The Defense Rests
The headline in the Kansas City Star was “Trump defends crown prince during White House visit” and my next thought was about all the people Donald Trump hasn’t defended and the cartoon you just looked at is a partial list.
Just in case you’re not up to speed…
Trump hosted Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, despite U.S. intelligence concluding Prince Mohammed ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2018 Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document he needed to get married and was murdered while his fiancée waited outside. If you want to read the details (the details are pretty horrific and include the dismembering and disposing of Khashoggi’s body) here’s an article from the BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399
Since he’s widely suspected of ordering the murder, Prince Mohammed was not exactly welcome in the U.S. and stayed away for seven years right up until Trump hosted him in the White House and when a reporter had the ovaries to ask WTF, Trump talked about Jamal Khashoggi and said this:
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman you’re talking about; whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”
A journalist gets murdered and Trump’s reaction is what do you expect, a lot of people didn’t like him, so things happen (which goes a long way in explaining how Trump got shot in the ear). Trump then went on to defend the crown prince and said:
“He knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that.”
And then Trump attacked the reporter who asked the question and threatened to jerk the license of ABC News, the company she works for and you could be forgiven for thinking Trump sounds sympathetic to Prince Mohammed, possibly because Trump would also like to have the occasional journalist murdered, especially the ones that insist on doing their jobs and inconveniencing Donald J. Trump.
And that awkward question inconvenienced Donald J. Trump because he intends to sell F-35 fighters to Saudi Arabia despite security concerns raised by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon’s worried because the Saudis are Big Pals with the Chinese who are not opposed to stealing technology, although it could turn out to be a brilliant plan because the F-35 has a shitload of problems so it might be like selling the Saudis a fleet of Edsels or Ford Pintos or (for those of you too young to know how shitty those products were and need a more recent example) a subscription to YouTube TV.
Here’s a story about the F-35’s problems:
https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden-troubles-f35/
On the other hand, I suspect I just did more research into the F-35 than Donald Trump has, so it’s probably not a well-thought-out plan and like pretty much every other situation, Trump’s motives are financial and short-term and I also suspect he’d sell his soul to Satan if he only had one.
This is most likely another of my “wishful thinking” cartoons because we haven’t seen much evidence that Trump was wrong when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any supporters…unless he shot one of his supporters and right now I think we know which supporter he’d aim for.
In a rare case of Republicans standing up to Trump, a lot of them called for the Epstein Files to be released and the general feeling was Trump was mentioned in the files in some unflattering way or protecting rich friends who had similar problems and now Trump is calling for the files to be released which makes everyone wonder what he’s got up his sleeve because like every other decision Trump’s ever made in his entire life, nobody thinks he did it for altruistic reasons.
The prevailing theory is Trump saw he was going to lose the Epstein File vote anyway and it would look like a defeat so he called for the Epstein Files to be released in an effort to make it look like he was still running things.
In any case…
Here’s hoping that Trump’s association with and protection of a bunch of pedophiles is the final straw and America can finally cut ties and get free of maybe not The Worst President in History (I’ve heard it argued that he’s not, he’s just The Worst Person to Ever Be President), but if he’s not The Worst President you know he took the Silver or Bronze in a photo finish.
I wouldn’t count on this being the final straw, but it’s still nice to think about.
There are plenty of issues to worry about and you can run around trying to plug all the holes in your dike (and thank God I spelled that last word right) but as political consultant James Carville once advised Bill Clinton:
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
Meaning: stop worrying about everything else because what people mostly care about is the economy.
And Donald Trump has been in the White House for 10 months so now The Economy is his (although he’s still trying to blame Joe Biden for anything bad and take credit for anything good) and right now the prices for food, healthcare and housing are high and there’s evidence that Trump’s economic policies are making things worse.
A situation which led to the following cartoon…
According to an article on the CNN website, the “conservative-leaning” Tax Foundation did an analysis and said Trump’s tariffs amounted to a $1,200 tax hike on the average American household and next year it will be $1,600.
And a CNN poll found that 61% of Americans think Trump’s policies have “worsened economic conditions” and while I’m not a Big Fan of polls or CNN or, come to think of it, at the very least 61% of Americans, it does seem likely that after almost a year in the White House people are blaming Trump for the economy.
The following article says tariffs may be part of the problem and while the White House claims they’re not, they’re still cutting some of those “nothing-to-see-here” tariffs and they were warned by economists this would happen, but like the U.S. Intelligence Community, the Pentagon, the Bill of Rights and at least 9 of the 10 Commandments, the Trump Administration chose to ignore the economists:
The article also said Trump’s become obsessed with his personal projects and issues like building a ballroom and trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize and possibly the Heisman Trophy and has lost sight of what matters to his MAGA fan base which is how he got sideways with Marjorie Taylor Greene:
Not nearly enough attention on those weather-controlling Jewish space lasers.
Today’s Lesson
“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
That’s often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi or Hubert H. Humphrey or NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, so we don’t know who said it first, but whoever said it was on to something and right now we don’t measure up so good.
Also…
Our Law & Order President doesn’t mind hanging out with pedophiles, sex offenders, con men and/or women, swindlers, embezzlers and corrupt politicians (Jesus, it sounds like the guest list for the White House Thanksgiving dinner) and now you can added suspected murderers to the list.
And on that happy note; have a nice weekend.
While making the goofiest deals since Monte Hall, defending an alleged murderer while insulting a reporter and managing to piss off his biggest supporter, Trump has earned my vote as Most Despicable Human Being to Ever Roam the Earth.
And I would cast that vote right in his piggy, pink-eyed face even though I could really, really use the $2,000.
Trump says that anyone who disagrees with him is guilty of sedition, a crime punishable by death. I wear that conviction proudly. I'm still working on my "last words" speech.