By Bob Gaydos

Cut!

It reads like the script from a bad Hollywood B movie. With the future of humanity at stake.

   The president of the United States, for generations regarded as the leader of the free world, announces a deal with Russia — for even more generations regarded as a predatory wannabe bigger power and traditional enemy of the United States — to buy what sounds like a lot of diesel fuel. It actually amounts to only about two weeks’ worth for busy American truckers, who are struggling with the hugely inflated price of diesel.

   Russia, whose economy is also struggling, is involved in a brutal and unpopular war it started by invading its neighbor, Ukraine, an ally of the U.S., who has supported it in that war. So this relatively minor oil deal amounts to treachery at the highest level. When that American president also criticizes the Ukrainian president for not, in effect, surrendering to Russia, which in many ways is losing the war, and says that Ukrainians should choose a new president who will submit to Russian demands, the treachery is multiplied. Whose side is the U.S. on?

     The plot thickens and the question becomes more pointed when it is discovered that Russia, whose leader is coincidentally a former head of the Russian KGB spy agency, has been providing intelligence help to Iran, a country with which the U.S. is at war. So, the American president is helping Russia, a traditional enemy, to conquer Ukraine, an American ally, even though Russia is helping America’s opponent, Iran, to attack and kill Americans and their allies in the Middle East. 

    That war with Iran was started by the American president for bogus reasons, in violation of the country’s Constitution and in a deviation from his stated campaign promise not to start another “forever war” in the Middle East. It is also the reason for the inflated price of diesel fuel and the need of the American president to make that deal with Russia to look like he’s doing something to ease the economic pain from the war he has no apparent strategy to end.

    Or, plot twist, is the diesel deal really more of an effort to help the Russian president, whom the American president publicly admires and whose economy is suffering and whose war has cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives? True treachery. Treason.

    Americans, like Russians, are weary of senseless wars. They’ve seen this plot before. Loved ones are dying and they can’t afford basic stuff. They also vote and, unlike in Russia, votes in the U.S. are still being counted legitimately. Mostly.

     Also, not coincidentally, the American president had promised in his campaign for office to end the war in Ukraine on “day one.” That was almost two years ago. People were noticing the contradictions and deaths.

      So the American president, a self-proclaimed deal-maker, made a deal. He switched sides in the war. Treachery. Then he had his on-and-off friend, who happened to be the richest man in the world, pull the plug on a high-tech defense system the Ukrainians depended on to alert them to Russian missile attacks. The richest man in the world, a white supremacist, just happened to own the defense system, yet another significant plot twist. The very rich man claims the American president ordered the system cutoff. The president, a notorious liar whose mental capacity was clearly declining, blames his sometimes friend.

      Whom to believe?

      Ukrainians and Americans didn’t care who did it. Many of them don’t trust either man at this point. Pressure is building. They want it all to stop before the American president, who had often boasted about obliterating Iran in that war he started and can’t finish, decided to use nuclear weapons at his disposal to make good on that threat. Once and for all.

      That significant plot twist would certainly test the loyalty of (1) Russia, also a nuclear power, and (2) China, the growing world power in the East, and (3) North Korea, who also possessed nuclear weapons, all of whom were aligned with Iran against America in that god-forsaken war the American president had started with the assistance of a cliche drunken Defense Secretary.

      It’s a scriptwriter’s nightmare. Written into a corner. Will it be nuclear holocaust and end of the world as known, or, surprise, a heroic effort by someone or someones in the American Congress summoning the courage and ending the nightmare by removing the president from office for the survival of the planet, never mind Ukraine, Iran and the American Dream?

     The trouble is, Hollywood likes both endings.

By Bob Gaydos

Katie Zacharia … legally fired

     Lawyer, schmoyer, taxidermist? Who cares? The point is, in this administration you can never have too many blondes.

      Unfortunately, this particular blonde apparently had no idea and no training on how to do her actual job. Which was not to provide legal advice, but rather, to spew Trump propaganda.

      Katie Zacharia was, briefly, the new White House press secretary. Young, attractive and blonde, like her predecessors, Karoline Leavitt, Kellyann Conway and Kayleigh McEnany. Zacharia was fired, literally as I started to write this column about there being no such thing as a quota on how many attractive blonde females can be hired to represent Donald Trump, legally or attorneyily, if there is such a word.

       Zacharia’s five days on the job were spent mostly explaining how she was a lawyer, really, but not really. That is, she graduated from Pepperdine with a degree in law, but never passed a bar exam anywhere (including China), but she said someone had told her that she could still call herself a lawyer, but not an attorney, even though she couldn’t legally do any lawyer stuff, like draw up wills or represent someone in court. Which attorneys do. Lawyers, too.

      Apparently, no one thought that this lawyer thing would be a handicap to her representing Trump to the news media every day. After all, she could still lie legally. Probably everyone in the White House thought she was a lawyer, because she said so. If only she hadn’t said so to the press. They still actually check up on stuff people say. 

     But, after manhandling a mere three questions at her first press conference, she quickly ended it. Zacharia’s remaining tenure, to stretch the meaning of the word, was consumed by debating whether or not she was really a lawyer. As if it really mattered in her new (now former) job, which was to present propaganda. Blondly and blandly.

     My suspicion is that someone in the White House had a hunch, looking at the long run Karoline Leavitt, attractive, young, blonde, KoolAid drinking follower of Trump, had as press secretary before getting pregnant and leaving to tend to her baby, how she had followed two other attractive blonde, etc. whose first names by some weird coincidence also start with a “K,” and how attached at the hip Trump is to his executive aide, Natalie Harp, attractive, young, blonde, KoolAid drinking follower, etc., that another young, blonde, etc. wouldn’t be a bad idea. And Trump had already had an attractive, blonde, not quite as young, actual lawyer/attorney supplicant representing him in Pam Bondi, the now fired attorney general.

    So there probably wouldn’t have been any problem with Zacharia for Trump. She checked all the important blonde boxes. If only the whole silly lawyer/attorney thing hadn’t come up and if only the media hadn’t focused on that for some reason rather than about her being obviously in over her head as press secretary, blonde, lovely and loyal notwithstanding.

    And honestly, Zacharia might still have her job if much of the lawyer-no lawyer obsessed media also hadn’t sidestepped the real news of that day: That Trump had just switched sides for the U.S. in the war between Russia and Ukraine by announcing a deal to buy diesel fuel from Russia, thereby helping its struggling economy and war effort and by saying that Ukrainians should get a new president because Zelensky keeps attacking Russian data centers, which send out all those phony comments on social media sites supporting Trump. 

    I’d have liked to hear Zacharia try to explain that diplomatic (impeachable?) stab in the back positively to the press. Maybe Trump did her a favor by suggesting she rethink taking the job. 

    Of course, there’s always Fox News. You can apparently never have too many blondes there as well.

By Bob Gaydos

Trump and Putin in Helsinki.

   Forgive me if I sound a bit testy, but I get frustrated, after 10 years of dealing with Donald Trump, when people, especially people who are supposed to be educated in such matters, express surprise when the dotard says or does something that benefits Vladimir Putin.

   Like announcing a deal to buy 300,000 metric tons of diesel fuel from Russia. Let’s set aside the legality, duplicity and utter stupidity of the deal for a moment. To those not familiar with the details of diesel fuel usage in America — most of us, I suspect — that may sound like a lot of diesel. It is. But it is roughly half the amount of diesel that America uses every day.

    Half a day’s worth of diesel. To help out a financially struggling Russian economy on which the U.S. has placed economic sanctions, including on diesel, and a Russian leader engaged in a costly and unpopular war (half a million dead soldiers, a million wounded) he started with Ukraine, whom the U.S. is supposed to be supporting.

    Which is only half the war story. In the war that Trump started, Russia is on the side of Iran, sharing intelligence. So Trump wants to send money to Russia to help it fight against our ally, Ukraine, even though Russia is helping Iran to kill Americans. Do you get that MAGA? Republicans?

    But, American truckers and farmers are angry that they can’t afford diesel fuel for their trucks because Trump’s war against Iran has resulted in Iran and its allies shutting down the main route for shipment of oil from the Middle East, resulting in a steep increase in the price of diesel available in the U.S. And diesel fuels the trucks that move all those now also more expensive groceries, etc. that Americans are complaining about.

   And the polls show Republicans likely losing control of the House of Representatives in next month’s election, meaning Trump won’t be able to ignore the law, as he is with the diesel deal, and is likely to spend two years, at least, of intense investigation. 

     So (and we’re not through with all the dots here) Trump looked for a quick fix to save his butt with voters and turned to his “friend,” Putin.

      This looks like a good spot to go back to why I’m so cranky about this Trump/Putin thing. It goes back to July 16, 2018. Trump and Putin had a summit meeting in Helsinki. Their third meeting. It began with a private, two-hour meeting between Trump and Putin and their interpreters. That’s it. No one to this day knows what was said behind closed doors for two hours. But the world saw a smiling Putin emerge along with a slumped over Trump looking like he had just been taken to the woodshed. That aura of smiling confidence Trump likes to put on was gone. He was thoroughly whipped. Very unpresidential.

       When asked by reporters what Putin had to say about  charges by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him, Trump meekly said that Putin had denied it and that he believed him. Case closed.

       It was there for the world to see. Putin had Trump. Or more accurately, something on him. Has had it ever since. It has been reported often and too often forgotten when Trump does something that seems stupid because it helps Putin, who has never been this nation’s friend. Sex tapes, videos, photos of Trump in embarrassing and illegal situations. Believing they don’t exist is to ignore the life histories of the two men. A narcissistic, legally adjudicated sexual predator whose attorney general and FBI are hiding the Epstein files from the public and the former head of the Russian KGB, which is known to have used women to lure men with influence into “compromising” situations.

       Connect the dots. Trump is Putin’s puppet. In spy lingo, he’s a Russian asset. It makes him our liability. 

       Trump doesn’t care who is hurt if he can protect himself. Say that Ukraine should get a new president because Zelinsky refuses to surrender to Putin? Sure. Suggest at a political rally that Iran (with a large, international network of terrorist allies and intelligence help from Russia, remember?) might want to take out San Diego and Los Angeles? Why not? “Small price to pay,” said Trump. People laughed.

      He is solely driven by self-protection. 

      The “deal” with Russia is illegal, ignoring economic sanctions that were in place. In total, it amounts to about two weeks’ worth of diesel in the U.S. and can be gotten cheaper from Canada, our ally until Trump. It will do little to help either Russia or the U.S. economically. It’s political window dressing for two struggling authoritarians. The fact that Russia is helping Iran to fight us, killing Americans, makes the deal incredibly stupid and … maybe treasonous?

      You get the idea. We know all this. Republicans know and refuse to stop it. The media mostly treat it as business as usual. But there’s nothing “usual” about this. That’s why I’m testy.

Xi and Trump on the tarmac.

By Bob Gaydos

   The truest, most insightful thing Donald Trump has ever said is, “I love the poorly educated.”

    The man who has no clue as to how dumb he himself actually is, is actually smart enough to know that his ace in the hole is that there are a lot of other dumb people in America. Dumb enough to think that having a lot of money means you’re smart, rather than lucky at birth. Dumb enough to vote for him three times, even though he did know in the past how to bankrupt three casinos, an airline, a college and steal from his own charity.

     I’m on the “dumb” shtick today because the dotard has spent the last few days demonstrating the depth of his ignorance to the world, first at the United Nations and then back in Washington, D.C., where he has declared open season on members of the press who report accurately on what he says and does. It’s beyond embarrassing and insulting.

     At the U.N., an organization literally created to promote and protect world peace, instead of offering a ceasefire plan, he threatened to “annihilate” Iran (85 million people) if it doesn’t come around and give him what he wants to end the war he started illegally and is losing badly, which is costing him support in the heartland because it has driven the price of diesel oil, which moves everything, through the roof. Truck drivers are not happy. Fertilizer is also at a premium. Farmers are not happy. The Iranians, who control both major international waterways for the shipment of oil and fertilizer, said no deal.

     Back in the cozy, gold-plated confines of the White House, Trump, who uses the word “Communist” as an insult for everyone who disagrees with him, especially Democrats, rolled out the literal red carpet for the most powerful Communist on the planet, Chinese president Xi Jinping, who is actually helping supply Iran in the war against the U.S. No matter. Ever the genial host and chronically deferential to those he perceives as truly powerful, Trump went so far as to mock former President Joe Biden while giving Xi a tour of Trump’s gold-plated hallway of former presidents. A real sign of American unity and dignity.

    He also missed Xi’s cleverly presented timeless message of the ascending power replacing the declining power (guess which is which) and came away with nothing to show on establishing controls on artificial intelligence (which is apparently out to destroy humanity) despite having a bunch of communist-loving tech billionaires (and three duplicitous Supreme Court justices) attend a lavish state dinner with his communist “friend.” Someone probably talked Trump out of having fortune cookies.

    Yes, in a sense it was just another couple of days in Trumpland. But, as usual, it was all a show to no positive results, the kind of events that many of his most loyal supporters applaud at face value.

   While the “mainstream media” may be finally arousing itself to report more thoroughly on Trump’s rapidly declining mental capacity, it remains to independent journalists to get the word out on a daily basis.

    Which is to say, the continuing real story here is that the Republican Party, which controls all three branches of government, has abdicated any responsibility for the pain and suffering and humiliation of the United States being led by an obviously mentally and physically debilitated, seemingly delusional, narcissist who’s getting richer in the process.

    The elected officials who have allowed this are not dumb. They are either of the same mind set with Trump on racism, etc., or too cowardly to oppose him because they fear losing their jobs when the “poorly educated” dutifully vote for the candidates Trump endorses.

   But clearly, even many of those voters pay attention at some point (diesel oil) because Trump doesn’t know how dumb he really is. What he does know is how to threaten and inflict pain on his perceived enemies. This is seen by some of his strongest supporters as a sign of strength and cunning. Actually, it’s a reflex action and he enjoys doing it. He simply doesn’t know any other way.

    Enough. The smart money says that what’s needed is a massive voter turnout for all Democratic candidates in November. A blue wave that will change the power structure in Washington and start to put America back in the hands of realists, not the delusional. While we’re at it, maybe we can even reboot an education system that apparently produces too many of the kind of voters Trump “truly loves.”

   Not doing that would be worse than dumb.

***

—  Trump made the “poorly educated” comment on Feb. 23, 2016, at the Treasure Island Las Vegas Casino after winning the Nevada Republican caucuses.