Ladies and gentlemen, behold, s*** the president said during the previous week:
- ” “General” McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama. Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover!” 1/1/2019 Trump tweet. Happy New Year! Our president’s first tweet of 2019 denigrated the service of the former Commander of the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, but what really struck me was the phrase, “fired like a dog.” Dogs don’t get hired for these types of jobs in the first place, do they? Imagine the interview. “Uh, Mr. McGruff, it says here you were fired from the steakhouse for eating all the steak and humping the customers. How’d you like to run the war in Afghanistan? Would ya? Would ya?”
- “Every week, 300 Americans are killed by heroin, the vast majority of which comes across through our southern border. Our southern border is like a sieve. It just pours through our southern border.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. Heroin doesn’t kill people; people kill people. No? Only works with guns? Whatever, the point is Trump’s own opioid commission determined the primary cause of this epidemic is “excessive prescribing of opioids since 1999,” not immigration. And while Mexico is the leading source of illicit heroin coming here, the “vast majority” of that comes from vehicles entering legally from Mexico. A wall would not help this.
- “And we’re – we have a very tough border. I think you see that even last night, where people charged the border and tried to get through, but they couldn’t because we have a wall up.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. This statement came just four sentences after the above item where Trump described the border as a sieve. Imagine negotiating with someone who thinks our border is both “very tough” and “a sieve,” thinks the wall should be built and is already built, that it should be totally concrete but also could be steel slats, and that Mexico should pay but we need $5 billion for it but maybe Mexico is already paying/has paid.
- “And you read the things that go on in those caravans…another one is forming in Honduras…they shouldn’t allow it to happen.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. I know the president isn’t a detail guy but, how should a country prevent people from leaving? Another wall? I think they tried that in Berlin once, and presidents from JFK to Reagan to George H.W. Bush railed against it until it finally came down – thanks to Rocky Balboa’s eloquent speech after pummeling Ivan Drago.
- “I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. The right to remain silent is a form of safety. Ever heard about that?
- “When they say I’m not popular in Europe, I shouldn’t be popular in Europe. I don’t care about Europe.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. No American president has ever said anything like this, for good reason. Fracturing the alliance between America and Europe is something that makes the world less safe, and just happens to be a top Russian priority. Trump does things like this all the time – talking about NATO, the UN, the WTO, or anything else that promotes Western cooperation. This alone is a sufficient reason for Putin to be happy Trump is president.
- “I have great popularity in Utah.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. Cabinet meetings under Trump are such weird events. This particular one was weird enough to warrant a CNN article titled, “The 36 wackiest lines from Donald Trump’s totally bizarre Cabinet meeting.” So I’m poaching one of those here. CNN’s Chris Cilizza explains “no state has seen President Trump’s approval rating drop further than Utah.” You’d think he started out really popular in Utah then, right? What if I told you in Utah – one of our nation’s reddest states – he only got 45.5% of the vote. That’s not great popularity.
- “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight. And literally, they went bankrupt. They went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union.” 1/2/2019 Cabinet meeting. Here it is, in all its stupidity. They were right to be there. No American thinks that. Not too many Russians even think that. Russia most certainly did not invade Afghanistan due to terrorism because, if it caused them to go bankrupt and leave in defeat, the terrorists would’ve kept on coming. Vladimir Putin is trying everything to resurrect the old Soviet Union, and Trump is very mysteriously (but not subtly) reading from his script.
- “The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Democrats know they can’t win based on all of the achievements of “Trump,” so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security – and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!“ 1/3/2019 Trump tweet. In the span of two weeks, President Trump has declared, “I am proud to shut down the government for border security…I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame [Chuck Schumer].“ Then he blamed Chuck Schumer. Then he blamed Nancy Pelosi. Now Democrats in general to help whoever might want to run against him in two years. This is nonsense. The very first thing Democrats did in the new Congress was to pass bills funding the government. Trump won’t sign them.
- “How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no Collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that Colluded), had the most successful first two years of any president, and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?” 1/4/2019 Trump tweet. Right up until the part about being popular among Republicans, I thought this was some hypothetical riddle about FDR – huge win, nothing wrong, early success. Alas, President Trump had a narrow win, was implicated in multiple felonies (probably more to come), and while success is subjective he just shutdown the government because he couldn’t convince anyone his highest priority is a good idea – the wall.
That’s our report for this week. Be sure to click the links for more info on any particular topic and, as always, thanks for reading.
Idiotville 