This Is A Speech???

The Idiot-in-Chief spoke to a group of people outside of Pittsburgh yesterday.  We paid the costs for him to go there and give a speech, the title of which was “America’s Energy Dominance and Manufacturing Revival.”  The title is a joke anyway, for the U.S. in no way dominates energy, and in fact we are failing to do what we need to in promoting renewable energy over fossil fuel energy.  But, beyond that, the entire speech was a joke.  Let’s look at a few of the things he said … my own snarky remarkys are in blue.

On the supposed benefits of natural gas over renewable energy: “When the wind stops blowing, it doesn’t make any difference does it? Unlike those big windmills that destroy everybody’s property values, kill all the birds. One day the environmentalists are going to tell us what’s going on with that. And then all of a sudden it stops. The wind and the televisions go off. And your wives and husbands say: ‘Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on television tonight. But the wind stopped blowing and I can’t watch. There’s no electricity in the house, darling.’”  Is it clear to everybody now that Trump has no conception of how wind and solar energy work, and that he is in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry?

On his love of trucks: “I love cranes, I love trucks of all types. Even when I was a little boy at 4 years old, my mother would say, ‘You love trucks.’ I do, I always loved trucks, I still do. Nothing changes — sometimes you know you might become president, but nothing changes — I still love trucks. Especially when I look at the largest crane in the world, that’s very cool. You think I’ll get to operate it? We’ll put the media on it and I’ll give them a little ride, right?”  This is relevant to anything … how?

On pundits suggesting he might not leave office willingly: “Can you imagine if I got a fair press? I mean, we’re leading without it; can you imagine if these people treated me fairly? The election would be over. Have they ever called off an election before? Just said, ‘Look just let’s go, go on four more years.’ You want to really drive them crazy? Go to #ThirdTerm, #FourthTerm — you’ll drive them totally crazy.”  Be afraid, my friends, for this is not the first time he’s alluded to overstaying his welcome.

On what Trump perceives as a trade imbalance with Japan: “They send us thousands and thousands — millions of cars, we send them wheat. Wheat. That’s not a good deal. And they don’t even want our wheat. They do it because they want us to at least feel that we’re OK, you know, they do it to make us feel good.”  This remark is just so utterly stupid that I’m left stuttering.  No nation is buying anything just to “make us feel good”!  We’re talking international trade, not a game of checkers!

On the price tag of the presidency: “This thing is costing me a fortune, being president. Somebody said, ‘Oh, he might have rented a room to a man from Saudi Arabia for $500.’ What about the $5 billion that I’ll lose — you know, it’s probably going to cost me, including, upside, downside, lawyers, because every day they sue me for something. These are the most litigious people. It’s probably costing me from $3 to $5 billion for the pleasure of being — and I couldn’t care less, I don’t care. You know if you’re wealthy, it doesn’t matter. I just want to do a great job.”  Trump is profiting “bigly” from being president!  First, he and his children travel all over the world at our expense.  Foreign dignitaries stay in Trump hotels when they visit the U.S.  And here’s one for you … just yesterday, an article in Politico said that the U.S. Secret Service had spent some $20,000 at a Trump hotel in Canada when they had to accompany Trump’s eldest son on one of his hunting trips.  Trust me, Trump is racking in the dough from this gig. He went on to ramble about such things as the Academy Awards, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, once again referring to Warren as “Pocahontas”.  It was, for all intents and purposes, naught more than a campaign rally, though it was intended to be a presidential speech at a new Shell facility that is nearing completion in Pittsburgh.  And here’s the kicker … he took credit for Shell building the facility, but Shell actually announced the facility back in 2012, when Barack Obama was president.  It had not a thing to do with Donald Trump.

The stock market is taking a hit today.  I wonder who he will manage to blame for that … Hillary Clinton?Shaub

Pittsburgh Does Not Want Him … Does Anybody?

Last Saturday, during a Shabbat service at the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man by the name of Robert Bowers entered the synagogue saying that “Jews must die” and shooting randomly at congregants, ultimately killing eleven.  His reason?  He blamed Jews for the migrant caravan that he has been told by none other than Donald Trump, is coming here to take jobs, kill people, and ruin the United States.  Sadly, Mr. Bowers isn’t very intelligent, so he believed the blatant lies that Trump spewed.

To set the facts straight, the migrant caravan is comprised of families – men, women and children – who are fleeing from the violence in their home countries, hoping to seek asylum in the United States, work hard, assimilate into our society, and make a better, safer life for their children.  Trump’s tales that they are criminals and even Middle-Eastern terrorists, that they were financed by George Soros in order to affect the mid-term elections, are nothing but lies made up in the scrambled mind of a madman.

That same madman now plans to visit Pittsburgh, ostensibly to offer his “thoughts and prayers”, but in truth for a photo op in the days leading up to the election.  Most of Pittsburgh, it seems, do not want him. At last count, more than 44,000 people had signed an open letter from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish group who say Trump will not be welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops “targeting” minorities.  Here is the letter:

President Trump:

Yesterday, a gunman slaughtered 11 Americans during Shabbat morning services. We mourn with the victims’ families and pray for the wounded. Here in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, we express gratitude for the first responders and for the outpouring of support from our neighbors near and far. We are committed to healing as a community while we recommit ourselves to repairing our nation.

For the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement. You yourself called the murderer evil, but yesterday’s violence is the direct culmination of your influence.  

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism.

Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted.  You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.  

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you stop targeting and endangering all minorities.

The murderer’s last public statement invoked the compassionate work of the Jewish refugee service HIAS at the end of a week in which you spread lies and sowed fear about migrant families in Central America. He killed Jews in order to undermine the efforts of all those who find shared humanity with immigrants and refugees.

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you cease your assault on immigrants and refugees.

The Torah teaches that every human being is made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God.

This means all of us.

In our neighbors, Americans, and people worldwide who have reached out to give our community strength, there we find the image of God.  While we cannot speak for all Pittsburghers, or even all Jewish Pittsburghers, we know we speak for a diverse and unified group when we say:

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you commit yourself to compassionate, democratic policies that recognize the dignity of all of us.

Signed,

Bend the Arc: Pittsburgh Steering Committee

It is time we all step up to the plate and hold Donald Trump accountable for what he says, for the lies he cannot seem to stop telling.  Yes, republicans, that means YOU, too.  If you continue to support his hate speech, his incitement to riot, then you must share the guilt, share the blame, when innocent people are killed because somebody, somewhere took his words seriously.  Words matter.  It’s time to stop the runaway mouth that is attached to the ‘man’ in the White House before more people die for no reason other than Trump thinks he’s funny.

Despite the letter, Trump and Melania are planning a visit to Pittsburgh today.  Perhaps Melania can wear her lovely jacket that says, “I really don’t care, do U?”  Nothing would surprise me about this pair of unconscionable, cold, cruel narcissists.  You know what would make my day?  If he and Melania landed, and nobody came to greet them on the tarmac, there was no waiting Mayor Peduto, no Governor Wolfe … nobody.  Nobody lining the streets cheering, nobody to greet him anywhere.  That is what needs to happen in order for him to see that there are consequences for his childish, dangerous behaviour.