Trump as a Hijacker February 17th, ano 3

 

February 17,3

File under; Quote of the Day (This is a long post, please see request at bottom before leaving)

Today's quote comes from the pen of Dana Milbank, a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist for The Washington Post. He also provides political commentary for various TV outlets, and he is the author of three books on politics.

I chose Dana's piece in the WP because I firmly believe Donald Trump has done a tremendous amount of damage to our country and continues to do so in his pursuit of self-dietification.

Basically, I (bobb) think Donald Trump committed the crime of hijacking. Let me explain;

There is a movement within the US, a movement by various tribes of like minded citizens that increasingly felt marginalized, and excluded from participating in society. There was a growing consensus among tribe members the US business leadership, the stewards of higher education, the lawmakers, the bureaucratic enforcers and the judicial deciders no longer represented their interests or protected their welfare and were in fact imposing upon them rules and mandates that ran counter to their very core beliefs and reaching into the most mundane of everyday activities. A very short list of identifiers would include the capacity of the ammo clips that fit the rifle in your pickup. Whether you can light your house with incandescent bulbs or not. Whether you can mow your yard with a lawnmower powered by a gas engine. Whether you can be taxed to pay for other peoples abortions. Whether your government actively promotes moving your job overseas or keeping it stateside. Whether you could run your business or do your job guided by the religious principles that ruled the rest of your life. Whether you had any say at all in guiding your children through sexual identity issues. What historical narrative of race in America would your children be taught as true and accurate. This diverse group held one common belief;

In the eyes of the US government, their lives didn't matter.

Their political representatives gave enough verbal support to garner their vote for reelection but little-to-nothing was done to address their core issues or more importantly to work towards keeping these tribes within the dialog stream that was determining what this country was, and where it was going. These people felt they had been marginalized, cut off from participating in the wealth their nation was generating, they felt evicted from their community and the door to reentry locked from the inside behind them. In many, many cases they were absolutely correct.

I am of the opinion Donald doesn't give a rat's rectum about these people or their situation. Donald only cares about Donald and seeks only to have his narcissistic cravings satisfied. For Trump it will always be about Trump and nothing else. Trump probably holds at least three Phd's in The Art of Manipulation for not only has he no problem using and manipulating people in ways that achieve his ends and leaves them with the bar tab, it's that he ENJOYS doing it.

This man pulled the wool over these folks' eyes, pandered to their vulnerabilities and in the course of garnering their allegiance, has torn this nation apart. His followers in congress are blinded to the deep, nearly irreversible damage they are inflicting on this nation in pursuit of Trump's self-serving goals.  The people who make up America matter, all of them matter, whether Trump and the Republican party thinks so or not.

With that said, I take every opportunity to weaken Trump's grip on the American voter. What follows is Dana Milbank commenting on the ironic loss by Trump of yet another longtime ally;

Dana writes;

After all these years, former president Donald Trump’s longtime accountants have come to the conclusion that maybe — just maybe — the guy isn’t 100 percent trustworthy.

Trumps accounting firm, Mazars stated to the Trump Organization, "We write to advise that the Statements of Financial Condition for Donald J. Trump for the years ending June 30, 2011 — June 30, 2020 (9 consecutive years!, bb), should no longer be relied upon,”...,“and you should inform any recipients thereof who are currently relying upon one or more of those documents that those documents should not be relied upon.”

The Mazars disavowal of Trump’s financial statements points to the folly of all those earlier attempts to pry loose details about Trump’s finances, such as his tax returns. He and his aides lied to the public, the media, Congress, the FBI and the courts. Why would he tell the truth in these filings? The question isn’t whether Trump’s financial statements “should no longer be relied upon” but why anyone would have relied upon them in the first place.

Still...Those accused of crimes receive a Miranda warning. Those who consume any Trump message should likewise receive a Mazars warning: “The statements of Donald J. Trump should not be relied upon.”

(Here an example)

“The latest pleading from Special Counsel Robert Durham provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign,” Trump announced this week, suggesting such a thing should be “punishable by death.”Mazars Warning: The statements of Donald J. Trump should not be relied upon. The special counsel’s first name is John. He has not charged anyone with spying on Trump. Though Trump obliquely suggests his former opponent deserves execution, it’s a stretch to call the activity in question “spying,” the link to Clinton is tenuous, and, as The Post reported, Durham just let a key prosecuting deadline expire.

(Here an other example) 

“The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis,” Trump stated after National Archives and Records Administration officials retrieved White House documents from his Mar-a-Lago Club. “In actuality, I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material.” Trump further said the controversy was “a camoflauge for how horribly our Country is doing.”  Mazars Warning: The statements of Donald J. Trump should not be relied upon. The National Archives and Records Administration asked the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s taking of 15 boxes of official documents, including some classified as “top secret,” instead of sending them to the Archives as required by law, The Post reported. To put this in perspective, when former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger removed copies of one document from the National Archives in 2003, he lost his security clearance for three years, was fined $50,000 and was sentenced to community service. The correct spelling is “camouflage.”

Mazars warnings should also be slapped retroactively on the various assertions by Trump aides and allies that have recently come to light:

-That then-President Trump could declare an emergency and have the military seize voting machines.

-That Republican state legislatures could send slates of fake “alternate” presidential electors to Congress.

-That a Republican prosecutor in Michigan could turn over voting machines to the Trump campaign.

-That Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act to block the election certification.

The Mazar warnings should apply to Trumpified lawmakers, too.

-The statements of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) should not be relied upon. He hosted a meeting of covid-19 quacks on Capitol Hill and praised their “qualifications.” One of them, Ben Marble, told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this week that the pandemic could be ended by killing government officials and bombing the World Economic Forum, as Media Matters reported.

-The statements of Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) should not be relied upon. He declared falsely on Fox News this past week that “originally” the Biden administration “said they would include crack pipes” in safe-smoking kits for overdose prevention.

-And the statements of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) certainly should not be relied upon. Asked about his campaign hawking mugs featuring the photo of him pumping his fist in solidarity with the Jan. 6 crowd outside the Capitol, Hawley told HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney: “It is not a pro-riot mug.”

As with surgeon-general warnings, people would be free to ignore Mazars warnings. But it would be harmful to their country’s health.

Dana Milbank is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist for The Washington Post. He also provides political commentary for various TV outlets, and he is the author of three books on politics.

I know this was a long read, holding to an unpopular position, on a controversial subject. But if you feel like I feel, that this infighting is just killing our country, and that we must at least temporarily put aside what seem as major issues and instead focus our attention on keeping our country a voluntary union of like, but different peoples, if you can agree to that simple little point, then please share this post.  bobb