From the very early days of the campaign, His Orangeness has railed against all things not White American Male – all dark skinned people, especially women, ALL women, for that matter, and immigration, both legal and undocumented.  His rhetoric is continuously over the top, hateful, and racist.  He loves to dehumanize migrants with inflammatory terms like “illegals”, “animals”, and “aliens”.  His favorite pejorative, though, is “chain migration”.  The actual term is “family reunification” which has been allowed by the US government for decades where a documented migrant to the US could sponsor their spouse and children to join them in the states.  In some cases, a migrant’s parents are admitted into the country to join the family.  It’s humane, decent, and, I might add, very difficult.  It takes years to unify families through our broken system.

But in Trumpland, “chain migration” has been weaponized and is now used by Trumpists to be bigots in polite society.  Trump has repeated the falsehood (even during the State of the Union) that “chain migration” allows immigrants to bring “unlimited” people to the United States.  The statement, in short, is simply a lie.  It’s not true, and has never been true, but the term is in high repeat in conservative circles.

Trump’s problem, though, is that the very system he rails against just allowed Melania Trump (You remember her, right?  She’s the nude model from Slovenia who is now our First Lady.) to bring in her parents through “chain migration”.  AND, said parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became US citizens yesterday.  That’s right, folks, the very system that Trump demands that Congress end just allowed his in-laws to become American citizens. Now, the Knavs are probably perfectly nice people who are fortunate to have friends in high places who could grease the skids for them attain US citizenship, which millions of others have been waiting decades for.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is the now-familiar hypocrisy.

This kind of hypocrisy shouldn’t be surprising.  Trump’s entire personal foundation is built on lies, cheating, and hypocrisy.  Rules apply to everyone else, but not Trump.  He’s immune from common decency or common sense.  Worse, the White House refuses to address any of his hypocrisy, including the “chain migration” lie, and the invertebrates in Congress, terrified of losing their power, do nothing to stop it.  That’s why it’s up to us to shine the light on Trump’s lies and fight fire with fire.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

Well, that answers that question…

Yet another GOP leader has stepped up, this time in a strong way.  Christie Todd Whitman, former EPA administrator under and former governor of New Jersey.  In a LA Times op-ed this morning, Whitman called for other Republican leaders to call enough and demand Trump step down.  Fat chance yet, but cracks in the wall are getting bigger.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

The independence of the Federal Reserve is one of the key features of our economic system. To keep near term political pressure off of the Fed, the President NEVER publicly comments on monetary policy or meddles in decisions made by the agency.  Well, never until yesterday.  Yesterday, Trump (as usual) shattered another decades-long practice by publicly complaining to CNBC that he was “not happy” about the Fed raising interest rates, and that rising rates damaged “all the work” that he’s putting into the economy.

Jesus.  After careful consideration and years of observation, I have determined that Trump is an idiot.  His spouting off about interest rates on CNBC certainly demonstrates (for the thousandth time) that he has no understanding or respect for his responsibilities of the office he infests; worse, said spouting also demonstrates that he has no understanding about how interest rates actually work.  So, I’ve decided to help; let’s talk to Trump about Interest Rates 101:

Dear Donnie…HEY! YOU!

First, sit down and shut up.  Zip it and listen.  You need to UNDERSTAND THIS.  You’re bitching about interest rates, but you clearly have the knowledge of a chimpanzee about the subject.  So, let’s talk interest rates; I’ll keep this simple so even you can understand it.  Why is it important that we get this concept through that big hair weave?  Because, dumbass, even as you complain about interest rates going up, YOU are making interest rates go up!  Your idiotic and unneeded tax cut to billionaires accomplished two things: 1) You overheated the economy, fueling inflation, and the Fed is having to raise the Fed funds rate to slow down spending, and 2) You exploded the deficit, forcing the Fed to sell more debt.  To sell more debt, INTEREST RATES HAVE TO GO UP TO GET INVESTORS TO BUY IT.  When you blew a gigantic hole in the deficit with your tax cut, YOU caused the problem.  Also, because of your idiotic and erratic leadership, demand for US bonds internationally is down, especially in China.  Again, dropping demand forces higher interest rates to get investors to buy US debt.  Simple.

A debt rate primer: US debt rates are determined by the demand for government bonds. US Government debt is how we finance deficit spending.  You remember that, right, way back when deficits used to matter when the Black Guy was in the White House? Right?  Anyway, I digress.  When demand for bonds exceeds the supply of bonds, interest rates go down until demand is reduced.  If demand for bonds is less than the supply of bonds, then interest rates go up until demand increases and the bonds sell. Interest rates are increasing now because we’re having to finance more debt.  So, here’s what YOU can do, Donnie, (I know your orange head is going to explode) to lower interest rates, you should:

1. RAISE TAXES.  This will raise revenue and lower the need to issue more US debt.  Interest rates will go down.
2. STOP YOUR ASININE TRADE WAR. Confidence and stability in the US increases demand for US debt, and interest rates will go down.
3. Stop commenting publicly on Fed monetary policy, labor numbers, and Hillary Clinton (Hillary comments have nothing to do with interest rates, but they do make you look like a moron.)

Now, go back up to the residence, but turn off Fox Noise and go play with your Legos.

Sincerely,

El Jefe, Interest Rates 101 Instructor

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

Trump has announced his new $3.9 billion toy, a new pair of Air Force One planes to take him around to his golf vacations.  These are actually the exact same planes that were on order when he came into office that he famously cancelled on Twitter.  Using Trump math, he claims that he saved the taxpayers $1.4 billion, but the original contract he “cancelled” was $4 billion (even acknowledged by him), and the new contract is $3.9 billion.  Of course; $4 billion – $3.9 billion = $1.4 billion in Tdollars.

The surprise, here, though, was not the new aircraft.  The surprise is that Trump’s throwing one more tradition onto the scrap pile, and that is the world famous paint job of Air Force One.  The polished aluminum, white, and sky blue paint job has been on every single Air Force One since JFK changed it from the original red and gold.  Kennedy believed that the previous paint job “looked too regal”.  So, Trump is doing exactly what you would expect, change the paint job.  But this time, he’s insisting on red, white and blue.  Patriotic, right?  Yes.  For Russia.  Here’s Vladimir Putin’s plane:

And now you know the rest of the story.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

On Monday, while French kissing Putin on global television, Trump announced that Putin had proposed “an incredible idea” to him during their private session to address Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.  We now know what that “incredible idea” was, and I had to read it twice to believe it; the story was confirmed by Aunt Lydia Sarah Sanders yesterday in the first WH daily briefing held in two weeks.  The “idea”?  For Trump to allow Russian intelligence to question 11 American citizens, including former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and businessman Bill Browder, whose attorney was murdered in a Russian prison.

This “incredible idea” cynical demand is nothing more than Putin’s chess move against legitimate indictments of Russian intelligence officials for hacking DNC servers and conducting cyber war against the United States.  Bill Browder has been a thorn in Putin’s side for years for pointing out the corruption in his regime.  The murdered attorney, Sergei Magnitsky, had been arrested for uncovering massive corruption in Russia which lead to hundreds of millions of dollars of laundered money being deposited in banks in the US and around the world.  The law passed in his name froze those assets and banned a number of Russian government officials and oligarchs from entering the US.  Putin and his gang hate that law, and have been trying to undermine it since its adoption.  Don’t forget that the meeting with Russian agents at Trump tower in the summer of 2016 was an effort to get the Magnitsky Act repealed.

The shocking thing about the current chapter in this entire sordid story of the love affair between Trump and his handler is that, instead of categorically condemning this demand, the White House IS ACTUALLY ENTERTAINING IT.  Are you kidding me?  And, of course, the invertebrates in Congress are responding as you would expect, mealy mouthed and cowering in the corner, terrified of Trump’s Twitterfingers.

There is a place for anger, and this is it.

UPDATE:  File this under “No Shit” – Saying he’s considering allowing Russian intelligence to interrogate former US ambassador Michael McFaul and others caused HUGE blowback yesterday and today around the world (especially from McFaul himself).  The invertebrates in Congress were actually able to pull themselves far enough vertical to raise their hands and were preparing a resolution condemning the idea when Aunt Lydia Sarah Sanders announced that Trump “disagrees” with the notion of handing Americans over to Putin’s Gulag.  Apparently, the WH now agrees that allowing US citizens to be interrogated by Russian intelligence is not a great idea.  To that we say, NO SHIT.