The Times is reporting the appalling news late tonight that Donald Trump has invited Philippine President Duterte to our White House.
www.nytimes.com/…
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Saturday invited the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, to the White House, embracing an authoritarian leader who is accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug dealers and crudely disparaged Mr. Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Mr. Trump had a “very friendly conversation with Mr. Duterte,” according to a statement issued by the White House late Saturday. It said that the two leaders “discussed the fact that the Philippines is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs.”
In fact, Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs has resulted in the deaths of several thousand suspected drug dealers, bringing condemnation from human rights groups and many Western governments.
[snip]
An outspoken populist with a shoot-from-the-hip style, Mr. Duterte shares some characteristics with Mr. Trump. That was not the case with Mr. Obama, whom Mr. Duterte called a “son of a whore” when he was asked how he would react if Mr. Obama raised human rights issues with him.
A quick Google search will lead you to a sinister laundry list of transgressions committed by this psychotic in his first year in office. I will be very surprised if there are not bipartisan howls to cancel this visit.
One of Dutarte’s more infamous statements (to date) concerns his view of the press. From The Guardian last May --
“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch,” Duterte said when asked how he would address the problem of media killings in the Philippines, after a reporter was shot dead in Manila last week.
[snip]
Duterte raised the case of Jun Pala, a journalist and politician who was murdered in Davao in 2003. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead Pala, who was a vocal critic of Duterte. His murder has never been solved. “If you are an upright journalist, nothing will happen to you,” said Duterte, who has ruled Davao as mayor for most of the past two decades and is accused of links to vigilante death squads.
“The example here is Pala. I do not want to diminish his memory but he was a rotten son of a bitch. He deserved it.”
Trump needs to hate his second hundred days much more than his first 100.