Bearing Witness to Trump Week 4

Week of February 12-18, 2017

Trump hosts a live reality TV show in the form of a presidential press conference. He rants and raves for an hour, blaming everyone, then denies he is ranting and raving. He doubles down and blamed the media, intelligence community, and fake news stories for asserting the White House was in chaos.

He lied by saying it was running like a well tuned machine when all the evidence speaks otherwise. He lied when he said the travel ban went very smoothly. He lied by saying he inherited an economic mess from Obama.  He lied by claiming his victory was the biggest electoral win since Reagan. He lied when he blames the press for creating a tone of hatred and dishonesty, when that tenor came from his campaign. He lied when saying that Congressmen Cummings skipped out on a meeting with him.

He is probably lying about the Russians. Once again, he says what needs to be investigated concerning the Russians and Flynn is not the possible crime of Flynn’s conversations with the Russians as a citizen, nor the crime that Flynn lied to the FBI and V.P. Pence, but that there was a leak of classified information. That’s what should be prosecuted Trump claims.

The man is delusional, but only somewhat more than the those who still believe and trust him.

In another briefing Trump takes to the podium to blame the media, FBI, insiders, and Hillary for Flynn’s rapid fall. He suggests there was criminal activity in uncovering Flynn’s crime. No, we are not going to investigate the crimes committed by Flynn, but investigate what crimes may have been in leaking information that led to the discovering the crime. This playbook has been used ever so often by the Republican Presidents.

In the same news conference he rails against divisiveness in the country and says we will soon see alot of love. Right, from the man who has attacked or ridiculed nearly everyone.

This news conference was the third one in which Trump refused to take questions from the mainstream news media.

Good news that his appointee for Labor got yanked. Even Republicans were shocked to see someone so poorly qualified and obviously anti-labor in his personal and business life.

Trump spends a third weekend of golf and entertaining in Mar-a-Lago with a visit by the Japanese Prime Minister and North Korean missile crisis thrown in. Just to prove he can handle confidential national security issues while vacationing, he is seen working the phones and speaking his advisers all in a public setting over dinner, with guests tweeting in real time. Remind me which candidate complained the most about the few Obama vacations? At least Obama and his wife lived in and honored the White House, instead of using it as a workday corporate office.

Trump issues what must be the first of many to come “you’re fired” to General Flynn, who lied about discussing sanctions with the Russians as a private citizen right after Obama had enacted them. Lock him up, lock him up! When did the President know a crime had been committed? Lock him up, lock him up!

The above news items have been taken from a number of international, national, regional, and local news media sources, both print and digital. Additional editorial opinions and comments about these news items are those of this author.