Ladies and gentlemen, behold, some s*** the President said during the previous week:
“[F]ortunately, that drone was unmanned. It was not – there was no man in it, and there was no – it was just it was over international waters…But we didn’t have a man or woman in the drone. We had nobody in the drone.” 6/20/2019 at the White House.
Yeah, being unmanned is sort of the defining feature of a drone. There’s not even a place for a person. That’s the whole point. How could anyone not know that? It’s crazy to think that, here in the middle of year three of the Trump presidency, we’re still just scratching the surface of his ignorance.
Would you believe the Iran deal, or JCPOA, didn’t involve shoveling Iran $150 billion or any dollars at all? It also gave them the opposite of a “free path” to nuclear weapons: it closed off all possible paths for 10 years with full compliance verification at a time when they were just months from a nuclear breakout.
So, this is true. Iran is much weaker due to Trump administration sanctions. Despite Iran’s compliance with the deal, Trump hit Iran with sanctions anyway and now of course they’re pissed. As a result, they’re causing more trouble all over the region and vowing to restart their nuclear program. Great.
Isn’t it usually “locked” and loaded? Whatever. This is so bonkers. To stop such a strike, there must have been one authorized, which only the President could do. So, what the President is admitting here is that he authorized a strike to kill 150 Iranians without realizing it, and only thought to ask 10 minutes before the strike what its repercussions might be. Iran would almost certainly have considered these strikes an act of war and retaliated. Not considering any of this beforehand reveals Trump’s world historic incompetence, yet here he is telling the world on Twitter as if this was some decisive triumph.
Hm. If only we had some sort of nuclear deal in place to prevent that. That would be good.
“Together, we stared down a corrupt and broken political establishment and restored government of, by, and for the people.” 6/18/2019 Trump rally in Orlando, FL.
Rant alert #1: Donald Trump stares down corruption like Stormy Daniels stares down celibacy. Trump’s first campaign had three managers: the first was fired for assaulting a woman, the second is currently in prison for corruption, and the third is still employed despite a recommendation she be fired for repeatedly violating the Hatch Act. Trump’s first national security adviser was – no kidding – a secret agent of a foreign government (Turkey). Tom Price, Scott Pruitt, and Ryan Zinke are all cabinet secretaries forced to resign due to corruption. Zinke’s replacement came into the job and immediately found himself under an ethics investigation. Ben Carson is a cabinet secretary that broke the law charging taxpayers for a $32,000 dining room table but hasn’t resigned. Wilbur Ross (Commerce secretary) and Elaine Chao (Transportation) lied in their ethics disclosures and still show up to work. Rick Perry is the secretary of Energy despite admitting he only wanted to abolish that department previously because he had no idea what it did. I swear to you, this is a small sample.
“We will come up with the cures to many, many problems, to many, many diseases, including cancer, and others.” 6/18/2019 Trump rally in Orlando, FL.
Why wait until after 2020 to start curing things? Here in his first term, all three of President Trump’s annual budget proposals have cut funding to the nation’s primary funder of biomedical research and public health – the NIH. That’s a little like telling the Burger King drive thru about your weight loss plan.
Rant alert #2: Promises kept? Promises kept? Has job creation picked up since January 2017? No. Have illegal immigrant border crossings dropped? No. Has the debt been paid off? No. Has the deficit at least shrunk a little? No. Did the tax cut pay for itself, goose business investment, or accelerate GDP growth? No, no, and no. Have we rebuilt our infrastructure? Built the wall with Mexican pesos? Replaced Obamacare with a plan to give everyone great healthcare, or any healthcare at all? No, no, and no. Are we out of Syria or Afghanistan? No. Has he sued the women that accused him of abuse before the election? No. Did we renegotiate the Paris Climate Accords with the entire world? Hah! No. Did we hire the best people to work in government? God, no. Have any new trade deals whatsoever been implemented during this presidency? I guess one, if you count some tweaks to NAFTA and a new name. Have we changed Iran’s behavior? North Korea’s? Russia’s? China’s? Venezuela’s? No. No. No. No. No. Brokered an Israeli/Palestinian peace? No.
As a birthright citizen and white guy, I’m tempted to view this as a distraction and move on. The federal government obviously doesn’t have the resources to do anything like what the President is forecasting here (which explains all the news reports of bewildered immigration officials wondering why they first saw this on Twitter). The more I thought about it, though, it was probably enough to ruin the day of a few million kids who were brought here as kids and know no other home. Those kids deserve better.
“I’ve never met this person in my life.” 6/21/2019 statement on rape allegations from E. Jean Carroll.
So, the President was accused of rape this past week. Rape. From a woman named E. Jean Carroll. When contacted for the story, two of her friends corroborated her account, saying Carroll told them of this at the time. The President’s response? “I’ve never met this person in my life.” Now check this out:
There’s future President Trump with E. Jean Carroll at a party. The same E. Jean Carroll that now accuses Trump of raping her, and the same Donald Trump – whom infamously said in reference to making sexual advances, “when you’re a star, they let you do it” – that now claims never to have met her. This photo isn’t proof of Carroll’s account. Not even close. But it is proof that, already, in the first sentence of Trump’s official statement on this, he’s lying. Why lie?
That’s our report for this week. Be sure to check out the links for more info on any particular topic and, as always, thanks for reading.
Idiotville 