Freak Out Friday – November 25, 2017

So Trump is back and did not waste any time screwing up.

1. Even when he gets it right…. Over a month ago, Hillary Clinton managed to guilt Trump into dispatching the navy hospital vessel Comfort to Puerto Rico. Outfitted with a thousand beds, it treated nearly 5000 patients during the month that it was there. Yet now Trump has, for no reason whatsoever, ordered the ship to depart Puerto Rico even though the country still lacks the infrastructure to attend to itself. Even when Trump allows himself to be pushed into doing the right thing, sooner or later he immediately has to say or do something that runs contrary to it. He literally cannot help himself.

2) Having a Ball. I have to admit that I never heard of LaVar Ball. Apparently, however, those who have an interest in college basketball are indeed aware of him. My obliviousness is simply explained by the fact that I care about college basketball only slightly less than I care about professional basketball, not to mention hockey, soccer, or any other sport except baseball. But now, of course, I’ve heard of him because he picked a fight with Trump. Whereas everyone else deplored Trump’s demand for a thank you regarding the three college students who were dumb enough to shoplift in China, Ball—the father of one of the lads—flat out declared that it wasn’t necessary. That Trump actually did nothing. That Ball had people “on the ground” who were far more responsible for getting the kids freed. This managed to distract the news from far more appropriate questions such as “How does it feel raising a son that f’ing stupid?” and instead drew all attention to his Trump-related comments.

Now anyone with half a brain would realize that this guy is looking for PR. This guy has been exploiting his sons for years and apparently saw his latest kid’s stupidity as simply another chance to get his name out there. Anyone, again, with half a brain would realize that the absolute last thing you would want to do is engage with this yoyo because you’re just giving him what he wants. If you keep your mouth shut, he’ll have a news cycle or two and then go away.

Which means we are forced to the unavoidable conclusion that Trump has less than half a brain. Because he had to engage him. Of COURSE he had to engage him, and in the worst possible way, by stating that the kids should have been left in jail. So Trump’s inability to not rise to any disrespect has taken what should have been a minor story and elevated it into a HUGE story. Because the story is no longer “LaVar Ball is a stupid weirdo.” The story is “The President of the United States advocates leaving three students prisoners in China because one of them has a father with a big mouth.” Holy crap. Every single time you think that Trump has lowered the bar as far as he can go, he brings out a jackhammer, drills into the concrete and drops the bar another few feet.

Some people are contending it’s racially motivated, especially because Trump compared Ball to Don King. Which is weird because last I knew, King was a Trump supporter, so I can imagine him sitting at home going, “Man, do NOT drag me into this!” But I don’t think it is. Trump goes after anybody. If Ball had been white and said the same thing, Trump would’ve fired off a twitter storm at him because he has absolutely zero self control. He literally cannot ignore anyone who comes into his radar because he is the most victimized rich white man in the history of the world. As far as he’s concerned, if he had existed a hundred and fifty years ago, slaves crammed into the holds of slave ships would have been saying, “Well, at least we’re not Donald Trump. That would be way worse.”

Meanwhile, as Trump and LaVar Ball go back and forth, idiot Trump supporters are harassing LeVar Burton. Jesus Christ.

And Trump’s son is no better.

3. Seriously? Trump Junior, on Thanksgiving, had the balls to criticize Al Franken.

Now obviously there are some things shaking out about Franken’s conduct. Apparently he has slapped women on the backside. The fact that fourteen women in Congress came forward and raved about a wonderful man he was to work with caught about half a second in the news cycle before being shunted aside so we can continue to obsess about this.

Indeed, Trump Jr. seemed to miss out on this. He also missed out on where his father was accused by sixteen women of horrific conduct that Trump boasted about before claiming they were all lying. “We’re going to sue them all!” declared Trump before, a year later, suing none of them. He defends Roy Moore, of course. A dozen women accuse him of crimes ranging from assault to statutory rape, but Trump defends Moore because he denied it, the same as he defended Putin because he denied it. Part of me wishes that Franken had also denied it just to watch Trump twist around and completely believe Franken’s accusers in the way that he dismissed Moore’s and his own. Part of me wishes even more that the Senate Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction extended to the Presidency, because those would be hearings I want to see. But apparently the Senate is far too concerned about Hillary Clinton or Al Franken to focus on a president who is a proud abuser of women.

4. Let’s keep it neutral. Meanwhile Trump’s appointees are attempting to get rid of net neutrality. This would be a huge bonus for Trump’s pals, big business, because with net neutrality gone, they would be able to choke out resources they don’t like or charge sizable handling charges impeding your ability to access everything from Facebook to Netflix to pørņ to Twitter. Granted, I derive a small pleasure from the idea that Trump might have to pay for his Twitter account, but it’s not worth screwing everyone else over. The one hope we have at this point is that court cases are immediately filed over it and we wind up with judges dispensing orders to halt it until it can get sorted out in the courts, which could take years.

Did he do anything right? He pardoned the turkeys. In fact, he even asked the handler’s permission to touch them. So basically Trump displayed more respect for turkeys than he does for human women.

PAD