<\/p>\n
Renee Parsons<\/p>\n
Just a few days after the US military\u2019s invasion of Venezuela which included the kidnapping of its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, the NY Times <\/span><\/a> interviewed President Donald Trump for two hours on January 8th<\/sup><\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>There is an unconfirmed report that Ms. Flores suffered\u00a0 <\/span>three broken ribs during the US military assault.<\/p>\n When asked about limits that he places on his use of global power on the world stage Trump responded, \u201cYeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind<\/i>. It\u2019s the only thing that can stop me.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>In a startling lack of self awareness, Trump added \u201cI don\u2019t need international law.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m not looking to hurt anyone.\u201d <\/i>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Trump failed to indicate whether the will of the American people would be a factor in his use of \u2018global power\u2019<\/i> as he has never referred to his understanding of Presidential role as a list of 18th<\/sup><\/span> Century \u201crepeated injuries and usurpations\u2019<\/i> are declared in the Declaration of Independence as well as identifying the \u201cright of the People<\/i>\u201d to \u2018alter or abolish\u2019<\/i> and \u201cinstitute a new Government.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n A good bet is that Trump who has not displayed\u00a0 <\/span>any real knowledge of or intellectual ability has never read either the Declaration or perhaps even certain Amendments within the Constitution.<\/p>\n When asked further if his administration should comply with international law, Trump responded\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI do.\u00a0 <\/span>It depends on what your definition of international law is.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n Unfortunately, the Times did not inquire about the President\u2019s definition of international law. \u00a0 <\/span>We can speculate that his concept of international law is what is personally applicable only to himself; that which he can justify within his own mind as a \u2018norm.\u2019\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As any Trump-watcher might agree, the President has little real understanding of international law\u2019s application to global peace and civil order that exists within a compendium of rules and principles that govern the conduct of sovereign states including any familiarity with the US War Powers Resolution, international\u00a0 <\/span>law, the UN Charter, the US Constitution, the OAS Charter or any other adherence to the rule of law.<\/p>\n If Trump does not like \u2018your definition of international law\u2019<\/i> he already has the answer that his own belief is \u201cThe only thing that can stop me\u201d <\/i>may be indicative of a narcissistic character who cares little about specifics that a greater civil society believes to be lawful or valid.\u00a0 <\/span>There does not appear to be a diplomatic bone in Trump able to debate with administration staff or other interest parties to achieve a different outcome if the President is lacking any reasonable basis for intellectual analysis with a typically automatic response being escalation.<\/p>\n It would be enlightening to know what moral code or mental process Trump refers to as he continually bombs multiple countries with no justification – killing hundreds of innocent people in the process. Does he, in fact, have a mental process governing decisions of morality or virtue?\u00a0 <\/span>Does he meditate or otherwise pursue knowledgeable, credible advice?<\/p>\n Disappointingly, the Times did not follow up to remind Trump that he promised to end the Ukraine War immediately upon inauguration or that he campaigned as a Peace President and during his Inaugural speech he promised to be a \u2018Unifier\u2019 – none of which has materialized during Trump\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>current term. \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>How would Trump rate his performance in office as he has failed to accomplish those goals he set out for himself?<\/p>\n Democrats seem unable to take advantage of Trump\u2019s failures as the opposition party as they are not necessarily in conflict with many of Trump\u2019s foreign policy initiatives.\u00a0 <\/span>The Democratic party no longer represents the same partisan peace elements as the Kennedy wing is now verboten.<\/p>\n Trump administration has initiated dark times in US when his election was expected to be one of peace and moving the globalists, also known as the Deep State, out of their power zone with the inversion of an upside down agenda in favor of war, conflict and alienation to destabilize an already precarious political system.<\/p>\n In adopting his \u2018peace through strength\u2019 <\/i>motto during his recent command performance in front of the mandatory meeting with every senior members of the US military, never part of the 2024 Presidential campaign, yet miraculously expects MAGA\u00a0 <\/span>(ie predominately anti-war America First movement) to endorse the Administration\u2019s current obsession with war during the 2026 mid term elections.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s preoccupation<\/span><\/a> with excessive foreign policy is startling despite its lack of support<\/span><\/a> by the American public conducting in rapid succession a series of seven unanticipated bombings (Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, Venezuela, Syria and Iraq) during his first year including changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, proposing a Pentagon budget increase to $1.5 Trillion as well as fund and provide weapons for Ukraine and Israeli\u2019s genocide against the Palestinians as escalation of US foreign policy during Trump\u2019s first year in office has surpassed any real consideration of domestic issues. \u00a0 <\/span>This was not the candidate that many Americans voted for in 2024.<\/p>\n What is astonishing is the duplicity of Trump\u2019s full pardon of convicted narcoterrorist former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez while at the same time, his pursuit of Maduro as a narcoterrorist offers no evidence.\u00a0 <\/span>Hernandez was found guilty of importing 400 tons of cocaine into the US and sentenced to a forty-five year term as Trump\u2019s conscience defended the pardon as being\u00a0 <\/span>\u201ctreated harshly and \u2018unfair\u2019<\/i> with no clarification.<\/p>\n There remains an open question of whether Trump has a clear understanding of Presidential authority or his Constitutional role in conducting the People\u2019s business.<\/p>\n As President, Trump has signed 228 Executive Orders<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>(2025-2026) as directives to officials within the Executive Branch requiring them to adopt a policy or take action on a wide range of issues. \u00a0 <\/span>In other words, instead of proposing legislation with its public hearings and public comment, floor debates and public votes, Trump signs Executive Orders as the Congress is neutered into a meaningless body of feckless Federal beneficiaries many of whom have no real idea or experience to know how Congress was intended to function on behalf of the American people.<\/p>\n Those same Federal beneficiaries work part-time with frequent week long Congressional recess, collect generous salaries with Federal benefits as well as substantial campaign donations from its donor base who are grateful for the lack of attention.<\/p>\n The effect has been a less than usual hectic schedule of Congressional committee business as well as Floor consideration as each branch of the Congress becomes more sidelined from conducting its historic legislative role. \u00a0 <\/span>The Office of Management and Budget still issues budgetary impact analyses for each Presidential order.<\/p>\n Other pending items on the Trump-Israeli foreign policy<\/span><\/a> agenda opposed<\/span><\/a> by the American public include the bombing of and US conflict<\/span><\/a> in Iran,\u00a0 <\/span>proposed acquisition of Greenland<\/span><\/a>, continued efforts to secure peace in Ukraine, potential military action against Cuba, Colombia and Mexico to address is narcoterrorist related history.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Renee Parsons<\/i><\/b>\u00a0has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and a staff member in the US House of Representative in Washington, DC. Before its demise, she was also a member of the ACLU\u2019s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter.\u00a0<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}