Tell Donald To Shut Up!

As Black Entertainment Television famously tweeted when they saw Madonna disembowel two Prince songs at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards after Prince died . . . regarding Trump's speech to the United Nations . . . yes, I saw that!

Trump gave a speech at the United Nations this past Tuesday that was a slew of braggadocio, personal grievances, and an incoherent lecture to other countries the only way to run a country is the American way - though evidence to the contrary has mounted not just over the past eight months but over the past eight decades.  Had his TelePrompTer not malfunctioned (courtesy of a screwup made by Trump's advance team, through Trump blamed it on anti-American sabotage by UN staffers), his speech most likely would have been merely appalling.  His decision to forge ahead and improvise an address resembled a kid telling a joke that he's making up as he goes.

Trump had a few basic ideas of what he wanted to say in his address - he had a concept of a plan of what he wanted to say - and he ended up spewing more hot words out of his mouth than he would have if he'd been throwing up alphabet soup.  He talked about how wonderful the United States has been doing since he regained power and bitched about what a total loser Joe Biden was. Concentrating on his domestic agenda more than on anything else, Trump appeared to be making a State of the Union address without realizing that he was delivering his remarks to the wrong audience.  Then he insulted the rest of the world by talking about how good he was at restoring greatness to his country while "your countries are going to hell."

And why were these countries going to hell?  Because they were embracing renewable energy.  Trump - famous for pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord twice - exalted the magic of fossil fuels and needled other countries for putting up and relying on ugly windmills without considering how to produce and generate energy on calm days (actually, they did . . . two words: "battery storage").  He did make one cogent statement - that all nations have to protect and maintain their borders.  Then he reverted to form and chastised other countries for letting in too many people from other cultures, other religions, with their own traditions . . . does that remind you of one country in particular?   He also lamented how each country on the planet was becoming less unique.  Well, of course, seeing as you can't go anywhere in the world without seeing a McDonald's, which is Trump's favorite restaurant to dine at whenever he's abroad.

Trump didn't have to work hard (he never does) to make clear his disdain for the United Nations.  In addition to blaming the UN for the TelePrompTer debacle and also a defective escalator leading to the podium (the malfunctioning of which was caused by a Trump videographer), he talked about how the UN turned down his bid to remodel its headquarters (too bad, he could have given the UN a discount on gold leaf!), and he once again bragged about how he ended seven wars without getting any credit from the UN (the actual number of wars he ended is seven fewer), leading to his hope that, yes, he gets the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Not even if he offers to remodel the Nobel Academy headquarters.

This speech was an embarrassment to the United States and was abominable even by the standards of crazy dictators.  Even Adolf Hitler wouldn't have given a speech as self-absorbed and as incoherent at the League of Nations, though he wouldn't given a speech at the League of Nations, as he withdrew Germany from the League as soon as he got into power (though not as fast as Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord).  But at least Trump didn't give a speech before the United Nations as bad as the one he gave at Charlie Kirk's memorial event this past Sunday, in which he declared his loathing for his opponents even as he praised Kirk as a bulwark of Christian values.  And turning the other cheek was not what Stephen Miller had in mind when he assailed Trump's political opponents as having done nothing and having been nothing in the American continuum and vowed that opponents of Trump would be punished severely for their sins. 

The fire next time.

And yet, in spite of everything, Trump still holds a great deal of power.  Gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia that were considered easy wins for the Democrats are tightening, and one poll in New Jersey shows that campaign tightening so much there's no daylight between the opposing candidates (and I'll have more to say about that later, if Trump can only stop making news long enough for me to turn my attention to it).  And in Washington, the Democrats are trying to save subsidized health insurance from Republican cuts to avoid a government shutdown next week but don't have any leaders with the intestinal fortitude to stand up to Trump about it.

Trump has successfully dismantled the government to the point where he holds all the cards.  When he talks, people listen.  Even when they have no idea what he's talking about.

Trump's comments at both the United Nations and the Kirk memorial have convinced me even more that its' time for the U.S. to break up into separate countries.  There is no need for foreign nations to take America seriously anymore, and there's no reason for Americans to expect anything serious from their own government.  Because Trump is the government.  Democratic officeholders in Washington simply haven't noticed that yet.  When they do, I hope the cries for secession among Democratic states will get louder.

Irritation Men

Donald Trump's new immigration proposal - backed by a bill from two Republican senators from, you guessed it, the South - is carefully constructed to appear like it helps our economy but is designed in fact to delay or prevent the day that non-Hispanic whites become less than 50 percent of the population in These States.  It would only allow nuclear family units and not extended family members to come here, and they would have to be highly educated and be able to speak the American language.  Well, I'm certain that they would be highly educated, if they can speak Cherokee.   

Ha ha!  I mean English, of course.  This bill would obviously be partial to English-speaking immigrants, meaning it would be partial to countries like Great Britain, Ireland and Australia, where English is widely spoken, but the education requirement would keep out folks from Third World English-speaking countries such as Jamaica and Nigeria - from which people come to study in the U.S. because higher-education opportunities back home, shall we say, leave a good deal to be desired.  And families couldn't be reunited, although bringing families together has been the cornerstone of American immigration policy since 1965.

If these restrictions had existed in the early 1920s, just before the racist 1924 Immigration Act restricting immigration to those northern Europe was passed, my Italian maternal grandfather wouldn't have been able to come here.   

Trump and his nationalist adviser Stephen Miller defended the proposal, and Miller was very irritable and irritating with reporters who found the bill exclusionary, defending it as a bill that would be economically advantageous, not racially disparaging.  He insisted that the bill would benefit the economy for all Americans, and he even said he was insulted by the suggestioin that it would keep out people from non-English-speaking countries because such a suggestion assumes that people from such places can't speak English.

By the way, "Miller" is a nice Anglo-Saxon name.  It's also a nice German name (most immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century were German and spoke the language even after they became assimilated).   It's also a nice Jewish name . . . and Stephen Miller just happens to be Jewish.  Eastern European Jewish, to be exact; his own great-grandfather came from Belarus, where English is not widely spoken.

By the way, Donald Trump's own paternal grandfather - who changed the family name from Drumpf - could not have gotten into this country from Germany under such restrictions.  And non-English-speakers from non-English-speaking countries are more common than Miller thinks; did he ever notice that Germany's own chancellor doesn't speak the language of Shakespeare?

The irritating Tom Cotton, the  Republican U.S. Senator from Arkansas who is co-sponsoring this immigration bill with Senator David Perdue, a Republican from Georgia, ironically divulged the true intention of the bill in defending it on economic grounds.  Cotton said that allowing only highly skilled immigrants would protect unskilled American workers from foreign-born competition from low-wage jobs.  Well, if you really wanted to help the economy, why not provide more skill training  opportunities and increase wages for lower-paying jobs through minimum-wage laws?  Because improving the lot of workers is the last thing Republicans (and many centrist Democrats) want to do.

So much for the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  That line came from Emma Lazarus, of course - she was of German-Portuguese Jewish ancestry. 

The bill has no chance of passage, as most Senate Democrats and many Senate Republicans oppose it.  But that's not the only reason it will fail.  Trump may not be in a position to promote it for much longer; special counsel Robert Mueller, who has been irritating the White House, has expanded his investigation into Trump's business dealings, and he has called a grand jury as part of his investigations.

By the way, "Mueller" is a nice German name . . . ;-)