation(s) have been under constant attack from Trump and his supporters in Congress, Fox News, etc. Fact is, with regards to the legitimacy of the investigation(s) it does not matter if Trump is innocent or not. That is the purpose of the investigation - to find out the truth of what happened. Innocent people should not worry - especially if they tell the truth. There was not enough evidence to charge the Clintons with a crime in the Whitewater investigation - but Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about an extra marital affair. Yes, during big investigations, other crimes previously committed or committed during the investigation, might also get people in trouble. One reason to not commit crimes and/or not to surround yourself with people who have. Trump hired Michael Flynn even though his administration knew he was under investigation by a top espionage lawyer! And surprise, surprise, much of the sketchy stuff he did involved... Russians.
But as to the question as to whether or not the investigation into Russian involvement with the election and possible cooperation with the Trump campaign is a legitimate investigation has nothing to do with Trumps innocence. If there is a enough fishy things going on, then an investigation is necessary to figure out what actually happened. What we did know is that many Russians met with many people connected with the Trump campaign, even more in the campaign knew about these meetings, and many of Trump's team lied about the meetings and took steps to cover them up, interest in back channels for communication with Russia outside the purview of US intelligence was expressed, etc, etc. Point is, there was certainly enough of a fishy smell to justify an investigation. No presumption of guilt. It is very likely the Russians were trying to take advantage of the Trump campaign since many were very inexperienced and easy targets for manipulation (or had past shady business relationships with Russians). The governments of four countries actually were exposed for discussing Jared Kushner for this very reason - he was inexperienced and his family business had financial troubles. Jared actually met with reps from countries like China, without the State Department support, and even, at times, by himself. All this without mixing personal business with official business? Isn't that what the whole drain the swamp slogan was supposed to be about? Jared, even though he had no political or foreign policy experience, was put in charge of: the opioid crisis; Middle East peace; relations with Mexico, China, and two dozen other counties; reforming health care for Veterans, the criminal justice system, and even the entire government to make it run like a business. He did all these jobs, and had access to the President's daily briefings, even though he could not get a security clearance. I digress, but it is worth noting that Trump called for Hillary to be locked up over her handling of classified information and made it a campaign rallying cry - and then it turns out his White House was full of people who had access to classified documents without security clearances! These and other stories only break because of journalists who break the stories - this is why a free press is important and why Trump hates it so much!
So, there was certainly enough questions to warrant an investigation into the connection between Russia and the Trump campaign. I wish everyone would just stop talking about it and let it run its course! When you find lots of people flying around on brooms and then denying it, a witch hunt is understandable.
But today, the news got crazy, from an unexpected angle. Stormy Daniels' attorney dropped a bomb on the news today. An executive summary that ties together many threads of Trumps' legal woes. The shifting story of how the porn star was paid to keep quiet has been in the news of late, thanks in large part to Rudy Gullianni. We knew that the money was funneled through Trump's lawyer via a shell LLC. Until today, we knew that this LLC - which Trump's lawyer - Michael Cohen - set up just before the election - has been used for two things. One, to pay a porn star to not tell her story about sex with Trump, and two, to pay a Playboy model not to tell about her affair with some other rich guy who happens to be friends with Trump. (Trump's friend payed 10 times more!). Interestingly, Michael Cohen represented the two men, while the same lawyer represented both women. Seems the lawyers were working together to facilitate such payments. Now, today, we learn that not only was that shell LLC used to pay off porn stars, it was used to funnel millions of dollars from corporations with big business in front of the government like AT&T as well as a company linked to a Russian Oligarch close to Putin. AT&T said the money was payed to gain 'insight' into the Trump Administration, while a senior official of the drug giant Novartis, said they payed for a promise of 'access to the White House". Hey, maybe there is no 'there there' but saying this smells fishy is an understatement. Big question now - since Cohen is said to be Trump's 'fixer' - and since this LLC was the fund set up to fix things, where did the millions of dollars go? And of course, how was this all reported? Reminds me of when Trump used money from his nonprofit to settle a quarter of a million dollars of legal fees for his for profit business. Did he use AT&T's money to pay Stormy? Classic if he did not even need to spend his own money. And of course, maybe this is all Michael Cohen, trying to get his slice of the swamp while he could. Trump may not have known a thing. Cohen is also involved in lots of other shady business from flipping homes for crazy profit to deals with... people tied to Russia. So, let the witch hunt take its course. Very likely most people on Trump's team were just dumb and never intended to break any laws. Not so sure about Cohen. Time will tell. Interestingly, it turns out Muller has known about all this since November and the companies that gave Cohen the money have been cooperating with him. We knew the judge would have had to see very good evidence of crimes to allow the search warrant on Cohen's office, so it is of no surprise Muller knew.
One thing that the news of Cohen's LLC is another in a LONG list of examples of how what Trump says, is actually a caricature of the absolute opposite of what the truth really is. One of Trump's main slogans was "Drain the Swamp." Come on! Never has an administration been more full of people out to enrich themselves and their friends by taking advantage of their government positions. How many scandals have their been where Trump appointees have been caught taking private jets, going on international trips organized by lobbyists, buying extravagant furniture, etc etc. It is one of the defining characteristics of this administration in fact. Trump set the bar. Ivanka, Jared, Ben Carson, Tom Price, Steven Mnuchin, this list goes on of people acting extremely swampy. And not only are they taking advantage of their positions, they are destroying the very agencies they are working at. And this was the goal! This is the behind the scenes stuff that is scary - industry lobbyists and insiders have been put in charge of dismantling the regulatory agencies that oversaw their industries. Scott Pruitt is the poster child for this. He has consistently violated ethical standards while doing his best to undo as much environmental protection as possible (ironically Pruitt is not only an example of a swampy politician, he is an example of a Trump appointee that can't do his job. Apparently, while he is trying to roll back regulations, legally it is not so easy and he has not been successful in following through on much yet. ) This is a man who does not believe there is evidence for evolution and that we have a god given duty to use nature's resources (even if we destroy life as we know it as we do).
I digress again.
So Iran.
We know Trump does not care for policy details, advice from experts, or international opinion. He acts on gut instinct. Uninformed gut instinct. His instinct is to be a bully, to frame everything as if it is about him, to tear down others in mean ways, even when he has something to be proud of, he frames it by saying how other presidents did terrible jobs. When holding a campaign rally for a Republican running for congress, he talked entirely about himself, put down over a dozen people including Schwarzenegger for low ratings, called Maxine Waters a low IQ individual, and when boasting about his possible meeting with Kim Jung-Un, he criticized Obama, Bush, and Clinton in harsh terms to make the point he is doing something they did not. In fact just as North Korea is set to release three detainees as a good will gesture leading to the meeting with Trump, Trump had to criticize Obama, via twitter, for failing to get the three people released, even though two of them were captured after Trump was president so Obama could not have gotten them released! His gut instinct is great when it comes to knowing what to say to stoke fear and anger in people, to identify 'enemies' he can protect us from, or to inspire economic hope for people who are barely making it. His gut instinct had him calling for an end to DACA, to build a wall, to pull out of Paris, to characterize legal immigrants of color as criminals and to use one brown immigrant who committed a crime as an excuse to call to the end of the type of immigration that allowed that person to come to the US, and at the same time, defending white men in his own cabinet who do commit crimes by saying the are good people and to try and be balanced when talking about violence committed by mobs of white supremacists by saying 'there are good people on both sides'. His gut instinct led him to claim Obama was not born in the United States, to take a full page ad calling for the death penalty for the Central Park five - and even still insisting they were guilty after DNA evidence and a confession proved them innocent. His gut instinct has him praising brutal rulers like Duterte for controlling crime by killing drug dealers and to claim he was going to revive the coal industry (sorry, the coal industry is in decline due to market forces, there is no saving it. It is declining faster under Trump than Obama, despite the deregulation. In fact, renewables are creating jobs way faster, actually 12 times faster than the rest of the economy, maybe if Trump wasn't such a terrible businessman, he would have known that and would not insist that renewables are bad investment. If one argues that he is a good businessman, then he must have known he was lying when he promised to bring it coal back. His gut instinct has led him to make over 3,000 untrue statements since taking office. I think it is very likely he actually believes what he says, which means he is not actually lying. Dumb or lying, take your pick. Or both.
Besides his gut, Trump does turn to one place for foreign policy advice - Fox News. Once when interviewed on Fox, he was asked who he goes to for foreign policy advice. Trump could not name anyone. When pressed, he finally said he likes watching Fox News - he likes the generals they have on - then finally, the name he came up with, was John Bolton. And this is now a scary reality. John Bolton is one of the craziest neoconservative hawks out there. He was so crazy, Bush had to make him a recess appointment to the UN because he knew a Republican congress would not confirm him to that job! Now he is advising Trump and he has publicly pushed for war with Iran and North Korea. Trump pulling out of Iran is another example of him following through on a campaign promise to undo what Obama did. This was great campaign material. The Iran deal! The worst deal ever! I can do better! Just like he said about Obamacare. He promised better coverage, for more people, for less money. Then when he tried to come up with a replacement for Obama care, he said, ''Nobody knew health care could be so complicated". Duh! In fact Trump, you were one of the only ones who did not know that! That is why it took years of bipartisan wrangling (yes, republicans had hundreds of amendments added to Obamacare) and why Trump and a Republican controlled house and Senate could not come close to replacing it with anything close to 'better, cheaper, for more people'. Not even close.
So that was the health of Americans. Now we are talking a new nuclear arms race and possible war with Iran. The Iran deal was working according to the global experts and as part of it, Iran recommitted to the non-proliferation agreement and agreed to never obtain nuclear weapons. This was a deal that was the result of years of diplomacy and worked out with many countries - France, Germany, Great Britain, China, Russia, and Iran. Our allies begged us to stay in the deal. Trump says Iran will want to deal with him. Well it is true, that he has the power of the US to bargain with - both the might of the US military to back up his threats, and the influence of the US on the global economy to use as a carrot. But Iran is not North Korea. He might sway Kim Jung-un with threats and carrots, and Kim Jung-Un might just want nothing more than to be the leader who ended the Korean War and stepped onto the world stage as a legitimate leader, no-one knows. But Iran has a complex government. The government there teeters between moderates who want to work with the West, and hardliners who are not all that unlike Trump. Actions like this, can easily tip the scales to give the hardliners power in the country.
Trump is promising the toughest sanctions against Iran. Problem is, we don't do much business with Iran. But our allies do, and for them to stay in the deal which they helped negotiate, they would need to continue doing business with Iran to keep their end of the bargain. Remember, Iran has been keeping up their end, according to our own government. Our sanctions against our allies could actually force everyone else out of the deal, just because we want out, effectively destroying the deal completely. Regardless, Trump is acting on his gut instinct, betting that Iran will do what he wants. Sure, the maximum pressure on North Korea might have helped. A school yard bully does often get what he wants. The mob often got what they wanted. But Trump is not always right. Obama, turns out, was born in the US, the central park five were innocent, Trump had to declare bankruptcy five times because he made losing business bets. He has said he is the only one that matters. He is the one who makes the calls. He believes his knows best. He actually thinks he can do the job of President pretty much on his own. The Republicans, for the most part, are actually going along with him - to the point of helping him smear the FBI with blatantly false accusations (ironically Nunez did this by doing the very thing he falsely blamed the FBI of doing, cherry picking evidence to purposely deceive people.) Would you ever have imagined that the 'law and order party' would be referring to the FBI as nazi storm troopers because they served out a warrant signed off on by a conservative judge. Trump is stepping into very dangerous territory here with Iran as John Bolton whispers in his ear. And the Republican enablers of Trump are also responsible.
I feel like what I have had time to write is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my case against Trump and his administration. I know that being against something is easy and not necessarily productive. I wish I could just write about good news - the incredible things people are doing around the world to make it a more peaceful, tolerant, and sustainable world for us. But the truth is, paying attention and calling out the terrible things our government does is also important and sustainability efforts of environmentalists won't do much good if we go to war with Iran.
Meanwhile, the First Lady is making cyber bullying her issue. How ironic is that! Is there a bigger cyber bully than Trump??
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