Puff the Magic Dragon

Many of you reading this post probably don’t remember this song by Peter, Paul, and Mary from the 1960s. Some assumed it had something to with smoking marijuana although the lyrics say nothing about that. They are nonetheless obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant to use Steve Martin's words from a song.

As you know, the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives. Now, they have a very important oversight role in Congress. The Republicans who used to have this role virtually skirted the issue and played no role at all letting Trump get away some very serious behavior. Trump has said the Republicans did “great” in the mid-terms. What? We saw the same election, didn't we?

For having done such a "great" job in the mid-terms, I find the following behavior a little bit contradictory - to say the least!

Trump immediately got rid of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and named Session’s Chief of Staff, Matthew Whitaker, as his Interim Attorney General when normally this job would have gone to Session’s deputy. Whitaker has said in the past that Mueller’s job as Special Prosecutor investigating possible collusion Trump may have had with Russians during the 2016 election campaign could be stopped by giving Mueller a budget close to zero to do the job. Trump’s appointment of Whitaker was probably due to the fact that Trump was aware of Whitaker’s public dislike of the Russian investigation a while ago. Whitaker's dislike is supported by the fact that he called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt". Sound familiar? Whitaker has no intention of recusing himself from Mueller's investigation or so he has said since his appointment. I am almost certain Trump knew Whitaker wouldn't beforehand even though Trump has denied even knowing him. They did meet at the White House over 30 times and Trump doesn't know him? I don't think so! I shouldn't be so skeptical. I don't think I am being skeptical!

I also can’t understand Trump’s reaction to the press immediately after the mid-terms if in fact the Republican’s did such a “great” job. He has always vilified them, but he has been downright angry – more upset than he has ever been – with the reporters at his press briefings and the frequency of his briefings has increased exponentially when compared to the number of issues the White House is dealing with - 2 in 3 days. His remarks have been described as lashing out. At one briefing (the first one after the mid-terms), he referred to one question he was asked but refused to answer as “racist”. He referred to Jim Acosta of CNN as a “rude, terrible person”. He then immediately turned to another reporter who was only defending Acosta and said, “I’m not a big fan of yours either.” CNN wasn’t the only network there, but they (read Acosta) have since been banned from all White House press briefings supposedly because the White House (read Trump) found Jim Acosta’s reaction to a White House intern inappropriate. I saw Acosta’s reaction to the intern trying to take his microphone away from him in the news, or I guess I better say “fake news”, and he was fairly polite in my mind. If anything, the intern was being aggressive. Since it happened, it has come out that video released by the White House to defend its decision was altered to make the exchange between Acosta and the intern appear more aggressive than it was on Acosta's part by a far right conspiracy website, Infowars. Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, not only had the doctored video released to defend the decision to ban Acosta, she has since doubled down on it. HOLY COW!!!

Trump also blamed Republican losses in the House of Representatives on those running because they didn’t embrace him. He was very dismissive of their performance. Interesting reactions from a President who said they had done “great” in the mid-terms.

I haven't written anything about Trump's behavior since he arrived in France to "commemorate" the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war with other world leaders. He started his trip by sending a very pointed tweet criticizing President Macron of France for saying that Europe had to have its own defenses to protect itself "even [from] the United States of America," Macron said on French radio. Shame on Macron, but I think he knew what he was doing. After all, Trump has been openly critical of NATO nations not pulling their weight when it comes to spending and has said the US financially supports the institution. Well, you can't have it both ways! Trump and Macron appear to have patched things up. He has blamed the wild fires in California on bad forest management which costs billions implying that the State does not spend enough to manage them. California fire officials quickly pointed out that most of their forests (57%) are federally controlled. This needs to be combined with Trump's denial of climate change to get the whole picture. I have a really hard time believing my ears, but I heard what I heard and Trump hasn't expressed any sympathy at all when the horrible situation calls for it. Passing the buck has traditionally been used as a strategy in badly or selfishly run entrepreneurial businesses, but it's a really bad strategy for running a larger corporation and a really, really, really, ... bad strategy for running a country.Trump also excused himself from going to a US military cemetery in France because it was raining. Chief of Staff, Kelly, went instead. The United States isn't a business. It's a country and it used to be a very proud one at that! Although in one of blogs a long time ago I wrote, "you get what you ask for", not even I wish Trump's behavior on the American public. He's self serving!

The last paragraph shows that things have returned to "normal" if you can call it that! Paragraphs 4 through 6 make me wonder what Trump is afraid of. He has taken the real estate term puffing to an unprecedented extreme. His extreme puffing behavior is now evident in how he runs the country and protects himself. Hopefully, the Democrats can do something to stop it in the next 2 years! Legalized recreational use of cannabis exists in 10 States as of the mid-terms. The number jumps to number 33 if medical use is included. I think Trump needs to puff on something else and relax a little bit. If he wants to be around for re-election, he better!

#politics