Having the Republican Congressional leaders suck up to Trump in a manner that will make Kim Jong-Un green with envy caused me serious gastrointestinal distress. No one should be subjected to that base level of pandering.

After the near canonization by Pence and Carson in the Cabinet meaning, and Pence’s claim of the world’s acceptance of US leadership under Trump, the UN General Assembly disagreed Jerusalem: UN resolution rejects Trump’s declaration

The non-binding resolution was approved by 128 states, with 35 abstaining and nine others voting against.

It came after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut financial aid to those who backed the resolution.

How did UN members vote?

• The nine who voted against the resolution were the US, Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo
• Among the 35 abstaining were Canada and Mexico
• Those voting in favour included the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia and the UK) as well as key US allies in the Muslim world
• There were 21 countries who did not turn up for the vote.

Definitely not a major ‘coalition of the willing’ and not much to show for the near North Korean level of threat. The US under Trump and UK after Brexit are declining world powers while China and India are rising. The threat to cut ‘foreign aid’ was absurd as most of US foreign aid goes to US companies to supply overpriced goods and services to foreign countries. The biggest losers if Trump cuts foreign aid will be US defense contractors.

At 10:28 AM CST the winter solstice occurs marking the longest night of the year. If everyone has been good, the days start getting longer tomorrow. Locally, the sun will rise at 6:40AM and set at 4:50PM for a total of 10 hours and 10 minutes of daylight, but tomorrow will be a whole 1 second longer.

This also marks HogsWatch, so don’t forget to put out the turnips.