Freak Out Friday: March 15, 2019

It’s incredible. There is a shooting in New Zealand, with the trigger pulled by an Australian, and America in general and Trump in specific are being blamed for it. We’ve reached a point where, no matter where in the world it is, we are seen as bearing responsibility.

The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic relations stated to Trump, “”During your presidency and during your election campaign, Islamophobia took a sharp rise and attacks on innocent Muslims, innocent immigrants and mosques have skyrocketed.” He then went on to say, “”We hold you responsible for this growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the country and in Europe, but we also do not excuse those terrorist attackers against minorities at home and abroad.”

I suppose it makes a certain degree of sense. There is no question that Trump’s belligerence has led to acts of terror and attempted terror here in the United States, whether it’s people getting beat up at Trump rallies or nuts in vans sending out bombs to people on Trump’s enemies lists. So it could be argued that he likewise bears responsibility when foreign nationals, inspired by his clear anti-Muslim attitudes, decide that they’re going to kill more than four dozen people who are peacefully worshipping in their mosques. Then again, let’s not condemn all white supremacists: I hear tell there are some very fine people in their ranks.

Let’s see, what else:

1). Emergency? What emergency? Both the House and now the Senate have declared what everyone in the country, up to and including Trump himself, already knew: this is no emergency on the Southern border. Trump’s repeated assertions that to oppose his nonsensical declaration means that you’re for open borders, drug trafficking and rape is widely seen for the tripe that it is. Naturally, Trump vetoed it. He is assuming that the cowardly Mitch McConnell and his coterie of Trump bootlickers wouldn’t dare to override his veto.

Here’s the thing that he he’s ignoring, though. According to a poll on Politico, 52 percent of those polled are opposed to it, and 45 percent state that they are less likely to vote for legislators who support it. Granted, 80 percent of Republicans support it, but the overall numbers are still considerable. Which means that any Senator who chooses to side with Trump is putting his own future in jeopardy. Not to mention the fact that it’s about more than just an emergency. If this declaration is allowed to stand, it lays groundwork for any president, including a future Democratic one, to shove Congress aside and take charge of the country’s purse strings, which is the total opposite of how the Constitution is supposed to work. Are the Senators really comfortable with turning over their power and influence to the Executive branch?

2). How tough are you?. In an interview with one of the few media outlets that Trump trusts–Breitbart–he stated, “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

There would seem to be only one reasonable interpretation: People screw with Trump at their physical peril. Try to mess with him, try to piss him off, and he’ll send in the police to arrest you, the military to shoot you, and bikers to beat you up and burn down your house. This guy, whose wife is a big believer in stopping bullies, basically just threatened everyone who dislikes him with physical violence and retribution.

Not too hard to believe that he regularly adopts the phrasing and verbiage of criminal mob bosses, is it.

3). Bobbing for Mueller. We have just received further proof of how terrified Trump is of Bob Mueller’s investigation, which I’ve been hearing is “winding up” for the past year. The same week that Paul Manafort is being sentenced to prison, Trump is trying to brush Mueller aside by stating that it should never have been begun in the first place. “This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime,” Trump tweeted. He got one out of three right, which is pretty good for Trump: It wasn’t illegal or conflicted, but it was in search of crime and it has increasingly found it as Trump’s friends and advisors are sentenced to jail. Trump is also determined to make sure the report never reaches the public, but I’m reasonably sure that someone will leak it to the Post or the Times or maybe Random House and the details will get out, no matter how much the Justice Department tries to keep it under wraps. Hell, maybe it’ll come out at the exact same time as the GOP national convention; how hilarious would THAT be?

Did he do anything right? Yes. Remember when the US used to take the lead on world events. This time pretty much every other major country banned the 737 that has been crashing, but Trump held firm that he wasn’t going to…until he did. So yay, I guess. Every so often, after every other country does the right thing, Trump will reluctantly follow suit.

Nice to know.

PAD