Greenland – The Mind Boggles
Of all the things and places someone as distorted as Trump might fixate upon, he decides on Greenland. Really? Greenland? It gets weirder by the day.
A few days ago, Donald Trump announced that the United States (meaning him, Trump, since Congress has so far given away its power to approve tariffs) will impose a 10 percent tariff on goods imported from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland beginning February 1. That tariff will increase to 25 percent on June 1 and will remain in place, according to Trump, until a deal is reached for what he called the complete and total purchase of Greenland.
Our allies felt compelled to send military forces to Greenland in a sign of solidarity. Trump threatens war and economic fights with just about all of our closest allies – for no reason worth even thinking about. Amazing. In the first term, Trump had a few adults around him to fence in the worst of his urges. Those days are gone and so we see increasingly strange, bizarre, rational statements and behavior.
Reaching Some Sort of Turning Point?
This administration may, finally – not a moment too soon – collapse politically in the coming weeks and months. If so (collapse means the Congress finally gets a spine and starts cutting off power, followed by midterm routs), who would have thought it would come because of a remarkably stupid fixation on Greenland and the Epstein files? The distortion of border security into creation of a Brown Shirts organization that commits crimes daily was more expected.
It feels like even his Congressional lackeys are starting to realize this is an unsustainable farce of a government. Fingers crossed.
Courts? What Courts?
The Justice Department formally stated in federal court that no court can force it to release the Epstein files or compel compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. This is not some sort of legal argument—it is a nail in the coffin for divided power in a functioning democracy. One hopes even this Supreme Court and this Congress gets how unacceptable such a statement is, for so many reasons. Fix this or kiss accountability and democracy goodbye.
Trump Had a Stroke?
Indicators grow, in the view of a number of medical writers, of a Trump stroke in recent weeks and clear deterioration of already limited mental and emotional abilities. Could be the case. Even we lay persons can see and hear the physical behavior, speech patterns, and other indications that something is really wrong.
We could well be into 25th Amendment territory, although unlikely. Besides, that leaves us with JD Vance in charge. Likely better to fence in and hold down Trump than getting rid of him. On the other hand, if patterns like we have seen the last few months continue and accelerate, impeachment might actually be the charm on the third try. Not likely, but…
If nothing else, this is yet one more indicator that there is no system to transparently measure and track the health of presidents and presidential candidates – this has long been a problem that Congress could fix easily with mandatory health reviews by independent professionals, with published results. People who are or would be president have no privacy rights for such matters.
A Second-Hand Nobel Prize
I don’t know what is worse – that the woman who actually won the Nobel Peace Prize last year thought it might be helpful to give it to Trump or that he actually took it. That is equally sad and sick. Who would do that? Only a remarkably insecure and jealous soul.
No one else would even entertain such a thing. Ironic that the last time such a thing was done was someone giving their prize to Nazi Germany’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Sounds familiar.
Trump’s “Health Care Plan”
Well, after about a decade of promising a new and better health care plan to replace Obama Care, the administration published the plan last week. It was 2 pages – counting the title page. It has zero substance and addressed none of the key elements of anything like a serious plan.
Even for this bunch, this was a joke – a new level of “there is no there, there.” They stripped health care from millions and are causing rising health care costs for the rest of us. Remember that in November, Americans.
Iran – A New Revolution This Time?
Could be. What the streets look like must make Beijing and Moscow nervous. Everytime an uprising happens in Iran, it seems larger, more wide spread, deeper rooted, and closer to a full out effort to topple the government. This time around feels even more so. The Iranian people have long suffered under this brutal, incompetent, theologically based government. Surely, they deserve better. But this is a government with no hesitancy to kill thousands to stay in power. They have only the thinnest public backing it seems, but at least so far, the security and military forces stand by them. If that wall cracks, the beginning of the end is upon us.
Not hopeful on this one, and how the Iranians see outside influence could be a factor. Still, successful revolutions often break through seemingly impossible odds with remarkable speed. Keep your eye on this one and worry a bit about what could follow to govern Iran. There is no clear succession movement.
Big Changes For This Blog
As noted last week, we have some changes in the pipeline. Look for information in February.
Bill Clontz
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Let’s grow our circle.
An appropriate word for the present administration, “kakistocracy”. Government by the least qualified and most unprincipled. Now that hits bullseye.
I recall a picket sign from a rally eight years ago: “Elect a clown; expect a circus.” Sadly, history is repeating itself.
It’s hard to decide which of these multitudinous offenses bother me the most. At any given minute, any one of them would do. For the moment, I’ll pick Greenland because it is the least necessary — we can satisfy ALL our strategic needs in the framework that has been in place for seventy years — and the most offensive to our best allies.
I certainly support invoking the 25th Amendment. True, we’re stuck with Vance, but he lacks charisma and (hopefully) the MAGA movement would collapse without Trump. Ideally, someone will have the guts to leak the Epstein docs and expose the Pedophile-in-Chief so we can be done with him.