Now Look At Who Is Bending the Knee!

There was much ado about bending the knee during the National Anthem a little while ago.  It was deemed unpatriotic.  

Now who is bending the knee in national politics?  There has been much ado, indeed it went on for six days, about Mr. Trump’s repeated and misleading claim that Alabama was due to take a hard hit from Hurricane Dorian.  Later in the week, a “sharpie” created a new map to prove Mr. Trump had it right.  The media and late night shows pounced on this blatant altering of the facts.  After Mr. Trump’s weather forecast on Sunday of last week, even the National Weather Service office in Birmingham reacted saying that Alabama was not in the hurricane’s path.  But Mr. Trump continued to stick to his guns, or perhaps I should say, to his “sharpie” map.  The whole business reminded me of what Mr. Trump announced sometime ago in Kansas at the VFW convention: “Stick with us.  Don’t believe the crap you see from these people (now, I guess he is  including the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center), the fake news…What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

On Friday, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) sent out an unsigned statement via tweet, contradicting the Birmingham National Weather Service’s earlier statement contradicting Mr. Trump’s forecast, saying that the Alabama-based office “spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”  Whatever that means, and what it means to me is that NOAA (a supposedly non-partisan federal agency) is bending the knee.  The NWS responded:  “Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight.”

This is not the first time a federal agency has bent the knee in Trump’s defense.  Remember the fuss over the size of Mr. Trump’s inaugural crowd?  Do you recall the EPA being banned from speaking with reporters (along with the Agriculture and Health and Human Services department)?    Remember the reports that “tremendous amounts” of the promised border wall had been built, which wasn’t true?  The DHS came to the rescue, tweeting “just as he promised, the border wall has begun construction.” On and on this bending of the knee is occurring.  Have you noticed?

At the GOP convention in California this week, the campaign chairman predicted that “the Trumps will be a dynasty that lasts for decades.”    When asked if the Trump children will be future candidates, he said:  “I just think they’re a dynasty.  I think they’re all amazing people…with amazing capabilities.  I think you see that from Don Jr.  I think you see that from Ivanka.  You see it from Jared.  You see it from all.” 

Is America ready to bend the knee to the new dynasty?