2017 Apr 6^th

If you follow Fox News you will find agreement with President Trump that the gas massacre of women and “little babies” was all President Obama’s fault. This is because the president established a “red line” and then when Assad crossed it in 2013 by using gas against his own people President Obama took no military action.

This gas attack in 2013 was far worse than the one yesterday. In 2013, the attack killed about 1400 people over 400 of them women and children. The red line had certainly been crossed now what would President Obama do? He went to congress to get authorization to use military force, or at least get congress’ advice. You can guess what happened; congress told him that he didn’t need their approval to use military force and that was true. It also meant that if the president committed military force and it turned out badly the Republican congress had nice clean hands; it would all be Obama’s fault. It was also the case that using military force against Syria at this time was unpopular with American citizens; only 36 percent favored taking military action against Syria.

Fox News and Trump keep harping on the fact that President Obama did nothing when Syria crossed this red line. They provide not a shred of context. This moves them from a news channel to a propaganda channel. Are we surprised?

Another predictable, although disgusting event occurred when The President of the United States was asked about Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly who had just settled five lawsuits brought by a variety of women who had claimed sexual abuse at O’Reilly’s hands. The president, beset by many challenges commented on this item of international importance by saying that he knew Bill O’Reilly, that he was a “good man” and that he should have not settled the lawsuits brought against him. Again, are we surprised?

Our president claims that he “inherited a mess.” The mess is almost entirely international and much of that is his own fault.  His slamming of NATO and his playing the patsy to Putin has emboldened Russia. Domestically, in spite of his outright lies about the economy, it is gradually picking up steam. If he inherited a mess. what is he going to do about; his solution seems to be to play golf, whine about his tasks as president and hand off the many jobs of the presidency to his 36-year-old son-in-law, Jeffery Kushner, and Trump’s own aging bodyguard. A photo op shows young Kushner (surely the youngest person in the room) meeting with senior Iraqi and American military officials with this bodyguard seated beside him in a jogging suit.

Now we discover that Bannon is no longer needed at National Security Council meetings. It is rumored that Bannon was in a rage and threatened to quit and perhaps his original demotion had been much more severe. Maybe the moneybags Mercer folks stuck their hands on the Bannon scale and resurrected him. In any event, we have this bit of hilarity from the Trump White House: The reason Steve Bannon was on the NSC in the first place was to watch General Mike Flynn. No reason is given by any Trumpettes as to why the head of Trump’s NSC, especially selected by Trump himself, needed to be “watched.” (All right, stop giggling now!) Once Flynn was gone Bannon was no longer needed. (Bannon had to keep an eye on the head of the National Security Council? So, did anyone have to keep an eye on Bannon?)