Week of May 21 – 27, 2017

In his visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump tells his hosts to eject the radical Islamists out of the holy land. Hum, I think that is what they did with Osama bin Laden. Maybe Trump thinks Iraqis or Iranians or America-hating Democrat’s were responsible for 911, instead of a rich Saudi oil family from a country that has never paid a price for breeding terrorists. Not surprising, he is silent on human rights violations of the Saudi kingdom, but again seems to enjoy the pomp and circumstance of being treated like royalty. Do his conservative voters realize that the first country he visits as President has the strictest implementation of Shariah Law?

Trump in his first new year budget proposes massive cuts to the safety net of so many Americans who helped to elect him. Medicaid, anti-poverty programs, disability, and SNAP food stamps. The EPA, State Department, Labor, Health & Human Services, Education, Medical Research, Housing, Transportation, and more all take cuts, some over 25%. Of course the military, like that of most aspiring autocrats, gets a huge increase of dollars.  He claims that a revitalized economy based on tax cuts for the wealthy will actually create an extra 2 trillion dollars of federal revenue, which many economists dispute as voodoo economics .

I close with an ever so appropriate passage from Hannah Arendt, “Lying in Politics” in Crises of the Republic (1972)

Week 17: May 14 – 20

There is so much to report from this past two weeks; where does one begin in a summary?

The FBI Director James Comey was fired while in the middle of an investigation of the Trump campaign and Russian influence. The White House has a different story and reason for firing Comey for many days following his dismissal.

Trump met with the Russians the day after firing Comey and bragged about firing Comey, whom he called  “crazy, a real nut cake”. All in the Oval Office. You cannot make this up.

During the same meeting with the Russians at the White House, Trump discloses classified material that came from a U.S. ally. The only photo of the meeting shows them laughing it up was taken by the Russian press because no American press was allowed in.

Comey claims and has written proof documenting a meeting with Trump that he was asked by the President, his boss, to let the criminal investigation of Flynn and the Russians go.

A special prosecutor Robert Mueller is appointed by the Justice Dept. which is feeling the heat. Trump immediately goes on the attack claiming that no politician has been treated worse or more unfairly.

The Turkish President and strong-man Erdogan, one of Flynn’s past clients,. visits the U.S. for meeting with Trump. His bodyguards charge and assault peaceful protesters outside of the Turkish embassy, demonstrating to Trump what thugs do best so suppress opposition.

It appears that most Republicans love power and their party more so than their country by their silence and complicity in deception with the president.

Insider reports swirl that the White House is in constant chaos and jobs have been threatened.

Trump spends much time talking about himself and that no president has ever experienced a witch hunt like he has, and of course blames the media for his troubles. In graduation ceremonies at the Coast Guard academy. he says no president has been treated worse or more unfairly.

A report surfaces that Trump in a February meeting once asked Comey to jail reporters.

Trump ends the week by leaving the U.S. on his first trip of his Presidency. The first stop: some great beacon or model of democracy? Of course not. Saudi Arabia where it is sickening to see yet another President honor a kingdom that is not a democracy but represses so many of the basic human rights and values America proclaim to stand for.

The media reports that during the recent oval office visit by the Russians, the day that Comey was fired, President Trump disclosed classified information provided to the U.S. by an ally. Remember the alarm Trump fanned when Hillary’s emails might have had classified information, and that Hillary should have been locked up for that?

A former U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper warns that America is under assault from both the outside from Russia and inside from the Trump administration.

Trump’s expected head of the top USDA science job is not a scientist, of course, but an economist and former radio talk show host from Iowa. Previous appointees to this position were typically scientists with advanced degrees.

AG Jeff Sessions says we need to harden sentences for drug offenders as a top priority of the Justice Dept. Yes, another war on crime is just what the doctor ordered cause the last one has been so successful.

Comey says President Trump back in February asked him to drop the investigation of Flynn and the Russians, which he declined to do. Can you say obstruction of justice and special prosecutor?

Trump threatens Comey that he better tell the truth because tape recordings may exist. Can you say Nixon and Watergate?

A Republican Congressman writes in a fundraising note to a board member of a bank that one of their employees is a ringleader of the opposition critical of Trump. Can you say Nazi behavior?

The Trump administration blocks over $9B of international aid funding to women’s health programs around the world as a gag rule if they talk about family planning and abortion.

U.S. immigration arrests have increase by over 40% as over 40,000 people have been detained, some without much due process of law, leaving behind families, jobs, and even businesses they owned. Many of them had no criminal record.

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.

Week of May 7 – 13, 2017

A near constitutional crisis brews over the firing of the FBI head as he was investigating the influence of the Russians on the election and Russian ties with the Trump administration. His firing occurred just days after he requested more resources for the investigation, and the day before he was to testify to Congress. Ever so telling, only hours later on the same day after Trump fired Comey, the president hosted a visit to the Oval office by the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador. And to show his displeasure at the American free press, he only allowed the captive Russian press agency Tass to be present to take a photograph. You can’t make things like this up, even in a movie.

A member of the U.S. news media was arrested this week when he kept asking Tom Price, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to answer his question about health care reform. This is what we now do to our free press under Trumpism.

Meanwhile, a host of actors in the administration have all given many conflicting stories about the why and when decision for letting Comey go. In an interview Trump says one of the reasons he fired him was that Comey was always “showboating and grandstanding” and he could not be trusted. Yes, of course, there is room for only one carny huckster in the administration that cannot be trusted, and that is at the very top. It was reported that Trump asked Comey for his personal loyalty, as if a dictator, and instead Comey only offered to be honest.

Trump fired FBI Director Comey, but he does not do it in person, or even in a phone call. Comey learns about it from the media while on a trip. For being such a smart businessman he has fired a lot of senior people in very poor ways: Comey, Yates, Flynn, Bharara, Reid, Christie, Bannon, and even the White House head usher. The excuse they use is that Comey mishandled the Clinton investigation which may have caused her to lose the election. Yes, of course,. Trump wants Comey’s head because he kept Clinton from winning. Not because Comey was closing in on the Russian influence and penetration of the Trump campaign and White House.

Trump’s Pentagon asks for thousands of more troops in Afghanistan. Yes, that’s right, just a few more thousand troops and maybe another 10-20 years, and I am sure we can win a war that has been going on now for 15 years, the longest in our history. Meanwhile, we keep military operations going along in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and who knows where else they are not telling us. Congress remains MIA.

The former AG Yates testifies that the incoming Trump administration was warned about short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn’s ties with the Russians. So what did Trump do first? Fire the Attorney General of course. Second? Blame the press. He eventually fired Flynn, but the probe of Russian influence in the administration and election continues.

Over the weekend extended Trump family members were in China hawking a new real estate deal, not in China but in New Jersey, to Chinese investors. Actually, it seems they were more or less selling U.S. green cards as part of a golden visa program where wealthy Chinese who invest $500K in U.S. real estate developments can get a fast track path to residency. Yes, that’s right. Trump closes the door on political refugees and others who seek help in the U.S. while he opens it wide up for the global elite who can pay.

Trump, who filed for reelection shortly after being sworn in, is now running a series of advertisements across the country. More propaganda from someone who may never think he will leave office.

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.

Week of April 30 – May 6, 2017

It comes out that as part of a recent attempt to repeal Obama’s ACA, members of Congress and their families can keep the essential basics of the ACA including coverage for preexisting conditions. But they make this life-saving coverage optional for the rest of us in states across America. In a TV interview Trump disputes this and lies about what is in the draft bill before Congress.

Late in the week the House begins the deconstruction of Obamacare with the American Healthcare Act, aka Trumpcareless. The President and House Republicans are found later celebrating in the Rose Garden at the White House. Yes, celebrate the millions that will lose insurance outright or be unable to pay for it with the loss of subsidies and the poor who will lose benefits in Medicaid coverage. And of course the wealthy who will pay less taxes in a $600B tax cut! Hooray for the oppressed wealthy who have been victims too long! Not.

In a very friendly conversation, Trump extends an invitation for Philippine’s strong man Duterte to visit the US. Duterte is another autocrat who has killed thousands of his own countrymen without judicial process.  This is the same Duterte who called Obama a “son of a whore” and told our former president to “go to hell.” Trump also says he would be “honored” to meet North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.  In an ever so revealing comment about his character and love of power, Trump says he is impressed that Kim Jong at an early age was able to claim power and keep it. The world’s new class of authoritarian leaders certainly like to respect and admire each other. Putin, Duterte, Kim, Erdogan, al-Assad, and Trump; what a collection of despots masquerading as saviors of their people promising to make each of their countries great again.

The Trump administration is reported to be looking at ways to enhance libel laws while they continue to attack the free press. We already know the President does not take criticism well and has no sense of humor, so this is no surprise.

Trump says that the U.S. needs a “good government shutdown.” We should call people who threaten to shutdown our government and deconstruct our institutions what they are, terrorists.

In an interview, Trump says the Civil War could have been avoided with some big deal negotiating. Yes, that’s how America seeks justice for the oppressed, just negotiate their lives away.

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.

Week of April 16 -29, 2017

The assault on the environment continues as the EPA is reconsidering Obama rules that regulated the storage of hazardous coal ash. The pressure is on the EPA from big Trump inauguration donors, like Dow, to ignore the findings of harm to endangered species by a number of dangerous pesticides

It was reported that Trump collected over $100M for his “biggest of all” inauguration festivities from companies and individuals who wanted to ingratiate themselves to the new president.

A tax reform plan is rolled out all on one page. It is not a reform that promises to help all Americans, but a reduction of taxes mostly for the wealthy of course. And in the process the true colors of the Republican party are shown as under Democrat presidents they were always railing against the deficit. This tax plan promises to increase the national debt by trillions. Where are all the conservative Republicans now?

As part of this debate, the uninformed public was manipulated again as the administration kept talking about the U.S. having the highest corporate tax rates in the world, at 35%. No one wanted to talk about that few pay that rate, as the effective rate is less than half that closer to 14% with many hugely-profitable global corporations paying no taxes at all.

Trump ordered the Interior Dept. to review the protection of national monuments and public lands across the country. This will likely lead to oil and gas extraction on these lands.

The most important Trump advisers to emerge on the nation’s big issues are his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Kushner. They are undoubtedly smart, but their professional credentials are as models of inheritors of wealth, status, and influence.

Another health plan is floated. This time instead of rolling back protections for minimum coverage requirements, essential benefits, coverage of preexisting conditions, higher prices for the elderly….they now say conveniently we will let the states decide what is best. That’s right, let the state’s decide on things they want to get rid of but demand that federal law be respected for all those things they want to keep which some state’s don’t like.

One of those items is AG Sessions threatening to turn off federal grants to sanctuary cities. A federal court promptly shuts that down, and Trump goes on a tirade against the judiciary.

Trump’s FCC is plotting the course to ease rules on the Internet wrt net neutrality and thus ensure that broadband providers are not treated as utilities. This will only open up the gates for price hikes, gouging, and increased distortion of the information that feeds the public good. Broadband providers will be able to slow down or block feeds from whomever they choose, or ask to be paid more as they hold content hostage.

Trump continues to shake a rattle in a war of words with the North Koreans. With two unpredictable egotistical authoritarian leaders, what is the chance one of them will do something stupid that leads us to stumble us into another war, like most wars have started?  In response to the brewing crisis this administration can’t even be honest where its Navy is heading. After Trump said he was sending an armada off the coast of Korea, the handful of ships were seen sailing to the Indian Ocean instead.

As Trump approached 100 days in office, he reported that he was surprised by how hard the job is. Duh, it must even be more difficult when he has spent most weekends in Mar-a-Lago playing golf.

Trump signed over 90 executive orders in his first 100 days. This is the president from the party that absolutely railed against Obama as ruling like a King with executive orders. Of the over 100 agenda items Trump promised to take care of in his first 100 days, he has accomplished 6 of them. Of course he blames everyone but himself, and now says that the first 100 days don’t mean much and gives himself a grade of A.

What he has done a lot of in his first 3 months is reversing his opinions, positions and pledges on so many topics it makes your head spin: NATO, Russia, China, Syria, Walls, Taxes, Drug Prices, Health Care, Fed Interest Rates, Military Interventions, Korea, Border Taxes, Export-Import Bank, Draining the Swamp, NAFTA, Tax Audits, Golfing Presidents, and even the Arnold.

We are all emotionally exhausted at the 100 day mark of the education of this president.

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.

Week of April 9 – 15, 2016

So far Trump has done a turnaround on a majority of his campaign pledges. NATO is all the sudden now important to U.S. interests. The border wall will be paid for by Americans, not Mexico. Medicare will not have authority to negotiate drug prices after all. Intervention in civil wars around the world, like Syria, is good not bad. More military investment and bombing of Afghanistan is needed. The Russians are now not so good. Health care reform can come later if at all. Presidents travelling to resorts to play golf is ok, as long as their name is not Obama. Who needs to drain the swamp when we have so many rich cronies to run DC. It seems that China is not a currency manipulator after all, despite what Trump said dozens of time in the fall. The export-import bank is a good thing, not bad. Pro-immigration economists are good, not bad. Border taxes are bad, not good. And the flip-flopping list goes on so fast it makes you dizzy.

The President claims immunity from civil or criminal actions that occurred before he was elected president. Just like countless other autocrats throughout history. He also decides to keep the visitor logs a state secret for both the White House and Mar-a-Lago, breaking with tradition for transparency in our executive branch government.

Trump spends yet another weekend in Mar-a-Lago. While Trump relaxes, over 478 of 533 executive vacancies await nominees to make government function. Oh, I forgot, they don’t want government to function for the American people, so they only need a smaller staff to make it function only for them and their self-interests.

The Secret Service is stressed having to support so much unnecessary travel by Trump and all his family members. And for the first time more cabinet officials are receiving protection in the Trump administration than ever before.

Another Trump adviser, Carter Page, is under investigation for being a foreign agent for Russia.

Trump refuses to release his tax records despite thousands of American protesting for such on April 15.

The military uses the mother of all bombs, the largest conventional bomb just short of nuclear, but the President says it was not his decision as be cedes those decisions to “my military.” Yes, right, he will take credit for all their successes, but the minute something goes wrong, he had nothing to do with it. Someone pointed out this week that Trump routinely uses the words “my military” when describing the American armed forces.

it is reported that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort received millions of dollars of loans the day he stepped down from the campaign last fall. This on top of money from Russian-friendly Ukrainians he had previously been found to have accepted.

Planned Parenthood is defunded by Trump. But he threw women under the bus only after he did his own adviser, Steve Bannon.  Then he misled us as to the historic nature of their relationship with more lies.

Trump threatens to defund ACA subsidies to insurance companies. Yes, of course, that is right, use millions of low-income Americans who get their insurance from the ACA as hostages to blow up Obamacare for good.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer makes a blunder by claiming Hitler never used gas on his own people. Oh, what about all those Jews in the Holocaust? Never mind.

In an appropriate presidential remark for a change, Trump displays shock and sadness at the death of children in the recent Syrian chemical gas attack on their own people. If he could just have that same empathy for so many thousands of these Syrian children and their parents who have escaped this horror and seek refugee status around the world including in the US.

The combined net worth of the Trump administration cabinet appointees is reported to exceed $12B, the richest in the history of the country. Yes, these wealthy plutocrats who are coddled and cajoled at every turn certainly can speak for and defend the needs of the working poor. What a great con and coup they have pulled off on America.

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.

Week of April 2 – 8, 2017

Twitter has been summoned by the federal government to reveal the owner of an account that has been critical of the Trump Administration. Why is no one surprised by this un-American behavior of our President?

Trump shows his support of Fox news host Bill O’Reilly who has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment.  Of course Trump would. What more can we say in the new norm for our highest office of the land.

The Senate goes nuclear with their rules to allow the seat that should have been Merrick Garland to be awarded to Gorsuch. And how typical of the Republicans and abusers all over the world that they blame the victim for making them do this.  But thankfully, the Dems showed some backbone and hung together.

AG Jeff Sessions has started rolling back reform and consent decrees with troubled police departments all around the country. He claims they need less oversight and more support. What country has this man been living in not to see how different poor young black males are treated and ever so often killed by police even though many were unarmed who posed little immediate threat to anyone.

Another Trump ally is reported to have been the focus of Russian intermediaries and spies. It is becoming ever so clear that Trump, along with Putin and their cronies, are part of a growing global oligarchy of wealth and power.

Trump bombs Syria after spending much of his campaign convinced that we needed to stay out of this quagmire. This comes just days after the administration said that it basically had no position on whether al-Assad should stay or go. Then al-Assad believes he has been greenlighted and promptly gasses his own people against all international law. And to no surprise, our U.S. Congress remains in hiding, abdicating its constitutional responsibility, like cowards refusing to take any action of support of or in opposition to the use of military action around the world.

Trump donates his 1Q federal salary of $76K to the National Park Service, the day after a story appears that privatization of our treasured national parks may be needed to compensate for lack of funding over $1B to maintain them that will only get worse under the new budget.

Over the weekend Trump tweets out more attacks on the news media. He blames them for not chasing the leakers instead of those who may have committed treason.

The Egyptian President el-Sissi visits Trump this week. Will human rights come up in these discussions with a dictator who overthrew a dutifully elected president? We are talking about dictator el-Sissi, not Trump.

The United Nations has warned that American’s rights to protest their grievances are under broad attack across the nations. More states are making felonies out of simple acts of civil disobedience.

American democracy is being eroded from gerrymandering redistricting, loss of privacy, loss of news media, loss of right to protest, loss of voter rights, militarization of the police, and the list goes on and on. As the kettle heat gradually goes up to a boil, when do we jump out of the pot?

Trumps son-in-law Kushner, a young real estate developer, is now off to Iraq with the Joint Chief of Staff. Yes, Trump must be too busy flying to and from Florida to visit the battlefields where American have fought and died for someone else’s freedom, and our oil of course. So he sends in someone totally unqualified for the job. Maybe the family just thinks of the world as one big commercial development opportunity and the next deal. The irony of a family member visiting the country where we overthrew a cruel dictatorship run by a father-son pair.

The new administration is circulating policies among federal agencies to ban talking about certain things and certainly not using words like climate change or emission reductions. Yes, that will certainly make these problems go away. Just don’t talk about them.

The prohibition of lead in ammo is reversed by the EPA. Lead in ammunition is well known to harm the food chains of wildlife, included protected bald eagles.

The secret service is being strained providing security for so many Trump family members all living and working in different locations. At a huge cost to taxpayers, as well as pulling agents from around the country that would be working on other business important to the country.

The federal government issues RFPs for a 2,000 mile border wall that is estimated to cost $5B.

Steve Bannon has been pushed out of his role on the national security council. Maybe there is an adult in the White House after all? Ooops, they added Rick Perry. Perry at one time wanted to abolish the agency he now heads and has ownership of the nation’s nuclear weapon programs.

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.

Week of March 26 – April 1, 2017

How ever so fitting for this administration that the week after attacking the healthcare security of millions of Americans, Trump attacks the climate health security of the entire planet. In a series of widely anticipated executive orders he dismantled years of work to limit the carbon pollution that contributes to man-made global warming, ocean acidification, extreme weather events, and refugee migrations.

I am sad beyond belief. And ever so challenged by what to do as a citizen of this country and the globe. If you know your country is participating in something that will be recorded as evil as committing a genocide or holocaust, what morally are you compelled to do? Bear witness, run, hide, turn your eyes, resist, fight, confess, or weep?

We now have military operations in so many countries who can keep track. Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Turkey, UAE and others. It seems we are destined to be at war forever. And it has become so normal for Americans. Who wants to live in a country that is always fighting someone? Where is the outrage?

The President’s daughter Ivanka now has an office in the White House and has become a federal employee. But she has not shed her commercial business interests.

No surprise that the EPA has rejected a ban on a pesticide that the agency previously deemed a hazard.

Trump adviser Steven Bannon, who rails against illegal immigrants and others voting illegally, himself registered to vote in a state he did not live in. Of course there won’t be charges filed.

The Secret Service requests tens of millions more dollars in budget to support a first family that lives apart and a president who spends most weekends in Florida.  The man who ran as a populist is a plutocrat.

I have lost count of all the Trump advisers, campaign members, and family members who have met with the Russians, worked for the Russians, got paid by the Russians, or lied about the Russians.

Meanwhile, other crisis are occurring around the world that the administration seems indifferent to, such as in Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan. Are they so blind that they don’t see how famine and migration of millions of Africans creates the space for terrorism and more evil? So what do we do? We decrease foreign aid of course so we can build a bigger military to fight the results of having too little diplomacy, compassion, and foreign aid.

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.

Week of March 19 – 25, 2017

It was reported early in the week that the Trump administration was at one time considering the placement of military equipment in his inauguration parade….just like all other dictators, despots, and thugs do around the world. Now America is so proud and not so exceptional anymore to have our own.

The first good news in many months; the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare that would have raised rates and caused 24 million to lose coverage, has died. In his first legislative defeat, repealing Obamacare, he does not blame his strategy or own administration or his fellow Republicans who caused it to fail, but of course the Democrats. What is it with Republicans that they can never be introspective enough to ever ever admit a mistake. They spent 8 years bitching and moaning about Obamacare and voted to repeal it dozens of times…..but obviously they had no other plan to make government work for the people who need it, other than to obstruct and deconstruct the government they were elected to serve. True patriots indeed.

Trump claims that he will just let the ACA explode all on its own, and he is happy to let that happen since Congress did not act on his ultimatum now or ever. Hum, I believe there is a word for people who allow innocent bystanders to be hurt or die out of political warfare and retribution. They are called terrorists. And what would that make Trump and his Republican enablers?  And I didn’t think America negotiated with terrorists.

In a blockbuster testimonial reminiscent of Watergate, FBI head Comey says that yes indeed the Trump campaign and administration is the target of an investigation into the interference of Russia on the past American election. Can you imagine if this had been Hillary? Republicans would be constructing the stage for a public stoning and hanging by now.

When House Intelligence Chair Nunes apologized to his colleagues that after receiving a briefing from intelligence sources on Russian influence he went directly to the White House to brief Trump. That’s another true patriot alright. Ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort is thought to have received millions of dollars from pro-Russia Ukrainian sources. This follows the revelation that short-lived National Security Adviser Michael Flynn also worked for and took payments from foreign governments as an unregistered agent all while he was involved with the campaign. Then there was AG Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian Ambassador and other conversations he couldn’t remember during his confirmation hearings. Trump has sure drained that corrupt swamp.

What many fear most is that this behavior of Trump is becoming so normalized, that is the normalization of deviance. Just like during the campaign that are becoming desensitized and immune to it. God save us all. Maybe he could go out on 5th avenue and shoot someone and get away with it just like he once joked. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke after all.

Meanwhile, the slaughter of consumer protections continues with the Senate moving to repeal internet privacy regulations put into place. Now wireless providers can track and share our data without asking for our permission, unlike broadband telephone internet providers. Can there be any doubt how much they disdain ordinary Americans whom they claim to be working for and protecting.

The Keystone Pipeline is approved. The Clean Power act is expected to be gutted. Yes, these must certainly be good Christians watching over the health of our families and stewardship of God’s creation.

Trump’s new hands-off approach to military decisions and actions is racking up more casualties. This time over 200 civilians are reported as collateral damage due to American airstrikes deep inside of Iraq where after months they are still fighting to retake Mosul. We have been in this hell-hole of a war for over 15 years, the longest in our history, with no end in sight.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announces he will skip NATO meetings, but not a Russia trip. He is still not talking to the press or the American people. He too shows his disdain for who he is supposed to be working for.

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.