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The other day, Donald Trump Jr. went to Greenland, trying to build support for his dad's lunatic desire to buy the Danish territory. “The other day” is the proper phrase because, once there, he found out how wildly unpopular the lamebrain idea is and scurried home after one day! But not before he, of course, felt compelled put out a video slamming Denmark, our democratic ally, for "fake news" about the near-total lack of support. Making this story all the better is that his dad, Trump himself posted a video on Trump Social of a Greenland man imploring him to buy the Danish property. The problem is that neither Trump nor his crackerjack staff didn't vet the guy. And it turns out that Danish press DR News and B.T did what the press do – and they both did what any reasonable person would do, which one would think would be, if not Trump (since “reasonable” is the operative term here), then at least his top-notch advisers…or at least the intern kid who could search Google – and that’s find out who the guy, Timothy Zeeb, was.  What both news organizations reported is that Timothy Zeeb is a convicted drug dealer, violent criminal and serial offender…and has spent time in prison!! Actually, it’s worse, because Zeeb not only spent time in prison, but in 2009 he escaped which caused a police search to track him down. And Trump and his ace team missed this. But not just this, but – well, yes, it’s worse still. Because DR News reported that his 2019 conviction was for (are you ready?) one of Greenland’s biggest cannabis smuggling cases ever – for which he was sentenced to four years in prison! Further, the police have called Zeeb’s activities to be “crimes dangerous to people.” But yes, it’s even better. And yes, it’s really possible. That’s because in the video that Trump posted, Zeeb insulted Americans, saying that they were “too fat.” Now, in fairness, it’s possible that Trump may have missed it (though that presumes he even watched the video, which seems unlikely, because, hey, why would someone about to be leader of the Free World post a video without watching it? ), or maybe his peachy-keen staff misheard what Zeeb said because of his accent. But later Zeeb was tracked down interviewed (something Team Trump didn’t bother to do because, hey, why bother?!) and confirmed what he appeared to have said. Now, yes, this is all a humorous case of the Man Who Couldn’t Govern Straight. And it dragged in his sonny boy, and sycophantic staff of advisers. All of whom deserve full ridicule. But the thing is, it’s more than that – and worse. Because with Trump, it can always get worse. And what’s worse is that this is the man who is about to be in the White House, Command-in-Chief of the U.S. military, and the most powerful man in the world. Who has dementia. And he’s surrounded by supposed expert advisers who are supposed to protect him. And are supposed to do the vetting for him. And they couldn’t even get this right. They could even figure out that this guy, Timothy Zeeb from Greenland, who absolutely none of the had any idea who he was, who Trump used as not just “an” example, but the example to defend his imbecilic idea to buy Greenland from the perspective of someone from Greenland…turned out to be a convicted drug dealer one of the territory’s biggest cannabis smuggling busts, was convicted of “crimes dangerous to people, was a serial offender…and spent time in prison, from which he escaped and had to be hunted down!! And called Americans “too fat.” And Trump’s advisers knew absolutely nothing about this! About any of it. And if they’d bothered to find out even just one of these things, you’d have to figure that that would send up warning bells and red flags, and they’d have then tracked down it all. Which should have been easy, since two press organizations did. In about a day. One can only imagine how Trump vetting will go on the really, truly critical things that deeply matter. But thank goodness they’ve got everything setting with vetting Trump’s nominees for Attorney General. And Defense Secretary. And Secretary of Health and Human Services. No skeletons in the closet there they weren’t aware of to worry about… What could go wrong?! 
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For my taste, the PBS Masterpiece mini-series, "Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office" (based on a true national scandal) is every bit as great as its reputation and huge success that it had in England. An ensemble cast, but starring Toby Jones. Usually he plays offbeat, quirky characters, sometimes villains, but here he's quiet, low-key, down-to-earth. That's much the way the series is -- but very personal, involving and often-deeply moving. Crushing at times as you witness deeply-decent and innocent people being rolled, many with lives ruined, some wrongly imprisoned, all for reasons they don't understand by a government behemoth. Yet, appalling and tragic as much of the story is -- it's also about the fight back and is very much uplifting, as well. The story is about small-town sub-postmasters (sort of like a step-up from people who run Mailbox Etc. stores) who are prosecuted for major theft, each told they were the only one with the problem they were claiming, when it turns out it was a systemwide computer error. That simple description only because to do justice to the building emotion of everything. Though the series does a great job in focusing the story in a manageable tightness, it actually is still somewhat going on after 20 years, and 160 million pounds in restitution have (so far...) been paid. Two episodes down, two to go. If you subscribe to PBS, you can catch up on the series on PBS Passport. In fact, all four episodes are available there, including a short follow-up featurette on the true story. Here's the short trailer from when it aired in England. It only touches the surface. As it says, "The largest miscarriage of justice in British history." If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night, his Main Story was about Brazil and its far-right president Jair Bolsonaro who is running for re-election using many strategies similar to Trump -- with some added "twists" of his own. There's a lot of good humor in the piece, as well, though (for my taste) I thought several of the joke fell flat, though the studio audience seemed to like them. (Though I think that's more because they sounded like they should be really funny. They just seemed off to me.) Still, it was a very good report |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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