I woke up this morning and damned if Donald Trump was still president. So much for the dream theory.
There is so many problems I have with this president I cannot speak to them all. I will say this, he seems to never be far from a camera, even though he loudly contends he is at war with the media.
Trump, if we mortals can understand his gibberish, has made some statements that portend really disturbing events that could harm our republic. An example:
“And the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential,” Trump said. “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
What he sees as carnage, if I can understand correctly, might telegraph that Trump would like the federal government to intervene in local matters. The president has presented himself as a “law and order” president. Some of this description is meant to put groups like Black Lives Matter on notice that they will be dealt with under the Trump regime. Who kn0ws where that will go.
Banana republics like Trump would like to establish have a habit of arresting people who are never to be seen again. His CIA choice has wavered on the question of waterboarding practices. If the secret foreign intelligence agency can use this form of torture, then why not the FBI, or ATF, or the local police department? This could lead to a situation that happened in my area of Southeast Texas in which local police officers were imprisoned for torture techniques such waterboarding in order to get false confessions from college-aged kids who were busted for insignificant marijuana arrests in the early 80’s.
The Black Lives Matter movement emerged when black Americans finally said that they “have had enough” of the growing number of young black Americans who were killed in questionable shootings by police. In some cases the police officers were either no-billed by grand juries, were acquitted in trials or not even charged.
Trump also made another frightening pronouncement on Saturday at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va. While the new president announced his war on the media and he was miffed with the news that many more people attended the Obama inaugural speeches than his. His hit man, press secretary Sean Spicer — a professional flack throughout his adult life including service in the Navy reserve as a public information officer — went through a litany of lies in an excoriation of the news media. It was a move that has generally flopped. Trump counselor and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway dug the Trump wagon deeper in the ground on Sunday telling Chuck Todd, NBC “Meet the Press” moderator, explained Spicer was speaking of “alternative facts.” That is a spin-doctor’s way of saying he lied but we won’t admit it.
Also, Trump, seemingly out of thin air, declared that the U.S. should have taken Iraq’s oil fields during our wars there.
“If we kept the oil [in Iraq], we wouldn’t have had ISIS in the first place,” Trump argued. “The old expression, to the victor belong the spoils…. We should’ve kept the oil. But, okay, maybe we’ll have another chance.”
That is even though such an action violates a number of U.S. and international laws. Sticking with Trump’s campaign musings that our military and government should not telegraph what they might do. Spicer said he would not tell the press what the government might do.
An update: I just saw an ad from some PAC on CNN that asks for people to call their senator to express support for the senatorial nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as attorney general. One of many concerns over his nomination should be aired. Sessions is a foe of marijuana or any outlawed drug. More than half of the United States have legalized marijuana in some form or fashion. That doesn’t count states like mine here in Texas that have taken steps to allow for medicinal purposes a marijuana oil with a low THC content.
Still, federal regulations treat marijuana as a dangerous drug in the same class as heroin. The medical benefits and the taxes pot will generate in local governments will mean local governments will not need to rely so heavily on federal dollars.
Sessions will likely become attorney general. If he goes after marijuana he might find himself taken to the woodshed by our now conservative (to put it kindly) government. Going after pot will be going after what is becoming a huge economic boom. Plus, I know a number of grown-up, conservative types, even professionals who smoke pot, although they disagree with their politicians over weed.
There is so much more I can write and rave — mostly negatively — about the new president. But it seems he will, unfortunately, be with us awhile.