Chaos king

by Bill Salterberg, Stevensville

Where do we start? We are living in unprecedented times. Every week that passes leaves the country in a state of shock. It’s virtually impossible to stay on top of  the absurdities coming out of this White House. Here’s just a few…

Trump campaign promise, “no new wars.” He has done the opposite, by bombing Venezuela and arresting Maduro. Leading up to this attack, we heard and saw countless bombings of Venezuelan “drug” boats, even though the military provided no such proof. In Trump’s speech following the attack that ousted Maduro, he mentioned Venezuelan oil 20 times, drugs 4 times, and failed to mention free and fair elections or establishing a strong democracy. When given a choice, he chose Maduro’s authoritarian VP to lead the country, and shunned the Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Machado, who had overwhelming support of the Venezuelan people. Trump didn’t care about democracy.  He wanted oil and for the U.S. to run Venezuela. 

Trump has laid out the red carpet for Putin, only to be globally humiliated when Putin stepped up the bombing of Ukraine. The Russian media has joked of his weakness. According to Mark Hertling, retired Commander General of U.S. Army in Europe, Ukraine has held strong despite Russia’s onslaught over the past four years, thanks to their own incredible fighting spirit and help from European allies and the U.S. Unfortunately they are no longer recipients of U.S. aid. He went on to note that Putin has been pleased to note that NATO alliances are now in question, thanks to Trump’s decision to cut Ukrainian aid and his incessant efforts to undermine our NATO allies,  most recently with the Greenland threats. 

Trump seems bent on controlling the entire western world, starting with Venezuela and now threatening our formerly strong allies, Canada and Denmark, with talk of taking over Greenland. Trump’s rhetoric five or six months ago is no longer just talk. It is now clear that he has every intention to move forward in whatever way necessary to  secure Greenland. If that occurs, we have no reason to believe he will stop there, with Cuba, Mexico and Canada in his sights. The people of Greenland have made it clear. Trump’s offer of $10,000 to $100,000 U.S. dollars for each Greenland citizen is something they are not interested in. They won’t be bought. 

On the home front, we are still watching masked ICE agents pulling numerous people from cars, beating, dragging and arresting them. We see videos of an ICE agent shooting a fleeing car. He fired not one, or two, but rather three times, all while managing to film the incident with his cell phone, presumably with his other hand. We are then led to believe that it was he who was injured and suffered internal bleeding, even though he was videoed walking normally after the incident. Of course, we all know, the driver of the car, Renee Good, a 37 year old mother of three, was killed. The Justice Dept somehow is now insisting that it was Renee’s friend and partner who should be investigated rather than the ICE officer. Remarkably, only 29% of people arrested by ICE have had criminal records, and only 5% were violent crimes. Some of the ICE arrests were made as the immigrants were leaving their scheduled judicial hearings to obtain citizenship.

Of course I can’t leave out the ongoing Epstein saga, which should be front page news except for the failure of the Justice Dept to release the files. They have released about 1% so far, with page after page blacked out with total redactions, thus far managing to protect the billionaire pedophiles, while disclosing names of some of the victims. Sure seems as though the Justice Department has something to hide. Trump has Pam Bondi to thank for this cover up. Our Attorney General is acting more like Trump’s personal lawyer. Meanwhile the President himself demonstrates his supreme self control while flashing a Ford employee the one finger salute and mouthing f**k you after the employee called him a pedophile protector. 

News flash. Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Machado flies to DC to gift her peace prize to Trump, hoping he will show her favor and select her rather than the previously selected VP to lead Venezuela. In accepting this gift, Trump is sure to become the laughing stock of every diplomat around the world. He deserves this prize about as much as he deserves the Heisman Trophy.  

These stories don’t end. I have just scratched the surface. I haven’t even gotten to the continued bombings in Israel and Gaza, despite Trump’s declaration of peace, or the threats of criminal charges against Jerome Powell. Members of his staff describe Powell as a first class Hall of Famer. 

This administration keeps coming, fast and furious, chaos style, with continued  injustices. Very few of their policies are in line with democratic principles, and Trump’s Republican Congress seems to be on a permanent sabbatical. These are all signs of a  power hungry authoritarian who is responsible for an ever widening income disparity  between the rich and the poor while he spends nearly half a billion dollars remodeling the White House and enriching himself.  

For those of you who are Trump supporters, take the time to legitimately fact check him and the networks/podcasters who are all in to support him. We all might do well to listen to Joe Rogan, one of many of Trump’s pre-election supporters, who equated snatching U.S citizens off the streets with Nazi Gestapo tactics.