President-cum-Dictator Donald Trump sent the American economy – more accurately, the world economy – into a tailspin last week by imposing a ridiculous tariffs regimen on friend and foe alike, a preposterous initiative that forced him into retreat when markets approached collapse.
And that was the good news of the week.
That same president-cum-dictator is presiding over an effort to rid the nation of undocumented workers through a process made popular by the Stasi in East Germany – plucking individuals, some of them holding jobs and legitimate visas, off the streets, forcing them into vehicles and eventually dispatching them to parts unknown.
This in America, 1984 version, friends.
That same cretin is noodling around with Social Security, a retirement system with more than a million Kentucky beneficiaries who draw a monthly check from the federal government averaging $2,367.27. His so-called Department of Government Efficiency is slashing staff, closing regional offices and raising hell to such an extent that former Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley fears the system will collapse within the next 30 to 90 days.
The boy is continuing his outright evil campaign to kill U.S. AID, an initiative that could lead to an untold number of deaths worldwide, — in fact, the Boston University School of Public Health estimates that the already implemented cuts have resulted in more than 130,000 fatalities worldwide and counting, including almost 90,000 children.
Now, trust me, we could continue ad infinitum about the atrocities our boy has unleashed on the body politic in fewer than three months – don’t forget he’s pressing hard to re-up the tax cuts he championed during his first turn in the White House, a move that could add $4 trillion to the nation’s $36 trillion debt over the next 10 years with limited value.
But rest assured we’re living in what Voltaire would call the best of all possible worlds and what Donnie self-congratulatory calls the greatest first 100 days of an administration in the history of the free world.
Everything, in his view, is peachy-keen, so good, in fact, he finds time to play what appears to be a never-ending round of golf, a diversion so key to the nation that he nonchalantly hit the links rather than attend the return of the remains of four soldiers who died in a training exercise in Latvia.
Yet he loves the military he never served in.
Thus far, Kentucky’s U.S. senators, Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, who tussled with Trump during his tenure as Senate Republican leader, and Rand Paul, R- Bowling Green, have acted like grown-ups – at least to a certain extent — during the Trump reign of terror. Both spoke loud words of warning against the tariff insanity. McConnell opposed several of the president-cum-dictator’s lunatic choices for cabinet secretaries. Paul, however, has otherwise played along with the gag.
Regardless, that approach differs markedly from that taken by several Kentucky lawmakers in the lower chamber. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, is stuck with the unenviable task of having to cut $88 billion from federal agencies his panel oversees in the still under development federal spending measure, with Medicaid, which helps provide health care to the poor and a source of funding for rural hospitals, a prime target.
Two of Guthrie’s cohorts – Rep. Jamie Comer, R-TheFrankfortLoop, and Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington — have responded to this ongoing ignominy by planting a rhetorical big, fat kiss on Trump’s lips.
Actually, the smooch came about three feet below his mouth and on the opposite side of Trump’s bloated carcass, if you get the picture.
Appearing on some dubious Newsmax program, Comer, the modern personification of Pa Kettle, said congress must work together to advance Trump’s agenda and restore fiscal sanity in government, adding that’s what the public demands and expects.
Specifically, talking about a House-passed budget blueprint, he added, “what we’ve got to do is what President Trump wants.”
The first words out of his mouth in the interview? “I strongly support the president,” sounding like the brainwashed Bennet Marco in The Manchurian Candidate proclaiming, “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
“We don’t have free and fair trade in America because other countries have been…have not been allowing us to have a level playing field,” Comer said. “That’s what it’s all about, getting America back on a level playing field. It’s gonna take a few bumps in the road. That’s where we are now. But I have confidence President Trump will deliver.”
It’s impossible to argue that the United States has failed to benefit from free trade. Throwing a monkey wrench into the works is going to benefit no one.
Barr, if possible, dove even deeper into the pool of self-delusion and humiliation, which has become Andy’s specialty. The photo that hovers above his X site now includes a photo of Trump with an American flag background. One posting offers a short clip of Trump during a gathering called to witness the president-cum-dictator sign an executive order returning beautiful, clean coal to prominence.
You bet.
During that masterclass, Trump cited Andy in the crowd, noting, “Andy Barr, thank you Andy, good luck with everything, I hear good things.”
That will do as an endorsement for Barr’s long-anticipated race for the Senate for the time being.
All it cost was his integrity.
Now, Trump, as noted earlier, did a back-and-fill on most of his tariff fiasco – with those imposed on China remaining in place – because, among other things, the stock market and the bonds market were in a death knell. But to Andy’s way of skewed thinking, the entire rigmarole was a smashing success for el presidente.
“I think it’s a very purposeful strategy on the part of President Trump, his economic team’’ and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, “who I’ve been engaged with regularly, weekly on these trade issues,” Barr said during an appearance Wednesday on Terry Meiners program on 84, WHAS-AM in Louisville. “And it’s working. It’s working. This strategy is working.”
Really? Really? Your boy Donald called off the jam, as they used to say in roller derby, after creating unnecessary chaos that sent the world economy out of control.
You mean that’s how it’s supposed to work?
“Now we’re all happy about the surge in the stock market,” he said. “That obviously is an important correction back in the right direction for Americans and Kentuckians for one case.”
That “surge,” by the way, lasted one day after Trump called off the dogs. On Thursday the Nasdaq fell 4 percent, the Dow lost 900 points, the S&P 500 dropped 3 percent. We can’t stand many victories like that. But there’s Andy, howling about Trump’s genius “purposeful strategy.”
“And finally we have a president in President Trump who’s standing up for the United States and creating the leverage to negotiate better, more fair, more free trade agreements,” Barr gushed. “And the short term disruption that this has created creates enormous long term opportunities to open up market access.”
Is it me or does Andy sound like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert?
Yeah, it’s working all right. If Trump tries it again the stock market spirals, the bond market tanks, people’s IRAs shrivel to near non-existence and folks go jobless. But, thank God, there will be Andy telling everyone, “This strategy is working.”
By the way, have you noticed that Comer, Barr and the rest seem to have little to say about the Social Security mess? Or the peril facing Medicaid? Maybe, just maybe, it’s because they’ve hopped on the DOGE gravy train that’s pulling the retirement program apart and they hope people aren’t listening too closely.