Update from the Sunland
No.919
19.8.19 – 25.8.19
Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/
To all,
The follow-up news items:
-- As the BIC escalated the economic warfare with the PRC [802], he was all over the place this week with regrets about tariffs to regrets for not raising tariffs higher, to his G7 colleagues support his tariffs, to the reality that the BIC is alone. This is what instability and chaos looks like.
-- The terrible situation in Hong Kong [918] escaladed to more serious violence this week as the protesters push authorities closer and closer to military intervention by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This is going to get worse. There will be blood.
Once again, the Russians are back to their penchant to hide their mistakes, this time the failure of a nuclear power cruise missile that killed five Russian engineers. It sure does appear that the BIC’s good buddy Putin is taking up back into a new cold war. With the BIC’s cancellation of the INF Treaty, we can all say . . . here we go again. Thanks go to the BIC. And, on top of all this, the BIC is trying to strong-arm the G7 allies to re-admit Russia back into the economic summit group, despite the Russian annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Eastern Ukraine. The persistent concerns are reinforced—what does Putin have on the BIC to induce him to act like a lackey of the Russian dictator?
The BIC just could not help himself. He does genuinely love his sycophants and ass-kissers around him. So, the BIC tweeted:
“Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world...and the Jewish people in Israel love him....
4:34 AM - 21 Aug 2019
number 2:
....like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God...But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for.....
4:34 AM - 21 Aug 2019
[emphasis by me]
number 3:
.....all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow! @newsmax @foxandfriends @OANN
4:34 AM - 21 Aug 2019
I recognize and even understand blind unilateral loyalty to a demagogue; people get sucked into the spell of a snake-oil salesman all the time—that is how they work. We have more than a few examples of such conduct; this is not our first rodeo. However, this is the first time involving a president of the United States. And then, he publicly proclaims himself “the chosen one.” REALLY! Is the BIC really that delusional?
We listen to the likes of Wayne Root say such things and we simply write him off as a blathering, right-wing, blowhard buffoon. If we heard a man on the street saying such things, we would call the police and mental health services. When POTUS says these things, even if simply regurgitation of another buffoon, we are deeply worried about the state of this Grand Republic. He does not get to say, just kidding, or I did not say it, he did—not an option.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported by their analysis that federal deficits are forecast to grow even more over the next decade by nearly US$1T, due to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 [PL 116-037; 132 Stat. xxx], signed into law by the whole lot of them. Republicans and Democrats are quite adept at spending money they do not have, and the BIC has no conscience or sense of fiscal responsibility. Where are the voices of all the so-called budget or deficit hawks? Crickets! The BIC’s followers believed the BIC would be different. He is not; he is just like all the others, except he adds in being a bad man, who is embarrassing himself and this Grand Republic.
Then, after the BIC raised tariffs on exports from the PRC to the United States and the PRC promptly reciprocated, the BIC delivered the following rant on his beloved Twitter:
Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far....
7:59 AM - 23 Aug 2019
number 2:
....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..
7:59 AM - 23 Aug 2019
number 3:
....your companies HOME and making your products in the USA. I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon. This is a GREAT opportunity for the United States. Also, I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE,....
7:59 AM - 23 Aug 2019
[emphasis in the prior two messages added by me]
number 4:
....all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!). Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop - it didn’t. Our Economy, because of our gains in the last 2 1/2 years, is MUCH larger than that of China. We will keep it that way!
7:59 AM - 23 Aug 2019
This string was four freakin’ tweets imbedded in a myriad Twitter storm on Friday morning . . . “are hereby ordered” . . . REALLY! You know, I think he truly believes he IS the second coming of God on Earth, which is the very definition of delusional. Such fanciful thinking and speaking is one thing coming from a grubby, disheveled and bedraggled man on the corner of Skid Row. It is monumentally different when POTUS says such things, set aside even thinking them. First, Twitter is not an instrument of governance. Second, only one teeny-weeny little problem for the self-anointed, God’s second son on Earth—the Constitution . . . and those patriots who are sworn to defend the Constitution “against all enemies foreign and domestic.”
Now, we are learning the BIC is having hearing difficulties. How many other physical and mental afflictions is the BIC hiding from public scrutiny, like his tax returns? If he does not hear properly, then he should not speak until he has read the question. Oh wait, he does not read either. Oh my, what are we to do with our physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped president?
Just some (above) of this week’s Twitter storm from the BIC’s fingers amplified the significance of an article sent to me by a friend and long-time consistent contributor to this humble forum.
“Psychiatrist Warns Trump Could Turn Violent As His ‘Psychotic’ State ‘Is Going To Get Worse’”
by Lance Perriman
politicaldig.com
Published: Aug 22, 2019
Regrettably, the citizens who most need to know and think about the assessment of Dr. Lance Dodes are the least likely to read his observations and their applicability to our current situation. Even more regrettably, the 25th Amendment is not adequate to deal with this situation, and our degeneration into tribalism like a third world country has defeated the safeguards of the Constitution itself.
This is a mere sliver of the cost of the BIC’s mercurial, destructive behavior has cost this Grand Republic and We, the People. Please read this article:
“German-U.S. Ties Are Breaking Down – Never since the founding of postwar Germany have relations between Berlin and the United States been as fragile as they are today. There is virtual radio silence between Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump and U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell is doing more to agitate the situation than to mediate.”
Der Spiegel
Published: August 21, 2019; 12:38 PM
He has unilaterally alienated virtually every single historic ally of the United States and snuggled up to virtually every perennial adversary of this Grand Republic, with very few exceptions—Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Watching the BIC’s minions perform the gunslinger’s two-step in their monumental efforts to “explain” the BIC’s words would be truly entertaining, if it was not so sad that the man at the center of all this nonsense is the one and only BIC—the duly elected president of the United States.
Late this week, and in the realm of another psychiatrist’s opinion regarding the mental state of the BIC, we have this article:
“Duke University shrink: Trump may be worse than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao”
by Dave Huber – Assistant Editor
thecollegefix.com
Published: AUGUST 25, 2019
While I find some concurrence with Dr. Allen Frances, I think he has gone too far. I have often illuminated far more than a few similarities between the BIC’s behavior, conduct, positions and words, and other dictators like Adolf Hitler, I cannot agree with Allen contention that the BIC may be worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao. History has recorded that Hitler, Stalin and Mao each killed millions of their own citizens and others beyond their borders. When you read the psychological profiles and assessments of Adolf Hitler commissioned by the OSS, you can easily see a disturbing number of similarities with the BIC’s behavior. The BIC has not gone that far . . . yet. We could argue that all presidents going back nearly a hundred years have caused the death of innocent people, and the BIC is in that group. However, to place the BIC in the category of the killer dictators is simply not accurate, and a bridge too far for me. Now, that said, since he became president, the BIC has moved closer to that category rather than away from that level. I would agree that he certainly has the potential to join the killer dictators, and that alone is a scary thought.
Comments and contributions from Update no.918:
Comment to the Blog:
“Your ‘informed, knowledgeable, deliberative person who was respectful of others’ describes very few politicians since Jimmy Carter's time. I'd give Obama points for effort. Daddy Bush had all of that but “respectful of others.”
“Autopsy report or no autopsy report, I still don't know anyone who believes Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. It's not a reasonable outcome of the facts we know.
“Hong Kong was always an anomaly. That continues. Politburo?
“I see no reason to believe the Chump knows anything about the Constitution or that he cares to learn.
“Chump has an extensive history of bankrupt real estate deals. Don't encourage the dunce to try to buy Greenland.”
My response to the Blog:
I give Bush 41 and Obama more credit than you do, apparently.
Epstein had plenty of reasons for suicide. The “Me too” movement has altered the mood of our society . . . at least the public version of our society. I think he felt or recognized the mood of the country (and probably prosecutors) was fundamentally different than it was after his first conviction 10 years ago. His motivation for suicide might well have been to avoid the embarrassment and public condemnation of a court trial that he could no longer avoid. Today’s prosecutors want blood. This is not to say that any one of myriad conspiracy theories might be the truth. Occam’s Razor appears to be quite applicable here.
Yeah, Hong Kong was more of an anomaly than Taiwan.
Politburo = the central committee of the communist party, i.e., the leadership junta of the PRC.
I share your assessment of the BIC. He does not care about the Constitution because he believes it is not applicable to him . . . everyone else, yes, but not to him.
Yeah, at least three and perhaps as many as five. Most normal folks get one pass at bankruptcy. So, from the bankruptcy standpoint, he is better than everyone else in history. Banks in this country will not loan him money anymore because of those bankruptcies. I continue to say, as I did before the 2016 election, what’s wrong with this picture? My only point was, I can see benefits; but, as the Danish PM publicly stated, Greenland is not for sale, and Greenland is not ours to sell. Just another slight of hand from the consummate snake-oil salesman.
. . . follow-up comment:
“Occam’s Razor only applies to explanations that fit the facts. Suicide does not fit with the supposed mode of suicide (kneeling to cause strangulation? no), Epstein’s behaviors, his history of getting away with every crime or suffering only minor consequences, or the enormous benefit to powerful criminals.
“‘Politburo’ is a Russian term, not a Chinese or English one. The comparison is not completely apt.
“Various people have lost fortunes in Chump’s real estate deals. Let’s not add the U.S. Treasury to that list.”
. . . my follow-up comment:
Occam’s Razor sorts through the facts. His death is a fact. The autopsy established broken bones in his neck consistent with hanging or strangulation. I do not know where “kneeling” came from. Yes, he got off extraordinarily easy 10 years ago, and the situation was markedly different today than it was 10 years ago. Truth is, we do not know why he did it, but we know it happened.
First, I used Politburo in a generic sense, i.e., a communist central committee in control of governance. Second, I think you will find numerous references to the PRC Politburo. It certainly began in the Russian version, and Mao adopted the Russian version. Third, the overarching principle remains the same regardless of what we call the communist central committee in control of PRC governance.
Oh my, you got that right . . . and countless smaller business ceased operation as a consequence of his bankruptcies. He has left far more destruction in his wake than he has construction.
My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)
2 comments:
Cap,
The fact that the Chump still has tens of millions of supporters pretty much disposes of the Economics 101 notion of the “rational actor.” Neither he nor his supporters come close to that concept.
Geopolitical reality didn’t let it happen, but Hong Kong ought to be independent, as are all the rest of the former British colonies.
I cannot imagine any nation sharing openly about accidents with nuclear weapons.
I’ll note that neither the Chump nor most of the commentators distinguish between “Jews” and the government of the State of Israel. That’s unfair to the Jews I know.
The Republicans care about the budget, deficit, etc., only for their use as weapons against the Democrats.
The Chump fails to recognize (a) the importance of China to the USA (and world) economy, (b) China’s role in USA debt, and (c) that corporate decision-makers own Congress. Chumps can’t just give orders like that. Needless to say, stopping the flow of fentanyl won’t be that easy either.
I am also hard of hearing. That’s okay; I function. Chump’s bigger issue is that he doesn’t listen.
I doubt the Chump has reached the rarefied heights (or depths) of Stalin or Mao. He’s essentially a garden variety psychopath who has “succeeded” due to an accident of birth.
I’ve read the 25th Amendment more than once since the last Presidential election. I agree it’s not geared for this. It would have provided a way to address the Woodrow Wilson situation, but this is very different.
We knew the dimwit was destroying international relations. Nobody that would be unpopular in a bar can do well in that field.
You seem to seek an obvious reason why a person (Jeffrey Epstein) would commit suicide. That is folly. Think of the thousands of people have stoically foreseen and endured horrific pain and suffering and lived to heal. Any number of others have had no known reason to commit suicide but did. It’s more functional to study personal history and psychology. Odds are Epstein died of homicide.
Calvin
Good morning to you, Calvin,
The oddity in the legion of BIC supporters are the several factions who actually despise the man, his behavior and his immorality, but have found the rationale that suits them to ignore the BIC’s myriad flaws. There are intelligent, well-informed citizens who have found that path. There are others who simply support the man solely because he is the Republican standard bearer—tribalism at its worst.
Yes, it should have been an independent country, just as Taiwan should be; but, that is not reality. Plus, even if it had happened, the PRC would be intimidating them to submit, just as Russia is doing to its independent, sovereign neighbors.
It was reported to be a nuclear propulsion device (engine) powering a nuclear capable cruise missile, not a nuclear warhead. Of course, we do not know for certain and probably never will.
Quite so. There are many facets of Israel that are unfair, just as there are facets of this Grand Republic that are unfair.
Again, quite so. You give the Republicans a lot more credit than I do. Today, I see no difference between Republicans and Democrats, other than what they choose to spend money on that they do not have. They all spend money like drunken sailors.
We can debate many elements that the BIC fails to recognize. He is neither informed, curious, knowledgeable, nor caring about anything or anyone other than himself. I do not so much fault corporations; I fault money. As Representative Omar so succinctly stated, “It’s all about the Benjamins.” For the BIC to “hereby ordered” any corporation by any means, and especially a social media app like Twitter, is outright ignorant and contemptible.
My years of being around turbine engines have diminished my hearng as well. I was trying to be cute; my bad. The BIC’s hearing is selective however it suits him; he uses that excuse when he has to backtrack on his foolish misspeaks.
That was my point: he’s a wannabe dictator, but he is a long way from the mass murderers that Hitler, Stalin and Mao are in history.
Indeed; that was my point . . . very different.
Yes, I am quite afraid the BIC has unilaterally and singularly destroyed decades of allied relations that have quite likely been irrevocably altered, if not broken entirely. If relations with our allies have any hope of recovery, it will take years and extraordinary diplomacy by the future president(s); this president is incapable. To me, the even worse aspect of the BIC’s unilateral isolation of this Grand Republic is he is helping Russia for whatever reason is inside him, and to a certain extent he is helping the PRC and DPRK.
I am not looking for a reason. I think he had plenty of reasons. But, I do not care. I do not dispute your observations about suicide. I have not reached the homicide level, just yet.
“That’s just my opinion, but I could be wrong.”
Cheers,
Cap
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