A State of Personal Emergency Sets a Precedent: The Price of Hypocrisy and Karma

There is perhaps nothing in the world more appalling and more breathtakingly laced with obvious falsehoods than a Donald J. Trump speech delivered off the cuff. His appearance yesterday in the White House rose garden absolutely confirmed it.

Yes, watching Don Trump's performance a little more than 24 hours ago was rather like coming to the stunning and horrifying realization aliens from another dimension do indeed live among us. It was a rambling, disjointed, barely literate address which time and time again lurched off into lengthy self laudatory tangents. In fact there were points when the actual subject of the appearance--declaring a national emergency to fund his, Great Wall--seemed utterly lost in all the narcissistic blather and accompanying blizzard of half truths, outright lies and false statistics.

Let's face it, most Americans are used to a politician hedging the truth now and then when it benefits him, or her. What we bitterly resent is a president who thinks we are stupid enough to believe lies so grotesquely huge and transparent even my four year old grandson can see they're bullshit.

There is no national emergency, even the dimmest of wits know that. Hell, he even admitted it. What Don Trump was declaring yesterday is a personal emergency. He couldn't get his oft promised, Wall, built when the GOP controlled both houses--he blamed that arch liberal, Paul Ryan for the failure--and now he is squared off against Nancy, by God, Pelosi and a democratic controlled House of Representatives.

After getting his head handed to him during the government shutdown and realizing there actually is a woman out there he can't fuck, bully, or pay off, El Don finally got the message when it comes to democrats approving money for, The Wall. It is written on a huge sign which reads, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

So yesterday DJT did something which he and every conservative member of congress has previously and vociferously condemned. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, circumvented congress in order to get his way. He didn't do it to stymie fictional armies of foreign criminals storming the borders. He did it to mollify The Almighty Base and the power elite of his propaganda wing such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. He did it because he knows he needs each and every one of those xenophobic sons of bitches in the year 2020.

Unfortunately even an abject power grab couldn't satisfy them all. The terrible truth is there is always someone out there crazier than you are. After yesterday's declaration, presented with the elocution of a sixth grader gone amok on cocaine, the perpetually acerbic Ann Coulter told a radio host, "The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot."

Oddly, Ms. Coulter basically echoed liberal film documentarian, Michael Moore. He tweeted, "You can't declare a "national emergency," when you ARE the national emergency." That's right, it appears the old adage about politics making strange bedfellows is true.

Now congressional republicans, all those men and women who have historically argued the Department of Defense should get every penny available plus some, are watching as their own president prepares to steal billions from the DOD budget.

Well, no one ever said hypocrisy is cheap.

Neither is Karma. Every GOP member of congress knows Trump set a precedent yesterday. That's what happens when you declare a national emergency for purely political reasons. Those same people realize the door just opened in the future for someone like, let's say, Elizabeth Warren, to do exactly the same thing. Only when Ms. Warren does it, after she cites the exemplar of former President Trump, she'll be talking about halting the sale of AR-15 rifles rather than building a wall.

Trust me--that moment is coming. And when it does all you gun quacks out there can thank Donald John Trump for it.



2-16-19