In the movie L.A. Confidential there’s a scene where the Guy Pearce character (police officer Ed Exley) talks about his father who also was a cop who was killed by a suspect that was never found. He tells the Kevin Spacey character (Jack Vincennes) that the man’s name wasn’t known, but that he gave him the name ”Rollo Tomasi” and that it stood for any criminal who gets away with their crime. As it turns out, this name has a major role in the plot of this exciting and fast-moving film (see the movie to find out more!).
President Trump is Rollo Tomasi. He’s a convicted felon – but he got away with it. He said about beautiful women ”you can grab them by the pussy” – and he got away with it. He was impeached twice by the U.S. Congress, but the Senate failed (in one case by only seven votes) to convict, and, yes, he got away with that too.
We used to call Ronald Reagan ”the Teflon president” because criticism and blame never seemed to stick with him. But he’s nothing compared with Trump. One of the things that one has to understand about Trump is that he deals with criticism, not by using humor, like Reagan, but by vicious attack. And his favorite tool for getting away with his attacks is the U.S. courts. In the past six weeks, he’s unleashed a barrage of executive orders that if carried out will hobble the EPA, the IRS, the post office, the military, numerous federal agencies, and cause hardship and ruination for millions of Americans (many of whom voted for him). The rhythm of his actions have been predictable. He signs an executive order and a federal (or state) judge blocks it. Then the order goes to court, and Trump has made a living out of stalling things in court for long stretches of time until the statute of limitations, or court costs, or just the wear and tear of time kick in.
As part of his executive ”blitzkrieg” he announced a temporary freeze on almost all foreign assistance as part of his “America First” agenda. Billions of dollars will no longer flow to nations that are coping with disease, malnutrition, war, homelessness, and destitution. Think of it like this, a starving child comes to Trump’s door and asks for money for food, and Trump slams the door on him. It’s like that, only on a much much larger scale. A judge who has blocked several Trump executive orders, U.S. district judge Amir Ali (may his name be praised!), has blocked the freezing of two billion dollars of that aid. This is money that had already been spent by non-profit international aid organizations (essentially Trump wanted to steal that money from them just as he stole money from contractors on his Atlantic City ventures and still hasn’t paid after decades have passed). But bless them, the Supreme Court, voted 5-4 to uphold Ali’s judicial action. So, as far as this two billion dollars is concerned, perhaps he didn’t get away with it (we’ll see). But what of future foreign aid contributions? One estimate is that 500,000 Africans will die of AIDS because of Trump’s actions. His executive orders with respect to undermining the Environmental Protection Agency put the very survival of our planet in doubt (an issue to be taken up in a future blog post). And I could go on, but what I want to ask is:
Are we going to let Trump get away with it?
Thank you Dr Armstrong for taking the time to tell the truth…..
I appreciate you.
What can be done to stop him and his team of fascists/racists? He is destroying this beloved nation before our very eyes.