This just in: “A man is known by the company he keeps.” – Aesop

Let’s pretend that we don’t know Donald Trump.  We have never heard of him and have not seen him in action.

All that we know is that he is in a position to surround himself with whomever he wants…and we know the company he keeps.

What would we think?

Here is a list of some of the company he keeps…

In New York, a city thick with lawyers, Trump hires Michael Cohen.  A self-described “fixer”, Cohen has been described as a mob-boss type lawyer.  He saw his job as fixing Trump messes.  For example, he’s the guy that set up fake corporations to funnel money to women that Trump had affairs with.  He is currently being investigated for Tax Fraud.  He also is being investigated for selling access to Trump once he became president.

Michael Flynn was picked by Trump to be his National Security Advisor.  Flynn lasted about 2.3 Scaramuccis (23 days).  He was fired after it had been discovered that he lied to congress.  Before taking office, he was seen at a table an event in Russia where he was seated with Putin.

Rex Tillerson was Trump’s first Secretary of State.  While he did nothing illegal, he spent his career in Big Oil and was awarded Russian Order of Friendship from Putin.

Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager for about 5 months (15 Scaramuccis).  Manafort was a lobbyist with most of his fingers in Russian related dealings.  He is currently on trial for Tax Evasion, amongst a number of other crimes.

Wilbur Ross, is the current Secretary of Commerce.  Yesterday’s news brought out an article in Forbes describing a grifter scheme that Ross used to steal about $120 million from clients of his investment firm.  Note:  He denies this and has not been proven guilty or even formally charged.

Rick Perry is the Secretary of Energy.  As a presidential candidate, Perry said he would eliminate this agency.

Betsy DeVos is the Secretary of Education.  She is a mega-millionaire and major campaign contributor for Trump.  She is a fan of privatized education and is widely seen as grossly unqualified for the job.

Scott Pruitt was ousted as Trump’s administration of the Environmental Protection agency.  Not only did Pruitt work tirelessly to end environmental protections, he left office while being investigated for nearly a dozen different questionable practices.

While Trump has publicly criticized a number of world leaders, let’s look at a list of those he has praised.

About the Leader of North Korea:

“If you can do that at 27-years-old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that can do that,” Trump added. “So he’s a very smart guy. He’s a great negotiator. But I think we understand each other.”

He appears to admire Putin, one many consider the greatest military threat to the world today

He claims to have a great relationship with China’s Xi Jinping, who is the greatest economic threat to the United States and is currently responding to Trump’s tariffs, tit-for-tat.

He is an admirer of Turkey’s Erdogen, a man that may have staged his own coup in order to facilitate a “cleansing” of his military.  This is the guy that came to the United States and had his private guards beat up some Americans.

He is friendly with Duerte, the leader of the Philippines.  This is the guy that has authorized the killing of people believed to be dealing drugs.  This is not a “trial then guilty then shoot” type thing.  It’s more of a “shoot as soon as you suspect” type thing.

In short, the world leaders that Trump admires are the very same that the United States typically spends a great deal of effort protecting the world from.

I can’t really find someone on the other side of the isle for Trump.  There is no Ghandi out there that thinks Trump is great.

So…if this was all you know about Trump…how would you judge him?

Up, up and away…

Jim