Trump Protects the Witches

If you’re reading my column today hoping to read something good about Trump, just keep turning the page.  It ain’t gonna happen, especially this week. Last week Trump treated our allied nations like enemies and the whole world knows beyond a doubt, the President of the United States is a clear and present danger to world order.  

TRUMP HAS been a broken record in accusing Bob Mueller’s investigation of being a “witch hunt.”  He’s said it so much, many of you believe it.  Well, Mueller found 12 witches (my apologies to all the good witches out there) and they were indicted on Friday, the 13^th, proving that bad things don’t always happen on that dreaded day.  The indictment document of these 12 Russians explains in detail how they successfully hacked into computers and systems and how they used the information.  I read the document twice and still don’t understand a smidgen of the sophisticated methods they used.  What I surmise is that it was fairly easy to hack the systems, but it was the elaborate means they used to cover their tracks.  Without Bob Mueller’s “witch hunt,” and the expertly trained people of the NSA, the Army Cyber Command, and the FBI, we would never have proof positive that Russia was responsible.  The attack was made by Putin’s military service and he was closely following their progress. 

WHILE READING the indictments written in computer language I don’t understand, it occurred to me that ignorance is the reason Americans don’t understand the significance of such attacks.  Americans understand bombs, death, and destruction.  They don’t understand what the Russians did was War on our country and our democracy.  It will be too late to understand when Russia attacks our entire electrical grids using these same methods.  They are capable!  Where is the outrage?  In fairness to the American people, we depend on our President and elected officials to tell us the seriousness of a situation and let us know we should be outraged. Instead, our elected officials are mute on the subject.  They are too busy trying to destroy the very agencies and people that protect us from cyber warfare. 

TRUMP SAID in an interview on Sunday that he had not thought of asking Putin to extradite the 16 Russians to US. Followed by his stand-by excuse for everything.  “But remember, that happened under the Obama administration.”  That speaks volumes of his unfitness to be President.  Last week Dan Coates, the Director of the National Intelligence, a Republican appointed by Trump, issued a strong warning that Russia is still actively pursuing their cyber warfare and that hacking of the 2018 mid-terms are already in progress.  He said, “These Russian actions are purposeful and premeditated and they represent an all-out assault, by Vladimir Putin, on the rule of law, Western ideals and democratic norms,” he said.  Although it doesn’t matter who was President when it happened, Donald Trump is the President now. 

AND WHAT is the man who took the oath to protect us from foreign enemies doing about the attack?  Not scrap-damn-doodle!  In fact, his denial that Russia was involved should give every American pause.  Boggles my mind!  We learned that Trump was told of these indictments a week before he left for the NATO Summit and for his Summit with Putin. Armed with this knowledge, his attitude never changed towards Putin. Trump said in Brussels that, “Yeh, I’ll ask him about it but it’s not going to be a Perry Mason moment.”  He called Putin a “competitor, not an enemy.” He spoke of how easy it was going to be with Putin.  Trump will be meeting with Putin after this writing.  If you see Putin and Trump pressing their flesh, smiling and grinning saying how wonderful each are, you will know that my head will be hanging over the toilet.

TRUMP ENTERED the scene in Brussels at the NATO summit carrying a huge chip on his shoulder.   His mission?  Insult our most trusted ally, Great Britain’s Theresa May.  Then, the entirety of the NATO countries.  According to Trump, "Many countries (in NATO) owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them."  Trump went on to say that the US pays 90% of the cost. This statement told all the NATO countries that Trump has zero understanding of how NATO operates.  The countries of NATO have a cost-sharing agreement.  The US pays 22%.  According to the most recent US Ambassador to NATO, countries do not pay the US and the US is not owed a dime from NATO countries.  Further, no one is delinquent on any payments.  For Trump to show his ignorance of NATO to those very countries is embarrassing to the American people.

OH, BUT it gets worse.  Trump said he demands that countries pay 4% of their gross national product (GDP) for security of their own country.  Upon leaving the summit, Trump made a victory speech.  He spoke of his great success.  He said the countries had agreed to pay 2% of their GDP and had until 2024 to reach that goal.  The truth is that’s the exact same deal Obama made with NATO in 2014.  Same percentage, same year.  But Trump basks in his huge success.  And his loyal kool-aid drinkers applauded his toughness.  He lied about his accomplishment.  The world knows it.

WHERE ARE the babies?  A federal judge gave the Trump administration a deadline of July 10^th to reunite the babies with their parents.  They have only found 5.  This is an American disgrace.  See, I told you to turn the page!