2017 Feb 2^nd

Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was on a talk show this morning.  The issue was General Flynn’s recent remarks to Iran following one of their missile launches; he told them that they “were on notice.” This is like a nervous kid shaking his fist at an antagonist who is two full blocks away. Corker was asked about Iran and asserted that there needed to be “pushbacks” against Iran’s many offenses. One of the program’s pundits, Willie Geist, asked the Senator what these “pushbacks” should be, if there should be more sanctions or if there should be military action.

The Senator was obviously blindsided by this unexpected need to be specific. No one should ever ask a politician to be specific. Corker has never served in the military so he isn’t going to discuss a military option. He had, in the run up to Geist’s embarrassing question, been quick to disparage “the previous administration” for taking no action on Iran’s perfidious misbehavior.  Now the Trump administration is fully prepared to inflict, at least, some hard words on these Iranian miscreants.

Betsy DeVos will probably squeak through as Education Secretary with absolutely no votes to spare. Andy Puzder, potentially Secretary of Labor, might not be so lucky. Andy has some 500 food and farm groups in an uproar about the possibility of his appointment. Andy has become controversial for several reasons:  He has commented publicly that his restaurant employees are “the worst of the worst’ and that he looks forward to robots replacing them. Such comments do not endear him to working people, but hen since he is a multi-millionaire, why should he care?

His soft-porn ads for CK restaurants are on the internet and Andy says that if they don’t disgust people he’ll make them even racier. His aim is to attract the attention of hungry young men. (He might be confused about which appetites his restaurants are supposed to satisfy.)

Finally, we have some interesting remarks from our national embarrassment in the White House. Trump’s decree banning refugees from seven countries was issued Friday February 27^th. There was enormous civilian resistance. At fully fifty airports, there were massive protests as green card holders and others with papers showing they had been cleared to enter the country, some who had worked for our armed forces as translators at great risk to their lives and their family’s lives were denied entry.  When Trump was asked how his edict had been received, he said, “It’s working out very nicely.”

Nearly every avenue of communication was showing masses of people at airports protesting Trump’s action, yet he said, “it’s working out very nicely.” This large a disconnect with reality on an issue of major importance is symptomatic of mental health issues.

We also have his largely hostile phone call to Australian Prime Minister Neil Turnbull. This country had agreed to accept 1250 Muslim refugees currently living on Pacific Islands just off the Australian coast. These people have been carefully screened by the Australians.

Yet shortly after the phone call, Trump took to Twitter to slam the agreement, tweeting: "Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!"

Again, the reality is less than two thousand screened refugees has, in Trump’s xenophobic mind, morphed into “thousands of illegal immigrants.” Is there a doctor in the house?