Ron on.

Lotta prophetic punditry about Trump’s continuing failure to fill out his team, his unwillingness to listen to people he DOES appoint or nominate, and his haste in firing those whose advice he doesn’t like.

The latest guys are Pompeo and Bolton, and the sotto voce grumbling is that they won’t be around long, especially Bolton. They say Trump won’t listen to Bolton and will be under YUGE pressure to get rid of him from the pusillanimous RINOs and anti-anything-Trump Dems.

Well, I like Bolton’s straightforward, no-nonsense, in-your-face manner, especially after the nearly fatal pussyfooting “We’re sorry” naivete of the halfrican’s reign of error.

But . . .the ‘Stache IS a hawk, a hawk’s hawk, and he’ll be a turd in the punchbowl for mealymouthed lounge lizards and it’s-all-America’s-fault entrenched Washington harrumphers as long as Trump keeps him around.

I mean, anybody who goes on news programs and unequivocally tells Khamanei to ES & D and Kim Phat One to FO & D is refreshingly and reassuringly welcome after the bowing and scraping and apologizing and extortion funding by DingleBarry.

And his take on that parasitic horde of anti-American beggars on the East River . . . especially in consonance with Haley’s harangues (whose testosterone levels are powers of 10 greater than Kerry’s or Soetoro’s) . . . is almost as contemptuous as mine.

I got no use for that crowd, and I’m sure Trump could find much better uses for the property. Initially it was a noble experiment, and one that COULD have worked if it weren’t so corrupt and pro-Muslim. The world HAD to do something about war.

So out walkin around in the dark this mornin under a nearly mull foon and anemic clouds scurrying toward the north for some reason, I worked myself up into a snit over it all. Was actually angry by the time I got back to the kitchen and fired up the Keurig. Why? Well . . . . . . .

As the staggering cost in resources, national wealth, and lives became clear toward the end of WWII, the United Nations was established to replace the failed League of Nations as a cooperative entity to maintain global peace.

Fine idea. Massive failure. Most members of the UN sit there because they want something from the rich western nations, usually in the form of defense umbrellas, food aid, health care, and cash.

Third-world states have set themselves up as permanent victims of western greed and feel thereby entitled to unending reparations. Everybody knows, and that is EVERYBODY knows, that the food, the medicine, the aid, the money never goes to the poor anonymous victims but to the despotic rulers and corrupt politicians.

John Bolton said 25 years ago that if the U.N. building “lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” The quote pops up every time his critics feel compelled to trot out the hit parade of his alleged triggers and other infamies and political incorrectitudes.

The U.N. is a pipe dream, never intended to bring about a Utopia, just provide a forum for discussion which could possibly avert aggression and war. And it certainly wasn’t intended to be a “Death to the US” and “Death to Israel” fraternity or an ATM for enriching dictators and propping up bankrupt socialist regimes.

It’s turned into a perpetual SNAFU in blue hats, Lone Ranger’s masks, insatiable appetites, and runaway libidos. The hope was that reasonable, mature dialogue might overcome universal distrust and allow diverse cultures to work together in the interests of humanity. The reality? Well, let’s see:

Aleppo, destroyed.

Haiti, infected and abandoned.

Zimbabwe, looted and starving.

South Africa, white ethnic cleansing.

Northern Africa, Refugees Anonymous.

Arabia, paranoid and suicidal on a massive scale.

Pakistan, schizoid and nuclear.

Afghanistan, Neolithic and maniacal.

Eastern Europe, lost once again to Russia.

Rwanda, 500,000 lives lost through bad UN policies.

Bosnia, 7,000 men and boys killed and countless women raped.

Sri Lanka in 2009

South Sudan in 2016

Iraq, Oil for Food fiasco

U.N. schools in Gaza used for storing weapons aimed at Israel.

Sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers all over the world.

Defenders of the U.N. employ deflect-and-demand strategies with moderate success, pointing to the bad behavior of individual states as the cause of U.N. failures and insisting that the U.N.’s core problem is a shortage of financial resources and weak legal authorities.

But contrary to the belief that the U.N. runs on a shoestring budget, total expenditure for U.N. programs in 2016 was around $50 billion, up 22 percent since 2010. That’s as big as the GDP of several sovereign nations.

And abuse of the U.N. power and authority by states such as Russia to protect clients like Bashar al-Assad or Iran to condemn Israel is an integral feature of the system, not a bug.

Anthony Banbury, a former assistant U.N. secretary-general said upon resigning, “I was unprepared for the blur of Orwellian admonitions and Carrollian logic that govern” U.N. headquarters, he recalled: “If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so maddeningly complex, requiring so much effort but in the end incapable of delivering the intended result. The system is a black hole into which disappear countless tax dollars and human aspirations, never to be seen again.”

And that’s from a self-described believer in the U.N.’s ideals and mission. But the truth of the U.N. is probably worse, since fixes to the system never seem to work.

Mismanagement, corruption, abuse, and moral perversities remain:

Iran sits on the executive board of the Commission on the Status of Women. Syria is represented on the U.N.’s Special Committee on Decolonization.

Robert Mugabe was named good-will ambassador by the World Health Organization.

Sometimes it looks like Bolton’s comment about the U.N. losing 10 floors is at least 5 floors short.

I agree with Bolton about many things and disagree with some of his cut-and-dried solutions about others. But on the U.N. he’s been right all along. If his presence in the White House helps to scare the organization and the anti-US Dictators’ Association into real reform, so much the better.

My stance on our relationship with it remains unchanged: The UN needs the US, but the US doesn’t need the UN. I’d be perfectly happy to see the HQ moved from the East River to the Seine, the Danube, the Nile, the Zambezi, the Ganges, the Amazon, or even that one outside what used to be the main gate in Subic. Sailors and Marines from my generation know the name. Very fitting one it is, too.

See . . .tolja I worked myself up into a snit. Just as my body always feels better after a good physical workout, my brain always feels better after a good rant. Now I can pack some complex carbs into my belly so IT’ll feel better after a good snack and I can seriously consider a nap.

Ron off.

Like I always say, “Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US.”