“I’m running because he’s unfit, somebody needs to step up and there needs to be an alternative. The country is sick of this guy’s tantrum, he’s a child.”
— Former Illinois congressman and Tea Party favorite, Joe Walsh announces his primary challenge of Trump.
*****
“If the Dow drops 1,000 points in two days the President should be impeached immediately!”
— ‘Purported’ Trump tweet from November 2012.
By Dan Peak
The Commoner Call (8/26/19)
The important numbers are: 3, 1, 23, 2.59/1000, ‘limitless’ and 138.
Trump is like an erupting volcano crowding out the sun. Trump has always been angry and divisive but the defining characteristic is now his daily contradictions of things he just said. He’s like Tyler Durden in ‘Fight Club’ with his self-created trade war against China that he can’t win against increasing fears of a recession for the US and global economies. He has no idea how to proceed short of constantly doubling down so as to not admit defeat. You know how we know he’s clueless? Trump’s daily contradictions are his current defining characteristic.
Is there a Republican answer to this? Remember when people would offer, “but Pence would be worse”? Now we have Joe Walsh joining former Republican Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld and possibly former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to challenge Trump in 2020.
I think all critical voices from the right are welcome. On Sunday’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” [8/25] Walsh even raises the specter of Trump-Russia before sharing his campaign strategy:
“Referring to Trump’s backing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial that Russia meddled in the 2016 election over the consensus of the US intelligence agencies, Walsh said Trump’s backers “are tired of this.”
““He’s a bully and he’s a coward and somebody has to call him out. And I cannot believe nobody in our party is calling him out,” Walsh said. “But the bet, George, of my campaign is that there are a lot of Republicans who feel like I do. They’re afraid to come forward.””
That’s Walsh 2020, it’s worth noting that Walsh 2016 was “Trumpier than Trump” with his slurs of Obama as a “Muslim” and his “I helped create that” with the ‘birther’ movement.
Number 3: That’s three challengers to Trump from the right.
Another Trump-Russia 2016-2020 comparison stays in the news.
Giuliani Renews Push for Ukraine to Investigate Trump’s Political Opponents
Special counsel Robert Mueller helped define the “open for business” attitude of the 2016 Trump campaign with Putin and Russia, but also with a number of other countries.
The New York Times opens with an acknowledgement of Trump’s lawyer Giuliani’s previous cancelled trip to Ukraine to “push for the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations into political opponents”. A cancelled trip, but a clear sign to Ukraine et al that Trump 2020 was again, “open for business”. Giuliani wants us to believe he’s simply operating as a concerned private citizen.
“Mr. Giuliani said he was acting on his own as a private citizen, with the knowledge and assistance of the State Department. He would not say whether Mr. Trump approved — or is aware of — the effort.”
A reminder, 13,000 Ukrainians have died in the Russian-backed separatist movement following Russian annexation of Crimea. And here’s the dilemma presented by the Trump-Giuliani overtures:
“A Ukrainian news site asserted that “if Ukraine supports the current president and sells out Biden, it would become a cause of deep and irreversible processes which later will circle back on Ukraine in a very unpleasant manner.””
Number 1: While Giuliani offers that he is “pretty confident they’re (Ukrainian government) going to investigate”, that’s one country publicly on the hot seat to enable Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.
*****
Meanwhile…
Alarm in Texas as 23 towns hit by ‘coordinated’ ransomware attack
Number 23: The number of towns in Texas suffering from ransomware attacks, not counting Florida, New York, Louisiana or Maryland. Beyond insulting the citizens of Baltimore, has Trump even come close to acknowledging the problem? Let’s face it, cyber-security has never been Trump’s long suit, in fact you could argue his long suit is his inaction around cyber-security; sort of a ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ approach?
*****
Trump vs Trump Heats Up
Meanwhile Trump argues with Trump over the health of the US economy, the need for a trade war with China, the path forward and in a very Trumpian way, who’s at fault.
The month a shadow fell on Trump’s economy
The sub-head says it all: “Faced with internal warnings about a slowdown, President Trump pursued chaotic, contradictory responses.”
While Trump gaslights us with his claims of an “incredible” economy, Trump publicly muddles through and abandons plans to boost his “phenomenal” economy. Note, when there is a positive, it’s a Trump accomplishment, not a US accomplishment.
We also know that if the economy does turn negative it couldn’t possibly be Trump’s doing. After all, he’ll tell us so.
“He has insisted that his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, is intentionally acting against him. He has said other countries, including allies, are working to hurt American economic interests. And he has accused the news media of trying to create a recession.
“…“I don’t see a recession,” he told reporters later on Sunday before leaving his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for Washington. But he added that if the economy slowed down, “it would be because I have to take on China and some other countries,” singling out the European Union as among those treating the United States “very badly.””
In spite of Trump’s statements otherwise, it’s Trump’s tariffs that are to blame and it’s the American consumer and farmers taking the heavy brunt of the hit.
“… a study from researchers at Harvard, the University of Chicago, the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston that showed that the cost of Mr. Trump’s tariffs had “fallen largely on the U.S.,” not on China and other countries, as the administration has asserted.”
Number 2.59/1000: For the second time in a matter of days US equity markets took a huge hit with the Dow dropping 2.59% this past Monday. While Trump (purportedly) once tweeted that a president should resign if the equity markets suffered such hits, in the new Trumpian world and blame, Rep Mark Meadows (R-NC) channels Trumpian excuses by blaming reports of the event as the problem pronouncing: “It’s not economic data that’s driving the concern as much as headlines and the stock market having a big drop.”
‘Chosen One’ Trump does have a plan, another plan, for at least a day.
A Washington Post headline then reports, “Trump ‘hereby’ orders U.S. business out of China. Can he do that?”
Another Washington Post headline that defines Trump’s flip-flops and attacks on his ‘enemies’, Trump expresses regret about escalating China trade war, then reverses course and says he wishes he raised tariffs higher
The Washington Post article reports Trump comments from the G-7 meeting in France. Worth noting, the US hosts the next economic summit and Trump says it is “certainly possible” that he would invite Putin. Feels like a reward for something, doesn’t it?
Didn’t this guy sell us on how he was a great businessman? Of course he also claimed his bankrupted Atlantic City Taj Mahal casino was the ‘8th wonder of the world’ before he drove it into failure.
*****
I’ll end with two final points. Trump’s excuses are now as profuse as his tantrums. In a defining week that history says will be soon eclipsed Trump claimed to be the “Messiah”, “wanted a medal for military valor”, “suggested the Clintons murdered Jeffrey Epstein”, “used shooting victims for self-promotion” and battled with Denmark over a refusal to sell him Greenland – ‘limitless’ comes to mind.
‘Limitless’. The number of insults, attacks and excuses offered by Trump; soon to be eclipsed by a new display of ‘limitless’.
Number 138: Final point, 138 is the number of House Dems now supporting impeachment as Congress reconvenes next week.