emoluments

July 17, 2018, 5:36 pmJuly 17, 2018, 8:49 pm

Helsinki Sinkhole

I guess I don’t really care…

Trump and Putin at Helsinki — Photo: YURI KADOBNOV/AFP/Getty Images

…about all the bullshit patriotic complaints about Donald Trump’s wimpy show in Helsinki yesterday. If the United States were a sports team (something else I don’t care about, by the way), it would have been a defeat, and a humiliating one. He truly showed himself to be a coward, and to the extent that he is seen as representing the U.S., it was embarrassing. Putin clearly was the boss of Trump.

But we as Americans can’t act as if we are shocked, shocked! to learn that nations meddle in each others business, or that by “standing up to Putin” our idiot president would have been supporting The American Way of Life, or furthering the values of justice and truth. All he would have been doing is NOT embarrassing us all, and NOT acting like the chickenshit little weasel that he appears to be.

American presidents are always judged by how tough or how lax they appear to be on the world stage, and most of them play the game they are expected to play, because they want to get reelected, or they want their party to gain seats in Congress. The power they are struggling to maintain is breathtaking, they know the voters (and the Other Party) are watching, and they will take part in pretty much any political theater that allows them to keep their power.

Donald Trump is different. I know a lot of voters chose him for exactly that reason: he’s different. And in a way I can’t blame them, after seeing so many politicians turn out to be like all other politicians, after they’re elected. Unfortunately, Trump is different in a bad way: He really doesn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone but himself. He is ignorant, selfish and purely transactional. All Donald Trump wants to know is “What’s in it for me?” Continue reading

Product Placement

I’m not going to pretend that this pisses me off any more than everything else Donald Trump and the gang are up to.

The Trump Administration is looking less like the second coming of the German Nazi Party every day, and more like a Keystone Kops comedy. Their barrage of Executive Action signings are mostly just photo ops, and the one they really got behind — the Muslim Ban — has now been stayed by a federal judge and the stay has been upheld by a panel of the 9th Circuit. This is not to say that they won’t hurt a lot of people before it’s over, but at least there is hope that they won’t bring down the Republic.

But Donald Trump’s refusal to divest himself from his businesses, create a blind trust and stop hiding his financial dealings from the American people remains the most serious of his betrayals. While the president gets some legal leeway in this matter, there is a reason all previous presidents have taken steps to separate themselves from business activities while in office. Doing a good job at being president should be the only thing on Trump’s agenda. Instead, he remains the owner of his company, and stands to benefit WHILE IN OFFICE from income generated from it.

He has tweeted in support of his daughter’s clothing line. Ivanka herself has advertised jewelry she is selling as having been worn on a 60 Minutes interview. Melania has recently admitted in court that she plans to enhance her own wealth as a result of being First Lady. The whole family, not to mention Trump’s sycophantic staff (see Kellyanne Conway article), is trying to cash in.

Trump has serious ethical and criminal issues. He must address them now. We need a president focused on the nation, not on getting richer. If he wanted to remain in the business world he should not have run for president.

Donald Trump’s Conflicts of Interest

Donald Trump is planning to loot the United States Treasury.

This has always been the plan: to enrich himself and his family at the expense of the taxpayers. To gain more for himself he is likely to compromise the security of the country. Yes, he’s an incompetent, narcissistic sociopath, but THIS IS SERIOUS.
He is hiding his financial dealings, but now it comes out that “The president is the sole beneficiary of the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, which is tied to his social security number as the taxpayer identification number, according to documents published online by the investigative nonprofit ProPublica.”

Read the article at The Guardian.