“The Sound of a Barking Dog”: Trump and Kim Jong-Un at the U.N.

This past week Donald Trump ratcheted up his threats against North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-Un, using the podium at the United Nations and Twitter in his reckless war of words against a nation that now has hydrogen weapons and a rapidly developing long-range missile delivery system.

The verbal assault and incitement have appalled and frightened governments and people all over the world, especially those in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, and the west coast of the continental U.S.

This past summer as North Korea continued testing its missile delivery system for nuclear weapons and remonstrated against new trade sanctions engineered by the U.S. with China, Trump stated in response to earlier North Korean provocations that:

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. . . . [Kim] has been very threatening . . . [and] they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

The world shuddered.

Then North Korean General Kim Rak Gyom responded that:

“Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him.”

Many experienced globalists were stunned.

Trump then tweeted that:

“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong-Un will find another path!”

Wow. A maleficent taunt of unmistakable danger.

Later that day Trump added to his threats when he told reporters that:

“If he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat . . . or if he does anything with respect to Guam, or any place else that is an American territory or an America ally, he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast.”

We all began to imagine the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Not a pretty picture.

Prior to his first speech before the General Assembly of the U.N. on September 19th, Donald Trump was repeatedly warned by senior aides “not to deliver a personal attack on North Korea’s leader . . . [because] insulting the young despot in such a prominent venue could irreparably escalate tensions and shut off any chance for negotiations to defuse the nuclear crisis.”

Nevertheless, ignoring his speech draft and substituting his own ad hoc incendiary language—after having publicly derided Kim Jong-Un as “Rocket Man” in a tweet this past week—Trump repeated that language before the General Assembly on September 19th (whereupon General Kelly buried his face in his hands in despair):

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Murmurs spread throughout the General Assembly hall. “You could feel a wind had gone into the room when he said that,” a U.N. diplomat said. “People were taken aback. There were rumblings.” This official said that it was the first time in his memory that a world leader has called for the obliteration of another state at the U.N.G.A., noting that even Iran's most fiery leaders didn't similarly threaten Israel.

No, Donald. You don’t hurl schoolyard threats to a young, monomaniacal leftover descended from Korean War aggressors whose back is now pressed against the wall and who may therefore feel he has little to lose. You don’t taunt a young successor who is still finding his place at the head of a dangerous closed society that has already starved millions of its citizens in its quest to rule its part of the world with absolute authority. You don’t take such risks.

Hence, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, who had compared Trump’s U.N. speech to “the sound of a barking dog,” warned Trump and the western world that Pyongyang might test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific as a response.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un issued his own statement at that juncture, calling Trump a “frightened dog” and a “gangster,” adding that “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” Why be conservative when your adversary is threatening to firebomb you and your country out of existence?

And as Trump’s closest advisers had made clear to Trump, Kim did not take kindly to being mocked in front of 200 world leaders on the U.N. stage.

Readers scrambled for their dictionaries, finding “dotard” defined as an old person who is in a “state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.” The term apparently originated at least five centuries ago, in Late Middle English.

Sounds accurate when applied to Donald Trump, if not highly inflammable—just like Trump’s careless threats to annihilate North Korea.

Never one to let an insult of such magnitude pass, Trump then responded on Twitter that:

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!”

(I.e., I’ll see your “dotard” and raise you one “madman.”)

New financial sanctions against North Korea were then announced by Trump to affect other countries, foreign businesses, and individuals who do business with North Korea, a move aimed chiefly at North Korea’s biggest trading partner, China.

Meanwhile, diplomats at the U.N. gasped, residents of South Korea, Japan, Guam, and Hawaii flinched and worried, U.S. naval ships continued maneuvers in the South China Sea, and no one in the White House appeared able to snatch Trump’s cell phone away from Donald’s busy little hands.

The risks of a nuclear conflagration in the Pacific horrify heads of state and Pacific-area residents alike.

World leaders have characterized the exchanges of threats as follows:

— U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged the DPRK (North Korea) to comply with U.N. resolutions and condemned its nuclear tests, the sixth of which took place just weeks ago. “Fiery talk can lead to fatal misunderstandings. This is a time for statesmanship. We must not sleepwalk our way into war,” Guterres warned as he opened the General Assembly.

— French President Emmanuel Macron, who indicated that “our responsibility . . . is through resolve to bring North Korea to the negotiation table for a political settlement to this conflict. . . . France rejects escalation.” Later he underscored the point, saying, “Any military intervention must be avoided.”

— German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned Trump's threat to “totally destroy” the reclusive North Korean state. Merkel said sanctions and diplomacy were the only way to get a nuclear armed state to the negotiating table. “I am against such threats,” said Merkel. ‘We consider any form of military solution as totally inappropriate and we insist on a diplomatic solution.”

— UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson added that “no-one in their right mind” wants military action between the rogue state and the U.S. He warned that “going in too hard will cause a catastrophe,” and added candidly that “I do not see any good military options.”

— Chinese foreign minister spokesman Lu Kang reiterated that the situation was “complicated and sensitive.” Further, he said, “all relevant parties should exercise restraint instead of provoking each other.”

— Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, describing the exchanges between Trump and Kim Jong-Un as “a kindergarten fight between children,” added that “we have to calm down the hot heads.”

When I was a five-year-old kindergarten student and trouble would erupt in the classroom, the miscreants would be sent to a table or corner for a “time out” to think over their aggressive or selfish conduct, to reconsider their actions and cool off.

If any of you, dear readers, can remember a time when Donald Trump reconsidered his incendiary actions or comments in a careful, thoughtful manner, I invite you to let the world know how this was effectuated . . . before we are all blown to kingdom come.

Trump Retweets Video Hitting Clinton with Golf Ball

What more evidence of gross personality disorder is required to convince Trumpites that their man in office is a psychopathic megalomaniac and should be removed from office without delay?

Not only did this midget of a man who frequently has little connection with reality sit up and take notice of a doctored video whereby he is shown violently smashing a golf ball that somehow miraculously hits a woman (i.e., Hillary Rodham Clinton) in the back as she enters an airplane, causing her to fall, but today, September 17, 2017, at 8:18 a.m., that man—OUR PRESIDENT—retweeted that self-same tweet to the U.S. public at large (and indeed to the world at large). There have been over 1,000 retweets and over 3,000 likes so far and it’s not even noontime.

It appears that the gif was first tweeted online by “Mike” from the account @Fuctupmind three days ago. The original caption was “Donald Trump’s amazing golf swing @CrookedHillary.” The fertile minds of America’s haters are busily at work. Will the real “Fuctupmind Mike” please step forward?

Can Trump be redeemed? I'd put the chances at zero minus 1 million, give or take.

As recounted by the British tabloid the Daily Mirror, “Some users found the clip funny while others considered it grossly offensive and demonstrative of the president's penchant for violence against women.”

CNN described the retweet as follows: “The tweet, . . . came as Trump prepares to head to New York for a critical round of powerhouse diplomacy with world leaders at the United Nations, [and] followed a week during which [Hillary] Clinton reemerged in the spotlight as she promoted her new book, ‘What Happened,’ about the 2016 campaign, reviving her fiercest criticisms of Trump and his supporters and reigniting the debate about her stunning, unanticipated loss.”

My immediate reaction was that Trump was validating his reputation as clinically unbalanced and so full of rage at his election opponent that he has no control over his actions, NONE.

Just to round out his tweetstorm, Trump has also put out a tweet mocking North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man,” this when North Korea is threatening South, Korea, Japan, and the United States via Guam and Hawaii—not to mention the U.S. mainland—with nuclear annihilation at the hands of a male who is as unbalanced and easily personally threatened as Donald Trump.

And all this on a day when:

(1) four U.S. tourists, all women, were sprayed in the face with acid as they toured Marseille, France, potentially part of a terrorist attack;

(2) three new hurricanes in the Atlantic threaten to put hurricane-devastated Caribbean islands at risk of repeated watery death and destruction as well as lashing the northeast coast of the U.S.;

(3) London police continue their arrests and investigation of a London tube terror firebombing attack;

(4) Venezuela is in a death spiral of mass shortages and collapse from mismanagement and violence brought on by a dictatorship;

(5) Obamacare is beginning to falter as presidential actions take aim at its protections and begin to unravel them, jeopardizing healthcare for tens of millions of Americans and increasing premiums and deductibles for many if not most people in the U.S. healthcare system; and

(6) the U.S. debt ceiling must be increased by Congress in the next two weeks or the country will default on its obligation to pay its bills, “costing the Treasury tens of billions every year for decades to come,” and probably leading to a “serious recession.”

Moreover, there are, as always, additional crises in the U.S. and the rest of the world that require the urgent attention of a sane, focused leader.

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH? AT WHAT POINT WILL TRUMP’S SUPPORTERS AT LARGE, IN HIS CABINET, AND IN THE CONGRESS RECOGNIZE THE SERIOUSNESS OF DONALD TRUMP’S MENTAL ILLNESS AND TRUMP’S INABILITY TO GOVERN FOR THE GOOD OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Hello? Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, we need to apply you asap. That amendment, enacted by Congress and ratified by the States prior to adoption in 1967—during the decade that saw President John F. Kennedy felled by an assassin—provides in Section 4 that:

“Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

“Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”

How can Vice President Mike Pence sleep at night knowing that his fate and that of the rest of the world rests in the fevered hands and twisted maladjusted fury of Donald J. Trump?

How much longer, Mr. Pence, how much longer? Do we wait for the nuclear warheads from North Korea to land and obliterate parts of the world? What more will it take? Aren’t we already falling headlong down that dangerous slippery slope without a safety net?

Donald and Melania Take Florida

Once more into the breach. Tastemakers Donald and Melania Trump visited Florida to demonstrate their concern about how Floridians rode out Hurricane Irma and are recovering. They dragged Mike Pence along for photo ops.

Melania changed her footwear this time, abandoning her stilettos and donning a pair of dual-toned Chanel flats (which retail for about $750 on the Chanel web site). She also brought along an Hermès Birkin handbag. Such bags, named after the model, singer, and actress Jane Birkin, retail for at least £14,000, or at today’s exchange rate a cool $18,760.

Plus the First Lady’s hair “seemed to be freshly blow-dried, worn in loose tousled curls over her shoulders.” With lovely blonde streaks along the edges. Which costs a pretty penny.

Awesome. Let hot sweaty thirsty hungry homeless Floridians view haute couture to soothe their storm-ridden souls. (They’ll have to settle for genuine sun streaks in their hair from the unrelieved hot weather that plagues them until the power is fully restored.)

The Donald wore his usual long-sleeved black windbreaker with a presidential crest over a long-sleeved white dress shirt, while everyone about him wore shirtsleeves in the Florida heat and humidity.

That’s been puzzling me right along. Why is Donald covering up? Is he afraid that the hurricane victims will contaminate him with their germs if they get too close to him? Must he wear the presidential crest so that everyone will know for sure that he is The Guy In Charge? Or is he simply hiding his substantial paunch?

I’d happily pay a significant finder’s fee to anyone who can unravel this mystery.

Both Trumps wore visored caps again. Melania switched to a plain white one, but Donald wore his own “USA/45/flag/TRUMP” model, retailing for $29 on the official Trump web site, https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/ (which I have discovered has a dizzying array of merchandise for sale in case you need a hoodie or a mug or an ersatz gold coin struck with a bust of Trump at about age 25). One of my favorite products is a T-shirt that reads “BuildTheWall.”

Just about the only thing missing in the huge selection of shirts on the Trump products web site was one that proclaimed “LockHerUp.”

Anyway, even before our intrepid pair reached Marco Island and Naples earlier today for their tour of Florida, Donald pontificated about climate change by stating with assurance that “we've had bigger storms than this . . . if you go back into the ’30s and ’40s.”

Well, yes, Donald, the October 1928 Okeechobee hurricane (also known as the San Felipe Segundo hurricane) had winds of 160 mph and devastated Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas, second only to the murderous Galveston hurricane of 1900. In Palm Beach County alone, “1,711 houses were destroyed and 6,369 others suffered damage, which left about 2,100 families homeless.” Similar statistics prevailed in other parts of eastern Florida. At least 2,500 people died in Florida.

Communities located on the southern and eastern shores of Lake Okeechobee were inundated in 1928 by flooding after storm surges sent water pouring out of the shallow lake over the small dikes.

The Okeechobee hurricane left $25 million in damages, small potatoes compared to Irma’s $80 billion cleanup and damage costs—$50 billion for Florida and $30 billion for Cuba and the Caribbean. That’s “Billions” with a capital B.

Then there were the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which crossed the Florida Keys, “the strongest hurricane on record to strike the United States,” and of course Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which caused $25.6 billion in damages chiefly in Florida, Louisiana, and the Bahamas.

Our Dear Leader spoke to reporters in Florida earlier today about climate change—According To Donald—by indicating that “the people of Florida experienced something the likes of which we can say really say nobody’s ever seen before.” Which may be hyperbolic or possibly true, even in Trump World.

The press was also treated to a Trump shout-out to Florida Governor Rick Scott to run for the Senate (and knock out Democratic Senator Bill Nelson) plus Trump’s startling public acknowledgment of Little Marco, with whom Donald demonstrated his power handshake, taking Senator Rubio by complete surprise.

Donald also acknowledged pretty blonde Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose campaign accepted a $25 million campaign donation in 2013 from Trump’s so-called charitable foundation in exchange for dropping her nascent fraud investigation into Trump University on behalf of fleeced Florida residents.

And Donald Trump did not fail to acknowledge the media, viz. “even for you fake media we appreciate your help.” Right. Back at you.

Trump Returns to Houston: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

After the press and the public heaped scorn on the Trumps for their inauthentic visit to the Houston area earlier this week and their failure to connect with any of the first responders or flood victims—plus a far better visit by the Pences thereafter dressed in work clothes, comforting victims, and helping remove flood flotsam from the side of buildings—the Trumps returned to Houston on Saturday.

There were a few superficial differences. Melania didn’t wear her fashionable olive drab bomber jacket or Manolo Blahnik BB pump 4-inch stiletto heels ($595 at Neiman Marcus). She toned down to comfortable shoes, and replaced her FLOTUS cap with a TEXAS cap. (What is it with the Trumps and their caps? How many are they selling, anyway, at $40 a pop?)

Nevertheless, Donald was wrapped in a black jacket over a long-sleeved shirt on a warm day in Houston, seemingly to disguise his considerable girth. His hair was uncovered and shredded all over his head, not held in place with the usual superglue or his previous USA hat.

The Trumps toured the Houston NRG Shelter, ordinarily a 700,000-foot exhibition space and now the largest storm shelter in Texas. The facility contains huge separate halls providing sleeping space for single women, families, and single men. Ordinarily, this same space houses champion steers and craftspeople’s booths during livestock shows. The shelter currently also includes a childcare center, a medical services hospital in miniature, an impressive section for donated supplies, and a mess hall. Displaced musicians provide entertainment.

Trump’s comments to the press at the Houston NRG Shelter were inane and inappropriate as always, e.g., things were “wonderful,” he was “really happy,” “it’s been really nice to visit [to VISIT?],” “there’s a lot of water but it’s leaving pretty quickly [although dangerous brown sludge harboring all sorts of noxious, dangerous elements may linger for weeks or months, and no one will drink it, cook with it, bathe in it, breathe it, or even touch the stuff].”

And then, suddenly, with a gesture, Donald Trump remarked to the press, “My hands are too big! [bless us and save us].” He also made his nauseating thumbs up gesture over and over (as if it were still election night and he were in yet another rally venue).

Melania offered food in closed styrofoam containers to various displaced people or passed containers to Donald, who would (rather than looking down) thrust them forward to the nearest person without bothering to close the lid as he posed for the cameras or practiced his thumbs up gesture.

Trump bragged to journalists about formally asking Congress for $7.85 billion in initial relief benefits which lawmakers may actually approve quickly as a down payment for recovery costs. Well and good. The appropriate province of a capable chief executive. (Just about the only indication of same visible in Houston today.)

Trump posed for dozens of selfies with a variety of displaced Houstonians, flashing his all-too-familiar broad public smile, leaning over to gingerly kiss several tiny children on the forehead with a tiny peck. Then he picked up a toddler in pigtails, holding her uncertainly at arm’s length, depositing her back on the floor rather than actually putting his arms around her. (Was he afraid of germs? Getting too close? Mussing his clothes? What is wrong with that man?)

We remember Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama encircling adults in their arms to comfort or greet them and picking up and cradling small children—whether at disaster, campaign, or routine events, always natural and an extension of their humanity. These other presidents interacted with individuals in a manner which forever eludes Donald Trump (what can you say about a man who is virtually without a soul?).

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who accompanied Trump on his visit to Houston, was a study in contrasts. He moved via a manual wheelchair, acquired as a newly minted lawyer out for a jog while studying for the bar exam when a tree suddenly fell on him. He hasn’t walked since. But he is clearly able to govern and interact on a human level with far more empathy than Donald Trump.

Witness the governor picking up a small girl while only a few feet from Trump at the Harvey Shelter on Saturday, placing her on his lap and giving her a short ride in his wheelchair while the child showed the governor her new doll. Her equally diminutive sister was at their side. Greg Abbott could have been your favorite uncle or grandfather.