Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
As a candidate, Trump proudly Tweeted that he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and his supporters would still stand by him. At the time we all just brushed it off as just another crazy Trump Tweet from the Twitter-in-Chief but now, and about a thousand crazy Trump tweets later followed by equally crazy actions far greater than just shooting someone, like provoking a nuclear war with North Korea or ordering a failed covert operation while having dinner with his son-in-law resulting in American and civilian lives lost. (And of course blaming the whole thing on Obama), we see now Trump knew more about his supporters than we gave him credit for.
We can go on and on with the craziness emanating from this White House, you’ve read all about them, they appear on an almost daily basis such as the Trump/Russian collusion scandal being the fastest growing self-induced cancer with new revelations coming out faster than we can digest them. With Congressional investigations going on in both houses and the FBI investigation getting warmer, Trump, seeking to cool things down, does a very stupid thing, firing the FBI Director, James Comey. First blaming the firing on Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and acting on the advice of the Deputy AG, then finally admitting (on national TV) he had planned to take the action regardless of any advice to do so, in order to stop the FBI Trump/Russian investigation.
On the very next day, in a meeting in the Oval Office with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (a known Russian spy), a meeting where the American press was excluded but the Russian photographers were allowed to bring their electronics into the room, Trump divulged classified information pertaining to planned attacks by ISIS — confidential Intelligence provided by Israel and bragging about the firing of Comey to the Russians, calling him a “nut job” and a “crazy guy”. (By the way, we only knew about the Russian Ambassador being in the meeting because of the Russian press).
That same day, Trump Tweeted a threat to Comey, warning him that he better hope there were no “tapes” of their conversations. Apparently referring to three conversations, one over dinner and two phone calls, in which Trump admittedly asked Comey if he personally was under FBI investigation. Little did Trump know that Comey had taken copious notes of all his conversations with Trump, one of which was leaked to the press where Trump asked for a loyalty oath to Trump and another where Trump asked Comey if he would “be a good guy” and drop the Flynn/Russian investigation.
With that revelation, the Deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein announced that he had appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel to oversee the previously confirmed FBI investigation of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) said today that revelation changed the Trump/Russian investigation from a counter intelligence investigation to a criminal investigation. It is interesting to note that the Obama Administration went 8 years without a scandal, if you don’t count the time he dared to wear a tan suit. Trump, on the other hand, has a Special Counsel to investigate his Administration appointed on day 118.
Even trying to decipher the daily wild tweets or even a simple press conference is almost impossible, for example, try to decipher this one:
This is a verbatim response from Trump at a press conference on April 12:
Q: What do you think European countries have to fear from Russia?
Trump: “Well, I want to just start by saying hopefully, they’re going to have to fear nothing, ultimately. Right now there is a fear, and there are problems...there are certainly problems! But ultimately, I hope that there won’t be a fear and there won’t be problems, and the world can get along. That would be the ideal situation! It’s crazy what’s going on...whether it’s the Middle East or you look at . . . no matter where the...Ukraine . . .you look at . . .whatever you look at, it’s got problems, so many problems! And ultimately, I believe that we are going to get rid of most of those problems, and there won’t be fear of anybody! That’s the way it should be! We have a very big problem in North Korea. Thank you.”
Even with this constant deluge of Trump scandal after scandal, wild incoherent tweets and crazy public statements and much, much more. Trump supporters continue to stand by their guy. If you count yourself in this group of Trump supporters, I can only ask, what the hell is the matter with you?
Larry Baca
Manteca
