President Trump is Still Looking for a Way to Get Out of the White House Without Waiting for an Election or Resigning the Office: He’s Going to Fire Mueller and Then Dare Congress to Do Something About It

Last year, I commented here that President Trump hates the job he’s in and looked like he was looking for a reason to have Congress impeach him, as his pride won’t allow him to resign the office an be criticized as being too weak to handle it.   Impeachment is what he wants.

I have seen nothing in the last year to change my mind about that.  I also still don’t care if he stays in office or not. 

A Pence Administration would be far more stable prospect than a President who is running his White House from the perspective of a reality show producer.

The thing that has me talking about this again is that President Trump’s recent statements that he’d consider Robert Mueller looking into his businesses and family as crossing a “red line.”  Under Obama, a red line was meaningless, but with President Trump, when he talks about a red line, he’s serious.   People get fired if a red line is crossed in his White House; if it’s in a war zone like Syria, the missiles start to fly.

I think he’s angling toward pressuring Robert Mueller to announce that President Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing in the Russia probe, but when Mueller announces that he’s looking into other stuff, Trump will say “no you’re not” and fire him at that point.

I think Trump’s ultimate goal is to get back into his businesses and rebuild his fortune while avoiding the possibility of jail. 

It is my opinion that he’s going to fire Mueller sooner rather than later and dare Congress to do something about it.   And I think Congress will oblige him.   I think the sooner that this happens, the better it will be for the country.

On a side note, let both parties be warned: this is what happens when you have candidates like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton headlining your presidential tickets.  Give us some better choices!  

Trump Fires Tillerson: About Time

I’ve been pretty outspoken about my opposition to Rex Tillerson being the Secretary of State since he was nominated, and now that he’s gone, I say the following: good.  It’s about time.

Now the Senate should exercise more caution in putting the next candidate up to a vote.  They didn’t do their jobs with Tillerson and we had an oil executive with basically no diplomatic service who caused 60% of the foreign service agents to resign or retire in his first year, and has left dozens of ambassadorships unfilled.

The new Secretary of State needs to have foreign diplomatic experience, can recruit foreign policy people and can talk to all the departments in his building without playing favorites with political appointees at the expense of his career diplomats. 

And he needs to be on the same exact page as President Trump with regards to foreign policy.  Tillerson was part of the time.   That wasn’t good enough.

It sounds like President Trump is nominating his CIA Director to be the new Secretary of State.  Don’t know much about him as much as I knew about Tillerson prior to his being nominated as our top diplomat.   Hopefully this nomination will be what the State Department needs.

Democratic Memo Released: Now That It Has Been, House Intelligence Committee Should Stop Releasing Any More Memos and Return to the Shadows Where They Belong

First it was the Nunes memo, now it’s the Democratic “rebuttal” memo.

Now it should be….nothing.  No more releases of classified memos for the purpose of furthering a political agenda, no more releases of ANY classified information.  Instead of providing clarity, both memos served to muddy the waters even more.

On the Democratic rebuttal memo, they overloaded their memo with fluff, or unneeded sentences that restate the point that they’ve already made in earlier parts of the memo.   It’s made the memo nearly unreadable.  

The Republicans have pointed out on page 5 that the Democrats finally admitted that they didn’t tell the court everything explicitly when the Obama DOJ filed the original FISA request against Trump advisor Page.   Instead, they dropped hints an then assumed that the court would be able to connect the dots.  Sorry, but that’s not how the FISA court works.   Everything needs to be out in the open for the judges to consider, without needing to connect any dots.   We have elementary kids connect the dots, not FISA court judges.

The Democrats have pointed out that they’ve successfully countered the Republican arguments in the Nunes memo.   I’m not sure they have; they’ve certainly muddied the waters but not much else.   There was nothing new or spectacular and was a let-down.

I also didn’t like the fact that the Democratic memo wasn’t numerated, and didn’t appear to be in any kind of chronological order.   I think it follows the pattern that the Nunes memo followed, but the GOP memo was much easier to read. 

I think the lesson here is that whoever releases a memo first, has the bigger splash.   Hopefully there will be no further memos on this subject.  

What Really Happened With the Broward County Deputies Who Didn’t Rush in to Stop the Shooter? We’re Only Getting One Side of the Story!

I’ve been following the story of the deputy Sheriff who didn’t enter the Florida school and stop the shooter from murdering more people.

So far, the school guard has received severe criticism for not rushing in and shooting it out with the attacker.   His boss, the Broward County Sheriff, jumped all over him and called him a coward.   So have many others, including President Trump.  Most of the media outlets have joined the narrative, and so have many of the victims.

And now we’ve heard that other deputies didn’t go in either, and that it was the Coral City Police Department that went in.

Why didn’t the Sheriff’s Department go in first, since they were the first on the scene, and why did they hang back when the Coral City PD entered the building?

I’m not going to criticize the school officer until he’s heard from and explains his side of the story.

I think a lot of departments across the country have a policy to have officers go into an active shooter situation in force.   In Michigan, a minimum of three officers go in.  Two facing forward, the third covering behind them.  That’s what I saw during active shooter training in one of our local schools last year.    What is the Broward County Sheriff’ Department’s policy?

There’s more to this story, and I think people have been hasty in criticizing former Officer Peterson.   I look forward to hearing his side of things, and it may redirect attention back to the top levels of the Sheriff’s Department.   Then we’ll see if he’s provided the “excellent leadership” that he claims to have provided up to and during the February 14th attack on the school, or if the deputies were following established policy.   

There’s much more to the story than what has been revealed.

News Media Needs to Stop Publicizing the Names of Shooters Who Attack Schools: They Don’t Deserve the Attention

I’m stunned at the commission of another massacre in a school, this time in Florida.

The media should cover the tragic events in Florida without using the name or photos of the killer.  He doesn’t deserve the notoriety that the media is obsessed in awarding to him for his blaze of hatred and acts of pure evil.

All the attention should be on the victims and survivors of this disaster, not their killer.  He’s probably getting a thrill out of having his name in papers not just in Florida, but across the U.S. and around the world.    He needs to be denied that pleasure. 

He’s done nothing to earn it.

Amtrak Owns 5% of the Tracks It Runs On, Yet Pays 100% of the Bills Resulting from Accidents, Even If the Accident is the Fault of the Railroad That Owns the Tracks

No wonder Amtrak has been hemorrhaging money.  They own 5% of the tracks that they run on while the other 95% is owned by private railroads.  But if there’s an accident, whether Amtrak is at fault or not, Amtrak pays the bills.

This isn’t right.

If it’s a defective track that causes an Amtrak to derail, the owner of the line needs to help foot the bill, instead of having the American taxpayer foot the entire bill for their defective line.

A lot of attention has been paid to the problems that Amtrak has been having, with regards to excessive speed, the lack of the Positive Train Control system in critical areas, and the cars breaking apart at high speed.

The PTC has train-based and track-based technology that work together to prevent trains from colliding, or going too fast around curves, and so forth.  Amtrak has updated 71% of it’s locomotives, while the railroads have roughly 25% of their tracks equipped with the PTC.

Amtrak needs to own their own lines, and if they can’t, then perhaps they should shut it down.   This gravy train (forgive the pun) needs to come to an end.

The fact that the contracts between the railroads and Amtrak are covered by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) is also troubling.   Those should be invalidated and the contents of the agreements made public, so we can see how badly the American public is being swindled.

President Wants to Display Might of U.S. Military: It Could Be Done on the June 30th Armed Forces Day Under Certain Conditions

The United States celebrates Armed Forces Day on June 30th, so it could be modified to do a large-scale military parade in Washington.   One question, though: can the streets of Washington support 52 ton tanks without getting torn up, and can it be done without spending tons of money?

The President is big on the idea as he was in France during Bastille Day, when the French military was on display.   He apparently liked what he saw.

I’m kind of indifferent to the idea, as we haven’t really put tanks, missiles, attack helicopters, fighters, bombers and other military hardware on display for a spectacle.   We’re accustomed to two-bit dictators putting on large military displays with goose-stepping troops to support their bombast.

If it is something that highlights the military, that’s one thing. 

If it’s to support the President’s ego, that’s a totally different thing, and one I will not support.   This president’s ego is easily bruised, and inflating it to a new level and run the risk of having someone bring him crashing to earth from new heights isn’t something we should spend millions on as a nation.    President Trump can pay for his parade out of his own pocket.  

Besides, the Congress is incapable of producing a budget, so I think those millions should be put into dealing with supply and readiness issues that the military is currently confronting.  The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet’s problems with readiness is the tip of the iceberg.  Sequestration has had a devastating effect on the military.  A parade won’t change that.   Proper funding will.

Stone Faced Democrats at the 2018 State of the Union? No, They Were STONED! And Something…Else…Too!

Someone had better cut this guy off of whatever he’s on.  He presents the appearance of a serial….something.   Looks like he’s undressing somebody with his eyes.   Yuck!

And to contrast the Republicans to the Democrats:

If one was going to hang around with a group of people based on facial expressions alone, with no knowledge of their political affillation or background, which would you choose?  

Democrats, don’t show up stoned to official events.  It makes you look as bad as you actually are.

The Stock of Several Members of the House and Senate Have Gone Up With Me: They’ve Refused Their Pay During the Shutdown

I’m appreciative of the members of Congress who have decided to forego their pay while the government was shut down.  Here’s the list if anyone is interested. 

Some are sponsoring legislation to deny lawmakers any pay during government shutdowns.   This is a positive move forward and one that may help to restore some (currently non-existent) credibility to a Congress in need of favorable optics with the public.

If it comes up for a vote, we’ll see their true colors with their votes.

Congress is Still Getting Paid While Rank and File is Not, and Vice President is Traveling to Middle East While Government is Out of Money: This Isn’t Right

I see that Congress is still getting paid during the shutdown, while everybody down the federal food chain is not.   Major irritant….

Before the next government shutdown, Congress needs to pass a law that says that government shutdown policies also apply to Congress and the President.  Perhaps then they’ll keep this from happening again.  And they shouldn’t be allowed to override the law either once they cross the point of no return.   

Congress getting paid while everyone else does not isn’t right.  They helped to cause this mess, so they should be up to their eyeballs in the stew too.

The other thing that’s annoying me is that the Vice-President is going to the Middle East while the government is out of money.  It costs roughly $206,337 an hour to operate Air Force 2.  How is Air Force 2 to be refueled?   Full faith and credit?  Prepaid fuel?   Do they have a gas card for  Air Force 2?  What?  This trip should be rescheduled, as embarrassing a step as that is.  

Until the upper echelons of the federal government join the others in not getting paid, I don’t want to hear a single word of who’s to blame.   It doesn’t mean a thing.  They’re all responsible for failing to pass a budget that reduces the $20 trillion debt.

Turnabout: Republicans Focused on Hillary’s Health During the Campaign, Now the Liberals Are Focused on Trump’s Physical and Mental Health

This is too delicious to ignore.

The GOP focused on Hillary Clinton’s health during the 2016 Elections, for very good reasons.  She was having coughing fits, fainting spells and seemed to be out of it at times, which caused many to question her fitness for the highest office in the land.  There were photographs of security people carrying around auto-injectors to treat various maladies and the cover-up theorists (including this one) were in full swing, to the point that even the liberal press had to start asking questions.  Even then, they were handling the Clinton camp with kid gloves. 

Fast forward to this morning.   President Trump’s mental health has been openly questioned by many on the liberal side of the equation, and his physical has been an obsession of the liberal press for many days.  In the most ridiculous press conference ever seen, the liberal press hounded the President’s personal physician for anything that they could attach to with regards to his physical results, and the results of a cognitive thinking test that was unexpectedly requested by the President to put the media in its place.

The press is definitely making fools out of themselves.  They’re coming up shorthanded on this fishing expedition and not finding the narrative that they’re desperately looking for.   This is a dead-end story, libs.

Weighing In: Trump’s Wince-Causing Language Aside, the President Had a Reason for Calling Them What He Did (If He Did at All)

I’ve been watching the ongoing debate over President Trump’s un-diplomatic language that he is famous for.  Is there a reason that he might think that the nations involved aren’t so good?

Oh, yes.

Africa has many military and paramilitary situations going on.  The Armed Conflict Location and Data Event Project (ACLED) is an excellent source on the various kinds of violence that have taken place in Africa since 1997.  It isn’t pretty.

How many Africans have been displaced by violence in their countries?   At least 2.4 million by violence or by internal strife, making it second only to the Middle East, with a million more displaced by natural disasters in 2015 alone.  The total is somewhere in the neighborhood of 12.4 million people for the years studied in the above link.

How many failed or near-failing states in Africa?  Quite a few.

The above links are data-heavy, but they all paint a not-so-nice picture of some of President Trump’s targets.

So does President Trump have a point, referring to Haiti and African countries as s-hole nations (if he did at all)?   Yes, he definitely does, given the information contained in the links above.  

Should he have used better language?  Yes, he definitely should have.  Is he a racist?  I don’t know; that remains to be seen.  The term “racist” is so politicized that I’m not sure what it means anymore.

Should some of the African nations he referred to be quite as indignant as they have been in the last 24 hours?  Given their (proven) ATROCIOUS track record on human rights, military conflicts within their own borders and failed political and economic systems, they should be criticizing their OWN leaders for screwing up their countries beyond belief instead of calling the ONLY Western leader who calls a spade a spade a “racist.”. 

Their countries suck, plain and simple!    So President Trump definitely has a point.

Human rights are not optional, as some of these failed states have treated them. 

The exact moment that someone in these African countries can say “screw the security forces and the ruling idiot in the palace” or “screw the government” without fear of being disappeared, tortured, having their families threatened or murdered, the sooner they can be considered a successful nation, and not failed ones as they currently are.

Until that time, they have no leg to stand on when someone criticizes their nations, no matter how plain-spoken or offensive it is.  

12.4 million refugees?  If that was a nation’s population, it would be larger than 158 countries with lesser populations.  That is DISGRACEFUL!

Democrats Boycotting State of the Union Address: Good, Fewer Windbags in the Room Taking Up Oxygen

Do the Democrats really think that their boycotting the State of the Union address will make any difference at all?

Fewer windbags in the room?  Sounds great to me, since there are plenty of other windbags in there.   Is Cowboy Congress-lady boycotting it too?  We’ll miss her ridiculous hat and oversized color-clashing fake rose.

In fact, there’s nothing in the Constitution that says the President has to do a State of the Union in person.  It says that the President  "shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” (Article II, Section 3, Clause 1).

My interpretation is that the statement means that if he chooses to, he could send Congress a letter, send them a postcard from time to time, send them a fax, send them an email, do his State of the Union from the Oval Office, or post it to Twitter or YouTube.   Who cares?

He still has time to cancel the affair and deliver his State of the Union message in another format.  

I’m in favor of the YouTube format.  It would honk off the news networks to no end.   Given the treatment they’ve been giving him since Day 1, that reaction would probably please the President greatly. 

Potty Mouth Liberal Networks Put Swears All Over Their Pages, While Fox Least Follows Journalistic Standards; So Does CBS News and ABC News

Oh, we shouldn’t forget our friend Drudge, where we expect this kind of language.  He didn’t disappoint:

I’d just like to point out that those networks that don’t bother with journalistic ethics on their web sites anymore with regards to President Trump are extensions of the Democratic Party, and they’ve proven it with their headlines.  They went for the shock value.    And they wonder why the Trump Administration is so hostile toward them.  Duh!

Hey, Academy Awards!! Your Response to the Weinstein Problem is of Your Making, So Don’t You Dare Regret What You’ve Done Now, Plus Oscar Notes

There was a huge push in liberal Hollywood to excommunicate Harvey Weinstein from everything related to the moviemaking industry, including the Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, the organization behind the Oscars, his own Weinstein Company, and tons of others.

I do not disagree with the decisions to do so, though it’d be better if he was charged with a crime or sued for damages and had his day in court, as well as his victims.  Innocent until proven guilty…does that ring a bell, Hollywood?  Over the last few days, some in the Academy Awards have been quoted as regretting their decision to ban Weinstein so hastily.   Oh, really?

The reason behind the heartburn is that now they have others that they have to deal with, including some of Hollywood’s elite names.

I don’t feel too sorry for their problem.  They made the correct decision, now it’s time to chuck some others out and clean up their act.   I think they’re going to screw things up and not use the same standards that they used against Weinstein.

On a side note related to Weinstein, the Oscars are coming up soon, and there were Twitter rumors going around that Harvey Weinstein was at the hotel that the Oscars were being held at.  His spokesperson denied it.   In any case, there was a huge freak-out in Hollywood.   I wonder what would happen if he did show up.  Would he be allowed in, and how much screaming would be going on?   And would he be wearing black like everybody else?

I will be skipping the Oscars; it’s just another liberal Democratic rally with a different theme this year.  I anticipate lots of potshots at the White House again.

“Jingle Bells” Racist? Um….Who Cares? It’s a Secular Song That Has No Link to Christmas

A college professor came under fire on social media for publishing a paper that suggests that the winter song “Jingle Bells” is racist.

Here’s my two cents.   It’s a secular song that was supposed to be in use around Thanksgiving when it was first written, not Christmas.   It started getting used around Christmas instead, even though it isn’t about Christmas, and isn’t a traditional Christmas song that includes any mention of anything of a religious nature in it. 

It may be that the song is racist, maybe it isn’t.   I’m not going to say anything else about it other than this:   whatever.  

Trump May Be Using the Jerusalem Controversy to Distract International Attention from Somewhere Else in the World: What’s He Doing?

I can’t help but think that President Trump is using the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol and setting the Arab world on fire to distract the international community’s attention away from somewhere else in the world, where he may be preparing to take covert action.

Why do I get the feeling that Kim Jong Un is about to have a fatal accident?

Just a feeling.

Behar...HA HA HA!!

No sympathy for her and her forced walk-back.     She should be suspended too.

If Trump Wants to Fire Tillerson, Then Do It Already: We Don’t Have Time for Public Shamings or the Like; We Need a Wartime Secretary of State Who Can Rally the World Against North Korea

President Trump needs to quit screwing around with his Secretary of State and either let Tillerson do the job, or fire him and find a wartime Secretary of State.

I say “wartime” because we may be at war with North Korea within a matter of weeks, and we need a politician with thick skin, not a businessman who is calling President Trump a “moron.”

I’m openly biased against Rex Tillerson.  I opposed his nomination as Secretary of State, and don’t think he did the job that was needed.   Running the State Department is not like running a business at all.   He’d be much more appreciated at the helm of ExxonMobile, which is where I wish he had stayed.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt after he was confirmed, but now that the Administration is floating a balloon about replacing Tillerson, they should move on this now.

If Accusers Aren’t Prepared to Take Attackers to Court to Seek Justice, Should They Be Throwing Accusation Bombs Over Stuff That Happened Decades Ago? The 6th Amendment is Being Violated to an Unbelievable Degree

I’m very aware that sexual harassment and assault needs to be confronted in all of its forms, but the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution seems to have fallen by the wayside in the process, or fed into a paper shredder.

If an accuser isn’t prepared to go to court to seek either civil or criminal justice, does the accuser really have the right to go public with their accusations?  If they can’t prove what they’ve accused their attacker of, does their target have the right to sue the accuser for damages? 

The presumption of innocence is one of the founding principles of the American nation.   The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but since people are being accused and tried in the media, it looks like the suspect is guilty until proven innocent.    That’s not the American way.

I don’t know if there’s a silver bullet to deal with all of these problems, but the criminal justice system and Constitution should not become casualties of a problem that’s going to become much worse in the coming days and weeks, if the media rumors are even halfway accurate.

I think if someone who is accused decides to sue his accusers to get them to prove their accusations or pay for damages done to the reputation of the accused will be extremely ugly, and it will probably be the end of the accused’s career, especially if they’re some kind of a high profile celebrity.   I think this scenario is very likely to happen than not.

Part of me is happy that these idiots are facing a reckoning of their own making, but the other part is concerned that laws are followed, and that if they can be prosecuted, they should be, with all the legal protections that they’re due as American citizens.

Sexual harassment is illegal.   I want to see some punishments handed out by the courts, not trials in the media.