The Biggest Snake of Them All

So now you tell us, Scott!

Like I said the other night - one way to keep things from leaking is to not share it with leakers. Trump totally justified in freezing out these snakes. pic.twitter.com/YKFo99CkNJ

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) June 25, 2025

In May, 2017 The New York Times reported

The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to an episode that has renewed questions about how the White House handles sensitive intelligence.

Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and runs one of the most active espionage networks in the Middle East. Mr. Trump’s boasting about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries and raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the region.

This wasn't the most dangerous intelligence breach of the first Trump Administration- no, not by a long shot, because Donald Trump

improperly stored in his Florida estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, repeatedly enlisted aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showed off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map, according to a sweeping felony indictment that paints a damning portrait of the former president’s treatment of national security information.

The conduct alleged in the historic indictment — the first federal case against a former president — cuts to the heart of any president’s responsibility to safeguard the government’s most valuable secrets. Prosecutors say the documents he stowed, refused to return and in some cases showed to visitors risked jeopardizing not only relations with foreign nations but also the safety of troops and confidential sources….

The 49-page indictment centers on hundreds of classified documents that Trump took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago upon leaving office in January 2021. Even as “tens of thousands of members and guests” visited Mar-a-Lago between the end of Trump’s presidency and August 2022, when the FBI obtained a search warrant, documents were recklessly stored in spaces including a “ballroom, a bathroom and shower, and office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.”

The indictment claims that, for a two-month period between January and March 15, 2021, some of Trump’s boxes were stored in one of Mar-a-Lago’s gilded ballrooms. A picture included in the indictment shows boxes stacked in rows on the ballroom’s stage.

This was not done innocently or merely carelessly. Instead

Prosecutors allege that Trump, who claimed without evidence that he had declassified all the documents before leaving office, understood his duty to care for classified information but shirked it anyway. It details a July 2021 meeting in Bedminster in which he boasted about having held onto a classified document prepared by the military about a potential attack on another country.

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” the indictment quotes him as saying, citing an audio recording. He also said he could have declassified the document but “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret,” according to the indictment.

Trump even engaged others in his schemes, all the more to make them vulnerable to his blackmail. Therefore

Using Trump’s own words and actions, as recounted to prosecutors by lawyers, aides and other witnesses, the indictment alleges both a refusal to return the documents despite more than a year’s worth of government demands but also steps that he encouraged others around him to take to conceal the records.

For instance, prosecutors say, after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for the records in May 2022, Trump asked his own lawyers if he could defy the request and said words to the effect of, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” one of his lawyers described him as saying.

This was a man actively involved in concealing his guilt, of which he was well aware. So

 ...before his own lawyer searched the property for classified records, the indictment says, Trump directed aides to remove from the Mar-a-Lago storage room boxes of documents so that they would not be found during the search and therefore handed over to the government.

Weeks later, when Justice Department officials arrived at Mar-a-Lago to collect the records, they were handed a folder with only 38 documents and an untrue letter attesting that all documents responsive to the subpoena had been turned over. That day, even as Trump assured investigators that he was “an open book,” aides loaded several of Trump’s boxes onto a plane bound for Bedminster, the indictment alleges.

But suspecting that many more remained inside, the FBI obtained a search warrant and returned in August to recover more than 100 additional documents. The Justice Department says Trump held onto more than 300 classified documents, including some at the top secret level.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case against Trump and his two co-defendants but 

The government was challenging the Trump-appointed judge’s dismissal on appeal when he won the election, which led the DOJ to withdraw the appeal as to Trump, due to federal policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Once Trump took office, it seemed like he would either pardon his former co-defendants or move to dismiss the appeal against them, and the Justice Department did the latter.

Cannon herself was grossly prejudicial toward Trump, though it no longer mattered once Trump was elected in November, 2024. The Supreme Court (in Trump v. United States) already had ruled that a sitting President is above the law and continuation of the case against the newly-elected President may have revealed that he had transferred classified documents to foreign countries. And We the People must not be aware that our President is an extreme national security risk.

As the late, great French novelist Albert Camus once wrote, "decent folks must be allowed to sleep easy o'nights, mustn't they?" It would be, he added, "shockingly bad taste to linger on such details, that's common knowledge." And we won't have to linger on the truth and other details, even though

.... the dismissal removes the rationale cited by the DOJ under then-Attorney General Merrick Garland for keeping special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents report volume under wraps. That is, Joe Biden’s attorney general agreed not to release that volume so long as the case was technically still pending against Nauta and De Oliveira.

The report is now in the hands of the Justice Department, headed by Pam Bondi, who obviously will not release the report because it would seriously implicate the man who appointed her and expects total obedience, Donald Trump. (Similarly, she has not released most of the Epstein files, though Trump's name can be redacted the many times it undoubtedly appears in them.)

No one knows for sure what Donald Trump has done with the documents he stole (and it looks like we never will). However, he did not steal them to line the bottom of a bird cage, nor to use them as emergency toilet paper, nor to invite prosecution for a felony simply so that he could brag about what he did. He took them for a purpose, whether or not the purpose has been accomplished. So Scott Jennings should spare us the invective about "freezing out these snakes"  when in the world of snakes, Donald Trump is the top taipan.

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The King and His Toady

For decades, Republicans attacked Democrats for President Jimmy Carter's description of America as in "malaise." In the offending speech, Carter never invoked the term "malaise," but facts are optional.

Similarly, Republicans nowadays condemn President Joe Biden for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan- which took place five years ago, in August of 2021. Though the withdrawal from Afghanistan was bungled, it is is unnecessary to defend Biden himself in order to take a Republican, eat him (or her) up, and spit him out when the demagogy arises.

Only the left could twist the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army into whining about “fascism” and production value.

Maybe that’s because the only time they’re proud of our military gear is when the Taliban is parading it through the streets after Biden’s botched withdrawal.… pic.twitter.com/0QiYdEqK2N

— Wesley Hunt (@WesleyHuntTX) June 22, 2025

 

MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen explained in January

In the midst of an increasingly chaotic situation, ordinary Afghans overran the Kabul airport. Some were so desperate that they hung on to planes taking off from the runways, falling to their deaths. Later, a suicide bombing attack at Kabul airport by an ISIS-K terrorist killed more than 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers. Biden’s poll numbers immediately faltered and never recovered.

But there’s another part of the Afghan withdrawal that rarely gets mentioned. The collapse of the Afghan government turned what began as an evacuation effort into a massive humanitarian airlift. In less than three weeks, U.S. military commanders evacuated more than 125,000 people out of the country — both Americans and Afghans who had worked with U.S. officials during the war. It was the single largest noncombatant evacuation airlift in American history — and an extraordinary example of ingenuity and grit.

The withdrawal itself wasn't America's finest hour. However, the decision by President Biden to withdraw was almost unavoidable, given that the country as a whole wanted out and virtually no Republican questioned the decision itself, which was far more significant than the withdrawal itself. 

These days, there is no Republican- Wesley Hunt or any other- who has the courage to question the policy. And it's a wise strategy, given that President Trump painted his successor into a corner on this. As Amber Phillips of The Washington Post reported in August of 2021

When Trump came into office,  he was pretty transparent- he just wanted out of Afghanistan. "Trump had no real sense of what was at stake in the war or why to stay," writes Georgetown professor Paul Miller in a digestible history of the 20-year-war.

It should have come as no surprise, then, that the Taliban got pretty sweet terms from The World's Greatest Deal Maker as

The deal laid out an explicit timetable for the United States and NAto to pull out their forces: In the first 100 days or so, they would reduce troops from 14,000 to 8,600 and leave five military bases. Over the next nine months, they would vacate all the rest. "The United States, its allies, and the Coalition will complete withdrawal of all remaining forces from Afghanistan within the remaining nine and a half (9.5) months," the deal reads. "The United States, its allies, and the Coalition will withdraw all their forces from remaining bases."

Phillips wrote "the United States would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners; the Taliban would release 1,000 of its prisoners" or, as the late, great, but mathematically-challenged Jim Morrison once put it, "five to one, baby, one in five." And 

One gaping problem, say scholars (including some from the Trump administration): The peace agreement came with no enforcement mechanism for the Taliban to keep its word.

The Taliban basically had to sign a pledge saying it wouldn't harbor terrorists. Nowhere did the Taliban have to- nor did it choose to- denounce al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan, Miller writes....

Overall, it was a pretty good deal for the Taliban, critics said. "Trump all but assured the future course of events would reflect the Taliban's interests far more than the United States," Miller writes. H.R. McMaster, Trump's second national security adviser, has recently called it "a surrender agreement with the Taliban." Another member of Trump's National Security Council said it was "a very weak agreement."

In a glimpse into the kind of deals which Donald Trump makes when he does not hold all the cards

A few months after the agreement was signed, there was plenty of evidence that the Taliban wasn't as sincere as it appeared about peace. The United Nations said it had evidence that al-Qaeda was "integrated" into the Taliban. The Taliban launched dozens of attacks in Afghanistan, ramping up its violence.

"The Taliban views the negotiations as a necessary step to ensure the removal of U.S. and other foreign troops under the U.S.-Taliban agreement, but the Taliban likely does not perceive that it has any obligation to make substantive concessions or compromises," a U.S. inspector general report read.

When the deal was eventually consummated in Doha, Qatar in February of 2020, the Taliban "agreed to start peace talks with the Afghan government and consider a cease-fie with the government." Yet

Before the peace talks really got going got going, Trump had already started withdrawing thousands of troops, and he fired his defense secretary, (Mark T.) Esper, after he wrote a memo disagreeing. (Esper later said that Trump's withdrawing too many troops too soon contributed to what we see now in Afghanistan)....

When Biden took over, there were just 3,500 U.S. troops left in the country (from a high of 100,000 during the Obama years). he pushed back the date of the planned withdrawal from May 1 to four months later, but he kept the deal intact. U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/1 attacks.

The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend was uncharacteristic of President Trump. Although it turns out that the scheming fascist does not always chicken out (TacoTrump), Trump did so in 2020. As Phillips noted

"I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we're not all wasting time" Trump said as he announced the agreement. He added as an aside: "If bad things happen, we'll go back with a force like no one's ever seen."

It was only a matter of time before those "bad things" would "happen. Therefore, we read in August of 2022, "experts say the downfall of (President Ashraf) Ghani's government was inevitable once NATO forces started withdrawing from the war-ravaged country in May 2021 as a result of Washington's deal with the Taliban in February 2020."  It was a deal the President struck without including NATO (whose forces were present) nor the Afghan government. with a terrorist organization of whom activist Zahra Hussein in Kabul remarked "Today is a dark day, and as I was watching the deal being signed, I had this bad feeling that it would result in their return to power rather than in peace."

That's why Republicans such as Wesley Hunt refer to Biden's "botched withdrawal" and only in passing while moving seamlessly from one unrelated topic to another. The act of withdrawal has had far less impact on Afghanistan or even the USA than did the thoroughly botched agreement President Donald J. Trump made with terrorists he trusted. 

Donald Trump did perform his photo-op of "honoring our heroes with strength and respect." Still, we need to remember that he once characterized "my personal Vietnam" as avoiding a "social disease" while dating in the 1980s, bragging "I feel like a great and very brave soldier." That's our President and his lickspittle, Wesley Hunt 

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The Power of a Time Lag

Fact check: this guy is a propagandist.

❌Fact Check: False.

When Biden and Harris took office, Iran was months from a nuclear weapon. Now they’re a week away. Iran went from 5% enrichment in 2020 to 60% enrichment under Biden/Harris with no consequences.

Iran is now meddling is our elections in favor of Harris. pic.twitter.com/ET3eKaQnwd

— Morgan Ortagus (@MorganOrtagus) August 24, 2024

In 2018, President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran. Tom Collina, a political strategist, national security expert, and co-author of "The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump," wrote in May

To fully understand the enormity of Trump’s decision to leave the Iran deal, consider this: When the U.S. and Iran were complying with the deal, it was estimated that it would take Iran about one year to produce enough fissile material (in this case, weapons grade uranium) for a nuclear bomb (known as the “breakout” time). The states negotiating with Iran (the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, and Germany) assessed that this would be enough time to respond to possible violations and prevent Iran from producing a bomb. Even if Iran were to acquire sufficient fissile material, it could still take another year for Iran to make a deliverable nuclear weapon. As of May, 2018, the deal was working and considered (by most) to be a great success.

Then President Trump unilaterally left the deal, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.” And now we are in a much worse place. Iran says it has no intent to produce nuclear weapons and U.S. intelligence sees no current efforts by Tehran to weaponize, yet Tehran is believed to be not one year but just weeks from being able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb if it chooses to do so.

At the same time, the ability of international inspectors to detect violations in a timely manner has eroded. As one U.S. official said of Iran, “they are dancing right up to the edge." 

Most Republicans incorrectly claim that the high inflation, now subsided, of the past few years resulted from President Biden's spending. Rather, as Fed chairperson Jay Powell noted, "pandemic-related distortions to supply and demand, as well as severe shocks to energy and commodity markets, wee important drivers of high inflation, and their reversal has been a key part of the story of its decline."

The situation is analogous to the growing threat from Tehran. President Trump's decision to withdraw from the treaty with Iran did not immediately precipitate a crisis with Iran. However, Tehran, unbound from its constraints, resumed its uranium enrichment program.  So as Collina explained, now

we are in a much worse place. Iran says it has no intent to produce nuclear weapons and U.S. intelligence sees no current efforts by Tehran to weaponize, yet Tehran is believed to be not one year but just weeks from being able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb if it chooses to do so.

Iran is a very bad actor and has played a major role in making the Middle East a very dangerous place. We can thank Donald Trump for helping making it so.

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The Lie Laughed At Around the World

I suppose if a guy would in the Oval Office advocate the execution of "a staffer who leaked a story," it's not surprising that he would lie about people across the globe.

Trump: “We’re a declining nation. We’re a nation that is being laughed at all over the world. We have a leader that is being laughed at all over the world.” pic.twitter.com/aE26LqmpaF

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) June 13, 2024

If people all over the world are laughing at us now, there must have been some pretty heavy guffaws during the Trump presidency, given that

People in 34 countries around the world have more confidence in President Joe Biden than his challenger in November’s election, former President Donald Trump, even as there is increased skepticism that United States democracy provides a good model for the rest of the world to follow, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center released Tuesday.

 The poll found a median of 43% in the surveyed countries say they trust Biden to do the right thing in world affairs compared to 28% for Trump. People had a more positive assessment of Biden than Trump in 24 countries, while Trump led in Hungary and Tunisia and the two men were effectively tied in eight other countries.

President Biden's standing in the world is not great. It is difficult across the globe to have faith in the USA when our nation is heavily invested in two wars- in eastern Europe and in the Middle East. In both instances (especially the latter), most individuals globally have little faith in the American President.

Both crises are fraught with danger, and a favorable outcome is not susceptible to overwhelming American military might. In Eastern Europe, there is a lurking possibility that Vladimir Putin will employ tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine if the American government overplays its hand. In the Middle East, the effort to eradicate a terrorist group is hindered by a Prime Minister, leader of a staunch USA ally, who is at least as concerned about his own political and legal future as he is by the safety and security of his nation. 

Events in those arenas may prove greater than American ability to determine a favorable outcome for the Free World. Yet, President Biden has several options to respond to Trump's claim that America "is being laughed at all over the world.' He can note that he is held in higher esteem than Trump by our European allies, which have rallied to Biden's effort to galvanize their support to fight Donald Trump's ally, Vladimir Putin. He can contrast his own commitment to democracy and freedom to his opponent's support of Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, and other totalitarians. And to top it off, "we now have a President who is not a felon." 

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IKelly's Move

Periodically, I post a "Tweet of the Day," which for all its irregularity, is more like "Tweet of the Year." However, this one is too good to pass up

He’s talking to you, former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly. Maybe this will prompt you to stop being a coward and go on camera with what you know. https://t.co/nP4nzyzaVo

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 9, 2024

As most- not enough- Americans know from the report by The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in September 2022

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed. 

Trump- or as CNN's Jake Tapper would put it- "President Trump" states

They make up stories- disinformation. A story like that. Think o fit from a practical standpoint. I'm standing there with generals and military people. In a cemetery. And I look at them and say "these people are suckers and losers."

Now, think of it. Unless you're a psycho or a crazy person or a very stupid person, who would say that , anyway? But who would say it to military people with military- because as President of the United States, I would say if I made that statement- if I have generals here, if I have it-- I would imagine that most of them would end up in a major fist fight with the President, O.K.? And you know what I would have said? It was O.K. in that instance. They made up a story- just out of thin air like a lot of the fake stories that are made up by these people because they're among the most dishonest people in the country- the fake news, they're dishonest people.

.

Kelly left the Administration in December of 2020 after serving as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Chief of Staff to President Trump, approximately 20 months before General John Kelly revealed the information Goldberg reported. 

Of course, there is little to no chance that The Atlantic "made up the story- just out of thin air," and "little chance" is on its way out of town. It is possible that Kelly made up the comments he attributed to President Trump but the latter lacks half the courage to point his figure at a retired general.

And it's improbable that Kelly fabricated his account. Thirteen months after the Atlantic report, he would remark to CNN of Trump 

A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them, A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.

This guy was a United States General with reverence for the office of the Presidency, whose occupant is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces when called into battle. He is also a conservative and would not have criticized the Republican President unless the latter showed serious contempt for members of those Armed Forces.

Trump knew that- and knew that General Kelly was unlikely to repeat the President's remarks and, if he did, would do so in a fashion that wouldn't hurt Trump and help the Democrats. 

One commenter to Filipkowski's post wisely asks "Shouldn't John Kelly find some bravery in Miles Taylor and Olivia Troye going on camera? What's it going to take? Yet, for every Taylor and Troye, there are dozens more like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Lindsay Graham, J.D. Vance, and the other Republicans who once criticized Donald Trump and now are slavishly devoted to him or nearly so. 

Donald Trump put his chips down on a bet that it's going to take more than the likelihood of electing a President who has threatened to wipe out the Constitution to convince General Kelly to put his prestige on the line. Think of Anthony Fauci, who before the last presidential election kept his mouth shut about the dangers of Donald Trump, betting the latter would lose the office. Fauci won that gamble and Kelly, God help us, may be making the same calculation.

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If Blacks Had Rampaged

This claim by the President of the United States of America should be, as the fact-checkers would put it, "mostly true."

Ugly race-baiting, hate-mongering fantasy https://t.co/4zceW1HtJU

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 30, 2024

What do you think he would have done on January 6 if black Americans had stormed- think about this. What do you think would have happened if black Americans had stormed the Capitol? Think about it. This is what would have happened if black Americans had stormed the Capitol. I don't think he would be talking about pardons. This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd's murder. The same guy who still calls the Central Park Five....

Oh, yes, the Central Park Five- four juveniles and one adult, blacks and Latinos.  On April 19, 1989 investment banker and jogger Trisha Meili was found in Manhattan's Central Park, having been brutally beaten and raped while jogging there. Police arrested a group comprised of Antra McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise. 

The case drew national attention while Donald Trump's

ad, which ran in local papers less than two weeks after the incident, played a key role in shaping public opinion about the case.

His open letter mourned how New York families of all races “have had to give up the pleasure of a leisurely stroll in the Park at Dusk” because of “roving thousands of wild criminals.” He argued that politicians were overly concerned with public outcry about police brutality — such as the fatal shooting of a disabled elderly black woman by a NYPD officer in the mid-1980s — to the point that they weren’t letting the “neighborhood cop” do his job of protecting the community, creating a “reckless and dangerously permissive atmosphere which allows criminals of every age to beat and rape a helpless woman.” He said “these muggers and murderers…should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.”

 Michael Warren, a member of the Central Park Five legal team, argued in The Guardian in 2016 that Trump "poisoned the minds of many people who lived in New York and who, rightfully, had a natural affinity for the victim"...

While four had given video confessions, they later said those had been coerced and all maintained their innocence. (Studies have shown that false confessions are a particular problem with young suspects.) There were also notable inconsistencies in their statements and other eyewitness accounts.

Still, two juries convicted the five in 1990. They served prison sentences ranging from six years to 13 years.

On Dec. 19. 2002, the convictions of the five men were vacated after a man named Matias Reyes, whose DNA matched evidence from the crime, confessed to having been responsible.

Although Reyes knew details of the crime, for which the statute of limitations had run out, which nobody but the perpetrator would have 

The police department has said it still believes the men were involved in some way and the victim, Meili, has said that she wishes the case had gone back to court because she still believes more than one person was responsible, but the city settled with the five in 2014, giving each roughly $1 million for each year spent behind bars.

President Biden stated that Trump "wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd's murder." When in June, 2020 President Trump marched through Lafayette Square to St. John's Episcopal Church in order to hold a Bible upside down and demonstrate his godliness, police- as Trump later would assert- did not use pepper spray. However, black lives matter protestors protestors were treated to a barrage of smoke canisters and pepper balls, which also are classified as "riot control agents."

So, mostly true. If a crowd of black Americans had stormed the Capitol on Trump's behalf on January 6, 2021, their race would not have prevented Trump for calling for pardons for the insurrectionists. If that nearly unbelievable event had taken place, he would have called for their pardon and accused the government of racism and Ku Klux Klan tactics. However, if a group had stormed the Capitol in opposition to a President Trump- at least a little more likely- he would have called for mass arrest, probably deportation, and possibly execution.

Just ask the Central Park Five.

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A Happy Day for One Man

The very conservative, exceedingly partisan Monica Crowley has an interesting spin on the former President:

Bring back the Commander-in-Chief who puts America - and Americans - First pic.twitter.com/OpvGnBidES

— Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) May 27, 2024

At 1:27 of the video below from September of 2020, the former Navy Seal caught the essence of Donald Trump when he noted "To me, his patriotism is a show. It's no different than anything that he's been doing the couple couple of decades on television."

 

The video came on the heels of the September, 2020 report report from Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic that

On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars. Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

Then in November of 2018

The fallout from President Donald Trump's decision to skip a ceremony honoring fallen American World War I soldiers in France on Saturday because of the rain grew amid the images of other world leaders defying inclement weather to memorialize the sacrifices of military heroes as part of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day.

The president and first lady Melania Trump braved a flurry of protesters Sunday, including a woman who charged their motorcade topless with the words "Fake Peacemaker" written across her chest, to attend a ceremony in Paris marking the centennial of the end of WWI at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees.

The president at the conclusion of his remarks awarded an American flag to Maj. Gen. William Matz, the secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission who gave Trump a tour of the cemetery before he went up to the podium.

"Each of these marble crosses and Stars of David marks the life of an American warrior -- great, great warriors that they are who gave everything for family, country, God and freedom," Trump said in a speech at the cemetery. "Through rain, hail, snow, mud, poisonous gas, bullets and mortar they held the line and pushed onward to victory."

But even as he spoke, the president was still being widely mocked for calling off a planned trip Saturday to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, about 60 miles northeast of Paris, due to rain.

On Saturday morning, the White House sent out a statement, saying, "The President and First Lady's trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial has been canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather."

While the president and first lady did not attend due to rain, Trump sent an American delegation to the cemetery led by his chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, and Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"It's incredible that a president would travel to France for this significant anniversary -- and then remain in his hotel room watching TV rather than pay in person his respects to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory gained 100 years ago...," David Frum, a political commentator and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, wrote on Twitter 

In a follow-up tweet, Frum wrote, "It's not even 60 miles from central Paris to the monument. If the weather is too wet & windy for helicopters, a presidential motorcade could drive the distance in an hour."

Kelly Magsamen, a high-ranking Pentagon official in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, heaped on the criticism, tweeting, "Real low energy, @realDonaldTrump to not bother to honor the sacrifice of American soldiers in WWI due to some rain. Somehow everyone else was able to do so today. Obama never had this problem. He also visited our troops in war zones." 

Trump scuttled the trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where many Americans are buried among the 2,288 graves and where the names of 1,060 American soldiers are engraved on a wall, even as other world leaders attended similar events Saturday at WWI cemeteries and memorials outside Paris.

The contempt for nearly everything American continues.

If you're a Trump supporter, read this, then look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, "What the f*** happened to me that I've gotten to the point that I would vote to put this demented person back in the White House?" pic.twitter.com/sJ4Gk5NSP7

— Ivan the K™ (@IvanTheK) May 27, 2024

"Happy Memorial Day" said the former President- because for Donald J. Trump, the thought of hundreds of thousands of Americans having lost their lives in war is truly a cause for celebration. 

 

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A Very Bad, Very Convenient, Memory

Bill O'Reilly makes the case for election of Donald Trump, and that warm feeling on your backside is smoke he's blowing up your rear end. Here, he claims

I don't care whether you like Trump or not. Trump governed this nation in a responsible way where everybody prospered. And if you don't believe that, you're a moron. Every single thing, every single indicator was on positive territory. All the working people no matter what color they were were making more money and there were more jobs. We didn't have inflation. We didn't have supply problems. We didn't have any of it. Now we have all of it, in addition to an open border.

🚨BREAKING: Fox News legend Bill O'Reilly just said: "I don't care whether you like Trump or not. Trump governed this nation in a responsible way, where everybody prospered. And if you don't believe that, you're a moron!"

What's your reaction? pic.twitter.com/NhS9UlgnUq

— PAMELA HENSLEY🇺🇸 (@PamelaHensley22) May 23, 2024

What a great country! All the working people were making more money and there were more jobs. Except that, as Vox explains

some of Trump’s signature economic policies have also been found to have had little to no measurable effect on the economy — and a few might have even hurt. Multiple studies have shown that the Trump tariffs at best had a neutral effect on the economy and at worst cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs and higher prices for consumers. And his 2017 tax cuts, which increased investment in the economy and contributed to modest wage growth in the short term, fell far short of Republicans’ promise that they would pay for themselves and are projected to significantly raise federal debt and increase income inequality.

"On the other hand," Biden

faced the immediate task upon assuming office of heading off a recession as the country started to bounce back from the pandemic. The US did recover from that pandemic economic slump. But there is evidence that his policies, including the stimulus checks he issued, contributed to an inflationary spiral. 

The US did, however, manage to curb inflation faster than other economically developed countries, while also maintaining much lower levels of unemployment and higher wage growth.

O'Reilly seems to have forgotten that

Supply chain disruptions rose nearly 70% in 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic leading the way as the most damaging event, according to data from supply chain risk monitoring firm Resilinc, released this week.

The data come from Resilinc’s 2020 EventWatch Report, which analyzes information gathered from the company’s EventWatch AI global event monitoring service. The report shows that supply chain disruptions were up 67% year-over-year in 2020, with 83% of disruptive events being “human caused,” the company said...

Donald Trump was President in 2020, when he constantly assured Americans that the coronavirus would "go away" and "is disappearing," Inflation was low through most of 2020 (but rose to.4.2% in January 2021) because people were sheltered at home and there was little demand for goods and services. O'Reilly says "we didn't have supply problems," a claim which should surprise suppliers and consumers of toilet tissue.

The inflation rate is now 3.4%. At 3.9%, the unemployment rate is at a nearly 50-year low. It was at 6.3% in January, 2021, when Trump left office. (It was at 7.2% and inflation at 4.1% as Saint Reagan carried 49 states on his way to re-election bragging "It's Morning in America Again.")

Bill O'Reilly supports Donald Trump. But facts are facts. In 2017, O'Reilly was worth approximately $85 million and probably is worth much more now. Therefore, Bill he knows that under a President Trump, the tax he pays on his income will be significantly lower. There probably is a connection the two..

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No Joke

Following the the weekend fundraiser for Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, New York Jets owner and multi-billionaire Woody Johnson honed his skills at stand-up. Appearing on Jesse Waters' Fox News show, Johnson remarked

It will be a safer, better pace. There will be less crime. He's extremely compassionate. People don't know that. He's extremely funny. I think people are starting to appreciate his sense of humor. And, uh, he just impressed all of us once again. I think that the overwhelming thought was, yea,  this is just the beginning for us. Everybody in that room was ready to step up hard.

Woody Johnson: Trump is extremely compassionate. People don’t know that. He’s extremely funny. People are starting to appreciate his sense of humor pic.twitter.com/cA0Xb2zX43

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 9, 2024

And they allegedly did step up hard, to a reported tune of over fifty million dollars donated by a group justifiably confident that a President Trump would cut its taxes substantially.

A President has virtually nothing to do with crime, though if Trump unleashes local and state police as he promises, crime may drop a little in the short run and increase considerably in the long run, as a view of police as the enemy of the neighborhood is reinforced.

Johnson may not have recognized the irony of his his claim that the 45th President is "extremely compassionate." Evidently oozing compassion is the President who willfully separated children of immigrants from their parents; referred to deceased American veterans as "losers" and tortured prisoners of wars "suckers;" significantly curbed access to food stamps for hungry Americans; implemented policies which eliminated health insurance for hundreds of thousands of children; and told police "when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, just just seen them thrown in, rough. I said 'Please don't be too nice. When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice." And who could forget this demonstration of compassion for handicapped individuals?

If Donald Trump were compassionate, he wouldn't now be the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, would not have become President, and would not even have been his party's nominee in 2016. The lack of compassion is his brand- he alone will figuratively bash in the heads of liberals and, as the 1/6/21 insurrection displayed, perhaps physically. I am your retribution.

Nonetheless, Woody Johnson's portrayal of Trump as compassionate crime-fighter, soft but tough, was not his most dangerous assertion. Worse, if voters are to buy the act, is his assessment of Trump as "extremely funny. I think people are starting to appreciate his sense of humor." Let us not forget one of the most telling of Trump's comments when in a rare burst of honesty on June 23, 2020 the President

insisted he was serious when he revealed that he had directed his administration to slow coronavirus testing in the United States, shattering the defenses of senior White House aides who argued Trump’s remarks were made in jest.

“I don’t kid. Let me just tell you. Let me make it clear,” Trump told reporters, when pressed on whether his comments at a campaign event Saturday in Tulsa, Okla., were intended as a joke.

“We have got the greatest testing program anywhere in the world. We test better than anybody in the world. Our tests are the best in the world, and we have the most of them. By having more tests, we find more cases,” he continued.

Administration officials as high ranking as Vice President Mike Pence have scrambled in recent days to clean up Trump’s statements from his weekend rally, where he reprised his dubious logic regarding testing rates before an arena of supporters.

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people,” Trump said during the rally. “You’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’”

I don't kid. Die-hard Trump voters know that; it's one of the reasons they're not Haley or Pence or Tim Scott or Doug Burgum voters. They're confident he says what he will do and will do what he says. He's authentically loud, mean- and serious. 

When Donald Trump says he'll be a dictator on Day One. Steve Bannon asserts "this is just not rhetoric. We're absolutely dead serious." Kash Patel, undoubtedly on Trump's short list for Attorney General, states "yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who rigged presidential elections.." And Trump himself has made clear his intention to weaponize federal law enforcement and prosecute political opponents, Joe Biden and others.

Take Donald Trump literally and seriously. He's not joking.

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Right, As Usual

The Mueller report explicitly chose not to exonerate Donald Trump for anything, did not find anything approximating a "hoax, neither the Inspector General nor Mueller "rubbished" the Steele dossier, and if Miranda Devine believes that a presidential candidate warning the nation of the threat from Russia "put us through hell," she has a rather limited perspective on hell.

“Deniers”?!! Her whole Steele Dossier-pee tape-Alpha Bank-Russia collusion hoax was thrown out by the two year $32 million Mueller investigation and further rubbished by the DOJ-IG and Durham probes. She put the country through hell and still clings to her lies to salve her ego.… https://t.co/RLcMEwQaUP

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) September 25, 2023

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) September 25, 2023

 

John Durham's probe into the FBI investigation into a possible connection between the Trump campaign and Russia produced no evidence of what Trump had called the "crime of the century." Ken Starr's investigation of the sex habits of Democratic president Bill Clinton's sex habits cost $52 million. 

And yet in July of 2018

Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein announced that a grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment presented by the Special Counsel’s Office. The indictment charges twelve Russian nationals for committing federal crimes that were intended to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. All twelve defendants are members of the GRU, a Russian Federation intelligence agency within the Main Intelligence Directorate of  the Russian military. These GRU officers, in their official capacities, engaged in a sustained effort to hack into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and released that information on the internet under the names "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0" and through another entity

Hillary Clinton tells Jen Psaki

That is his modus operandi in the sense that he hates democracy, he hates the West, and he particularly hates us and he has determined that can do two things simultaneously. He can try to continue to damage and divide us internally and he's quite good at it and sadly he has a lot of apologists and enablers in our own country, people who either don't see the dangers or dismiss it out of hand and/or maybe agree with some of the position he's taken on certain things, including his barbaric invasion of Ukraine. So, dividing us and then trying to seize territory in such a brutal way to try to expand his reach, to try to restore the Russian empire, if not the former Soviet Union, that is who he is.

I've said that for years. Part of why he worked so hard against me he didn't think he wanted me in the White House and part of where we are....

She has said it for years, and Vladimir Putin had good reason to help prevent the former Secretary of State from being elected. Five days before the 2016 presidential election, The Washington Post reported

In one of her last acts as secretary of state in early 2013, Hillary Clinton wrote a confidential memo to the White House on how to handle Vladimir Putin, the aggressive and newly reinstalled Russian president. Her bluntly worded advice: Snub him.

"Don't appear too eager to work together," Clinton urged President Obama, according to her recollection of the note in her 2014 memoir. "Don't flatter Putin with high-level attention. Decline his invitation for a presidential summit."

It was harsh advice coming from the administration’s top diplomat, and Obama would ignore key parts of it. But the memo succinctly captured a personal view about Putin on the part of the future Democratic presidential nominee: a deep skepticism, informed by bitter experience, that will be likely to define U.S.-Russian relations if Clinton is elected. Her lasting conclusion, as she would acknowledge, was that “strength and resolve were the only language Putin would understand.”….

Clifford Kupchan, chairperson of consulting firm Eurasia Group and Russia expert who attended private meetings with Vladimir Putin while Clinton was Secretary of State, stated "It may well be useful that she has a tough image. Mrs. Clinton has been through the same journey that a lot of us have gone through on Russia, which is dashed hopes" and "she doesn't wear deeply tinted sunglasses of any kind."

The NATO alliance, which President Trump had attempted to scuttle, has rallied to President Biden's call for a united front against the Russian attack on Ukraine. By contrast, Biden's immediate predecessor in March of 2022 had attributed the invasion two-and-a-half weeks earlier to "a lot of love" on the part of the Russian president. The invasion may have been deterred, making the leadership of our 56th President unnecessary, had Hillary Clinton, who warned Obama about Putin, not lost to Donald Trump, who would have only encouraged and supported Vladimir Putin's territorial ambition. But her emails!

 

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Empathy Trumped

Newt Gingrich makes a legitimate point about President Joe Biden, then turns reality on its head.

Gingrich: How can you have a commander in chief who is totally out of touch with reality, who makes up a story which is a lie, who has no understanding of the scale of the disaster which has occurred, who has literally has no empathy for the human beings around him. pic.twitter.com/GwGUBnyISw

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 23, 2023

Well, maybe the President has insufficient understanding of natural disasters. It is debatable whether he should have flown to Maui sooner than he did. His mere presence would have contributed little to actual relief efforts but, if nothing else, was politically tone-deaf.  Biden has not yet visited East Palestine, an error not only in politics but also in policy. There are issues, which he is reluctant to discuss, with the train derailment aside from climate change, and with the Maui disaster, beyond being an "act of God."

Moreover, Biden probably has less understanding of either of those situations than did President Trump about the danger posed by SARS-CoV-2, inasmuch as

President Donald Trump acknowledged the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic in a February interview with journalist Bob Woodward and acknowledged downplaying the threat in an interview a month later, according to an account of Woodward's new book.

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic," Trump said in a March 19 call with Woodward, according to an audio clip posted Wednesday on The Washington Post's website. The newspaper obtained a copy of the book, "Rage," which is scheduled to be released next week.

In the same interview, Trump acknowledged that the disease was more deadly than he previously thought.

"Now it's turning out it's not just old people, Bob. But just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It's not just old, older," Trump said, according to an audio clip, and then added, "young people, too, plenty of young people."

And while then-President Trump on 38 conditions stated that SARS-CoV-2 would "go away" or "disappear" or was on its way to disappearing, 1,099,066 residents of the USA died from it on his watch. Much of that was tragic, thus unavoidable, and much of it was because the President knew and understood the danger of Covid-19 and was (generously speaking)  unconcerned.

In a portion of Gingrich's comments not included in the snippet above, the ex-congressman remarked  "He is out of touch with reality. How can you stand in Lahaina surrounded by death and talk about your '67 Corvette? 

This illustrates the absurdity of Gingrich's charge that Joe Biden "literally has no empathy for the human beings around him." The President had told of being in Washington, DC fifteen years earlier when "Lightning struck at home, on a little lake that's outside of our home—not a lake, a big pond,—and hit a wire that came up underneath our home into the heating ducts and air conditioning ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my '67 Corvette, and my cat."

It didn't come off well because the President seemed to be trivializing the devastating wildfires. Yet, he was describing how the memory of the lightning surrounding his home personalized to him the catastrophe in Hawaii.  It was not lack of empathy, but if anything, a misplaced emphasis on empathy.

We can see that at work in the controversy surrounding Biden's son, Hunter. Hunter was an alcoholic, is or was a drug addict, and appears to be a rapacious, even corrupt businessman. He rationalized his affairwith the widow of his late brother as "the idea that we could keep Beau alive by being together- that by loving each other we somehow could love him back into existence." That is some might powerful malarkey.

Nevertheless, Joe Biden has stuck with his surviving son, who if not a public figure would in times past have been dismissed as a "bad seed."  In April, amid congressional and criminal investigations into overseas business dealings, Hunter was permitted to join the President of the United States of America, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces when actually called into service, on a trip to the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. (As Biden himself would put it, "not a joke!")

On behalf of an out-of-touch Administration, a spokesman blew it off with  "Historically, family members of presidents and first ladies have frequently joined them during international travel,. Current practices are consistent with those used by prior administrations."

Most prior presidents did not have a son or a daughter quite like Hunter. The fierce, even blind, loyalty of Joe Biden to his son reflects a stunning empathy, not absence of empathy. It represents also a reckless disregard of political reality and, arguably, of a President's duty to the nation he alone heads.

Joseph Robinette Biden is a family man and father- of a 53-year-old man. Astoundingly empathetic, he owes an overwhelming responsibility to the most powerful nation on earth. Empathy is admirable- in a President, leadership is far more important.

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Twenty Seconds

It now has been well over 24 hours and we still don't know what precipitated the incident in which

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suddenly stopped speaking during a weekly Republican leadership news conference Wednesday afternoon, appearing to freeze, and then went silent and was walked away.

McConnell, R-Ky., had been making his opening remarks about an annual defense policy bill when he stopped talking. He was silent for 19 seconds. His Republican colleagues asked whether he was OK, and a top McConnell deputy, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a physician, escorted McConnell, 81, away from the cameras and reporters.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa made a hand gesture that initially appeared to resemble the sign of the cross. Her office later clarified that she was motioning for Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota.

         

Dr. Corey Abair of the CBS affiliate in Slidell, Louisiana on Wednesday explained

So at this point what he probably had is called a TIA or transient ischemic attack. It's like of like a mini stroke but the other thing he could have had is what is called an "absent seizure" and that's a seizure like a staring spell and it's not a full seizure where you shake. It is just something where you kind of tune out for about three to four seconds and then you come right back.

The fact that he's back and they didn't rush him to the hospital thinking that he may have had a stroke means it may been an absent seizure.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, absent "seizures happen suddenly, without warning, usually lasting fewer than 20 seconds, and are more common in children than adults." Even if McConnell did not suffer this, however, he may have suffered from a different kind of seizure. Or he may have had a mini-stroke.

If Republicans are smart- as they usually are- we will never know. Tactically, the wise move is not to send McConnell to the hospital or if they do, simply refuse to release the diagnosis or lie about it.

It worked for Donald Trump. Recall when in 2018 presidential physician Ronny Jackson "gushed about President Donald Trump’s health during a briefing before the White House press corps on Tuesday, touting the President’s 'good genes,' how he did 'exceedingly well' on his cognitive test and his 'excellent' cardiac health." He maintained "it's just the way God made him."  Jackson was later found to have " berated employees, made sexual comments about a female subordinate, and violated the policy for drinking alcohol on a presidential trip."

In the interim, Jackson became a United States Representative. Trump now is the leading candidate for the GOP nomination to serve another term as President, and any comparisons to McConnell include the names of Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and John Fetterman with nary a word about Trump. The "it's not the crime, it's the cover up" bromide is turned on its head. 

Democratic colleagues of McConnell, who also assure us that GOP senators don't like Donald Trump but must cater to an irrational voter base, won't question the Minority Leader's health. Neither will most MSNBC commentators. A few hours after the incident, Nicole Wallace, probably the second most popular personality on cable television's liberal, non-progressive network, remarked "I wish him well. I wish no ill health on any human being in the arena or outside of it. And if this were Joe Biden, there would be impeachment proceedings underway for sentence interruptus.”

There may be something in between calling for the impeachment of Mitch McConnell and letting him slide by wishing him well and moving on to Wallace's next daily, two-hour episode of "How Satanic Donald Trump Ruined a Great Republican Party." (Actually, Wallace has a little perspective; colleague Joe Scarborough, none.)

Wallace and others could continue self-affirming virtue signaling or instead actually commit journalism, beginning with running the full clip of the 20-second period in which Minority Leader McConnell stood silent. Earth to Wallace: this is what Fox News would do if Joe Biden had suffered a setback and stopped talking or moving for 20 seconds. The President's approval rating would plummet. 

Fox News still can't get enough of video of Joe Biden recently tripping over a sandbag left on the stage at the Air Force Academy graduation by the elite Secret Service. Merely overlooked, of  course.

If Republicans bury this incident, Democratic politicos should take a take a page from the GOP's playbook. If your loved one, or your liked one, suffered an episode similar to the one experienced by McConnell, you'd take him or her to a medical facility. If the GOP announces that McConnell has seen qualified medical personnel, the Senator would deserve sympathy and support from everyone. In the absence of that, it's a serious and significant cover-up and should be treated as such. 

 

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