CSotD: Trumping Decency
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Canadian Gary Clement sums up international response to Dear Leader's UN speech, with his own blind self-satisfaction being what makes the cartoon click.
Every world leader is surrounded by sycophants, but I wonder how many hand-pick them for just that reason? There is something very Third Worldish about this, and that observation doesn't change the situation.
At this stage, and for that reason, it's valid to wonder if anything changes anything, for which I think the Republican Congress needs to take some responsibility: Having put at the head of their party a man with no experience in government or in working within a party, they have heretofore done very little, if anything, to school him.
They are like Raymond's father, letting him drive the car around the circle at the school and telling him he is an excellent driver.
Only Raymond's father didn't let him venture out onto the highway.
Ann Telnaes captures the dismay from this side of the border, and perhaps it's worth a historical note to note that, whether Caesar intended to proclaim himself a dictator or not, he at least had a string of accomplishments to prop up his ambitions.
We do have a system of checks and balances intended to thwart a would-be dictator, but we've let so many of them fall into disuse over the years that it's like having smoke detectors with no batteries, and nobody wants to suggest getting some because it sounds like you think we suddenly need them.
Well, we need something, and the first thing we need is, as Steve Kelley suggests, to accept that Dear Leader is an irresponsible, childish blowhard and try to keep him away from his North Korean counterpart, before one of the damn fools actually acts on his childish threats and foolish overblown showing off.
As noted before, it is a trait shared by Trump and various tinpot dictators in small nations that their followers "take them seriously but not literally."
But let's not forget that, when Saddam Hussein refused to shut up, his ridiculous threats about the "Mother of All Battles" were used as an excuse by an ambitious coterie of chicken hawks who wanted to invade but couldn't justify the move.
It's not that anyone believed him or took his nonsense literally, but he provided them with cover. Let's hope neither of these two nitwits do the same.
Meanwhile, part of the "whole world watching" is that, while Trump can sell the rightwing chicken hawk take on the Iran deal to his blindly loyal fanbase, the rest of the world is well aware that it was a well-crafted multi-national agreement that has worked, leaving us, as Phil Hands points out, looking like a bunch of clowns to everyone but ourselves.
Again, however, a major part of this problem is that, while Trump's immediate advisors may be more intent on stuffing their pockets than conquering the world, there are plenty of chicken hawks in Congress who are delighted to see his ignorance help them torpedo an agreement the rest of the world agrees is working.
And "the rest of the world" even includes an American who knows what the treaty actually says and how it is being enforced, as he told Bloomberg:
“Actions speak louder than words in the (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and Iran is speaking clearly,” said Robert Kelley, an American nuclear weapons engineer who directed IAEA inspections in Iraq, Libya and South Africa. “We know from the CIA that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program before 2004, and we know from the JCPOA that they stopped it. They have submitted to intrusive inspections to prove they have stopped.”
And it's appropriate that Guido Kuehn points out this dangerous, dishonest folly, because Germany is rapidly assuming the mantle, if not of Leader of the Free World, at least of Global Grownup.
"Making America Great Again" seems to be a formula for putting Angela Merkel in the seat once reserved for Yanks, and, if the rest of the world is happy to see the influence of the United States fade, it doesn't seem to be what Trump's mob was looking to accomplish.
And Mike Thompson demonstrates the priorities of the rightwingers who support Dear Leader, the point being less whether the Sanders proposal itself is practical — most of these sorts of things don't work out of the box and require assembly and modification — but the way "we can't afford it" gets applied to various needs in our own country.
It's critical, too, not be distracted by Trump's absurd pyrotechnics at the United Nations and miss what is about to happen to our own people in our own country, as Pat Bagley cautions.
Here we are again, Steve Sack notes, and it really is, in the words of the Steve Miller who isn't a white supremacist Pee Wee Herman lookalike, the same old story and the same old words, and we've got some heavy dues to pay.
Someone noted, and I forget who, that this is the first major piece of legislation that, instead of being pushed forward with misdirection, spin and purposefully misleading logic, is being sold instead with outright, direct, deliberate lies about what it contains and what it will do.
And, since they have no intention of debating it on the Senate floor, and the House will dutifully lick up whatever the Senate extrudes, there seems little chance to defeat it.
It's a hell of a situation when the bulwark against this unjustifiable, cruel legislation is a late night TV host. Unfortunately, while I like Dan Wasserman's cartoon, I can't agree with the idea that Kimmel can move things in another direction, because the Trumpanzees don't care what those wiseass people on late night television say.
And the GOP doesn't respond to appeals to decency, only to raw numbers.
And, anyway, as Chan Lowe points out, their cunning plan makes perfect sense, as long as you don't let decency intrude.
Now, here's an organic explanation of the bill:
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