Bush 41 v. Trump

Bush 41 v. Trump-  Comparing service to our country prior to election as President.

Bush 41:

Decorated Navy fighter pilot

Congressman

Ambassador to China

Director of CIA

Vice President 

Trump :

Nothing

End of the GOP

With or without Trump, the Republican Party is finished on the national level.

Without Trump, they lack the energy and appeal ( indeed the mania) to bring out the masses needed to win elections for an otherwise minority party.

No other Republicans have sufficient charisma , for ill or good.

The Trumpkins, who hate establishment Republicans, will abandon them .

With Trump, the GOP will be a pariah party. Adding to the growing Democratic base and natural constituency will be thoughtful decent Conservatives and moderate sensible Republicans  who are repelled by Trump and his GOP sycophants.

Either way the GOP as a party is toast.


Eric

Disappointing jobs news for Trump

No this isn’t a misprint .

The jobs report was positive and that doesn’t help Trump’s campaign tactics.

Given the nature of his base ,Trump understands that good news isn’t very exciting to them.  He knows they’d rather be frightened and driven by hate.

If the jobs report was bad, he could  blame it on the scary prospect of a  “blue wave” of Democrats taking over the Congress and plunging the economy back into the abyss with skyrocketing jobs losses, plunging stock market losses, destroying 401k and so on. You get the picture.

Now that would have been more to Trump’s liking. He knows how to exploit that scenario. 

Good news? Meh

Eric

The Real Media Bias

Trump and his supporters are constantly complaining about media bias against Trump in comparison to Obama's media coverage.

 

As to reporting on the economy however, the opposite in fact has been true. Sadly a large part of the blame can be attributed to Sanders/ Warrens and the Progressives.

 

By every measure - GDP, jobs created, unemployment, wages, and the stock  market - the Obama economy was at least comparable to what's been  happening since Trump took office.

 

Yet we are told that the economy is now at last roaring and that things have gotten so much better economically, all thanks to Trump.

 

Trump says it so, the GOP says "amen", and the media reports it as gospel.

 

Part of the blame belongs to Sanders, Warren and the other Progressives . Notwithstanding the strong recovery under Obama, they still focused on the fact that wages had not increased much. The media also  emphasized this one negative.

 

Well guess what, they haven't gone up much under Trump either, but that hasn't stopped the GOP from bragging the great economy.

 

Even Obama himself is partly to blame, at least when it came to the stock market. He refused to tout, let alone take credit for, the skyrocketing stock market under his tenure.

 He apparently bought into the Progressives' argument that the stock market only benefited rich people, and that it would unseemly to tout its success.

Trump and the GOP have no such inhibitions, and it turns out most Americans apparently agree with them given their 401k, pension funds, mutual funds etc. have done well.

Notwithstanding the real facts, the Trump and GOP narrative is that things are so much better now than under the disastrous Obama administration.

It's just not true, and the media has been relatively quiet about that. Now that's what I call media bias.

Lie-gate

Adam Schiff coined this perfect decription of everything Donald Trump.
Now the phrase Lie-gate needs to go viral.

Whoever may read this , pass it on.

Let’s hoist Trump on his own petard .

Russia Probe- Back to Basics

The Russian investigation is about Russian Illegal interference in our Presidential election.  

Let’s not forget that is the basic inquiry. 

Not collusion, not obstruction of justice - those are follow on matters. 

The basic Russian investigation therefore is not a witch hunt or a hoax.

Trump is trying to obfuscate this basic issue with this repeated assertions of “no collusion “.  That’s not the basic issue of the investigation. 

Trump objects to the entire Russian investigation in our election because it put the legitimacy of his election into doubt. 

He’s right; his election was not legitimate. 

Whatever happens with Mueller probe, that conclusion will not change no matter what Trump claims. 

Eric

Words and Meanings - Korean Style

Once again I exam the differences in words and meanings - this time with respect to Korea and nuclear weapons.

US policy and President Trump demand that Korea give up its nuclear weapons .

Kim Jung Un is reported to say he’s in favor of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula .

According to Trump that was a big win for his aggressive, indeed bellicose , policies and rhetoric regarding North Korea. He touted that, at long last , North Korea was considering giving up its nuclear weapons program.

Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

What Kim means by denuclearization is not the removal of nuclear weapons from the entire Korean Peninsula, but also the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea and the end of the US South Korean alliance and protection of South Korea. His use of " denuclearization" is nothing new. His father and grandfather has called for that for decades.

Given that American support includes potential use our nuclear weapons in Korea ( our nuclear umbrella), that’s his definition of denuclearization.

Wow, talk about a big difference in words and meanings. Of course Trump doesn't care, and may not even know this, and his supporters think he's accomplishing great things. 

It will be interesting to see what,if anything,happens.

Korean War Peace Treaty- "Only Nixon Could Go To China"

 North Korea has played Trump beautifully, and could possibly end up with its ultimate goal of preserving  its regime and recognition of its legitimacy internationally, in exchange for freezing or even eliminating its nuclear weapons capacity through a peace treaty ending the Korean War.

 Remember, conveniently, we are still at war since hostilities have only ceased under an armistice. 

 Such a peace treaty is best choice for North Korea.  It doesn’t really care about attacking the US or even South Korea. What it really wants is its own security. What else would it want to do with its nuclear weapons ? North Korea doesn't want to conquer or attack the US or even South Korea.

 The “easy” way to do it is to end the Korean War with a formal internationally recognized peace treaty between US and South Korea and North Korea.

 No Democrat could ever even propose such a peace treaty. The Republicans and Conservatives would “crucify” a Democratic President as surrendering to evil North Korea.

 

 But,  just as “only Nixon could go to China”, so to  only Trump could agree to such a peace treaty with North Korea .

 He’d tout it as a win by eliminating the North Korean nuclear threat ( true enough, perhaps)  but in reality it would be the successful conclusion of North Korea’s existential goals; at a very acceptable cost.

 No regime change and international recognition of its legitimacy. This has been North Korea’s one and only goal.

 No Democrat could give it to them, but Trump could.

 Trump gets a win, the world breathes a sigh of relief , but North Korea is the real big winner.

 Mission Accomplished, Kim Jung-Un.

Observations

1. Why aren’t there any conservative, right wing or pro- Trump comedy or late night TV shows?

 No sense of humor?

2. Where are the great protest songs?

 I haven’t heard any during this Trump era.

3. After Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decision, I thought gun owners could relax and allow sensible reasonable gun reforms. Their guns were safe.

  The opposite happened. Why?

4. Don’t Republicans care about deficits and the national debt anymore?

Watch out for the Bond Vigilantes.

5. Contrary to what Trump and Fox News says , almost every country in the world , except those ruled by authoritarians, dictators, kings and thugs, and sadly Israel,

have lost respect for America and hate Trump.

How is it the Trumpkins believe the opposite is true?

Guns, Patriotism and America

Reasonable , sensible restrictions on guns, and gun safety laws, are constitutionally permissible, even according to the late Justice Scalia.

Why then does the NRA , and their core supporters, so adamantly oppose virtually any such restrictions or reforms?

 Perhaps if the broader public understood the real reason behind the NRA’s opposition to any kind of reform or restrictions , Congress would take action.

 The real reason is they hate America and don’t trust our government.

They are actually unpatriotic. Ironically, they say they love America,  and that it’s the government they hate and don’t trust. However what is America if not our government based on our Constitution? Deep down they are in reality anti- American , at least the America most of us love and respect. The issues of personal protection from criminals , hunting and recreational gun use are not the real reasons they are against gun reforms.

They believe they need protection from government tyranny.  They are willing to let the slaughter of children in schools, and gangs and innocent bystanders in our cities, go on unabated all because of their paranoid obsession against our government.

Don't they realize their guns would not protect them from real government tyranny. No matter what kind of arsenal they might have, they'd be no match against  trained troops with tanks, artillery, combat weapons, mechanized armored personnel carriers, etc. ; let alone F-16s and  Hell Fire cruise  missiles and drones !! 

 If the general public understood what really motivates the NRA and their supporters maybe they would see the NRA as the unpatriotic UnAmerican organization that it is .  Only then would the NRA be discredited as unpatriotic , it’s grip on Congress released, and real reasonable gun safety reform  be enacted.

The GOP FBI Memo?

What’s the big deal?

Just because The Memo says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Especially since it was written by a highly partisan Republican.

Confirmation bias on steroids.  

FBI bias charges misplaced

I seemed  to recall that the whole Comey reopening the the Clinton email investigation just before the election  arose from actions of some over zealous FBI agents in the New York office who intensely disliked Mrs. Clinton. I'm confident emails can be found.

So when the GOP starts slinging charges of FBI bias against Trump, they should investigate the New York office of the FBI as well.

In addition, the allegations of liberal  bias within the FBI should be questioned in light of the following observations of a high ranking law enforcement professional who observed that in his opinion, "federal law enforcement officers in general tend to be on the more conservative side of things. There is a  higher than average percentage  of former military personnel and they generally have  a "law and order" flavored view of the world".

It's really crazy to think that the FBI was biased in favor of Secretary Clinton. However stating that Donald Trump was an idiot , or as his Secretary of State said,  "a moron", is just fact.

The New War Between the States

The Reds States have declared war on the Blue States through the Trump Tax Bill. Limitations on the tax deductions for state and local taxes hits the Blue States hard. 

This is particularly galling  because the Blue States contribute much more to the country¹s  economy than the Red States . In particular, this tax bill punishes the very Blue States that contribute

the most to the strength of our economy- California , New York, Illinois .

With Trump as President, the Red States are able to accomplish this punishment through gerrymandered House districts and the basic undemocratic nature of the Senate. 

 The  Senate is incredibly undemocratic. Wyoming has the same

number of Senators as California and New York. To put a point on it, Wyoming only has 1 house representative because its population is so small; yet it has 2 Senators. 

While this is our system, the Republicans are abusing this unfair advantage in punishing Blue

States in the GOP's Tax Bill.

Watch out, the "worm will turn" and the Blue States will get its revenge.