The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: The Trump Administration and the Iranian Government

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

After the release of the Dumpster Fire of the Year 2019 last week, several readers wondered why singer and alleged pedophile only received a “Second Tier Honorable Mention” as opposed to a higher ranking. I didn’t go into what the “Second Tier” was all about as I figured it was obvious (people who were among the worst of the year but just didn’t make the cut for the main “Honorable Mentions” list). There also seems to be ongoing confusion as to how a subject gets nominated for Dumpster Fire of the Week in general. I believe I’ve discussed this before but, since that confusion is still out there, I’ll attempt to explain what this feature is all about.

Basically, a potential subject has to say something stupid or terrible or has to do something stupid or terrible. A celebrity or politician or some such says something racist on TV or social media? They might show up on the DFotW list, either as the “winner” or an “honorable mention.” A celebrity acts like an idiot in public (is drunk, has some sort of cocaine fueled meltdown, gets in a fight with a neighbor and it’s all on tape, shit like that)? They could show up on the list.

Now, murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and other scumbags like that will likely not appear as part of a Dumpster Fire column because those people are heinous criminals and I would just rather not talk about them. A sometimes silly column on a pop culture website is no place for that kind of thing. Those kinds of people will appear in this column if one of them says something incredibly stupid, like a Bill Cosby or Jared Fogle, who have said and done awful things after they’ve been convicted and or exposed for the terrible people that they are.

R. Kelly “won” Dumpster Fire of the Week twice in 2019, once for his ridiculous interview meltdown with Gayle King, and again when he was arrested by the authorities for his crimes despite telling everyone that he was innocent (he so clearly isn’t innocent). But because the story of his criminality isn’t finished yet (he hasn’t been convicted of anything yet, and there are likely more victims out there waiting to come forward), I figured he deserved to be mentioned but he wasn’t quite a “runner up” or a “winner” yet. That could happen in 2020.

Is it a perfect system? Not really, no, but then again the whole thing is subjective anyway. And, as I said earlier, sometimes the whole thing is silly, and it was sort of designed to be that way in the first place. I’m always amazed at how serious some readers take this feature because, even when I’m just venting about something, that’s all it really is. Me venting. It really isn’t anything else.

I hope I’ve cleared up some of the confusion out there, and I hope that you continue to read and agree or be outraged about what it is I’m venting about. I appreciate all of you. Thanks for reading.

And now onto this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week, the first one of 2020.

This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to the Trump Administration and the Iranian government, for lying about the things they did last week. Honesty is supposed to be the best policy, but, more often than not, in the “real” world, no one anywhere in the world seems to believe it. Well, at least in governments around the world.

The Trump administration last week authorized a drone attack on and subsequently killed high ranking Iranian government official and alleged (but we all know he did it) terrorist mastermind General Qassem Soleimani while he was in Iraq. When the news broke about the attack and the general’s death, everyone wanted to know what the hell happened and why. The Trump administration didn’t notify any of America’s allies, didn’t tell all of the necessary people in Congress about the attack until after it happened and then, over multiple days, offered up multiple reasons for the attack. At first, it was that Soleimani was a bad guy (which he was) and it was just time to take him out. Then it was “revealed” that Soleimani was in the midst of planning imminent attacks on American targets and he needed to be taken out because of those potential attacks. Then it was “revealed” that Soleimani was planning on attacking/blowing up/whatever multiple U.S. embassies. Which ones? The administration, as of Saturday night, hasn’t said (although President Trump did say that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was “probably” one of the proposed targets).

Now, in the midst of all this lack of information/seeming lack of telling the truth, the world at large thought it was on the verge of World War III. And instead of immediately trying to calm the world or, at least, explain what the hell was “really going on,” the administration threatened Iran with a full on attack on Iranian cultural landmarks, which is a war crime. Iran also vowed revenge for the attack. The Trump administration did, eventually, announce that it wasn’t going to retaliate against Iran’s “revenge” (Iran launched missiles at a U.S. military base in the Middle East but, apparently, didn’t kill anyone and did minimal damage), but by that time the world was on edge.

So why the hell didn’t the Trump administration not come right out and say that the general was planning to attack U.S embassies and that this was the only way to prevent those attacks from happening? Why is it so goddamn hard to just tell the truth? You would think that with its current reputation for, well, lying, that with something like authorizing the killing of a high ranking Iranian government official that the administration would be forthright about what it was doing and why it was doing what it was doing. The administration just couldn’t do that, though.

As for the Iranian government, it shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner last week, killing everyone on board, and it took days for it to admit that is what happened. At first, the Iranians said it was impossible that the plane was shot down, that the likeliest reason for the plane’s destruction was some sort of mechanical failure. When information came out that that explanation was bullshit and that the plane was shot down by a missile from Iran, the Iranians still tried to deflect and blame someone else. Maybe we shot down the plane, by accident, but it was America’s fault for starting shit with us in the first place. So, you know, it wasn’t our fault, at least not totally. And when that explanation was outright rejected by the entire world, the Iranians finally admitted that it shot the plane down. It was an accident, they thought they were shooting at an American cruise missile, but, in the end, the government did, sort of, take responsibility for what it did and offered up condolences to the dead.

Yeah, too little, too late. And when you consider that a big part of the ongoing hatred of America by the Iranian government is the accidental downing of an Iranian airliner by American forces back in the 1980’s, this whole story is just insane.

So what is the moral of the story here? Governments have to stop lying for the sake of lying, especially when it’s obvious that the lies being told aren’t the least bit believable. The world is already filled with fucking nonsense. The world doesn’t need its governments to add even more bullshit to the pile (even more than usual).

This kind of thing is probably going to happen again soon, isn’t it?

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And now for this week’s honorable mentions…

–Doug Collins, U.S. Congressperson from Georgia, for his recent claim that Democrats love terrorists. Representative Collins did, eventually, apologize and “walk back” his claim, but then he shouldn’t have said it in the first place. I know that, in the eternal struggle between Republicans and Democrats that stupid shit gets said in the heat of battle. Republicans and Democrats say stupid shit about the other side all of the time. But why does it seem like the Republican side continues to say this kind of thing over and over again and get away with it?

-U.S. Congressperson and ultra-right wing racist/white nationalist Steve King, for once again complaining about being called a racist and a white nationalist despite being a racist and a white nationalist. Just go ahead and read the story at the link because it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

–Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. Congressperson from New York, for her current refusal to pay dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. While I “get” what AOC is trying to do here, it makes no sense in the big scheme of things. If she wants to make the Democratic party more progressive and Congress more progressive, she would be better off “fighting from the inside” and making her complaints known to those in charge and then, if that doesn’t go anywhere, complain to rank and file Democrats out in the world. That will make the Democratic leadership take notice. But doing the “division” thing now? Again, it makes no sense. You can’t make changes if you’re not in power. When will the Democrats figure that out?

-Actor Joaquin Phoenix, for being the latest celebrity to get arrested during Jane Fonda’s ongoing climate change protests in Washington D.C.. While I’m sure all of the celebrities getting arrested believe that their run ins with the law are all for the greater good/bringing attention to a pressing world concern, but the only news created by these protests and arrests is that celebrities are getting arrested. Climate change is an afterthought at best. Maybe it’s time to re-think this whole thing?

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