Friday, October 13, 2017

President Trump now in a dangerous phase: unhinged and vindictive

Over the past few days, insiders have followed Sen. Bob Corker's frank lead in speaking candidly about his concerns about the president's fitness (White House has become "an adult day-care" facility) and about the danger of his tweets "leading us into World War III."

While most senators don't speak with equal candor as can Sen. Corker, who is not running for reelection, it is widely acknowledged that many say the same things in private.

In addition, leaks are coming from multiple inside sources, speaking about the president's rages and tantrums and, as Corker also says, viewing the trio of Sec. of State Tillerson, Sec. of Defense Maddis, and Chief of Staff Kelly as working together to contain the president's impulses and to keep our nation from sinking into chaos.

But here is what's not being contained:   Trump has been, and continues, to be on a mission to undo every single thing that Barack Obama accomplished.   It's as though Trump's campaign to convince people Obama was not a native-born citizen, and therefore not a legitimate president, has been taken up again in the form of trying to erase every trace of this successful and admired president.

So now we have a president who not only is seen as dangerous in possibly starting a nuclear war with North Korea and unleashing Iran's quest for its own bomb.   We also have an increasingly unhinged and vindictive president working daily to undermine and tear down our progressive gains here at home.   Consider these:

1.  Any Obama policy that can be undone, he's going after it with executive orders to undo environmental regulations, reduce spending for any safety-net assistance, and ease any regulatory burdens on businesses and banks.  Oil in flowing in the Dakota Access pipeline.   More immigrants are being arrested.  He has reversed the military's willing implementation of Obama's directive on transgender troops, even though military leaders are opposed to that reversal.  He encourages his cabinet secretaries to reverse policies on national parks, oil drilling in the Arctic, fuel economy regulations, energy policies ("we're bringing back coal").   And so much more.

2.  Another example of Trump's obsession with erasing anything connected with Obama -- but this one deserves its own separate paragraph.   Just yesterday, he signed an executive order that will further unsettle the insurance markets for the Affordable Care Act.   This will allow insurers to offer cheap, relatively useless policies across state lines through group associations.    These won't have to meet the same minimum coverage requirements, so they can be sold as cheap policies.  Healthy young people will sign up for these, leaving only the sickest to use the exchange-regulated policies.  That, of course, will drive up premium prices.   It's a tactic to try to destroy Obamacare, pure and simple -- not to help people.

3.  Republican Sen. Bob Sasse has just questioned Trump's increasingly pointed attacks on the media as a failure to defend the Constitution's guarantee of free speech.  This relates to Trump's tweeted threat to take away NBC's broadcast license because of unfavorable coverage of him.  The president does not have that power over FCC licensing, fortunately.  But the attack on a free press -- and not for the first time -- is deeply unsettling.


4.  In a public speech, Trump praised the man (Jeffrey Lord) who was fired by CNN after he had tweeted a Nazi salute.  Trump called him "the great Jeffrey Lord."     Also, it's pretty well established that Trump is the one who sent VP Pence flying cross country on Sunday afternoon, just so he could walk out of the football game when players knelt during the national anthem.  An expensive stunt, adding a cross-country Air Force Two round trip for a two minute programmed stunt, proved by the fact that they told the press bus not to park but just to stand by ready to go.

5.  Trump goes out of his way to undermine any diplomatic efforts of his Secretary of State to deescalate tensions with North Korea.    While Tillerson was still in China working on a back channel with the North Koreans, and tweeted out that fact, Trump retaliated by tweeting that Tillerson was "wasting his time" talking because "it won't work."   Then added, "We'll do what we have to do."   Since then he has rattled the sabers even more by coyly announcing that "this is the calm before the storm," and then refusing to say what he meant.   This was followed up by having two Air Force bombers fly across the Korean peninsula.

6.  Even the Chinese are fed up, putting out a statement asking Trump to tone down his rhetoric.

7.  On the other side of the world, Trump is also playing fast and loose with another potential nuclear conflagration by vowing to pull out of the Iran deal -- which even some Republicans who opposed it at the time now want to keep -- because it is working.  But Trump insists that Iran is not living up to it (experts all say they are).    One report out yesterday says that the Trump advisers have worked out a plan with Congress whereby Trump will refuse to recertify Iran's cooperation (which he has to do every 90 days);  but he will also not recommend that Congress put sanctions back on Iran, thus punting the final decision:   as long as Congress does not renew sanctions, it is likely not to kill it. That allows Trump to stick to his refusal without blowing things up, leaving it to Congress to save us and our place in world leadership.

Why is Trump so opposed to certifying Iran's conforming to the agreement?  Vali Nasr, dean of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says it's more for domestic than international reasons.   "He doesn't want to certify that any piece of the Obama strategy is working."

But, think about it.   This is what we have come to?   Having to appease the Commander-in-Chief by such subterfuge and obfuscation?  He would blow up such a delicate and almost impossibly achieved agreement rather than give Obama any credit!   Apparently.

And this hasn't even touched on the disaster that is Trump's position on aid to Puerto Rico.  It is shameful, unAmerican, and inhumane.   There are inhabited areas of the island that rescue efforts have still not been able to get to in the three weeks since the hurricane hit.   Roads are impassable, and apparently there are not enough local helicopters to meet the needs -- and Trump keeps insisting that it's up to local governments to distribute the relief supplies.   And heaping praise on himself for "what a fantastic job I have done.  So much work!"

Yet 40% of the population still does not have safe drinking water.   They're beginning to have deaths from bacteria one tends to get from drinking water from contaminated streams.   They're drinking stream water because that's all they have in some areas.   It is unimaginable that this would be accepted in Houston or Florida.  Yes, Puerto Rico's situation was much worse before the hurricane hit.   But this is a U.S. territory, and they are American citizens.

And yet Trump unabashedly claims that his relief efforts have been amazing and that progress is wonderful.  And now he's turning even more negative, tweeting out that "our FEMA people and military troops can't stay in Puerto Rico forever."

My contempt for this president overfloweth.

Ralph

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