Yesterday, in true form, Trump sided with a foreign power against his own intelligence agencies; and no, at least this time, it wasn’t Russia.  This time, it is Saudi Arabia.  The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the CIA has concluded that Mohammed Bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, ordered the murder and Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and columnist for the Post.  The Turks have provided audio recordings of the murder and other intelligence to the CIA and other agencies.  Trump, of course, downplayed MBS’s involvement, repeating the same lies that he told when the CIA concluded the Russians interfered in the 2016 election.  Defending his declaration, and addressing MBS’s involvement, Trump said, “Maybe he knew; maybe he didn’t”.  He defended his relationship with the Saudis, making a false equivalency that somehow condemning the murder was parting ways with Saudi Arabia.  He also falsely claimed that Saudi Arabia is a major exporter of crude to the US.  About 11% of the US’s crude comes from Saudi production.

One needs to ask why in the world would Trump once again side with a foreign dictatorship rather than his own agencies.  That answer is easy…he owes the Saudis A LOT…millions.  In the 90’s when he was divorcing Ivana, his casinos were down the drain and he owed over $900 million in debt on failing properties, Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal bought Trump’s yacht and bought a 51% interest in his Plaza Hotel in New York.  When bin Talal did that, Trump’s lenders forgave $125 million of his debt.  BTW, this is the same Saudi prince who owns a big stock position in News Corp, the parent of Fox Noise Network.  In the ensuing years, Saudis have poured millions of dollars into Trump properties.  Early in his campaign, His Orangeness boasted of his close ties to the Saudis, that, of course, was prior to the time he started denying he did business with them.
Once again, Trump has sided with a foreign power to which he is beholden to the detriment of the United States.  Let’s be crystal clear (as if the point needed to be made) – To protect his personal interests, the President of the United States continuously sides with foreign countries run by despots against the interests of the American people to who he pledged to protect.  This behavior is the very definition of his continuing violation of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution, to wit:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. – Article 1, Section 9, US Constitution.

Enough of this is enough.   The problem is that the invertebrates in Congress will continue to hide in dark corners rather than do their damn jobs.

The Washington Post is reporting that WH ethics officials have discovered that Ivanka Trump has sent “hundreds of emails” about official government business using a private email address from a domain shared with…wait for it…husband Jared Kushner.  That’s right, folks, Miss I Get Everything I Want from Daddy and China has been using a private email server for official government business since 2017.  When interviewed about her practice of using a private email server, WH officials were surprised at her ignorance about federal laws governing the use of email communications, especially in light of the fact that her spray painted father made such a gigantic issue of Hillary Clinton’s use of private email when she was Secretary of State during the Obama administration.

Rather than going apeshit over Ivanka’s use of private email, I expect Trumpland to respond to this scandal with a “What? What’s the big deal?” response.  Hypocrisy is not in Trumpland’s lexicon.

Most of us normal people regularly ask the question, “What is it going to take to get Trumpists to turn against him?”  Thousands of lost jobs from his trade war didn’t do it; his sucking up to Vladimir Putin and other despots didn’t do it; North Korea caught building more nukes didn’t do it; roller coaster markets didn’t do it; his continuous lying didn’t do it;  his globally embarrassing performance at the Paris Armistice Day ceremony didn’t do it; not showing up for Veterans’ Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery didn’t do it; his incessant sophomoric tweeting didn’t do it; 22 indictments, 5 guilty please, and 8 convictions of his cronies didn’t do it;  it’s seems that NOTHING gets through.

Until yesterday.  Yesterday, Trump, while visiting wildfire ravaged California with Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown,  Trump babbled really stupid shit about Finland and raking forest floors.  He made these idiotic statements on national television in the wake of thousands of destroyed homes and businesses, over 70 confirmed deaths and more than A THOUSAND people missing.  Apparently, we’ve found the limit; doing that is what it takes to turn Trumpists against him.  Kirk Ellsworth, whose family suffered catastrophic losses in the destruction of Paradise, California, responded to Trumps idiocy, saying:

“My kids lost everything. I voted for him – and now? He can kiss my red ass.  What he said was ridiculous. It hurts my heart. A lot of us voted for him and he [talks] down to us?”

There you have it.  Apparently for Trumpists to see the light, they (and their families) have to suffer catastrophic personal losses before the scales fall from their eyes so they can see the light.  Such is the totality of the delusions of the Trumpist hoard.

I’m not going to comment on Trump’s visit to wildfire-ravaged California beyond saying this is the latest episode of Trump holding the position of number one global embarrassment.  What an idiot.  In his own words:

On forest management:

“You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important. You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story.”

“I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different—we’re a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation, and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. And they don’t have any problem.  And when it is, it’s a very small problem, so I know everybody is looking at it to that end and it’s going to work out, it’s going to work out well.”

On climate:

“Maybe it contributes a little bit. The big problem we have is management.”

“No. No. I have a strong opinion: I want great climate, we’re going to have that.”

Again, this guy is an idiot.  ‘Nuff said.

We all saw it yesterday – Trump, on Twitter, of course, attacked California blaming the state for “poor forest management”.  Here’s the tweet:

“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

The Twitterverse exploded, rightly accusing him of victim-blaming and calling him stupid, which are both true.  But what was generally missed?  60% of forests in California are FEDERAL, under authority of the National Forest Service, which is HIS RESPONSIBILITY.   His own 2019 budget reduces forest management spending by $170 million, and this comes on the heels of 2018 reductions.  He has signed executive orders ending clean air and water rules, and is known as a radical climate change denier.  Climate change is a now major factor in the devastating forest that now regularly rake not only California, but other western states.

The California Professional Firefighters Association responded to Trump’s attack pointing out that not only are 60% of forests under federal authority, but that another 30% are in PRIVATE hands.  They also scolded him for being such an asshole when hundreds of thousands of people are suffering and thousands of homes are being burned to the ground.

And that’s the point.

Trump is catching hell from everyone from CNN to Winston Churchill’s grandson for flying all the way to France for WWI commemoration ceremonies to simply skip a US cemetery visit because of…wait for it…rain.  Our low energy president chose to stay in his hotel room watching television while dignitaries from all over Europe and North America visited cemeteries all over France.  Apparently he didn’t want to muss his hair weave.

While his sycophants defended his lack of motivation to actually do his goddam job, I’ll just leave this little remembrance of how real presidents deal with poor weather conditions: