1. The following are excerpts from Jack Holmes' September 20, 2018 article headlined "President Good Brain's Latest Genius Idea: Build the Wall...Across the Sahara Desert" with the subheading "You like that one? How about Silent Bombs?" (Beginning excerpts) ....If there's one consistency to our president's thinking, it's his ability to find the simplest possible solution to an incredibly complex problem. That's not to say it's really a solution at all, since it's often infeasible, ineffective, or simply incomprehensible. But it's a response. Take his advice, brought to us by the BBC, to Spain's foreign minister: President Trump recommended building a wall across the Sahara to solve Europe's migrant crisis, Spain's foreign minister says.... Funny enough, the proposal shares a lot in common with the proposed Wall on our southern border. There are issues with Native American sovereignty, there is already a fence in some areas, and, of course, it won't actually fix the problem. According to a new book excerpt published in The Washington Post, the president's visit to CIA headquarters on his first full day in office was not merely concerning for the self-aggrandizing speech the president made in front of a wall honoring intelligence officers killed in the line of duty. Trump was also given a tour of the agency's drone operation facilities, with startling results: When the agency’s head of drone operations explained how the CIA had developed special munitions to limit civilian casualties, the president seemed nonplused. Shown a strike in which the CIA delayed firing until the target was a safe distance from a compound with other occupants, Trump asked, “Why did you wait?” And when Trump noticed that militants had scattered seconds before another drone attack, he said, “Can they hear the bombs coming? We should make the bombs silent so they can’t get away.” It obviously jumps out that our president thinks this is how, well, bombs work. But the more pressing issue is his absolute commitment to racking up civilian casualties. We've discussed before his inability to empathize with other human beings, but this seems to be on another level.... As a candidate, Donald Trump pledged to balance the federal budget and lower the national debt, promises that are proving difficult to keep. Once he won, Trump considered an unusual approach that was quickly slapped down by his chief economic advisor. "Just run the presses — print money," Trump said, according to Woodward, during a discussion on the national debt with Gary Cohn, former director of the White House National Economic Council. "You don't get to do it that way," Cohn said, according to Woodward. "We have huge deficits and they matter. The government doesn't keep a balance sheet like that." Cohn was "astounded at Trump's lack of basic understanding," Woodward writes. He honestly thought you could just print the $20 trillion and wipe out the debt. It's important to remember that the president knows nothing about anything and cares less. He is profoundly incurious about the world in a truly startling way. It would not occur to him to read up on federal monetary policy, or even just the basic concept of inflation, before taking a job running the federal government. It wouldn't even really occur to him to listen to his advisers. The governing force of his mind is stubborn ego, which props up his stunning ignorance with self-assurances that he is right because he thinks what Donald Trump thinks, and Donald Trump has always thought it. Take his discussion with Cohn on trade: "Several times [chief economic adviser Gary] Cohn just asked the president, 'Why do you have these views [on trade]?' 'I just do,' Trump replied. 'I've had these views for 30 years.' 'That doesn't mean they're right,' Cohn said. 'I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football. It doesn't mean I was right.'" The president's views on trade are his views because they've been his views for 30 years. They're right because they're his views and always have been. There's no need to learn anything when you already know it all—and you know you know it all because you know what you know. God help us. (End excerpts) Source: https://www.esquire.com/news-politi...-wall-sahara-desert-silent-bombs-print-money/
