Who Needs Civil War Statues When We Have Trump?

By Karen

Donald Trump’s only consistency is that whenever he expresses a reasonable thought, he’s compelled to flip it into something bonkers. He can’t help himself, and nobody seems able to stop him.

His flip-flops on the Charlottesville riots are the latest — perhaps most egregious — examples. In my previous post is video of his first two prepared statements. His ad lib in the first one blaming “many sides” set everyone’s hair on fire. Two days later he tried again and read mean things he clearly didn’t believe about the KKK and neo-Nazis.

Then the very next day, in a berserk press conference on infrastructure, Trump insisted the residents of Charlottesville deserved blame because they didn’t have a permit to repel racists who invaded their city with flaming torches. But then he added that “both” sides have some “fine people.”

Yeah, like those few good Mexicans who slip into the country along with the drug dealers and rapists.

The Washington Post has exposed Trump’s KKK tie by resurrecting how his father Fred was an active member who got arrested at a riot in Queens in 1927.

Trump may resent Charlottesville’s residents for picking on what he sees as his heritage. Any of those white supremacists could have been Dad.

At the end of that press conference, he flipped AGAIN on Charlottesville, bragging about owning a home there and claiming it’s the biggest winery in the United States.

Lies on both counts. The Trump Winery website has this disclaimer, where son Eric makes clear who’s the boss there…

“Trump Winery is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, which is not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their affiliates.”

And as of 2016, the winery qualified as the largest vineyard in Virginia by acreage, but it lagged far behind others statewide and nationally in wine production.

And now Trump has weighed in on the one piece he knows NOTHING about — Confederate statues. Unsurprisingly, he wants to keep them because he has no understanding whatsoever of what they signify. He conflated George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, founders of the country, with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who fought to tear it in half for the preservation of slavery.

It’s increasingly clear that the only way to stop attracting Trump’s roaches to the South is to get rid of the bait. Stonewall Jackson’s great-great-grandsons wrote a great letter about his statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond.

They live here and want the statue to go. It’s a must-read.

We could use Charlottesville to take this conversation in a new direction. Rather than dwelling on Trump’s shifty positions and motivations, we should focus on making him answerable for being a racial divider — in addition to his myriad personal conflicts of interest and destructive actions on trade, climate change, and foreign relations.

Yes, I’m talking about impeachment. It’s time to start that discussion.

PS: Richmond just caught a break. The guy who applied for a permit to rally around the Lee statue on Monument Avenue on September 16 withdrew because he doesn’t want the haters to show up.

BONUS: Seth Meyers takes a closer look. #insightful #hilarious

Trump Regretfully Renounces Bigotry

By Karen

What the beleaguered residents of Charlottesville, Virginia, didn’t need was for Donald Trump to throw shade on them as one of “many sides” guilty of violence last Saturday.

They had as much justification to turn out in force — again — to repel white supremacists from their city as Trump thinks he has to repel Mexicans with a wall.

The only difference: Mexicans come here wanting a better life. The ignorant scum that oozed across Virginia’s borders thinking they had Trump’s blessing just came to start trouble. Their faux mission — to “save” a statue of General Robert E. Lee.

On Friday night, they descended on Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia with flaming torches in lieu of burning a cross. But their big rally planned for Saturday never happened because the decent people of Charlottesville shut it down.

With pepper spray and fist fights, it got nasty. But when you fight with pigs, everybody gets dirty.

It took a deadly turn when a 20-year-old Nazi-loving coward from Ohio plowed his car into a group of residents, killing one woman and injuring 19 other people.

Virginia also senselessly lost two State Police whose helicopter crashed while they monitored the protests from above to help forces on the ground respond to the worst clashes.

In the aftermath, Trump read this speech, mollifying his base with a bored demeanor and tone that signaled he didn’t share its sentiments…

The KKK and neo-Nazi groups got what they wanted. Trump didn’t call them out by name, but implied that C’villers and even the police bore blame for how it went down.

The outrage from left and right couldn’t come fast enough, but it still took the White House two days to draft the speech Trump should have given in the first place. This time, he kept his eyes glued to the teleprompter to let his base know he was just mouthing someone else’s words, not speaking from the heart…

And what he says today, he may undo tomorrow, or in an hour, with a tweet or some crazy, fact-free statement to a reporter.

Trump said in his first try that he wants to study what happened to “see what we’re doing wrong as a country.”

Is he KIDDING? Someone, please show him the hours of rally footage where he’s been appealing to people’s bigotry all along.

Trump, you created this. You love this. You want adoring crowds saluting you with “Sieg Heil!” Admit it.

Charlottesville is only an hour away. Richmond’s turn may be next. “Americans for Richmond Monument Preservation” has applied for a permit to rally around the General Lee statue here on September 16. May the city say, “Enough’s enough,” and deny it.

Trump ran on shredding political correctness. For once, I agree with him. Let’s stop being so understanding and stomp out this ignorant, hate-filled, violent faction that aspires to live in Nazi America with Trump as their dictator.

Purveyors of chaos and destruction deserve no First Amendment rights. They need to be shut down — online, in person, wherever they skulk — or they’ll just keep on bullying and killing.

BONUS: Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe gave a speech on Saturday to show Trump what a leader sounds like…

Trump’s Gaslight Strategy Doomed to Backfire

By Karen

Did you ever see that movie, Gaslight? Charles Boyer tries to drive Ingrid Bergman mad by moving and hiding things, telling her that all her perceptions are wrong, and accusing her of losing touch with reality until she’s reduced to a basket case.

Boyer’s despicable behavior is a recognized thing called “gaslighting.” Merriam-Webster defines it as…

“To attempt to make (someone) believe that he or she is going insane (as by subjecting that person to a series of experiences that have no rational explanation).”

Donald Trump has been trying to gaslight the whole United States.

In the latest attempt, the New York Times poked the administration’s smoldering tire fire until it sparked into Donald Trump Jr.’s email chain documenting his eagerness to hear the Russian government’s dirt on Hillary Clinton — with invitations to Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort to listen in.

We’ve lost count of all the shady meetings between Trumpers and Russians we now know about, but finally there’s rock-solid proof in black and white that the Trump campaign wanted Russia’s help.

I think Junior was more stupid than evil. He doesn’t consider Russians an enemy because they’ve supported his family for years. Quoting from a story in Time magazine…

“‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,’ Trump’s son, Donald Jr., said at a real estate conference in 2008, according to a trade publication, eTurboNews.”

Trump Sr. praised Junior for his “transparency” in releasing his emails in true gaslight style, omitting Junior’s longstanding lies and denials about his Russian connections.

Now Trump calls the whole matter “fake news.”

Uh, when the evidence is written, and the guy who wrote and published it says it’s authentic, it’s called REAL news. And it doesn’t help Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

Trump probably doesn’t care if Manafort gets toasted; he quit the campaign and made millions from Russians. But Kushner faces serious jail time, and spoiled, baby-faced brats typically don’t thrive in the big house.

You know Trump never read the emails himself nor, if he had, grasped how damning they are. He mistakenly believed if Junior tossed them out there with a defiant, “Now what are you going to do about it?” they would sink into oblivion because Junior doesn’t work in government and he can play with whomever he likes.

But Junior’s role in dad’s campaign may make them something criminal. Lawyers will figure that out.

So, trying to gaslight every U.S. intelligence agency, Trump now claims that Putin really wanted Hillary to win because she’d weaken the military. He doesn’t try to make even a little bit of sense anymore.

Whenever it finally penetrates Trump’s skull that precious Jared is in serious doo-doo thanks to Junior, he’ll be turning up the gas full-blast and Junior may realize Dad has a favorite — and it isn’t him.

That may drive Junior straight into the arms of another father figure, Robert Mueller, which can only be a good thing.

When the truth comes out, this nightmare ends, and justice is served, imagine Charles Boyer as Trump in his last desperate moments and Ingrid Bergman as the American people who are fed up with his games…

Melania Moves to DC: Too Little, Too Late

By Karen

Melania Trump woke up recently and remembered she’s a U.S. citizen. She’s also an unwilling first lady now, but nonetheless it’s her duty to protect us from her husband if she can. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is closing in fast on Trump, and the orange man-baby is figuratively throwing furniture around the White House, trying to elude capture.

Maybe James Comey’s testimony about Trump’s self-destructive behavior behind closed doors made Melania realize it’s time to get in the game. Or maybe Ivanka’s failure to control Daddy with her insipid whining, or Jared’s looming legal peril for being a naïve brat who thinks he can swim with the sharks, convinced her.

Whatever the reason, on Sunday, June 11, Melania, son Barron, and Melania’s parents officially moved to Washington. Crossing the White House lawn, Melania even let Trump hold her hand for a few moments before pulling away and shifting her purse so he couldn’t. Watch it on MSN. It starts at about 1:00.

Embed from Getty Images

Perhaps that gesture was his early, and only, birthday present.

Within a day or so of Melania’s arrival, Trump did a complete 180 on his health care bill, whose cruelty he had celebrated in the Rose Garden. Now he calls it “mean.” Coincidence? I think not.

Of course, Trump lacks any grasp of that bill to give specifics on what should change. You can almost hear the Trumps’ conversation. This is probably all Melania had to say to change his mind…

“Donald, the people who voted for you, you know, the poor and ignorant ones. Health care is the only thing the government has done for them in many years. If you take it away now, they will say you are mean, and maybe they won’t vote for you again.”

But let’s pause to reflect on poor Barron. This kid’s siblings are all old enough to be his parents and his father could be his grandfather. And now he’s stuck in the White House all summer, probably cramped in one room, not a whole floor like he had in Trump Tower, with only the Secret Service for company. He has no opportunities to make friends his own age before he attends a new school in the fall.

I don’t know if Barron had any friends back in NYC. He reminds me of a stalk of white asparagus — frail, spindly, devoid of personality. I guess that’s what happens to a child when you raise it in solitude, without sunlight or exercise. Let’s just hope he never turns orange.

Back to Melania: Of all the Trumps, I think she has NOT relied on Fox News for intel. She’s been watching CNN and MSNBC to see how Donald’s being attacked so she can play defense.

She probably started packing to move after she watched Dan Coats, Mike Rogers, and Jeff Sessions play coy with the Senate Intelligence Committee and make things worse. But it was already too late. They brought Washington to its senses and Trump IS now being investigated for obstruction of justice.

Happy 71^st Birthday, Mr. President!

This feels to me like Chris Christie’s Bridgegate, but with much higher stakes. Trump must agree with me, because his choice to replace Comey as FBI director is Christopher Wray, Christie’s personal attorney, who’s quite familiar with how these setups work.

Trump surrounded himself with established Russians tools Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and Mike Flynn because he knew he couldn’t beat Hillary without help — and Russia offered to help.

No other presidential campaign in history ever had so many unexplained interactions with Russians. Trump knew what his minions were doing because he’s a micromanager. Like Christie’s, they operated under orders not to say or write anything tying Trump to their activities.

But once they got caught, micromanager Trump swooped in to stop the investigation, and now he’s in the soup with them.

Obstruction of justice charges may segue into conflicts of interest, illegal business dealings, perjury, and even treason. The snowball is rolling down the hill now. Any Trump attempts to stop it will only bury him, Jared, and their cronies in a deeper avalanche.

Melania can’t save Trump now, and she probably knows it. But she’ll look worse if she doesn’t at least try to stand by her man.

Putin Steps in to Provide Cover for Trump

By Karen

Donald Trump must be positively giddy that Vladmir Putin has decided to lie like a rug to buy Trump more time in the White House.

Putin was interviewed by former Fox News bimbo, Megyn Kelly, who has jumped ship to NBC in hopes of attaining legitimacy as a journalist. To launch her new Sunday night show, she snagged Putin. What’s even more amazing, she managed to keep blood from coming out of her “wherever” during the whole segment.

Putin looked bored or shifty through most of it, and went out of his way to seem almost as ignorant and out of touch as Trump, which we know he’s not. His eyes never register vacant incomprehension, he speaks in complete, coherent sentences, and I’ve never seen him trying to conceal his baldness with a head ferret.

To cite just a few of Putin’s assertions…

• He got seated beside Michael Flynn at that dinner at random, had no idea Flynn was an American general, and had virtually no interaction with him beyond a greeting.
• He has no clue what Kislyak, his U.S. ambassador, does with his time, who he meets with, nor what’s discussed. Kislak doesn’t run to Putin with every little thing.
• So many American executives visit Moscow, there’s no way his intelligence-gathering agency could keep up. He asked, “Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something? Have you all lost your senses over there?”
• When Kelly asked if he has any damaging information, the former KGB foreign intelligence officer replied, “Well, this is just another load of nonsense. Where would we get this information from?”
• He also said the accusation that Russia meddled in the U.S. election is ridiculous, and all 17 U.S. agencies who agree it did are wrong.

Putin essentially gave Trump a pat on the back from a safe distance for his stellar performance as a boorish ignoramus in Europe, where Trump behaved as if he was working under Putin’s direct orders to sink NATO and the G7.

On the flip side, it means Putin thinks there’s still milk in the old Trump cow, so the puppets in the White House will be dancing on Russian strings until Putin starts seeing Trump’s henchmen marched off to prison in handcuffs.

Here’s the full interview…

http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/video-embed/960120387521

Trump’s New Struggle to Keep Up with News

By Karen

For the first time since he made fomenting chaos his new occupation, Donald Trump now finds himself reacting to the news instead of dictating what it will be.

Upon learning that FBI Director Comey kept notes documenting how Trump probably tried to squash the Russia investigation to obstruct justice, Trump issued a terse statement that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Apples to oranges, Trump. Either Trump doesn’t know the meaning of the word “obstruction,” or he’s choosing to refute the charge he thinks he has a better chance of beating. Nice try. Now we’ve got a special prosecutor who isn’t inclined to chase Trump’s squirrels, like Nunes and Chaffetz were.

Trump’s on the ropes now. Just yesterday, he went off script to whine at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation, saying…

“Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine. Look at the way I’ve been treated lately — especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can’t let them get you down.”

See it at 19:17. This video was created by the White House, so let’s see how long it remains available.

I see several takeaways…

When Trump speaks with “surety” about being the most abused president in history, you know it’s bullshit because he’s abysmally ignorant about American history, and presidents in particular.

Anyone planning to meet him on his upcoming foreign trip has better fasten their seatbelts because he’ll undoubtedly be sniveling about how ill-treated he is back home, futilely seeking reassurance from strangers for his corruption and incompetence.

When he repeatedly says things like, “Never, ever give up” and “You can’t let them get you down,” rest assured, “they” are getting him down and he could announce he’s giving up at any minute.

Of course, he won’t phrase it as giving up. I predict Trump will throw in the towel when the subpoenas start flying and his cohorts are singing like canaries to stay out of prison. Trump will say he prefers to return to his “wonderful life” in Trump Tower, or cite pressing Trump business interests that must take precedence over running the country, which nobody ever told him wasn’t going to be a part-time gig.

He may even go so far as to express a desire to spend more time with his family, although those he clearly holds most dear — Ivanka and Jared Kushner— are already with him in the White House every day.

Then Trump will slither away, leaving a trail of slime, as he always does, leaving his hapless enablers to face the consequences. If they go to jail, he’ll pretend he never heard of them.

Trump’s abbreviated administration will flame out as the greatest disaster ever to hit Washington, DC, but he’ll claim to his dying breath that we’ll be seeing his face on Mt. Rushmore any day now because he was the greatest president in American history.

Sad. Truly sad.

Trump’s End Finally Begins

By Karen

For the first time since the presidential election, I woke up this morning without a feeling of impending doom, thanks to former FBI Director James Comey. It must have been a flash of clairvoyance when I wrote my previous post and envisioned Comey handing Trump the shovel with which to dig his own grave.

Comey’s shovel takes the form of detailed notes on his encounters with Trump.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also thank Donald Trump himself. His unwavering arrogance, greed, willful ignorance, and insane words and actions have made it possible to get rid of him sooner rather than later.

Trump has barely been in office four months, yet he’s racked up such an impressive roster of potential crimes and conflicts of interest, he’s set a virtual smorgasbord of grounds to nail him on. For good measure, he’s probably put people like Mike Pence, Sean Spicer, and Sarah “Spawn of THAT Huckabee” Sanders in legal jeopardy because they’ve lied their asses off to cover for him. Not that Trump has appreciated it. He’s gone out of his way in TV interviews to expose them as liars with his own loose lips.

To briefly recap: Trump fired Comey, then said he did it because of the Russia investigation. Then Trump threatened Comey, via tweet, not to “leak” anything to the press, lest Trump make public “tapes” he’d secretly recorded.

Just for additional chaos, Trump immediately followed up by feeding highly classified information from Israel to two Russians whom he personally invited to visit the Oval Office and consider it their home away from home.

When I heard yesterday that Comey actually trumped Trump by documenting every meeting and conversation where Trump tried to squash the Russia investigations — all of which can presumably be verified with Trump’s precious tapes — I became positively giddy.

It sent most congressional Republicans skittering like cockroaches under a sun lamp. Charlie Rose said on CBS This Morning today that they had invited 20 Republicans to comment on this development and got no takers.

Through his own miscalculation, Trump has had his poison picked for him. Obstruction of justice it is — for starters. While Congress works on that, the media can continue its investigations into Trump’s myriad fishy financial dealings and verify all his bona fide ongoing conflicts of interest. I like to think of those as the top layer of dirt to be shoveled onto his political coffin.

The evidence against Trump’s operating system of corruption and all-round depravity is stacking up so high, any Republican who continues to defend Trump at this point must have a death wish.

Next up: Trump goes abroad on his first foreign trip, which includes Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican. It will provide limitless opportunities for Trump to show other world leaders that the United States chose a clueless fool to lead us.