Worse Than We Thought Possible

While the Trump administration keeps denying the Russian connections, the evidence that keeps mounting tells a different story. Talk in the US intelligence community is leaking out: two grand juries are nearing their verdicts and we may very soon see criminal charges being brought against several people close to the President, and in due time even the President himself. The charges will concern collusion with Russia to cheat in the election, but also Russian money laundering connecting to large loans from Deutsche Bank to the Trump Organization.

As with Al Capone, the immediate issue that brings Donald Trump down might be his financial crimes, and the sooner he is gone, the better. However, the Russia story is a lot bigger and uglier than anyone thought, and involves dozens of people in and around the White House. The United States will be reeling from the shock for years to come. Hopefully, people will learn something from it. Not Donald Trump, he is way beyond help, but at least some of the people who voted for Trump might learn not to trust a compulsive liar.

Wanted: Stupid People

Donald Trump chose not to attend the White House correspondents' dinner. Instead, he organized a rally in Harrisburg. Despite his struggles with popularity and a growing number of supporters abandoning him, he drew a decent crowd of nitwits who were still prepared to put up with his narcissist self-promotion. However, as usual, he chose to exaggerate the crowd size by telling obvious lies, saying that there were lots of people outside waiting to get in (there were none), and hat he broke the attendance record for the arena (he did not, as there were entire sections of empty seats).

He then went on to attacking "fake media" for not acknowledging his achievements, which are few and small, and focusing on his failures, which are large and plentiful. He also claimed that he is fulfilling his campaign promises, when in reality he has done just the opposite. As usual, his lies were transparent, predictable and utterly ridiculous.

And yet, the audience cheered.

Obviously, there is a crowd in the US who have a low enough intelligence to be persuaded by this total opposite of the truth. People who stick with Donald Trump must also be lazy enough not to check facts, and so small minded that they believe that the entire mainstream media is somehow conspiring against an innocent victim when they write about the train wreck that is Donald Trump's presidency.

Fortunately, it appears as if there aren't enough stupid people even in the United States. Donald Trump is failing bigly on all fronts, and people are noticing.

Easy Peasy

In a recent interview, President* Trump made the personal reflection that before he took office, he thought his job in the White House "would be easier" compared to his old job.

Let that sink in for a moment. He actually thought that being the President of the United States, by account from any of his predecessors the most stressful and difficult job in the world, was going to be easier than managing his failing family business, promoting himself and occasionally appearing in TV.

Donald Trump is a fool. He had no idea what he signed up for, he doesn't have a clue to what he is doing, and he has neither a plan nor the ability to learn to do the job. He has absolutely no business being the President.

Blame Canada!

In his failure to understand basic economics, President* Trump just made a mess of the US relations to Canada, it's closest neighbour and a long time ally and trade partner. The healthy co-dependence between the two nations is based on free trade across their long common border, but Donald Trump said that Canada has "been very rough on" and "outsmarted" the US over the years, so much so that customs tariffs are in order to put "America First". (Canada is in America, but with "America", Trump obviously means "USA".) Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister who is Trump's opposite in most respects, might need to explain to the uneducated 45th President of the United States that trade, contrary to what seems to be the zero-sum world view according to Trump, can benefit both parties to a deal, and that the free trade with Canada, their sensible cousin to the north, helps create many jobs and prosperity in the US.

For a supposedly successful businessman, Donald Trump sure doesn't know a lot of economics. Or of anyting else, for that matter.

The Walls Are Crumbling

Congress has refused to provide initial funding to start the construction of Trump's stupid symbolic project: the border wall against Mexico. Not even his own party members are willing to spend billions on a project that is not going to have any positive effects.

Trump's firewalls are failing as well: the stooges who were supposed to provide protection for him in the various congressional committees are either resigning, recusing themselves or suddenly deciding to actually do their jobs and investigate the many strange and suspicious activities of the Trump administration. House Intelligence chair Devin Nunes has recused himself, House Oversight chair Jason Chaffetz is resigning and chair Richard Burr of the Senate Intelligence committee is suddenly redoubling his efforts to get the Trump-Russia investigation up to speed.

At the same time, Donald Trump's business is under investigation for suspected financial crimes. It's likely that his empire will not survive the public scrutiny that comes with being the President of the United States.

And on top of all that, Donald Trump himself has severe problems hiding his mental instability. Despite the attempts from his closest aides to manage him and shield him, it is becoming clear to everyone that there is something seriously wrong with his brain.

The walls are coming down on President Trump, all at once.

Trump Salad

The transcript of the Times interview with Donald Trump was bad. You know, the one where the editor apparently gave up on trying to make sense of the words that came from the President's mouth and just printed it verbatim. Well, that was just topped by a recent one-on-one interview by AP. They, too, printed the transcript, but in sixteen places they had to write "unintelligible", because the President did not just fail to make sense, he failed to utter proper words which other humans can understand. The interview wasn't even a proper one-on-one sitting, because an unnamed aide was present, supposedly to try to keep Trump from saying too many crazy things. This didn't stop statements like this from coming out of his muddled, disorganised and quite possibly demented mind:

[Describing a meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)]

“Well he said, you’ll be the greatest president in the history of, but you know what, I’ll take that also, but that you could be. But he said, will be the greatest president but I would also accept the other. In other words, if you do your job, but I accept that. Then I watched him interviewed and it was like he never even was here. It’s incredible. I watched him interviewed a week later and it’s like he was never in my office. And you can even say that.”

First, this is not what Cummings said, and he has been very clear about that since Trump quoted him wrong the first time. Therefore, this is another example of Trump repeating a lie long after it has been debunked.  Second, reading his literal words, this is a word salad bordering on being unintelligible. You can sort of make out part of what he tries to say, but the sentences are tripping over themselves, and words and entire phrases are just missing. This is not the flow of a normal conversation. It's an incoherent rant from a person who is obviously not in good mental health.

And we thought it was bad before. Does it have to get worse still before we can be rid of this president?

Pigs fly!

The Pope has declared that evolution and the Big Bang are sound theories, and that they don't clash with Catholic Christian belief. Because of the office he holds, he went as far as saying that they "require" a creator, but that's taking it too far.

The main point is that religion is finally considered separate and independent of science by the Catholic Church, and that is great news for science as well as for religion.

Now, if only the "evangelical Christians" trying to reshape the United States into a bible-toting, science denying theocracy could take the same stance instead of making Americans stupid.