US at orange-alert crazy
At the risk of injecting logic into the US and UK ban on laptops and tablets in the passenger cabin, let’s ask a few questions. If laptops are bombs, then surely the last thing you want is to put bombs inside checked baggage, and entrust them to baggage handlers, who see the word “fragile” as a signal to toss the caber.
Smartphones remain permitted in the cabin, so the baddie still has their detonator. And all those laptop bombs, densely arranged in the hold, likely makes for much more spectacular pyrophilia than if spaced throughout economy and business class.
We can but guess whether Donald’s new plan is based on a CIA briefing, or an episode of 24. Certainly he’s expressed a preference for Fox News over the FBI, and this prejudice will only increase now that the director of the FBI has sworn before Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia.
(The FBI director, Comey, is the same man who handed Trump the election by writing a letter to Congress saying Hillary was under investigation. Comey neglected to mention that Trump’s campaign was under investigation as well — and for something much more sinister than email hygiene.)
I suspect Comey has now jeopardised his chances of a medal from Vladimir Putin, such as the Russian Order of Friendship awarded to Secretary of State Tillerson, former Exxon CEO, for services to global warming. And I mean services “to” global warming.
Meanwhile, it seems Americans are connecting somewhat with reality, giving Trump an approval rating of 37 per cent, in a system
where 40 per cent is rock bottom, due to sheer tribal bloody-mindedness.
Has it finally dawned on Americans that healthcare might be healthy?
What is it with the American disdain for state-funded healthcare? They will bite off their own nose, rather than have the Government bite it off for free.
The obvious answer is Americans don’t realise other countries provide free healthcare, without their citizenry being frogmarched into a communist gulag, stripped of their firearms, fiddles and musical jugs. God only knows what their level of world ignorance will be once the new Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, gets through with them. They’ll think Trump is doing a good job, if only compared to other EU leaders such as King Herod and Caesar Augustus.
Somebody needs to tell Americans that just because Homeland Security gives every passenger a full-body x-ray and a complimentary prostate exam (even if you’re a woman) — that’s not quite the same as free healthcare.
In Trump’s shock and awe blitzkrieg of self-enrichment, it’s hard to even pick out a highlight. It’s like choosing your favourite pestilence from the Book of Revelation.
We are at such a level of full democratic nutbar, he has given his daughter Ivanka an office in the White House and security clearance. (Although, given the way he speaks of her, the office will probably contain a stripper’s pole. In gold, of course.)
Apparently Ivanka is to be his eyes and ears. It’s too much to hope she will also his frontal lobe, or conscience.
Donald clearly doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Nor does anyone in his circle tell him. These are the same confidants who won’t tell him not to use sticky-tape on his neck-tie. So what if she has no qualifications? Qualifications are for haters and losers. Nepotism never did Donald any harm. It’s how he entrepreneured his own fortune, by struggling through the birth canal.
Imagine if John Key had given Max the highest security clearance, the power to see classified intel, an office in the Beehive, and sat Steph and her artworks next to Angela Merkel at a trade summit. Imagine if John Key’s official spokesperson, on TV, had told people it was their patriotic duty to buy Max’s headbands. This is what’s happening in America.
And what do we hear? Crickets. That is, until all the crickets are drowned by climate change.
Trump needs his hand held by Ivanka. In this parallel universe, it’s the only endearing thing about him. But let’s be honest: this is Category 5, Richter 10, Mental, Cray-Cray, Loopde-Loop Nutbar.
The gavel of justice looms though. Once climate change kicks in, Trump Tower will become a reverse aquarium. The money launderers inside will look out their windows — or should we say portholes — only to see marine life swoop past. The sea creatures will have a smug countenance, their share of planetary real estate having increased geometrically. (Polar bears will give them the finger, best they can.)