CLEVELAND, Ohio — President Donald Trump has now spoken more harshly about American retailer Nordstrom than he ever has about Russian authoritarian despot Vladimir Putin.
During his Super Bowl Sunday interview with Trump, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said “Putin’s a killer.” Trump gave a look of disagreement and said, “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
Trump declaring Putin’s Russia the moral equivalent of the United States insults the founders of this nation, every single one of Trump’s predecessors in the White House and every person who fought and died for this nation and to win democracy for other nations.
Putin is a former commanding officer in the notorious KGB. Under Putin’s rule, politicians, journalist and businessmen who have crossed him have routinely either ended up in prison, poisoned or dead. It’s estimated that Putin has siphoned off billions of dollars from the Russian economy into his own coffers.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 23 journalists have been murdered since Putin became president in 2000. Thirty-six journalists have been killed since 1992. Among those murdered was Anna Politkovskya, who was shot investigating torture in Chechnya.
When “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough pointed out to Trump that Putin kills journalists, Trump said, “At least he’s a leader.”
Senator Marco Rubio asked in a tweet, “When has a Democratic political activist been poisoned by the GOP or vice versa? We are not the same as Putin.”
When has an American president had rebel forces he’s backing, shoot down a civilian airliner, like what happened in Ukraine with the downing of Malaysian Flight 17?
Did a U.S. invasion of Mexico and Canada, similar to that of Putin’s invasion of Chechnya and Ukraine, go unreported like the Bowling Green Massacre?
Trump’s continued defense of Putin and refusal to say anything negative about him, is now beyond reason and logic. It gives credence to the suspicion that Trump is either protecting undisclosed financial interests in Russia, or that Putin does indeed hold compromising information on Trump, as was alleged in the dossier compiled by the respected former British MI6 agent who has gone into hiding, while some of his suspected contacts in Russia have turned up dead or poisoned.
Demands for Trump to release his tax returns, and the CIA,FBI,NIS and Senate investigations into financial ties between people associated with the Trump campaign and Russia must continue.
The American owners of Nordstrom can only be glad that Trump is just tweeting about them, instead of confiscating their business, as Putin has done with companies in Russia who cross him.
After Nordstrom announced it would be dropping Ivanka Trump’s apparel line this season, the president tweeted:
“My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing? Terrible!”
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Nordstrom’s decision “is a direct attack on his policies and her name.”
Will Nordstrom be added to the travel ban list next?
Kellyanne Conway massacred conflict-of-interest ethics regulations when she hustled Ivanka’s line like a QVC host on “Fox and Friends”. “It’s a wonderful line. I own some of it. I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online,” implored Conway.
A Nordstrom spokesman emailed NBC News the following statement:
“We made this decision based on performance. Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.
We’ve had a great relationship with the Ivanka Trump team. We’ve had open conversations with them over the past year to share what we’ve seen and Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January.”
Trump may have been too busy tweeting about ratings for “The Apprentice” to notice that retailers have been struggling. Retail giant Macy’s has announced massive store closings. Ohio-based The Limited is closing all its remaining stores.
When Trump has used his bully pulpit to goad American companies to keep manufacturing and jobs in the US it’s a good use of presidential power. When he uses that same bully pulpit to further the business interests of himself and his family, it’s a clear violation of ethics rules and an abuse of power.
You would think the president would have more pressing concerns, like reworking his Immigration Executive Order so it’s lawful and in keeping with the founding principles and ideals of the country he leads.
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