Donald Trump – Page 14

No Way To Sugarcoat This … The Man Occupying Our White House Is An Abject Moron

August 9, 2019 By John DeProspo 4 Comments

Donald Trump may be a lot of things – a racist, a narcissist, a philanderer, a bad businessman – but at his core, he is a total dunderhead.

Our “so-called” president has no sense of time or place. If there’s an opportunity for him to act inappropriately, he’ll seize it with the gusto of a kid let loose in a candy store.

The latest example of how Trump is incapable of acting fittingly under the circumstances occurred just a few days ago in El Paso, Texas.

Instead of having the basic good sense of faking empathy, which the situation called for after 22 people were killed and many wounded by a shooter clearly influenced by Trump’s racist rhetoric, Trump turned the situation into one big photo op.

Rather than trying to console a grieving community, Trump added salt to the wound.

Incredibly, our “so-called” FLOTUS had the bad sense to post, on her Twitter account, the above photo.

This was part of the photo op strategy of Trump visiting patients at the University Medical Center of El Paso who were victims of the gun violence.

It wasn’t learned until sometime after Trump’s visit to the hospital that the victim in the photo, a baby boy who survived the massacre, was not even a patient when Trump showed his face.

The baby, a two-month-old whose parents were killed in the mass shooting shielding their son from the bullets, had been hospitalized and released prior to Thump’s visit. He had to be brought back to the medical center for Trump to pull off his photo op.

Now, anyone with half a brain would not be smiling in a photo with the newly orphaned boy. Nor would he be giving the thumbs up. But when you’re an idiot you just can’t act in any other way.

An interesting side note, the man to the left of Trump is the baby’s uncle, a lifelong Republican. He said he wanted to meet Trump to see if he had “maybe some kind of remorse for statements that he’s made,” presumably the comment about the immigrant “invasion” that the El Paso shooter echoed in his white supremacist manifesto.

Looking at the photo, it’s unlikely the man got the remorse he was looking for from a man with the IQ of a pet rock (my apologies to all the pet rocks out there).

Photo | FLOTUS/ Twitter

For Trump, And Republicans, Not All “Invasions” Are Of Equal Concern

August 8, 2019 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

The word “invasion” has been much bandied about lately. For Trump and his allies, it refers to the hordes of brown-skinned people seeking to illegally enter our country. For our intelligence community, it’s about Russia’s attack on our country’s 2016 presidential election, and its continuing efforts to do so in 2020.

The thing about all this “invasion” talk is that one is 100% real; the other is 100% made up.

Russia did attack our country in order to help elect Trump. The crisis along our southern border is not one of forced entry but one of desperate people fleeing for their lives hoping to find asylum and safety in the U.S.

But even if you buy the Republican talking point that we have an “invasion” of dangerous people along our Mexican border, it seems not all “invasions” are created equally.

For Trump and his Republican lackeys, the two “invasions” are being treated entirely differently. For one, you do all you can to build a wall; for the other, you graciously open the front door.

There is no doubt Russia attempted, and succeeded I would say, to get Donald Trump elected president. But Republicans in Congress are just peachy keen with all that … so much so that they are, in effect, welcoming a repeat performance in 2020.

Mitch McConnell, aka “Moscow Mitch,” who, as leader of the Senate, has the power to do something about preventing a second assault on our elections, is refusing to even bring up bipartisan election security bills.

Heck, Donald Trump has had the chutzpah to publicly state he would welcome foreign interference in our next presidential election!

So where have Trump and his Republican handmaidens focused their “invasion” efforts? On the real or the fake?

Yep, they’ve been focused on building a costly, and useless, wall along our southern border; on throwing destitute asylum seekers into cages; on discouraging other migrants, desperate enough to make the 2000-mile journey from Central America to the U.S., by separating families at the border.

Yes we have an “invasion” problem in our country. But it’s not coming from our Mexican border. It’s coming 5000 miles away from the land of Putin.

Photo | salon.com

For Trump, “The Buck Never Stops Here”

August 5, 2019 By John DeProspo 4 Comments

Donald Trump is the master of deflection. Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he shifts blame to others. Instead of owning up to his mistakes, he attacks others for his own failures.

So when Trump finally addressed the two mass shootings over the weekend, did anyone think he would assign any responsibility to himself?

On cue, Trump blamed the massacres in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, which left at least 31 killed and many injured, on mental illness, video games and the Internet … not on guns or himself.

Reading from a teleprompter, Trump called on the country to condemn racism and white supremacy, never acknowledging his own role in promoting those ideas.

The shooter in El Paso, inconveniently for Trump, left behind a manifesto parroting the Divider-in-Chief’s own racist rhetoric.

In the document, the gunman referred to Hispanics as “invaders” and used the phrase “send them back” ― reminiscent of the racist remarks put forth by Trump last month in his attacks against four congresswomen of color, one of whom was an asylum seeker from Somalia.

Democrats, along with many other people of good conscience, have long warned Trump’s stoking of racial division over the last few years would lead to these types of violent acts … many committed by white nationalists living on the edge. Yet when it has come to Republican censure, mostly silence.

Respected journalist, Tom Brokaw, recently said, Trump “lights the fuse everyday.”

Right now there are a couple of gun control bills, passed by the House, sitting on Mitch McConnell’s desk. Will “The Grim Reaper” reconvene the Senate to vote on those measures? Unlikely.

The latest mass shootings come only one week after the FBI warned of the growing domestic terrorist threat, fueled by white nationalism.

Unfortunately, the Trump-controlled Department of Justice will do little to seriously fight this domestic terrorism problem while we have a man in the White House whose political calculation is that ramping up racial division will somehow help him get reelected.

But at least Trump is right about one thing. He said, “Hate has no place in our country.”

Yes. And you, Mr. “so-called” President, along with your bully pulpit, have no place in our White House.

Photo | screenshot via whitehouse.gov

Democrats, You Need To Focus On What Really Matters In 2020

August 2, 2019 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

If you’ve watched any of the presidential debates so far, you have witnessed two things: (1) a number of Democrats offering up their progressive “wish lists” and, more importantly, (2) a group of Democrats attacking one another.

Yes, you first have to win the nomination before you can win the election. But this group of presidential hopefuls has focused too much on contentious, wonky policy discussions instead of presenting a more unified attack on Donald J. Trump.

The number one goal for Democrats in 2020 is to defeat the abomination currently occupying the White House. Period.

Look guys (and gals) most people know no matter how great your proposals, they will only die in the Senate … even if you regain the chamber! Unless you secure a filibuster-proof majority (60 votes) nothing will get done, Mitch or no Mitch.

The fact is most Americans already know you all want great things for the country: better and more accessible healthcare; for the U.S. to regain its rightful place on the world stage; comprehensive (and humane) immigration reform; to combat the threat of climate change.

Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly has observed, “If the Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate, the new Democratic president will not be enacting one iota of their top shelf legislative agenda. There will be nothing major on health care or college loans or immigration or climate change.”

Take the advice of Andrew Yang who, after the second presidential debate, stressed the need for Democrats to focus on beating President Donald Trump instead of attacking each other.

“I think it’s unfortunate,” said Yang when asked about the clash between Sen. Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden. “The Democrats need to focus on beating Donald Trump in 2020 and not beat each other up.”

So, Democratic presidential hopefuls, spend more time talking about Trump’s crimes and lawlessness; zero in on what he has done (and continues to do) to the very fabric of our democracy; drive home how four more years of Trump is unacceptable as it will leave us with an America we no longer recognize.

Candidates, you need to keep it simple. Your talk about what type of healthcare system is best is enlightening but it is only confusing the American public. They don’t want to see how the sausage is made. They just want what Donald Trump promised them when he ran for office.

“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” said then-candidate Trump in an interview with The Washington Post. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”

Here’s the deal … just work out the details once in office … if you can get Senate Republicans (and those “conservative” Democrats) to go along with you!

Unite, don’t fight!

Photo | freepik.com

Could You Be A Racist? Take This Simple Test To Find Out

July 18, 2019 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

With all the talk recently about who is or who isn’t a racist, here is a simple test you can take to answer the question, “Am I a racist?”

If you’ve ever uttered any of the following “I’m-not-a-bigot” disclaimers, chances are you may be a racist:

“I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
“I have a great relationship with the blacks.”
“I’m the least racist person anybody is going to meet.”
“The Hispanics love me.”
“I’ve never used racist remarks.”

Now, if you’ve used all of the above phrases, as has Donald Trump, then you are an unequivocal, indisputable, undeniable, flat-out, card-carrying racist.

Photo | Tim Savage/ pexels.com

Trump’s Racism Knows No Bounds

July 15, 2019 By John DeProspo 6 Comments

Just when you allow yourself the luxury of thinking he cannot possibly sink any lower in his disgusting, despicable and vile racist remarks, BINGO! Trump outdoes himself.

There is no longer getting around this simple fact; there is no way of sugarcoating it … we have a proud, openly racist bigot in the White House.

The latest bile to spew from the mouth of our “so-called” president involves his recent remarks about certain progressive House Democrats. He claimed they “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and “the worst, more corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.” He suggested they” go back” to their countries “to fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Of course Trump was referring to recently elected Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Four strong women; all women of color.

Whether Trump truly believes his revolting rhetoric or is simply catering to that hateful sector of the electorate that helped him get into the White House, and that just loves this kind of garbage, is irrelevant.

Let’s not forget some of the other repugnant stuff Trump unleashed before this latest display of bigotry.

Trump began his “political” career by questioning President Obama’s birthplace. Candidate Trump called undocumented Mexican immigrants “rapists” and criminals. He disparaged immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as coming from “shithole countries.” He accused a judge of Mexican heritage incapable of ruling fairly in a civil fraud case against one of his companies. He once said immigrants from Haiti all “have AIDS” and that Nigerian immigrants would never “go back to their huts.”

In the 1970s, Trump’s real estate company was sued for housing discrimination. During the same decade, he placed a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five black teenagers. Even after they were fully exonerated, he refused to back down.

During the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, when an innocent woman was mowed down by a car driven by a white supremacist, Trump did not condemn the neo-Nazis, instead saying there were “some very fine people” on “both sides.”

Of course it escapes Trump’s bantam brain (he has no sense of irony) that his comments about the four freshmen Democrats (three of whom were born in the United States and the other a naturalized U.S. citizen) are spot on.

Those women do come from a country whose government is a “complete and total catastrophe” and “the worst, more corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.”

Photo | seattletimes.com

Will Mueller’s Testimony Change Anything? Probably Not

July 5, 2019 By John DeProspo 3 Comments

In less than two weeks, Robert Mueller will testify before Congress.

On July 17, the reluctant witness will answer questions, in open hearings in front of two Congressional committees, about his probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

While many fans of karma, and the rule of law, are excited about Mueller possibly exposing Trump for the criminal that he is, it is more likely they will be sorely disappointed. But whatever Mueller’s testimony, it will probably not change the dynamics of impeachment. It is crystal clear by now that Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in the House do not want to start impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Republicans on both the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees think Mueller’s appearance will be a disaster for him because they plan on exposing him as an incompetent, political hack. They, somehow, will try to get at the former Eagle Scout’s credibility.

Good luck with that!

No, Mueller’s testimony will be ineffective not because a few Republican attack dogs, while making fools of themselves, will show he is a flawed individual and that members of his staff were biased against Trump. Mueller will likely disappoint because he will simply stick to the facts we already know.

Mueller has stated he plans on confining his testimony to the “four corners of his report.”

So don’t expect the ex-Marine to answer some serious questions, such as: whether he or his team thought there was sufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction, were he not president.

But even if Mueller reveals some new information harmful to Trump, it is unlikely to be the game changer that will spark impeachment proceedings the next day, or week or month.

Nancy Pelosi wants Trump to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2020 no matter what we may learn from Mueller. In her perfect world, the Democratic candidate will trounce Trump at the polls and Democrats will flip the Senate.

Good luck with that!

The American people, Madam Speaker, need for you to do your job, Mueller or no Mueller! If you do not, you run the serious risk of demoralizing your base and helping Trump to a second term.

Photo | bostonherald.com

Trump To Unveil New “Commander in Chief” Uniform At July 4th Event

July 2, 2019 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

Article courtesy of guest contributor, T Francis Curran

Newly leaked emails suggest a team of European designers have been furiously working to create a new, glitzy “Commander in Chief” uniform for Donald Trump in time for his heralded July Fourth speech in Washington D.C..

Inside sources tell of a secret “Garment Room” deep within the bowels of the White House where a select staff, lead by “a close family member,” has been holding bi-weekly design reviews. Multiple runway iterations have been presented in closed-door sessions. We’ve been told both former NJ Governor Chris Christie and TV personality Rosanne Barr have been stand-ins for fittings while Trump has been away on official business, or golfing.

It appears that a pleated kilt, paying homage to Trump’s maternal heritage, has been mothballed while a toga-style drapery, reminiscent of Julius Ceaser, Nero and Kent Dorfman has been gaining support. This Romanesque gown featuring imported Egyptian cotton bed sheets would be accentuated with contrasting icons of a dove and a hawk sewn into each shoulder to emphasize Mr. Trump’s strength coupled with compassion.

Other unnamed sources have indicated that the president, ever passionate of his role as the leader of the military, desires a more traditional uniform. Design requirements may include a worthy shoulder insignia, along with a holstered sidearm (possibly a pearl-handled revolver). Due to the risk of reaggravating his Vietnam War era plantar fasciitis, Mr. Trump will arrive at the speech in a camouflage-patterned golf cart, emblazoned with “45” on either side and touting a forward-firing howitzer.

While it is almost certain Trump will “don” a military uniform on this Fourth of July, no one can say for sure what form it will take. Said a source, “Even Mr. Putin has no idea what it will look like.”

Photo | reddit.com/pbs.twimg.com

T Francis Curran lives in Westchester, NY

Is Trump Trying To Make Pootie Jealous?

June 30, 2019 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

Donald Trump recently went out of his way just to shake the hand of Kim Jong Un at the DMZ. Is this cozying up to the North Korean leader a way of making his current flame, Vladimir Putin, envious or just a not-so-subtle signal he wants to start seeing other dictators?

Trump did recently receive a lovely letter from Kim. According to sources, Trump claimed no one writes “beautiful letters” like the North Korean strongman.

Photo | kevin lamarque/reuters

During Last Night’s Democratic Debate, Only One Candidate Stuck The Landing

June 27, 2019 By John DeProspo 2 Comments

The first 2020 Democratic presidential debate went off last night without a hitch (OK, except for some technical difficulties with the sound system). All 10 candidates gave predictable answers, with no one making a major gaffe.

The hope of any candidate on a crowded debate stage is to come up with one memorable line (answer) that caps off his or her performance. Gov. Jay Inslee did just that … he nailed it! Towards the end of the debate, Chuck Todd asked the candidates, “What is the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States?”

While most of the other candidates gave pat answers (China, climate change, nuclear weapons, Russia), one presidential hopeful, Inslee, answered, “The biggest threat is Donald Trump. No question about it.”

Bingo! The audience at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami went wild with applause. Inslee actually had the nerve to say what many non-Trump cultists believe and desperately wanted to hear from a candidate’s mouth.

While it is very unlikely Inslee with be the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, it was still refreshing to see the Washington governor stick his landing by sticking it to Donald Trump!

Photo | latimes.com