A Pain in the Back and Butt
Be that as it may, today is the first day when I feel I can sit up and do a little writing to catch up on our depressing days.
This was the pain in the back.
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Now, let us discuss the pain in the butt, aka, President Trump.
There is not much to say about the recent security breach at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. First, the gunmen never got close to the president. Rather, he was intercepted trying to bull his way through a security checkpoint located on an entirely different floor from where the dinner was taking place. So, despite the breathless media coverage, this was not the hostage party scenario from Die Hard.
Secondly, it is not even a surprising development. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I quipped that when one dabbles in extremist politics, extremist politics has a habit of dabbling in you. In other words, you reap what you sow. Such is the case with these lone wolves gunning for Trump and his trail of corruption and racism. The American people are revolted by what they see and are acting, some by protest, others by extremist violence. Politics is not immune to Newton's Third Law of Motion, after all.
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Having said all that, there is a particularly interesting facet of this incident. According to the New Zork Times, the shooter's manifesto (there is always a manifesto) states:
“I am a citizen of the United States of America,” the writing says. “What my representatives do reflects on me.”
In the next sentence, the writer alludes to allegations of sexual misconduct, saying that he is “no longer willing” to allow a “traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” an apparent reference to President Trump though the writings do not mention him by name.
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Anticipating the criticism that the attack might not be in line with Christian teachings, the writing appears to refer to reports of abuse in immigrant detention camps, the recent lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean and the bombing of an elementary school in Iran, among other things.
“Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior,” the writing reads. “It is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
Did you catch that? In addition to listing the many abuses of this administration that are verifiable facts, there is a mention of "sexual misconduct" that the Times correctly intimates is a reference to Trump.
Stop and think about that.
The current president’s reputation is now inseparable from his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and his own history of alleged sexual predation. With over twenty accusations from adult victims - and a chilling mention in the Epstein files regarding a thirteen-year-old - even the typically cautious corporate media now identifies him as the face of 'sexual misconduct.' Incredibly, even the emasculated 60 Minutes found the nerve to confront Trump directly.
(As an aside, I find it increasingly tiresome that the man who relentlessly attacks the media for doing their job can't resist giving interviews to the same reporters he attacks. When was the last time you called someone a "disgrace" but kept doing business with them? That either makes someone a fool or a glutton for punishment. Which is Trump?)
So, here we are, America, with a nation that has devolved from George Washington's "I cannot tell a lie" to Donald "I'm not a rapist" Trump. It says a great deal about the state of the country, does it not? Like my bad back, it is a sure sign of age-related decay.
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Another interesting facet of this entire security incident is how it exposed just how unwell Trump is as Commander-in-Chief. While no doubt deeply buried on regime networks such as Fox News (that it must always be remembered agreed to pay over 800 million dollars in damages in a litigation settlement where it was shown to routinely lie to its gullible audience about the outcome of the 2020 electoral defeat of Trump), there have been numerous photos of Drozy Dottard Donny fast asleep at open cabinet meetings.
Well, the video from the security incident will not put your mind at ease, as we see a man so enfeebled that he is unable to walk when ushered from the room by Secret Service agents:
When a president campaigns on being healthier and more vigorous than his opponent, and videos and photos show a much different story less than halfway through his second term, that spells disaster for an administration. While we are not quite at post-stroke Woodrow Wilson territory, scenes like this make it seem reasonable to assume we are not far off.
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My last point on this topic is an equally tiresome one: the gasping rush by politicians to paint every gunman's unhinged attack on a political figure as an "assault on democracy" or some other similar verbiage. As we learn time and again, these would-be saviors of the Republic are invariably "lone wolves", which is to say solitary individuals motivated by a combination of hubris and, usually, some sort of mental defect. These gunmen are not the vanguard of a revolutionary movement; they are not a modern incarnation of the Shining Path guerrillas or the Baader Meinhof terrorist network. Treating any of them as something greater than they truly are is the real threat to democracy.
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Because the media can't walk and chew gum at the same time, they have, for the moment, moved on from Trump's failed "excursion" into Iran. This is a shame, as there was a rather fantastic bit of reporting about how Iran penetrated American air defenses using F-5 fighter bombers, an aircraft over half a century old! As Militarnyi reports:
In the early days of the war, an Iranian Air Force F-5 fighter jet struck Camp Buehring in Kuwait – reportedly the first time in many years that a hostile aircraft has hit a U.S. military base.
NBC reported that although air defense systems protected the base, the Iranian pilot managed to evade them and drop a bomb.
The conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) says the damage to U.S. bases and equipment in the Persian Gulf was far more extensive than the Pentagon has publicly acknowledged, with repair costs likely reaching billions of dollars.
AEI estimates that Iran struck more than 100 targets across 11 bases in seven countries: Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
The strikes reportedly caused heavy damage to warehouses, command centers, aircraft hangars, satellite communications systems, runways, advanced radar systems, and dozens of aircraft. Analysts estimate that repairing the infrastructure alone could cost over $5 billion.
I guess we finally have an explanation as to why those three F-15s were shot down during the March 1 turkey shoot! Panic due to incoming Iranian aircraft!
I found this story fascinating in light of one of my previous blog posts, where I wrote the following:
If Iran had used traditional fighter-bombers to wreck an American naval base or to smash Israeli cities, people would be stunned that the formidable air crews of those nations were unable to establish what is called "air superiority" by shooting down the incoming attackers. Yet, that is precisely what we are seeing, just with unmanned kamikaze "aircraft" instead of piloted machines worth millions of dollars.
Well, now we know the entire truth. Not only did Iran pummel US and allied bases with drones and missiles, but even Iranian aircraft got in on the act. And the US military was unable to stop any of it. Remember that the next time some retired Lt. Colonel military pundit on the payroll of the corporate media and the military industrial complex attempts to tell you what a flawless job the US military did in the conflict.
As I wrote: stunning!
But I suppose we can expect little else when a FOX News hack is running the war in conjunction with a dozing dottard.
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