President Donald John Trump went to the United Nations and did what you are not supposed to do – he told the truth and he told it in plain, unvarnished language.
At the UN, heads of state are supposed to speak in platitudes. The major point of all speeches at the UN is supposed to be about how great the UN is, how it has prevented World War III and made the world a better place.
Trump did make some nice comments about the UN, but mostly about what it could be, not what it is, which is one of the most bureaucratic and inefficient organizations the world has ever seen.
Trump said standing in front of the General Assembly what others have only said in private: What sense does a Human Rights Commission make if you put some of the world’s worst human rights violators on the commission to protect human rights?
Calling North Korean president Kim Jong Un “Rocketman” in a speech at the UN, with the North Korean delegation sitting right there, was nothing short of brilliant.
What Kim wants more than anything is legitimacy. He wants North Korea to be recognized as one of the world’s great powers because it has joined the club of nuclear nations. What he doesn’t want is to be belittled and made the butt of jokes at the UN.
But Trump didn’t just make fun of Kim, he also sent an unambiguous warning that he is not going to allow North Korea to join that exclusive club of nuclear powers, and he said this at the UN with every nation in the world listening.
President Barack Obama proved he was not a man of his word when he drew a red line and told Syria what would happen if that line were crossed. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crossed that line Obama waffled and did not keep his own promise.
The damage to US credibility was immense. The world knew that Obama was all talk and no action.
North Korea has now been told that the US has a new president and he doesn’t play those games.
The next move is up to Kim, but he can’t say, and the world can’t say, that he didn’t get a fair warning.
Trump didn’t tone down his rhetoric about the deal that Obama made with Iran. He has called it the worst deal ever.
Every American should be ashamed of the fact that the US gave Iran hundreds of billions of dollars that Iran has used to promote terrorism in the Middle East and around the world. The fact that as part of that deal the US paid hundreds of millions in cash to ransom hostages is an absolute embarrassment.
Trump can’t do anything about either of those actions by Obama, but he doesn’t have to continue the farce that Iran is a country that adheres to its agreements. Or the idiocy of having Iran inspect its own facilities to ensure compliance.
Next month the Iran agreement is scheduled to be renewed. After what he said at the UN, if Iran doesn’t offer some major concessions, Trump has made it clear he isn’t going to renew it.
As some might remember, because there was no way the Iran agreement would ever be ratified by the US Senate, political maneuvering was done so that the agreement didn’t have to be ratified and is simply an agreement signed by the US president. Trump doesn’t need anyone’s approval to demand major changes if the agreement is to go forward.
Venezuela and Cuba were both blasted by Trump for being failed socialist or communist states.
And Israel was defended.
Trump also noted that it isn’t fair or right for the US to pay over 22 percent of the cost of the UN and that the other nations of the world were going to have to pick up their fair share.
It would change the UN for the better if, when the UN decided to take action, every country in the organization knew that their country would be footing their fair portion of the bill. The way it is now, there is no incentive for countries not to vote to spend vast sums of money on questionable projects because they know the US is going to pick up the tab.
Hopefully those days are over and Trump will demand that the US stop funding projects that run against US policies and that every country pay a fair share of funding what is supposed to be a worldwide organization.
People have said that Trump is backing away from the promises he made during the campaign. If the UN speech proved anything, it is that the Trump of the campaign trail is the same Trump who is in the White House.
Trump says what he thinks and he isn’t shy about it.
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From the photos of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly at the UN speech, it appears that Kelly has found he can control everyone in the White House except his boss.
But if Kelly doesn’t want Trump to be Trump, then Kelly needs to find another job because Trump was the one elected president and he’s going to be there for four years. If the economy continues its growth, Trump, despite what you may read elsewhere, is going to be almost impossible to beat in 2020.
It even seems possible that Hillary Clinton may do Trump the immense favor of running for president again. If she does, Trump might even win California.
Nobody likes a whiner and Hillary Clinton has done nothing else since she finally admitted she lost the election – a day after everyone else in the country knew it was true.
No candidate wants to give a concession speech, but most candidates recognize the possibility that they may have to do it and, when the time comes, they find the courage to go out and say what has to be said. Hillary Clinton didn’t have what it takes to go out on stage and admit defeat. It is another indication of her lack of character.
When Trump said that his campaign was wiretapped by the Obama administration, the mainstream media made fun of Trump as being some kind of a paranoid conspiracy nutcase – although to be fair they didn’t use the term nutcase.
Now it turns out that his campaign manager was wiretapped by the federal government during the campaign. So Trump was correct when he said his campaign was wiretapped. It was.
And now, Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller is using the information from those wiretaps to go after Paul Manafort, who at one point was Trump’s campaign manager.
And if Trump thought he had changed the culture of the FBI by firing Director James Comey, it appears he’s sadly mistaken.
When the FBI searched Manafort’s home, they came in without knocking in the middle of the night. They rousted him and his wife out of bed and searched them for weapons like they were dealing with some kind of notorious drug dealers or mafia kingpins.
I suppose when you consider that Obama had been president for eight years, and the last attorney general was Loretta Lynch who didn’t see a problem with having a secret private meeting with Bill Clinton while his wife was under investigation, and that Comey who is a proven liar was the FBI director and Hillary Clinton campaign co-conspirator, then the current FBI agents are likely to consider the former Trump campaign manager on the same level with drug dealers and mafia kingpins.
Trump may not be able to fire Mueller, but he can certainly order FBI agents to be fired, and whoever ordered that raid on Manafort’s home should be fired. It had no legal purpose; it was simply done to embarrass Manafort and Trump.
The chief law enforcement agency of this country is supposed to be loyal to the president of the United States, whoever that is. Their loyalty cannot be to the woman they think should have been president, or the man who was president.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but having an FBI that is not loyal to the president is far too dangerous for this country to allow it to continue. The FBI is far too powerful to allow people who do not have the best interest of whoever the American people elected president to continue. Attorney General Jeff Sessions shouldn’t even allow the hint of the FBI not being loyal to the president to continue.
Certainly the FBI had every right to search Manafort’s house, but there was no reason to do it in a manner to cause Manafort the most embarrassment possible. It’s not like the investigation of Manafort was a secret and they followed him as he sped home to destroy incriminating records. If there were any such records, he had plenty of time to destroy them, and he could have called Hillary Clinton to find out how to have his hard drive wiped (like with a cloth) so that even the FBI couldn’t retrieve the data.
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It’s being reported that Mueller is investigating Manafort back as far as 2006.
Since Mueller is supposed to be investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia meddling in the presidential campaign, it’s hard to comprehend how what Manafort was doing during the administration of President George W. Bush could possibly have to do with the Trump campaign 10 years later.
The way this is being reported by the mainstream media, the fact that Manafort had business dealings with Russians before Trump even considered running for president is somehow proof that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians to fix the election. It’s absurd on its face.
The mainstream media report about Manafort’s dealings with Russians as if that was somehow illegal.
There was a time when the Obama administration was encouraging more economic ties with Russia. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, had that ridiculous little skit that she did to “reset” relations with Russia by pressing a big red button. It was embarrassingly sophomoric for a secretary of state to participate in such a skit, but the message was clear – the Obama administration wanted to do more with Russia.
So how could there be anything wrong with Manafort dealing with Russia?
It all appears to be just another good example of why the whole idea of a special prosecutor for these allegations made by the Clinton campaign was a really bad idea.
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It’s kind of amazing what the mainstream media choose to report, but not surprising. When Obama was president, any slight uptick in the economy was hailed as proof that Obama’s economic policies, which actually prolonged the recession for eight long years, were working.
Since Trump was elected, the stock market has sky rocketed. It’s up 4,000 points and is at an all time high. Unemployment is down and the number of people working is higher than it has ever been. But you won’t see headlines on the front page of mainstream newspapers proclaiming Trump’s economic policies are working.
What the mainstream media are reporting is that the stock market is too high and is due to fall, and that is always a safe prediction. The stock market goes up and down, but even if it falls 1,000 points it’s still 3,000 points higher than it ever was while Obama was president.
It turns out that Trump was right and Obama was wrong. Trump has removed many regulations that Obama instituted. If Congress would get on board with Trump and make major changes in the tax laws, the economy could get even better.
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So Trump has dinner with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and they talk about politics.
It’s incredible what can get the mainstream media in a tizzy. According to those who were there, no deal was made, no agreement signed, but they did reach some areas of mutual understanding.
It sounds like brilliant negotiating to me. Trump is not negotiating with the Democrats, he is negotiating with Congress to get them to do something.
Trump gave the Republicans eight months to get something done and they did nothing, so now he’s talking to Democrats. If there were Martians or representatives from the House of Stark in Congress, he’d be talking to them.
This is negotiating 101, but is evidently over the heads of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who between them haven’t passed any significant legislation since Trump became president.
Trump is once again sending them a message because they evidently didn’t understand the first one – the deal for disaster relief and raising the debt ceiling. The Republicans had planned to spend weeks arguing, stabbing each other in the back, name calling and generally making fools of each other for a couple of weeks until the very eve of the deadline, when they would pass something and then go home for a long vacation after being completely worn out by doing something everyone in the world knows they were going to do.
The deal with “Nancy and Chuck,” as Trump called them, was a shot across the bow for the Republican leadership, but they didn’t seem to get the message, so Trump followed up with another shot.
Either the Republican leadership can heed the warning and start working with Trump, or a broadside is coming. He may give the Republicans one or two more chances to come to their senses and start behaving like people who have been given the responsibility of running the country, or Trump will simply cut out the Republican leadership, make the deals he needs to make with the Democrats and continue on his way.
Trump didn’t win the presidency because he was a Republican, and certainly not because the Republican establishment supported him, because it didn’t.
Trump’s base is not made up of the long-time Republican stalwarts. There are a lot of voters who registered to vote only to vote for Trump, and a lot more who were registered but who hadn’t bothered to vote in the last couple of presidential elections when the Republican Party took the advice of the mainstream media and nominated men that were registered Republicans but not only weren’t conservatives they weren’t even on the right side of the field.
Sen. John McCain wanted Sen. Joe Lieberman to be his running mate. The two are good friends and Lieberman traveled around with McCain when he was campaigning for president. Lieberman was also Al Gore’s running mate in 2000.
The fact that McCain for a second would consider having a liberal Democrat on the ticket with him proves that he isn’t the least bit conservative.
Mitt Romney was governor of one of the most liberal states in the country. There is no way that Massachusetts would elect a conservative governor. He did try to change his tune when running for president but his past kept coming back to haunt him.
If the Republican establishment had had its way in the election, then Jeb Bush would have been the nominee and Hillary Clinton would be president, and that would be OK with the Republican establishment because it would give them an excuse for four years for not doing anything.
The Republican establishment won’t admit it publicly, but they hated it when Trump won because it put them in the position of having to at least pretend to try to govern.
Trump has said publicly that he would sign any Obamacare repeal bill they passed. That really put the pressure on, and the Republican establishment wilted under the pressure. The idea that one of their bills would actually become law was a concept they weren’t ready to accept.
So if Trump can’t work with the Republicans, he’ll work with the Democrats, who have amazing party discipline.
McConnell can’t deliver his 52 votes for any bill of import, but Schumer only has to snap his fingers and he’s got 48 Democratic senators lined up and ready to vote however he tells them.
Why is it that all the Democrats vote with Schumer but the Republicans won’t vote with McConnell? Could it be something called leadership? McConnell has none. McConnell is a follower and couldn’t successfully lead a Boy Scout patrol on a five-mile hike.
The fact that the Republicans in the Senate have let him continue to be majority leader is inexplicable, unless the majority of Republicans in the Senate also want to do nothing.
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Some environmentalists are expressing outrage over the Trump administration considering relaxing the standards for the disposal of coal ash.
Regardless of whether you believe coal ash is toxic or harmless, the government’s position needs be reconsidered because it doesn’t make any sense.
About 60 percent of coal ash is used to make building materials. Some coal ash is used in agriculture as a soil supplement. But what isn’t used to create materials to build homes for people to live in and what isn’t used on farmers’ fields to grow things that we eat or wear has to be placed in a lined landfill.
If coal ash is as harmful as some environmentalists claim – although even the Obama administration couldn’t find a reason to classify it as toxic or hazardous – then it should not be used to make building materials and should not be used by farmers to put in their fields.
And if it is safe enough to use in building materials and on farmers’ fields, then it shouldn’t be put in lined landfills at enormous expense.
If it isn’t harmful why can’t it be used as fill under roads, parking lots, runways or wherever fill is needed?
It appears in dealing with coal ash, as he did with so many issues, Obama gave in to the radical environmentalists and the corporations. He split the baby when splitting the baby didn’t make any sense.
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When reading in the mainstream media about the Trump presidency, I have to keep reminding myself that these same people were wrong about the Trump presidential candidacy from beginning to end. They never got it right. Day after day they predicted the demise of Donald Trump and day after day he surprised them by winning.
Having been so wrong about Trump for so long, why believe anything they say about him now?
The reason is because what they say is everywhere. The third, fourth or fifth time you read something, it’s hard to believe there isn’t some truth there – but in this case often there isn’t.
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Hillary Clinton is out promoting a book about how her second attempt to become president ended with her at home in Chappaqua and Trump in the White House.
Or to be more precise, Hillary Clinton with two homes in Chappaqua and Trump in the White House, because Hillary Clinton bought the house next door to house the Secret Service while she was president. Even by Clinton standards that is an audacious move. Isn’t it amazing that it wasn’t reported on by the mainstream media during the campaign?
Hillary Clinton blames everyone, including the voters, but in 454 pages she fails to explain the reason she lost.
Hillary Clinton lost because she received fewer Electoral College votes than Trump.
The president of the United States has always been elected by the Electoral College. Even someone who slept through American history class should know this. But for some reason Hillary Clinton, the “smartest woman in America,” did not grasp this essential fact.
While Hillary Clinton was running around the country collecting votes, her opponent – who she characterizes as politically inept and inexperienced – was not concentrating on overall vote totals because he was concentrating on winning states that would give him a victory in the Electoral College.
There is no other way to explain the fact that Hillary Clinton didn’t make a single campaign appearance in Wisconsin other than she ran a campaign that completely missed the key to winning the election.
Who do you think would win a football game if one team is concentrating on scoring touchdowns and the other team is concentrating on gaining yards?
It’s true that gaining yards can result in touchdowns, but gaining 99 yards of the football field doesn’t count for anything. A 99.9 yard run from one goal line to the 1-inch line of the other team results in zero points, whereas a 1.1 inch gain from the 1-inch line results in 6 points. It may not be fair, but those are the rules of the game.
Hillary Clinton, for instance, campaigned in California; Donald Trump did not. Clinton did it because she was after votes and California has millions. Trump didn’t bother because although he knew he could win votes by campaigning in California, he could not win the state and the Electoral College votes that went with it.
Hillary Clinton lost, not because of everyone else in the country, but because she ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of presidential politics. And because she was one of the worst candidates, at least in recent history.
What other presidential candidate has refused to hold press conferences or even talk to the press unless the press agreed not to ask meaningful questions?
I have to admit that I’m a little hurt by Hillary Clinton’s book. She blames practically everyone else in the country for her loss, but she doesn’t once mention me. I worked as hard as I could to keep her from being elected president and didn’t even get a footnote.
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People have asked why Hillary Clinton would write a book about her embarrassingly poor presidential campaign. Anyone who asks that question doesn’t know much about Hillary Clinton.
She did it for money. It’s probably one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton hates Trump as much as she does. Trump has more money than Hillary Clinton could ever hope to have and she has always been after big money.
Trump’s election has more or less closed down the Clinton Foundation, which was a great source of wealth for the Clintons – and not only a source of wealth but a way for the Clintons to continue to enjoy a lifestyle of those much wealthier than they are. The private jets and the luxury accommodations were paid for by the Clinton Foundation.
So Hillary Clinton saw an opportunity to make money on a book and she couldn’t pass it up because it was a few million dollars, which considering the way the Clintons live, won’t go far. But every couple of million helps, and no doubt the Clintons will come up with a new scheme to bilk other people out of their money, soon.
