Freak Out Friday – June 16, 2017

You know, I don’t seem to remember every single week of Obama’s presidency being remarkable for something incredibly stupid or opposed to the best interests of the American people. But each week of the Trump presidency has brought new waves of stupidity, either from him or those who serve him. It’s really rather remarkable.

!). Pledge allegiance to the Trump.. So Trump had his first cabinet meeting, and by all accounts, it was more or less insane. Every cabinet member had to sit there and extoll the virtues of their glorious leader and thank him for giving them the opportunity to serve him. Not serve the people of the United States, but him. Indeed, the entire concept of doing anything to benefit the people of this country has gone right out the window. Trump’s ego is so massive that anything having to do with the government must serve all of his priorities. Anything that gets in his way is Sad! Unfair! Worst in History! So this week his cabinet meeting was clearly centered on him, and that was it. Every cabinet member, following the lead of Mike Pence, did nothing but sing Trump’s praises, and he sat there and glowed, drinking it all in. It was probably the single best moment of his presidency: thoroughly in his control and an avalanche of nice words that ignored every negative thing that he has done, thought, said, and tweeted. Speaking of which:

2). So how long before he fires Mueller? . Robert Mueller is obeying the law and hiring his investigative staff while paying no attention to their political affiliation. And the man who declared that the judge in the Trump University case could not possibly be impartial because he had Mexican heritage declared that Mueller was stacking his staff with Democrats who had supported Clinton. The obvious response to that is: So? Their political affiliations have no relevance to their ability to do their job, but that doesn’t stop Trump from taking the typical action that any dictating maniac goes for when he is being investigated: launching personal attacks on his investigators. It’s a standard maneuver, really. Trump is terrified of the facts that they will unearth, and so embarks on a preemptive strike in which he attacks them as individuals in order to try and undercut whatever they wind up saying. It was his typical tactic when running (Crooked Hillary) and when he was elected (condemning news organizations as purveyors of “fake news.”). It’s a tactic that suits his core supporters, but as more time passes and more things go wrong, that core is in danger of shrinking.

He’s also attacking Rob Rosenstein, demanding to know how he can be under investigation for firing James Comey by Rosenstein who said he should fire Comey. Except, no, Rosenstein didn’t do that. He was asked BY TRUMP to write a memo coming up with reasons why Comey should be fired. Rosenstein did not come up with the idea himself and sell Trump on it. It was Trump who decided to fire Comey over the Russian investigation, and the reason we know this is because Trump said so himself. . His inability to grapple with the fact that he brings disaster down on himself is becoming seriously insane.

3). Obamacare vs. TrumpDon’tCare.. Remember when Mitch McConnell criticized the Democrats for “rushing through” Obamacare (11 months) and trying to do it secretly (a dozen public hearings.)? Well it’s now 2017 and McConnell is doing exactly that. Chuck Schumer stated, “In a very short time, maybe only two weeks, the Republican majority may try to jam through a health care bill that no one in America has seen.” There’s no “may” involved. That is exactly what they are going to do, and the Dems can’t stop it because they have no idea what’s in it. While we all know the problems with the House bill–24 million people lose their healthcare, Medicare gets shredded–we don’t know what the Senate is cooking up. They have completely blocked the Democrats from getting any news about it at all. They are, in short, doing everything McConnell condemned barely six years ago.

But hey, you’re not worried because you get health care through your employer! So you’re okay, right? Wrong. One of the supposed additions to the new plan would enable employers to install lifetime caps on medical insurance. Once you hit that cap, you’re on your own. So basically my stroke could have wiped us out financially if TrumpDon’tCare was in effect.

4). Well, they probably loved this in Miami.. Remember when Obama broke down the walls between us and Cuba? Well, in a speech in Florida, Trump made it clear that–if he can’t erect a wall between us and Mexico–he can certainly rebuild the one that Obama knocked over. He stated that he is going to get rid of “the previous administration’s completely one-sided deal,” which certainly cheered the anti-Cuban forces in Florida, but undoubtedly pissed off, well, pretty much the rest of the world considering America was the only country with anti-Cuban policies until Obama set them aside. So I guess this could be included in the “did he do anything right?” section if you’re still pissed off about Cuba.

Did he do anything right? Yes, he really did. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) was aimed at young illegal immigrants who had been here for so long that they had little to no memory of their originating country. Impacting some 790,000 people often referred to as Dreamers, it was an Obama-launched program that Trump swore during the campaign he was going to get rid of. Yet surprisingly it was recently announced that he’s had a change of heart and, for the time being, isn’t going to touch it. So apparently every so often he can change his mind and have it be a positive thing.

PAD