• His campaign, its stellar directors and associations with noted Republicans in Congress and other famous American titans of industry and news media
• His ability to attract and retain voters (so accurately called “Trumpians”) who are also clueless morons and idiots, who are unable to collect real data and analyze it in a critical way
• His outward professing of using women, doing what he pleased, having sexual relations with them during his marriage
• His putting down of women (because he does not respect them, likely feels threatened by their abilities and intelligence that far exceed his)
• His racist and divisive comments
• His boasting of how he was the greatest (fill-in-the-blank) president
• His campaigns collusion with Russia to help him win the election
• His choices to fill his administration, including how he treated them, their behavior, their short time in their jobs, the never-ending hunt to find competent replacements that virtually never occurred
• His bashing of the Justice Department, including the FBI and other intelligence agencies
• His obstruction of the FBI’s investigation into Russia and its ties to Trump
• His clear violation of the Emoluments Clause, actively promoting his business interests while president
• His all-too-frequent time playing golf, including how he regularly cheated at the game – such love of its history and integrity
• His inability to read, pay attention/focus on anything, including even just the Presidential Daily Brief
• His all-day and daily lies such that there were lies about lies on top of lies
• His inability to hire competent legal counsel to represent him when he put himself in great legal peril
• His campaign promises that went unfulfilled (including the Muslim ban, building the wall on the Mexican border, the addition of tariffs, the killing off of the US’s involvement in NAFTA and more)
• His keen negotiating skills in dealing with allies and serious international issues (including Iran)
• His dependence on some of his (more) capable (that is questionable) children as part of his White House staff (see nepotism) and the legal woes they faced
• His ability to bring in White House staff that could never pass the necessary security clearance, even after far too much time, including his own son-in-law
• His White House staff’s frequent leaking of sensitive information to the media – they were more dedicated to the truth and the media than the president
• His hiring of various individuals in his administration that either went to prison or flipped to expose the crook that Trump was
• His hiring a number of cabinet members who were completely unqualified for the job, which of course also speaks of the Republicans in the Senate who confirmed them and their motivations
• His ability to insult former Republican candidates for president, then offer them jobs (and they accepting)
• His handling of the Stormy Daniels (aka Stephanie Clifford) affair – one of his greatest blunders before and during his shortened presidency, which will lead to a volume on:
• His campaign spending violations (breaking federal election law) by trying to pay off Daniels into silence weeks before the 2016 election (and also with other women?)
• His choice of Michael Pence as his Vice President (that may earn its own room in the library)
• His first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who called him a moron (or was it a “f_cking moron?”); who never denied it, lasting only 14 months in the job and never wanted it, either
• His second Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who called him an idiot, also never denying it, whose time in the job will also be short-lived, and like Trump, also lied to the public
• His propensity for aligning with and hiring other stellar individuals who chose to lie in order to try and make Trump into someone he could never be
• His inability to nearly listen to anyone, especially those lawyers who actually were capable as Trump was certain that he was smarter than everyone
• His multitude of personal lawsuits for a variety of inappropriate relations with women during his third (sham) “marriage”
• His laundering of money via Russian oligarchs, his unpaid debts to many, including $250M to Deutsche Bank, revealing that his net worth to be far less than $1B (and his stated claim that he was worth billions)
• His fascination with current-day dictators, and his desire to be closely associated with them (see Putin)
• His fealty to Putin: Why?
• His legal woes beyond Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, including the Southern District of the Federal Justice Department, and finally, the State of New York
• His negative impact on various areas of government, with one of the worst being his unleashing the also crooked Scotty Pruitt as head of the EPA
• His effect (and affect) on so many Republicans in both houses of Congress, who sold their small souls (soles?) to continue to support Trump when they should have bolted from him, ultimately causing them to lose the House of Representatives in 2018, and the Senate by 2020
• His ability to find stooges like Devin Nunes, who carried Trump’s dirty water to and fro the White House at all hours
• His ability to retain Sarah Huckabee Sanders as his lyin’ press secretary for as long as she managed to shill for him
• His keen ability to take no responsibility for any of his actions, to always blame others around him, insult them, use them like cheap toilet tissue
• His need to continuously self-inflate his small ego at the expense of the highest office in the land, the most powerful office on the planet
• His total lack of knowledge about virtually everything yet his need to profess that he knows more than anyone
• His incessant tweets, complete with misspellings will be organized into volumes, also available at Twitter and via online search
• His inability to shut his mouth and put his texting fingers in his pockets, effectively causing great legal and political harm to himself
• His endless documented lies (which totaled over 3,000 by May 1, 2018, with so many more to come)

No doubt that space will intentionally be left unfilled for the likely additional volumes and documents that will continue to flood in in the years following Trump’s wasted time in the White House.

Like all proper libraries, the various subjects will be organized by room, with some volumes offered in more than one room as their topics were relevant in more than one arena.  Further, there will be many, many visuals and audio offerings of Trump’s weird facial expressions, odd movements, and incessant blathering about how crooked Hillary was and such.

Clearly, it will need to be a large structure to hold so much of whom and what was Donald J. Trump as a man and as our swell president.  And the source of funds will likely come in part from laundered Russian oligarch money, the rest from his disillusioned supporters, contributions small and large.

I can only imagine that the Trump Presidential Library will be popular, popular among those who will study how the United States managed to put into power someone who not only was completely unqualified for the job, and never really wanted it; and of course, those who thought that his stink didn’t smell.

This author just woke up from having a nightmare about everything written above.  Surely it must not be true, right?

The post The Trump Presidential Library appeared first on Traveling Archive.

The visitor introduced himself as “Marty,” saying that I would have a very difficult time pronouncing his birth name. Marty asked about me, my life, and my interests. Then Marty brought up our democratic system of government, which he explained was a lot like his on his planet.

Marty shared that what had him most confused was how the person in charge of our government, the president, was put into office not by a majority; he not having any political experience at all. Marty went on to say that would never happen on his planet. Marty then asked how it is possible that the President of the United States operates in the job, spending so little time actually doing the necessary work. Marty clearly knew a lot about Donald  Trump, including his obsession to play golf and talk about how great he was as a negotiator and so on, his goals for our nation seemingly imprudent. Apparently, they have a game similar to golf on Marty’s planet and their leader usually plays, but never to the extent that Trump does as there is so much work for their leader to attend to.

Further, Marty had observed that Trump had had more departures and firings in the first year or so of his term; that there seemed to be great instability to his leadership. The visitor could not understand why Trump was destroying relations with close allies that had been built literally over centuries. If Trump possessed so much power then why was he such a bully? Why does he alienate himself from those he needs for support? Why does he blame everyone else for his shortcomings? How could someone exist as the head of anything and be so ineffectual?  None of it made any sense to Marty.

Being a being from a faraway planet, I assumed that Marty possessed a lot of intellect, his people the ability to travel such distances, which he clearly did. Marty clearly knew his stuff about Trump and the political scene here.

Marty asked how a person in the position that Trump holds find himself in so much political and legal turmoil, scandals and worse; all that so quickly in his time in office. To Marty, it seemed like more bad news, more scandal was landing on the doorstep of the White House nearly daily, and that Trump was not loyal to those he put in positions of responsibility, many of them equally disloyal to him. This was both odd and quite disconcerting to Marty.

The visitor shared that there isn’t a lot of conflict on his planet. He observed that Trump seemed so in support of the leader of another big nation who was a bad actor, who was still in office by brute force. Marty was very concerned why Trump was so chummy with that person as that was the antithesis of what our nation stood for. Marty was clearly struggling with how the head of the United States, a nation built on diversity and immigration, had as its commander a person who fomented such disdain for people of other colors and backgrounds; his treatment of women was just unacceptable in Marty’s entire solar system. And not to my surprise, Marty shared how the leader of his planet never rushes to make a decision and proclamation, making sure to counsel his advisors first.

And if that wasn’t sufficient, Marty noted that so many in our Congress were idly sitting by and allowing it all to continue to unfold. Marty was relieved that we have something called the “independent counsel,” who was clearly looking carefully and deeply into so many troubling issues. Marty shared that when there is a problem such as what we are facing here on his planet they send the bad “actors” to a far off place, effectively removing the “bad apples” from the good bushel. I was impressed by his use of our clichés, relieved to learn that they actually take action to root out the rot.

I had enjoyed my encounter with this friendly visitor immensely, no doubt because I had never met a creature from another planet, much less another solar system. Marty’s concerns and observations were of immense value as he was coming at them without any earthly bias.

Before I excused myself to go about my business in order to see what the latest news was coming from the White House and the capital, Marty asked me one more question: “What’s with the orange face, the face puckering, and the so small hands?”

The post The Visitor’s Confusion About the Trump Administration appeared first on Traveling Archive.

The elections held last week in various states resulted in most races being won by Democrat-aligned candidates.  That was no coincidence.  Many of the television political pundits (but not likely Fox) chalked it up to a response/reaction to Donald Trump as president.  Nowhere did I once hear about the actions (and inactions) of the Republicans in both houses of Congress as a cause.

As off-the-wall, unstable, inconsistent, dangerous, and self-serving as Trump is, let’s also give credit where due.  How many Republicans have spoken out about Trump’s statements (Charlottesville, the devastation in Puerto Rico, about the four dead soldiers in Niger; the list goes on and on)?  And just how did the Republicans in the House vote on their repeal and replace of “Obamacare” bill?  Has that become law?

Seems that Americans are (finally) waking up to how little most Republicans care about them, care about standing up for what our country is and should be, what is right, how to get the job done.  Those Republican candidates that aligned with Trump in the recent elections fell and most of those who continue to do so will join them.  Trump is poison.

No doubt that the Democratic Party itself has plenty of issues, from its bias towards Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in last year’s race, to its outdated lack of vision.  The Democratic Party is not united but is still (and will) win the race over the much fractured (and continuing to crumble) Republican Party (those who make it up as its leadership, particularly in elected office).

I have said for many years now (and now it seems even worse now) that “The Republican Party is the Party of No! and Not Know.”  Most of its leaders refuse to consider working with the Democrats, refuse to even consider their ideas (No!).  And where that tapers off is their keen inability to have real answers to solve, or at least improve on, issues here at home, e.g. “Obamacare,” as the largest and most recent example of what their constituents need and want, how to make life better for the 99% (Not Know).

Let’s give credit where it is also due.  It was the Republicans in the Senate who confirmed Neil Gorsuch, a highly biased to-the-right nominee, who will, in fact, hurt this nation on many future decisions.  It was the Republicans who confirmed the likes of now former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price (“Hey, so what that I spent a lot of US tax dollars to fly around?”); and Attorney General Jeff Sessions (“Gee, I think I am in deeper trouble with the Special Counsel and the Senate for my moving target answers to my testimony under oath”); and Administrator of the EPA, Scott Pruitt (“How many times have I lied under oath, and how biased am I towards the energy industries?  You say that I am a shill?  Why, yes I am!”); and Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry (“Here’s a little economics lesson: supply and demand. You put the supply out there and the demand will follow,” and “From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented.”)  Perry may be a pretty boy and managed to run Texas for 14 years, but that won’t cut it in D.C.; and Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos (“I am so unqualified for this job, maybe I got this appointment as a political favor payback,  and oh, I am here to destroy public education”); and Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross (“Did I fabricate my net worth by a mere $2B?”); and Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin (“Hey, I’m just another Goldman Sachs sack of sh_t who covers for Trump”); and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson (“I am not qualified for this job”).*  But enough on these capable and qualified individuals that head our federal government.

A major role of Congress is to write legislation to protect and improve the lives of its citizens.  Just what have the Republicans accomplished in that role so far in 2017?  But hey, the year is not out and they are hard at work at the tax cut, or tax reform, whatever it is.  So maybe I (we) should give them a bit more time, right?  My bet (and hope): they don’t pass a bill as they will not be able to assemble enough votes.  When a group, a party, can’t agree on much of anything they are ineffective and unable to lead.  To use football as the analogy, you have to have a quarterback to run and lead the team down the field to score.  And you have to have a majority of players to agree to follow the plays to do so.

That is why I am going to make a bold prediction here and now that the Democrats are going to retake the House of Representatives in 2018.  Then Trump will have to deal with a body that actually says “Yes! and Knows.”

*Some of the quotes are direct, some are my creation (but none are far off the mark).

Tedward Onward

The post Not Just Trump appeared first on Traveling Archive.

It is rather clear that Trump hasn’t a clue as to what is involved in being an effective president, nor is he interested in learning.  That old dog cannot be taught any new tricks.  And there are those who are concerned about his mental fitness for the job.  Even Bob Corker, a seasoned and measured Republican senator from Tennessee, has publicly questioned Trump’s state of mind.  It has been demonstrated by his own administration that Trump does not read (much, at all?), has to be babied in his daily briefings, with lots of photos and glorification of how great Donald is a president.  How Trump has repeatedly threatened North Korea and insulted Kim Jong-un is how middle school bullies run the schoolyard.  Fists are nuclear bombs.  The lives of millions of innocent bystanders to the bully and the challenged leader of North Korea are at risk.  Though Trump is not a Republican in nearly any sense of the term, if former Republican President Dick Nixon would return today he would be appalled at how Trump is mishandling the N. Korea nuclear missile issue.  Trump would get more than an earful from Nixon.

Trump insults anyone who threatens him, even indirectly, including women, minorities, parents of a deceased war veteran, Senator John McCain, who was tortured for years as a Vietnam War captive, physically disabled persons; the list is long and growing.  The “man” will attack anyone.

I must say that the fractured and incompetent Republican houses in the Congress certainly are not helping Trump.  On healthcare alone, time and again they do they wrong thing by bringing forth bills that Americans by a large majority will not tolerate, only to see them lose by a few votes.  Seriously, what are you folks doing, and why?  Keep it up.  It is bad entertainment, theater in the absurd, political suicide.  Then again, the way Trump treats some of them and some members of his cabinet is insulting, ineffective, and mean-spirited.  Trump treats many like a paper towel in the men’s room: use once, and then dispose of in the trash bin.  The narcissistic egotist that Trump is takes no responsibility for any of his actions.  Blame it someone else.  Hey, Donald, what happened to “The Buck Stops Here?”  One thing I learned over the years is that you catch more bees with honey than vinegar.  Donald apparently has not learned that, and never will due to his significantly flawed character.  Trump would be better titled King Donald (or Czar Donald due to his fascination with Russia) than President Trump.

As for those who voted for Mr. Trump, their judgment was fatally flawed when they cast their lot with him.  They somehow equated his questionable successes as a businessman with an ability to get things done as president.  And how is that working out so far?

When Special Counselor Robert Mueller is done with his very thorough investigation of all things questionable about Mr. Trump and his activities before and since becoming the president, we will know a lot more about Trump’s business dealings, just how great/successful he has been as a businessman.  I am nearly patiently waiting for the findings.  And success is not just/only measured by how much money you have theoretically amassed.  Trump’s real estate dealings do not involve a board of directors, a body that one has to report to, be accountable to.  As President of the United States, the Congress and the American people are the board(s) that must be acknowledged and appropriately interacted with.

Running a business has virtually nothing to with how politics work in a governing body.  Being CEO of your own company is far from being the ”CEO of the United States of America.”  Why anyone thought that someone with no experience, no knowledge, no desire to school himself, no need to listen to others or to control his impulses, including his thumbs as he tweets away, or to study the issues could be effective in the highest office in the land is beyond comprehension.

It is clear by most of Trump’s appointments in his administration, he is so lacking in the political depth that nearly every president before has possessed since at least FDR.  In politics, one both needs actual experience in dealing with others in a government, but also how that government functions both legally and systematically.  Trump has zero background in that area.  For a neophyte to be put into the biggest chair in the land (our nation) was a fool’s errand.  And nearly all of us are and will pay dearly for that for a long time.

Trump is for winning for his own benefit.  He clearly said during the campaign that he wanted affordable healthcare for all.  Then when Republicans in Congress tried to push forward bills to repeal and replace coverage which millions of Americans have had and rely upon, Trump was alternatively berating them for not passing the bills in the Senate, then calling the House bill “mean.”  Trump wants to pass a tax reform bill that will benefit those who voted for him, working class folks.  The napkin notes version that the White House presented in June that is not being discussed by Congress will be a significant tax reform bill.  It will greatly benefit the very rich, for whom Trump claims to be, but middle-class earners will see virtually no relief.  Only the very rich in our country can rely on Trump to do what is best for them.  The rest of us, regardless if we voted for him or not, cannot, should not.  The United State of Donald Trump is in its full glory.

Regardless if “the swamp” needs draining or not, who really thinks that one person is going to drain much of it in four years (or even eight)?  Trump is a team of one; the members of the House and Senate are hundreds.  And to make the swamp deeper, Trump-appointee Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has been spending taxpayer money on his private jet forays.  Oh, that will end with Price because he just resigned.  When asked about Price’s abuse of the treasury Trump just walked away.  There may be a political swamp in our nation’s capital, but since January 20 of this year, there is an open backed-up sewer in the White House.  Even White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly can’t fix that even more serious problem.  What a stink we are being subjected to.

Some of the lessons that I have learned from/since the election last November are that Trump got elected by a just enough scared, white folk (and a few also misguided people of color) who don’t like the fact that this nation is no longer run solely for and by their kind.  Yes, women and people of color do get to vote, and yes, they have rights under our laws.  Trump’s racist, sexist, divisive comments are un-presidential, un-American, that of a classless thug from the wrong side of town.  Beyond Trump’s sad base, he is a divider.  This nation and this planet need uniters, problem-solvers, people who are committed to working hard and working with others for the greater good.  Trump is none of that.  The days of the white man solely running this nation are thankfully done as the damage has been plenty, the carnage still visible.

Change is difficult for many.  Progress denotes change, thus it is progressives who have worked hard for the rights and freedoms that some did not enjoy just 50 years ago.  It is the conservatives who want to hold onto, ideally return to the past.  The hard-fought changes that this nation has endured cannot, will not be turned back.  Either learn to accept that we live in a nation that today is much more diverse in heritage, lifestyle and beliefs, one where most people of color and most young people are more open-minded and less judgmental or keep your angry head in the ground between rows of cotton.  Your anger and rejection of reality are not and will not serve you well.

I have to mention the Second Amendment.  Trump and his supporters held and hold so much contempt for Clinton because if elected they believed she would destroy the right to own guns.  Really folks?  Let me get this straight.  Both houses of Congress are held by Republicans.  Republicans are likely to be more pro-gun than Democrats.  How would Clinton get a bill passed both Republican houses?  300 million guns and growing and you think that a president is going to get them taken away from you?  I call it fear of the illogical.

May those who voted for Donald Trump come to accept and acknowledge (at least to themselves, privately) that voting for Trump was a colossal mistake, one of that magnitude they will not repeat.  Now in reconsidering Clinton versus Trump, would they still vote for Trump?  Trump will not represent their needs.  Trump will not improve their lives.  Trump is for Trump.  Very sad, indeed.

Tedward Onward

The post Government of Trump, by Trump and for Trump appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Why The Scariest Nuclear Threat May Be Coming From The White House

Now for my commentary on that piece/issue:

This is one of the most important articles I have read in a long, long time.  It is a combo about the Department of Defense (what they do) and the ignorance of the Trump Admin (see Sec of Energy, the dumbo with the glasses, Rick Perry), and how they have no intent to fund it.  It is also very representative of how incompetent and uncaring Trump is about how much of our government’s work is truly important, valuable and necessary (we all know about the State Department jobs that are unfilled).

Trump is a very dangerous egotist who must be stopped.  This is the Bob Mercer’s plan to shrink the fed gov’t to the size of a pin head (tRump’s?).  The implications are vast.

The article is quite long but very well written, keeps you reading.  Wait until you get to the final segment, which I have had some knowledge of for years.  What a mess we created 75 years ago.

I have been thinking and wondering why a news network like MSNBC has not found just one of its show anchors to do an in-depth, ongoing expose on the real effects of tRump not staffing our federal gov’t.  When you read this article I think you will agree that this nation needs to wake up as to how bad the Orange Ass is.  Do the members of Congress know what is in this article?

I have known about the plutonium plume in Hanford for many years now, have flown both north and west of the area, but not over it (Do I wanna glow?).

I learned about the New Mexico leak earlier this year by watching TV, one of my favorite quasi-beneficial past times.  I was walking to an SF Giants baseball game two months ago and had a ticket to sell.  Came upon a woman who was heading in the same direction.  I asked if she was going to the game, she said yes.  I sold her my adjacent ticket.  I asked if she was visiting and she also said yes, in San Francisco for a pro-nuclear convention, she being from NM.  I asked her if she knew about the leak, she said no.  So, what does that tell me (you)?  Either she lied or she knew far less about the underground storage facility in her own “backyard” than I, someone who is not attending pro-nuke conventions.  I surely wished that I got her contact info so I could enlighten her (or at least try).  That she responded how she did was both sad and scary.  I didn’t go into the matter further with her as we arrived to the park.  Fake news, huh?

This is a very comprehensive follow-up article to the leak and subsequent cleanup:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/01/10/wipp-nuclear-waste-repository-reopens-for-business/#1ba959ef2052

For any doubters, even Fox News wrote a short article on the leak (available via a browser search).

I have been opposed to nuclear energy since the 1970s (went to U of CO, Boulder, just up the road from Rocky Flats Nuclear Disaster Waste/Plutonium site).  My mother’s second husband, Sherm, was a nuclear engineer, a career WWII Naval dude and colleague (then) of James Earl Carter (who I liked/still admire).  Sherm had a nuclear power plant consulting company.  In about 1981, I stated to Sherm that the future of nuclear energy in the US/world was not looking promising.  I suggested that he expand his firm’s line of work, which he did into chemical plants.

Jimmy was right then about solar energy (and many other issues as well).  How close-minded so many were, encouraged by the petroleum complex.  And now we are late to our own future.

Tedward

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