Yesterday, it was reported by several news agencies that the airline industry reported their safest year ever, with no fatal jet airline accidents anywhere in the world.  Among other commercial aircraft such as turboprops and cargo planes there were approximately 44 on planes and 33 on the ground, including 12 killed on December 31 in Costa Rica.  This is a remarkable achievement for commercial airlines, which have been steadily improving safety over a number of years.  The fatality rate for commercial airlines is .06, or 1 death per 16 million flights.

As we’ve come to expect, Trump took credit for the record, falsely claiming that he’s “been very strict” on global l commercial aviation in 2017 directly affecting the outcome.  This laughable lie provoked the response you would expect.  Here’s the tweet and some entertaining responses:

And delusion marches into 2018.

The New Yorker has published a depressing piece by Evan Osnos, about how Trump has stupidly ceded global leadership and how China has rushed in to fill the vacuum.  Trump can very likely become our version of Gorbachev, who, you will recall, oversaw the unraveling of the Soviet Union into a loose amalgamation of oligarchies and totalitarian states dominated by Russia.  From the very first moment of his term, Trump has set about unraveling our country’s generations-old leadership position in the world, and China has gladly Hoovered up every opportunity to exercise its new found world position.
One notable of example of this phenomenon was the World Trade Organization conference in Marakesh last October, convened to update international trade rules.  We’ll let Osnos tell this sorry tale:

“The Trump Administration, which has been critical of the W.T.O., sent an official who delivered a speech and departed early. ‘For two days of meetings, there were no Americans,’ a former U.S. official told me. ‘And the Chinese were going into every session and chortling about how they were now guarantors of the trading system.’”

Trump continually boasts about “Making America Great Again”, and “Putting America First.”  The problem is that he simply doesn’t understand what that means and has made idiotic decisions that has diminished our country, and creating opportunities for other countries, especially China and Russia to jump into the breach.  Exiting the TPP was stupid.  Now American beef comes second to other beef producing countries like Australia.  Withdrawing from the Paris climate accords has damaged our reputation and stature throughout the world.  China is also negotiating to create the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which will form a 16 country free trade zone.  The US is NOT one of the 16 countries.

The damage that Trump has inflicted and continues to inflict will be multi-generational.  Some of the damage may never be repaired.  The US’s unilateral surrender of its prominent position as world leader has emboldened other countries to take over that prominence.  Protectionism and isolation never works, especially in the new, interconnected global market.

Trump has ranted and raved about North Korea and “Little Rocketman” this year, has severely criticized China for not being tougher, and for continuing to truck and ship fuel oil into the country.  Visibility to that practice and further sanctions have served to choke off fuel to the Hermit Kingdom.  For a while, North Korean ships were loading in Russia and delivering into the country.  When that was discovered, surely that would choke off Kim Jong Un’s oil and drive him to the negotiating table, right?  Not so fast.  It’s now come to light that Russia has been loading fuel oils in Russia and then…wait for it…transferring those fuels to North Korean ships on the high seas.  That’s a direct violation of the UN sanctions agreed to by all, including Russia, and now they’ve been caught red handed smuggling into North Korea.  Trump’s response?  Dead silence.  Not one tweet or threat has been made since the news hit the wires today.

Now what is his orangeness to do?  Does he criticize Putin for violating international sanctions risking disclosure of the Pee-Pee Tapes, or does he stay silent, confirming his fealty to Russia?  We’ve never, in the history of the US, had such a compromised and ignorant buffoon infesting the White House.

God help us.

Watch ’til the end.

If you’re not familiar with Terry Tate, here’s some background material:

https://youtu.be/RzToNo7A-94

LOL.

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times landed a private interview with Trump at Cheeto International Golf Club where His Orangeness was “working”.  During the 30 minute interview, Trump was obsessed by the Mueller investigation and denied collusion with the Russians SIXTEEN TIMES, even though Schmidt didn’t actually ask if he had colluded with the Russians.  The rest of the interview was vintage Latter Day Trump, where he has gotten so bad about repeating himself that he now repeats himself repeating himself.  An example:

“Well, I think it’s bad for the country. The only thing that bothers me about timing, I think it’s a very bad thing for the country. Because it makes the country look bad, it makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country.”

These phrases used the word “bad” FIVE times.  Also he did some serious boasting.  Here’s a little gem:

“I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.”

He’s the smartest; the best at everything, right?  The transcript of the interview is really hard to read, so (editing out attributions to Trump and Schmidt, I made a word cloud of the transcript.  Here it is:

The more he repeats the words the larger they show.  It’s tough sledding, but a revealing read.

Axios just did a compilation of google search data for the year of 2017 and then graphed it.  The result is a chart that perfectly illustrates why we all have Trump fatigue.  Trump has created, caused, or worsened 46 crises since he began infesting our White House on January 20, 2017.  Axios won’t let me post the image (and it’s too big anyway) but you can find it here.

Ugh.