It's Blatant

 

Today’s debate topic: “Resolved: Trump and his administration are the most corrupt in US history.”

Argument in favor: Duh.

Argument against: ...

Trump doesn’t hide it. Why should he? After receiving no pushback from his party in Congress, no outrage from his state media, and undying love from MAGAs, he flaunts it. His loathsome lawsuit against himself, asking ten billion taxpayer dollars to be delivered to himself, is corruption unbound. Sue yourself, settle with yourself to the tune of $1.776 billion (get it?), to be distributed to people shielded from disclosure, by appointees to a panel chosen by him, its rules kept secret. People claiming harm from “government weaponization” by President Biden; i.e., appropriately convicted of indisputable crimes by our American system of jurisprudence, following the letter of the law.

That, as opposed to Trump’s undisguised weaponization of his lackeyfied “government” against perceived enemies and truth-tellers. Give the money to Mark Kelly and James Comey, for two. Under Trump, it’s axiomatic: every accusation is an admission.

That’s not the worst of it. As executive head of the IRS and DOJ, sue-er and sooee, he agreed with himself not to investigate or prosecute himself for tax fraud, past and present, erasing potentially $100 million in penalties for cheating. That he sought and granted it to himself answers any question (which Congressional Republicans are too cowed to raise) about the legality of his tax filings and business dealings. Per Jeffrey Toobin in The New York Times, “The United States agrees that it is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” President Trump, his eldest sons or any of their businesses. The agreement covers matters “whether presently known or unknown” and cases that “have been or could have been asserted” by the government.” Other crimes are not excluded.

Knew nothing about it, he lied. Before bragging about it a day later. The art of the self-deal.

Why doesn’t the Constitution preclude a “president” from suing his own government and agreeing to whatever terms he might propose for himself? Probably because our founding fathers, more brilliant than not and skeptical of unbridled executive power, couldn’t imagine the Electoral College selecting a person already known to be as amoral and lawless as Trump or of a petrified Congress doing nothing about it.

There’s more, of course. Months after the State of the Union Address in which he urged Congress to ban insider stock trading by its members, we learned he’s been doing just that. A week before his government approved the sale of Nvidia chips to China, he bought $1 million in stock. He bought $5 million more right before Nvidia made a computing deal with Meta. In January, he bought stock in Palantir. Shortly thereafter, Palantir got a billion-dollar contract with DHS. Then he invested $5 million in Taser-maker Axon, two weeks before ICE announced $220 million in purchases.

Oh, the White House says, he had no hand in those trades. Right. Pure coincidence. Because when has he or his mouthpieces ever lied?

Every American should recoil in disgust from this wanton corruption, rejecting, till he’s gone, any politician remotely supportive of Trump. Proving how unlikely that is was the celebration of America’s alleged Christian roots, held a week ago on the National Mall, promoted by Trump, the fakest of fake Christians; a pander to the antidisestablishmentarians of his party as blatant as the aforementioned corruption; a show of Christian Nationalism as disturbing as it was un-American.

Trump’s faux Christianity was equally unhidden: to the adoring crowd, he beamed in, between rounds of golf in Florida, a recycled, prerecorded reading of a couple of Bible verses, originally aired in May. Imponderably, MAGAs continue to believe he and his corruption were sent by God. If they once had it, what happened to their ability to recognize a swindler? Trump, Fox, and red-state-style miseducation is what.

We’ve just returned from nearly a month in Türkiye. It’s a beautiful, geographically diverse country, a crossroad of cultures, one foot in Europe, the other in Asia, with picturesque mosques and churches, ancient Byzantine, Greek, Roman, and even older ruins. The parallels between its leader, Recep Erdogan, and Trump are obvious. Its constitution declares Türkiye a secular nation, but Erdogan is trying to make it overtly Muslim. Like Trump’s “Christianity,” it’s a naked political move, but, unlike Trump, it seems he’s actually a believer. Like Trump, he builds monuments to himself, jails political opponents (or calls for it), and throttles a formerly free press. Unlike Trump’s, his government actually helps average citizens: free healthcare (even for pets!) and education, good roads and efficient, clean, public transportation. Stuff MAGA Republicans reject as socialism.

While there, I scrolled through and deleted without reading most of my politics-related inbox. I couldn’t completely tune out our homely horrors, but my mind was mostly occupied by such wonders as the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, ancient cities like Ephesus, the Turquoise Coast, and the company of compatible fellow travelers of diverse backgrounds. Producing this column on return was less rewarding. Kebab for thought.

What The H?

Today’s episode is brought to you by the letter H.

Few things in life are as predictable as reactions to gun violence in America. (“In America,” of course, goes almost without saying.) When one of their own is threatened, Republicans will blame the rhetoric of Democrats. They’ll call for repression of speech. Like Gym Jordan, they’ll make connections that don’t exist and lie about them, as when he said, "I don't think it should be lost on anyone that we have a third assassination attempt on President Trump in the same week we learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center has been paying and generating hate."

For the record, like the FBI, with which the SPLC cooperates, it engages paid informants within hate groups, which is not “paying and generating hate.” Jordan knows that. He’s venal but not stupid.

If it’s one of their own who committed the act, they’ll make no mention of Republican rhetoric that preceded it. Like, oh, “Journalists are the enemy of the people.” “Democrats are the party of ‘hate, evil, and Satan.’” “Democrats want to destroy our country.” “I’m glad he’s dead.” “No Kings marchers hate America.” “[Senator Mark Kelly and others] ... should be put to death.” Stuff like that.

You didn’t hear criticism of Trump from the right when he shared the home address of President Barack Obama, following which a man was arrested outside, with a gun.

Until Trump, there was never a president who openly sought to foment that level of hate and violence against an opposing political party. And, before Trump, no president had a party that loved him for it.

What you will hear is that the person was mentally ill and doesn’t represent their party, and that a “president” spewing hate for liberals has nothing to do with it. What you won’t hear are suggestions for making guns less available to people with a history of violence or mental illness. Nor will you hear calls for funding treatment of mental illness.

You will hear conspiracy theories from both sides. Staged. False flag. Crisis actors. Ear cartilage. Groomed. In that, there is political equity. However, those theories generally emerge from higher up the right-wing chain than ones from the left, both media personalities and elected officials.

Still, people pushing those theories, from whatever direction, demean us all, just as political violence endangers us all. As do calls to punish those who speak the truth. Or tell jokes on TV. As Donald Rumsfeld famously told us, “Democracy is messy.”

Something original did come from the correspondents’ dinner episode: Trump demanded, his words received throughout right-wing media like tablets from Sinai and put on loop, that his ridiculous ballroom be built immediately, lest he be in “grave danger.” Lindsey Graham wants taxpayers to pay for it. Let's keep the secret hidey-hole underneath. Rebuild the East Wing.

More sponsorship from the letter H:

Trump just re-indicted James Comey. Remember when Rs investigated President Biden for “weaponizing” government and came up empty? Trump’s is as obvious as it is copious.

Republicans rejoiced when Texas initiated the mid-term gerrymandering that gave them five newly red districts. Trusting Democrats to cling to their tradition of clinging to their tradition, other red states followed suit. Then, OMG! Virginia Democrats did the same dang thing. Backlash from the right is set to eleven. The Washington Bezos, which previously editorialized that the Texas ploy was no big deal, called Virginia’s move a danger to democracy. N.B.: House Democrats teed up a bill outlawing gerrymandering months ago. Republicans refuse.

Trump just fired all members of the National Science Board, which sets scientific standards “for how rigorous, intellectual, scientific decisions should be made.” Like education, rigorous science, whether applied to healthcare, climate change, pollution, and more, is a greater threat to Trumpism than Democratic gerrymandering. Right up there with free speech.

Some have praised Trump for dropping his suit against Fed Chair Jerome Powell. No, it wasn’t because it was petty and unfounded. It was to get Senator Tom Tillis to drop his hold on the nomination of Kevin Warsh until the suit was dropped. It was and he did. As with every Trump nominee, Warsh is expected to do Trump’s bidding, for his sake, not ours.

We’ve just learned Trump’s State Department, headed by born-again yes-man Marco Rubio, will be putting Trump’s image on US passports, in honor of America’s 250th anniversary. It’s always and only about Trump. He’ll be on our money next.

Never has any American leader displayed such malignant narcissism. It’s reflected in everything he does. In foreign “policy,” the results have been disastrous. Can anyone imagine the reaction from the right, the apoplexy on Trump-state media, if Presidents Barack Obama or Joe Biden had demanded such a thing? Or added their name to the Kennedy Center, torn down the East Wing for a ballroom, proposed a garish memorial arch? Or launched a war, expecting surrender in two days, after ignoring warnings of the inevitable consequences?

In fact, everyone can imagine it. It’s filed under “H.”

Funny Not Funny

 

Analogy: Lucy Van Pelt is Iran. The football is the Strait of Hormuz. And Trump is, well, Trump.

As he decompensates while his stupid war spins out of control like a buzz-bomb firecracker, it’s obvious that Iranian leaders have figured him out. It’s the B-side of what other world leaders have recognized and used to their advantage: praise him like a child who used a potty, flatter him with participation trophies, and get what they want. Iran’s insight is to lie to him like he lies to everyone, get him to announce the latest “agreement,” deny it exists, induce him to make ridiculous, madman threats, announce more agreements, threaten more war crimes, back off, produce deadlines, rescind them, while they enjoy the result as he looks more out of touch, less and less powerful, and definitely not in control of anything; least of all, himself. Watch as the world backs away from him in dismay.

This is what Trump has done to America’s once-admirable standing in the world. Unconditional surrender was the goal. Or ending their nuclear program, “two weeks away from a bomb” every two weeks for ten years. Or opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was closed only because of his war. Since Trump spends most of his time on social media and watching toady TV, he must have seen Iran’s hilarious trolling videos, of which this is but one example. He’s become so dislodged from reality and unstable that aides kept him out of the room where it happened when planning the rescues of those downed pilots, lest he start issuing damaging orders.

This is the “president” we have, thanks to MAGA. It should frighten everyone. It's the patriotic duty of every American to vote only for Democrats until every MAGA Republican has been replaced in Congress.

The mullahs must be having a constant laugh as they make Trump look ridiculous to the world, including, of late, even former Trump-fluffer Tucker Carlson, who stopped licking and started looking. Though it was obvious before he descended that golden escalator, deniers can no longer deny: everything Trump says is a lie. About Iran, about elections, about climate change. About anything and everything. In a “president,” it’s an undesirable quality. Recent example: Iran’s “totally obliterated” navy just commandeered two commercial ships.

Trump’s calamitous, unnecessary, undeclared war/not-war has strengthened China and Russia, and convinced Iran that it doesn’t need nuclear arms. In its control of the Strait of Hormuz, it has a far more powerful weapon. No rational world leader other than Trump, who isn’t, would use nukes. Thanks to Trump, Iran now understands they don’t need them to disrupt the entire world and get whatever it wants. 

Foxotrumpic media insists he’s playing 4-D chess. He’s playing checkers. And, because he thinks the pieces are Oreos, he’s eating them. The best we can hope for from this debacle is a return to the parameters of the nuclear agreement President Barack Obama negotiated with Iran years ago, by which they were abiding, and which Trump, because his only constant is a need to punish those who don’t debase themselves for him, ended.

His unfitness is also manifested in the incompetence, criminality, and danger of the people he chose for his Cabinet. Three have been dismissed in the last few weeks, all women, despite the tendentious testicular travesties, the fulminating phallic failings of his male maladies. Atop the list is Pentagon Pete, who treats war like a game, a platform for self-promotion, strutting and puffing before his hand-culled press, embarrassing us before the world. Not content with firing minority generals and admirals, trying, apparently, to out-crazy Junior Arfkay, he just ended mandatory flu shots for troops. He must assume Trump will get his 1.5 trillion-dollar defense budget, in which case the expense of caring for unnecessarily sick soldiers won’t matter.

Tied for worst appointment, ever, is Kash Patel. Trump : judgment = strychnine : food.

For humor’s sake, recalling his promise to end Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine on day one, part deux, Trump predicted he’d have ended the Vietnam War “very quickly,” in five months. Why five? One for every deferment he got to keep him out of it.

Finally, this: Trump’s ill-planned, unjustified war, his undeniable decompensation over it, the worldwide effects of it all, are driving from memory the litany of his previous failures, the number of ways he’s endangered America, civilization, and the planet. But maybe that’s the point. If his war/not-war is over by November, Trump hopes, voters will be relieved enough to overlook the horrible and, in many cases, irreversible damage he’s caused in a mere six years.

Against that possibility, here’s a gift link to a New York Times article by Thomas B. Edsall. It’s a fact-supported recounting of all that Trump has wrought, and should be required reading for every voter, better written and more comprehensive than anything I could do. 

Holy Crap

 

Since I graduated from medical school fifty-six years ago, I’ve hung around with hundreds of doctors. I’ve even been one myself, based on which I can say categorically that I’ve seen none of them, including me, wearing biblical robes; nor have any held mysteriously glowing orbs in their hands (other than smartphones). From none of them has emanated holy light when laying hands upon patients, not even in Catholic hospitals. Scrubs, sure. White coats, of course. Stethoscopes, name tags dangling. Never robes, though, nor – let’s assume – sandals. Not once. Not half of once. If a doctor showed up at your bedside cosplaying like that, would you assume you were about to die?

Doctors who act Godlike aren’t revered for it, nor would they depict themselves as such on their websites. None – Ben Carson excepted – hang portraits of themselves collaborating with Jesus. So, no. Trump posted his blasphemy fully embracing the representation. Consistent with his numerous pathologies, it’s how he sees himself. In fact, he just did it again. Why anyone not similarly afflicted sees him as Jesus incarnate is mystifying.

Even in bluish Snohomish County, it’s probable there’s a dozen or so people who do. Some might accept his laughable lie that he thought the picture of himself he posted on Truthless Sociopath, Christlike, appearing to heal someone while holy and unholy alike looked on, presented him as a doctor. That kind of bottomless credulity is expected from red-state MAGAs.

Nor is it just that the picture shows a four-fingered supplicant, un-airworthy fighter jets, and a fivesome of video game-like characters, one of whom is headless and four-armed. Trump can post and expunge whatever revelation of mental affliction he chooses. The real significance of this one is that he not only sees himself that way but assumes his voters do, too. Gratifyingly, enough of them didn’t, and said so, that he disappeared it.

Even for some MAGAs, whose threshold for outrage against anything other than liberalism is higher than RFK, Jr. formerly on heroin, and who claim Jesus as exclusively theirs while ignoring everything He preached, there are limits to glorification of a boastful, constant, and amoral liar. If only that harbinged the electoral revolution here that just occurred in Hungary.

Viktor Orban was Hungary’s prime minister for sixteen years, during which time his autocratic style made him a Republican hero, their anti-constitutional leadership ideal. Which explains why he was actively supported by similarly disposed Vladimir Putin and Trump. And Tucker Carlson. And all of CPAC, which, his successor revealed, he funded. Right before the election he lost in the landslide that Trump continues to claim for himself, as big a lie as stolen elections. In another of his high-profile failures, J.D. Vance flew there in support. Maybe the huge turnout, at least in part, was a repudiation of Trumpism, too. Maybe it’s infectious.

Orban became the strongman of Trump’s dreams: controlling Hungary’s legislature, judiciary, press, and, to a lesser extent than he’d hoped, its elections. His anti-LGBT actions were, for MAGA, frosting on the cake. In times lost to dim memory, the Republican Party would have shunned him. That he’d become its hero is, for America, a warning.

To Vik’s credit, he immediately conceded and congratulated his opponent, things Trump has never done; anathema to him like a medium-rare burger. Maybe, seeing similar diminution of democracy here, unlike MAGAs, who love it, enough unblinded citizens will turn out in November to overwhelm Trump’s attempts to disallow their votes.

Maybe people of all faiths will find his and recent-convert in more ways than one, J.D. Vance’s attacks on the Pope disturbing. For Trump, it must be maddening that whereas he’s revered only by a few million Americans, Papa Leo is by a billion or so Earthlings. In a can’t-be-true-but-is statement, Vance warned that the Pope should “... be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” Which smacks more gobs than his attempt to characterize Trump’s Jesus-posting as our jolly funnyman “president,” joking.

Perhaps I’m making too much of it. The posting was, after all, just another example of Trump’s damaged id’s constant need for adoration and, when challenged, lying wantonly, confident, as always, that it’ll be amplified by Foxian state media and received as Gospel by his cult. But, seen in the context of his increasingly desperate, contradictory, and ineffective attempts to turn his calamitous Iran war failures into success, it exemplifies what happens when a malignant narcissist is given nearly unlimited power and finds it falling apart around him.

It’s not just tasteless monuments to himself. His pretentious ballroom, that vulgar, inglorious arch, gilding the Oval Office like a bordello – all of those are merely repulsive. But his wars, his promise to preemptively pardon all the lawbreakers in his White House, his unprecedented corruption, and the increasingly obvious disintegration of his mind endanger us and the world. It’s not too late for patriotic Americans to organize. And Orbanize.

Our Stone Age "President"

With hinge screws flying off like sweat from an overweight “president” on an unstoppable treadmill, Trump, on Easter Sunday no less, posted the following NSFW screed on his North Korea-emulating propaganda outlet, Truthless Sociopath:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

How very presidential. How honorably he presents America to the world. Our breasts should balloon with pride like... 

Nope, not going there.

No matter that he backed down, as usual. Every American who considers the presidency a position from which wisdom and humanity ought to emanate should find that rant unspeakably disgusting, demeaning the office and America.

MAGA doesn’t, of course, proving yet again how irreparably divided our country has become under Trump; how the regressive world-view of a belligerent minority has come to dominate American governance, despite representing not even a plurality of opinions. This isn’t “Art of the Deal.” It’s a madman, raving.

That Iran didn’t blink and Trump did makes it no less disturbing. Iran gets full control of the Strait of Hormuz, extracting millions in tolls, sanctions lifted, no constraints on building weapons, and declares victory. If it holds, Trump moves on, taking no responsibility for his economy-imperiling, America-diminishing war that empowered China and Russia. And, yes, Iran. But we’re to sing the praises of an arsonist who stopped setting fires. For now.

“Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace,” was the Easter message from the first American pope, Leo XIV. Contrarily, Trump whisperer Laura Loomer wrote, “This is what I voted for. Bomb jihadis back to the Stone Age, where their mentality permanently lives. Trump said he’s going to bomb their infrastructure in Iran, and then he said ‘Praise be to Allah.’ On Easter. Amazing. Just amazing. Strategic bombing wins wars.”

Of which homily would Jesus approve? It’s a question the “Christian” Nationalists marionetting Trump stopped asking years ago. In Jesus’s name, they chose death and destruction. It’s confounding that people see the same thing and draw radically different conclusions.

Among the rotating stock of justifications for Trump’s war/not-war/but-really-war was liberating the Iranian people. “Rise up,” he exhorted. “We’ll have your backs.” Not exactly “bomb them back to the Stone Age, where they belong,” as Trump later put it, more cruel than Lovely Laura. No running water, no electricity, no hospitals. No fuel. No food storage, mass starvation. To Trump, to whom empathy is another obscenity, that’s “where they belong” – all of them, women, children, the brave souls who protested their government; students, teachers, healthcare workers.

Such inhumanity, even the threat of which is a war crime, is the wettest of MAGA dreams. They love it like they love a man who lies with every exhalation, who validates their hatreds, who hires people like Hegseth, not despite incompetence but because of it. Competence and sycophancy are incompatible.

As ill-considered as Trump’s war was, as obvious that he ignored warnings of its predictable, global consequences, he’s now ensuring that he’ll encounter no such pushback against his next war of choice, predicated on a draft-dodger’s need to appear tough. Firing General Randy George, Army Chief of Staff, was a warning to all senior officers to shut up and salute. When military leadership is left only to the most compliant, who’ll be there to refuse his next war crime, or, as General Mark Milley was, to resist another call to shoot protestors “in the legs or something”?

Trump unmasked the weakness of a Constitution predicated on goodwill, a commodity lacking among MAGA Republicans. His mental instability hasn’t triggered the 25th Amendment, nor impeachment and removal. When Congress is majoritized by people whose feck fits in a pixie’s hipflask, checks and balances become as outdated as the muskets behind the Second Amendment. A return to the respect for law and humankind presumed by the founders would require MAGAs to rediscover their humanity, currently Trumpofoxified out of existence.

When church and state become one, as the founders feared, we get stupid wars of arrogance, managed by people claiming God’s approval. People like Pentagon Pete, second only to Holy Mike Johnson in flashing faux righteousness like opening a trenchcoat in a city park. Maybe Trump’s handlers have convinced him that he, too, is doing God’s work. As a lifelong apostate, it’s unlikely he believes it, but he’s made billions by convincing MAGA he does. A miasmic, flattery-demanding “president“ and a Bible-banging Secretary of Defense, unchecked by spineless Congressional Republicans, makes a poisonous witches’ brew. It’s boiling over.

Footnote: Having taken a break to address health issues, I’ve been reassessing. Writing exercises an aging brain and offloads some stress, but its nugatory nature is undeniable. Further assessment to follow.

If The Shoe Fits...

🎵If you wanna know how he screws up so, it’s in the shoes.🎵  

Everything about Trump, his hires, and the chaotic misrule that followed, his failures, his cabinet’s incompetence, is manifested in Little Marco clomping around in oversize shoes. 

Wise readers who spend less time than I obsessively following the news and olds of Trump, might be unaware of this seemingly trivial but encapsulating fact: Trump, whose tastes run to grandiose gold and titular temples, is fond of cheap, shiny, wingtip shoes. So, either drawing on the billions he’s made during his “presidency” from unconstitutional grifts or, perhaps, from donations by gullible MAGAs, he bought some for his cabinet-makers. It’s reported he first asked their sizes, in which case the ill-fitting was a test of how much scaturient groveling he could elicit.

So there’s the Secretary of State of exceptional America wearing shoes three sizes too big, afraid to have said anything, submissively gluteosculating. Did he feel humiliated or, as it piled up, has he become inured? Either way, it explains how Trump got his war-not-war. No one pushed back, even those who undoubtedly apprehended the consequences. Trump chose lackeys, not people of competence and spine. Like Clark Clifford. 

So he got his war, about which he and perhaps his most unqualified appointee, Pete Hegseth, haven’t stopped bragging in the most vainglorious, tough-guy terms; war as video game, deaths as trophies. Who could observe the infantile, stupid preening of that tumescent pair and conclude they were ever capable of thinking past their emission of rockets and bombs? How stupid? Minesweeper stupid.

Trump expressed surprise at Iran’s response. No one told me, he claimed. Which, as usual, is a lie; in terms of repercussions, maybe his biggest. The Commander-in-Chief -- except for stupidity, Earth’s “most powerful” person -- didn’t expect attacks on other countries. Didn’t expect the Strait of Hormuz to be closed. Now that it happened, Trump is begging other nations for help. The same nations to whom he’s been giving the middle finger for years. As of this writing, other nations have gestured in kind. The grovelee became the groveler.

If this were a movie script, it’d have been hidden like the Epstein files. (Remember them?) While Iran blocks ours, Trump is letting their oil tankers through. Ukraine, abandoned by Trump, fighting for its life against Russia, is nevertheless helping the US and other countries with drone technology. Worried about the electoral impact of oil prices, Trump removed sanctions on Putin’s oil, gifting him billions of petrodollars to finance his war against Ukraine. While Ukraine helps us. And while Putin helps Iran target US resources. It’s inexplicable.

Or is it?

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) recently gave a speech in the well of the Senate. It’s long, so only the pathologically obsessed, like me, will watch it. So here’s the TL;DR: He detailed connections between Jeffrey Epstein, Vladimir Putin, and Trump. Epstein, he said, installed hidden cameras in every room of his home, where he provided powerful men with underage girls and young women. The infusions of money he obtained from Russian sources, the senator implied, were in exchange for supplying videos of those encounters to Putin.

As the E-files make clear, Trump was a frequent visitor. Unsaid, but a defensible conclusion regarding why Trump, a bully to everyone else while obsequiing himself to Putin: It ain’t “pee tapes.” We may never know, because Epstein hung himself. He did, right?

As much as Trump would like to declare victory, Iran keeps getting in the way, by continuing to strike neighboring countries and turning ships in or near the Strait into fireballs. People who understand these things, which doesn’t include Trump and Hegseth but probably does the admirals and generals they fired and some of those who remain but are silent or ignored, say the only way to prevent those attacks is by controlling Iran’s shoreline on the Gulf. Which can’t be done from the air. So “no boots on the ground” Trump is sending a Marine Expeditionary Force to the region, complete with landing craft and 2,500 Marines. So far.

Trump’s bones will tell him when to quit. That’s what he said: he’ll end the war when he feels it in his bones. If that doesn’t give you confidence in his Chiefly Commanderness, this will: Bragging about destroying Iran’s main oil facility, he said he might do more “for the fun of it.” While people suffer everywhere, and while Iran might hand the world to China, Trump is having fun.

To our infinite shame, America elected a shallow, thoughtless man whose deplorable choices for cabinet secretaries were approved by cowardly Republican senators, some of whom surely knew better. Whatever in Trump’s impoverished mind justified leading us into his illegal war-not-war, his conduct proves his dangerous incompetence. And Congressional Republicans continue to three-monkey our path to doom.

And now, this: Due to non-political circumstances, my focus will be elsewhere for the foreseeable future.

Clowns In Charge

 

Five-star General Omar Bradley, hero of WWII, first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote, “Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them, must share the guilt for the dead.”

When it was learned that 168 Iranian schoolgirls and 14 teachers were killed in the initial bombing attacks in Iran, Trump and Hegseth lied. They kept lying until video revealed a Tomahawk missile, used there only by the US, hitting adjacent buildings, pieces of it found in the schoolyard. “I didn’t know enough about it,” explained the Commander-in-Chief. John Kennedy, MAGA senator from Louisiana whose questioning of Kristi Noem may have led to her firing, didn’t lie, saying “We made a mistake.” Good for him. He’s self-importantly smug, but “blind squirrels” and all that.

Trump and Hegseth don’t guilt. They gloat. Said Hegseth: “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.” And: “The only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re going to live.” When Trump finished announcing his war, unpresidential in a white “USA” baseball cap, he went golfing. Since then he’s made manly remarks like, “It’s fun to sink ships.” And, about casualties, “Before it ends, that’s the way it is.”

The human costs of war mean nothing to them; it’s all about flaunting power. As proof, Trump ended a Pentagon program studying ways to prevent civilian casualties. His wars don’t accept accountability. Nothing in his administration does.

He wore that disrespectful hat again at Dover AFB when receiving coffins of his war dead. That was too much even for Fox “news,” which showed footage not of that event but of one where he wasn’t standing under the hat. It’s me, it’s me, he’d said. Not this time, they said, later apologizing for their deception.

I spent a year in a combat zone, dodging rockets (all but one), caring for troops injured physically and mentally. War is horrible, righteous or not. It reveals humankind’s most damnable imperfections, its worst failures. Innocents die, survivors are ruined, combatants, too. In a democracy, we should demand that leaders who take our country to war reflect that seriousness and care about the consequences. For Trump and Hegseth to do so, they’d have to lie. If Congressional Republicans feel it, they conceal it convincingly.

Instead, having handed control to a lifelong liar, a psychically-wounded malignant narcissist who makes everything only about himself, who craves praise and manufactures it when he doesn’t get it, who made leader of our Department of Don’t-Say-War a third-string propagandist talk show host, we must watch their unseemly braggadocio, embarrassed and worried. Plus their despicable posting on social media of video promoting their war with scenes from macho movies and martial video games. Titled “Justice The American Way.” This is their thinking, sending America to war.

When Bush the Second invaded Iraq, a brother-in-law, a Marine and fellow Vietnam veteran who’d been in it much deeper than me, called to share feelings about war. Anyone who’s been there in person would think about Trump’s, even if supporting it, sad for everyone involved, remembering. Five-time-deferred, bone-spur-fabricating Trump can’t even fake it. He’s besotted with power. “People are loving what’s happening,” he said. “Cuba’s going to fall, too.” And “Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela.” King of the world. In response, Iran chose Khamenei’s son.

Ever-changing reasons for the war Trump and his henchfolk have offered might also include the riches his sons will collect from their investments in a drone-making company, to which their daddy just awarded a multi-million dollar contract. (But, but, Hunter Biden!!) At the very least, Americans who support the war for any reason ought to want more from their leaders than their frat-boy, chest-bumping, high-fivin’ white-guy (historic reference) behavior. The financial and security effects are worse, but those displays are loathsome.

It’s increasingly obvious how poorly the Trump administration thought through the aftermath of their initial strike. They expected immediate capitulation by the Iranians, and made no plans – hadn’t even considered the need – for evacuating Americans from the region. (Jody Allen sent the Seahawks plane.) Had they imagined – which would have required thinking beyond Trump’s signature shallowness – that Iran might respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz, they would have taken steps to prevent it and its subsequent worldwide havoc. That’s the price of electing a walking psych textbook who chooses advisers based not on qualification but on unquestioning genuflection.

Finally, a housekeeping note. Many readers find my tinyurls annoying. Their use derives from my blogging, where I can hot-link words to sources, non-disruptively. So, fighting temptation, I’ve provided none here. If asked for verification, I’ll happily comply. I don’t make stuff up. Except for the occasional word. 

Also finally: I’ll miss Jon Bauer, the Herald’s moving-on editorial page editor. The community will, too. He’s been great to work with. Happy trails to him. And to the Herald.

Wag, Doggie, Wag

 

                      Chat GPT, per me

“News that the Epstein files contain testimony about Trump raping a 13-year-old girl came at a bad time for the people of Iran.”

The quote is from a friend of a friend. Since Trump’s reasons for the war have changed every day, its implication is as compelling as any. After all, he predicted it. Was it to free the Iranian people, or because in this, the tenth year of Iran being two weeks away from building a nuclear bomb and missiles that can deliver them to U.S. soil, there was imminent danger? Even Trump’s Pentagon has denied that one. So Trump called reporters, trying out various justifications. It could also be God’s plan to hasten the Second Coming. Hegseth thinks so. Dismissing God, as usual, Trump blames Presidents Obama and Biden. Also, he "had a feeling." God help us.

The outcome of Trump’s illegal war won’t be known for months. Years, maybe. What we do know is that, because the Constitution gives the power to declare war only to Congress, what he did was unquestionably unconstitutional, and in violation of the War Powers Act. Interviewed by ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Trump puffed, “Nobody could have done this but me.” He’s right. No other president has been or would be so willing to violate the Constitution for personal aggrandizement.

Even if it turns out well and peace blooms like the Rose Garden he destroyed, is this how America should do war? Started unilaterally by a pathological liar and malignant narcissist who sees everything through the lens of self? It’s suboptimal. From the reaction of Congressional Republicans, though, you’d never know it. To their list of avertebral acquiescence to Trump’s usurpations, add starting wars.

“Peace president” Trump expended little effort to make his case for war. Given his history of monumental lies, there’s no reason to believe anything he says about it now. The war has cost lives of Americans, Iranian schoolgirls, and who-knows-how-many other Iranians and residents of neighboring countries. Three warplanes, so far, countless drones and missiles, and we still don’t know why. “Freedom isn’t free,” was the callous response of Trump’s UN Ambassador to the loss of American lives. Whose freedom, he didn’t specify. Pentagon Pete clarified, saying, “We didn’t start this war.” Not only is the statement from a non-parallel universe, but by using the word, as has Trump, he exploded the argument by MAGA and Foxian state media that it isn’t war. Expecting to convince the credulous that Trump isn’t violating the Constitution. Another Big Lie. Like stolen elections.

It’s reported that urging from Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman is what convinced Trump to go ahead, and to imply, contrary to US intelligence findings, that America was under grave threat. World leaders have come to recognize and exploit Trump’s vulnerability to flattery, so we can imagine what was whispered in his ear by those two, for their own purposes: “Sir, you’ll be remembered as a hero for all eternity. Golden likenesses will be built, their height commensurate with your towering stature. Cities and byways will bear your name. Do it, your excellency. Just do it.” China’s Xi’s whispering is likely to himself. “Deplete your weaponry while we increase ours, massively. Do it, Dupable Donald.” Putin thinks: “Keep it up, my pretty. Let Ukraine die. Do it for me.”

Would I suggest that Trump is hoping for pro-Iranian terrorist attacks here, so he can declare a national emergency and cancel the November elections? Nope. Not my style. For one thing, there’s never been a less four-dimensional thinker than one-dimensional (me, only me) Trump. But I reserve the right to be wrong. It could be the plans they’re hatching to claim China stole the 2024 election.

Trump’s success in kidnapping Venezuela’s Maduro fed his hunger to appear powerful. He’s smelled blood and likes it. We’re at war for reasons hidden within the mind of an observably disturbed man. That’s why the Founders gave declaring war to Congress; i.e., the people.

But for now, let’s watch events unfold before speculating further. There’s else to address. Like Undersight Committee Chairman Comer subpoenaing the Clintons to testify about Jeffry Epstein, hoping to shift attention from Trump’s role and embarrass them. He failed hillaryously. Wisely, Secretary Clinton pre-released her scathing opening statement to the public, in which she thoroughly dinged Comer’s hum.

Kash Patel is firing FBI agents involved in executing the judicial warrant to search Mar-a-Lago for the classified documents Trump stole, hid, and lied about. Those agents also worked on assessing threats from Iran, among others. Smart move. Great timing.

Finally, before I run out of room, there’s DHS lying about agents who left a blind man to freeze to death in Buffalo.

The worst of our worst are in charge, intentionally cruel and dangerously inept, at home and overseas. What it means is that Trump’s planned election sabotage MUST be overcome. Massive turnout might be the only way.

Stating The State

                    another chatGPT creation

A minute in, when Trump flat-out lied about the economy he inherited and Republicans gave him a standing O, I turned off the SOTU. Everything to follow was predictable and sad. I returned to making a list of recent events. So many topics, too many to ignore or do justice. So here’s a compendium, in shorthand:

• As if we need more evidence of Trump’s unending desire for fawning adulation, or that, with Pam Bondi’s slavish obeisance, he’s turned the Department of inJustice into a vengeance vehicle, there’s that Soviet-style, North Korea-emulating visage hanging from DOJ headquarters. Pre-Trump, Americans found such submissive, cultish idolatry abhorrent.

• The Supreme Court’s rejection of most of Trump’s unconstitutional wielding of tariffs like a child wields a toy light-saber ought to have been 9-0. Three so-called originalists dissented, ignoring clear, parchmentalized language. Justice Kavanaugh, by acclamation the least intelligent of the nonet, based his dissent on adverse consequences of returning the ill-gotten money. Which is like arguing criminals shouldn’t be punished if it would make their families sad.

• Classic Trump: after the verdict, he’s relentlessly attacked “the f..king courts” (his words), calling the justices, including two of his appointees, traitors. What he should have said, is “the f..king Constitution.” Because that’s how he sees it.  

• Lee Zeldin, head of the Environmental Destruction (sorry: “Protection”) Agency, proudly announced, “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.” Unpacking the Trumped-up mendacity and dangerous stupidity would eat up the rest of this column. 

• As Trump hypes his Epstein-distracting warlette on Iran, recall his words after his prior dog-wagging mission: Iran’s nuclear capability had been “completely and totally obliterated,” debunked within days. The lie is reconfirmed by his current demand that they end their nuclear program.  

• Expecting airports to be named after him, Trump has applied for trademarks for gift-shop junk bearing his name, “including clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.” GOTUS. It’s pathological.  

• Ignoring the First Amendment, Pentagon Pete Hegseth holds prayer meetings there. His latest was led by a Christian nationalist who favors submissive, non-voting women and finds slavery not so bad. They’ll produce fine soldiers.  

• Sending an unrequested and unnecessary hospital ship to Greenland? The ridiculousness is self-evident. But he may have hallucinated it. The man is unwell. 

• Because they make voting more universally accessible, MAGA hates mail-in ballots, which we’ve had here, scandal-free, for years. Because it’s what he does, Trump lied again about them, including claiming the US is the only country that allows voting that way.  

• Like his tariff usurpation, Trump’s desire to nationalize elections is unconstitutional. Does SCOTUS have a two-fer in them? He lies daily about non-existent Democrats’ election rigging while planning to do just that, including sending ICE agents to polling places. Not to arrest people voting illegally, which doesn’t happen, but because many non-white, legal voters, fearing the harassment and detention for days and weeks we’ve seen, might stay away.  

• A former ICE instructor testified that ICE drastically cut required training and lied to Congress about it. Given the intentional brutality and lawlessness we see from them, it would be surprising if it were otherwise.  

• Kash Patel, the FBI’s most unqualified director ever, who loves using his position for personal pleasure, shared the US men’s hockey victory by guzzling beer with them on live TV, like a frat boy. J. Edgar Hoover, he’s not. A Hegseth/Bondi/Pirro-level embarrassment, he is, confirming, once more, that Trump chooses people for compliance, not competence. 

• If it turns out Trump’s personal law firm, dba Bondi’s DOJ, withheld parts of the Epstein files that explicitly accuse him of sexual abuse and rape, would it surprise you?  

• Decades ago, senators on both sides were honorable, intelligent, and committed to legislating for the common good. Though there’s plenty of competition, no one better represents the level of stupidity and uselessness to which the Republican Party’s choices have descended than Utah’s Mike Lee.  

• After a lifetime of scams, grifts, and ripoffs, Trump’s brazenly corrupt “Board of Peace” tops them all. In part consisting of dictators and murderers, each of whom reportedly contributed a billion dollars for a piece of the action, it’s announced-by-Jared mission is to turn Gaza into an investment opportunity for oligarchs, who’ll be protected by a huge military base. Trump will be the board’s president for life, in control of the money, including ten billion U.S. taxpayer dollars he’s committed, unilaterally, to it. For what purpose, other than enriching himself on other people’s dime? More tie clips? He gets away with such outrageous self-dealing by “virtue” of Republican silence and the manufactured devotion of gratefully suckered MAGAs. The importance of the November election he’s trying so hard to scuttle can’t be overstated. 

• End of partial list. Thank you for your attention to these matters.

Bribocracy

 

                           ChatGPT

“Shall I compare thee to a President’s Day? Washington’s selfless leadership, Lincoln’s timeless eloquence? Thou art less lofty and more intemperate.” (Author unknown.)

America’s political divide is wider than at any time since the Civil War, but there’s one issue on which everyone should agree: Trump’s is the most corrupt and dishonest administration in our history. Rather than hiding it, they wave it like that huge American flag on I-5 north of Mount Vernon. Trump has openly regretted not enriching himself more in his first term. Unable to deny, MAGA's only options are to ignore or embrace. We see both. “At least he’s honest about his dishonesty,” they say, admiringly. Or, “ Everybody cheats.”

It’s not merely embarrassing that our great-until-Trump country twice elected an unscrupulous, bribofacient, self-promoting fraudster; the damage at home and abroad is incalculable. Perhaps MAGA-threatened future historians will elaborate. For now, all we can do is enumerate.

Following FIFA’s pandering “peace prize," Trump’s next briblical acceptance was the Washington Coal Club’s “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” prize. It’d be hilarious, had he not, a day later ended our government’s ability to regulate climate change emissions, to which coal is the greatest lump-for-lump contributor.

As literate Americans know, “clean coal” isn’t a thing, whereas climate change most definitely is. From his kingly throne, Trump is doing everything possible to boost fossil fuels and impede sustainable, actually clean energy. The money he gets from oil tycoons confirms his bribocratic corruption. With the fingers of others filling his pockets, he raises a middle one to us.

Bribery isn’t Trumpism’s only corruption. There’s cry-wolfery, gaslighting, and “accusation is admission.” Working to rig elections, for example, while lying that every election Trump or MAGAs lost was rigged. It’s as much a part of today’s Republican agenda as climate change denial, pardoning criminals, rewriting history, and lying to our faces. “Democrats rig elections,” they cry, against all evidence, while doing it. MAGAs wolf it down.

Here’s Homeland Insecurity’s Kristi Noem, promoting the restrictive voter ID requirements in the SAVE act, bragging, “ ... when it gets to Election Day ... we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.” Confirming the anti-democracy and anti-Democrats purposes of voter ID, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) added, “The American people did not give Republicans a mandate to make excuses. They gave us one to deliver wins, and the SAVE America Act is exactly that.” (Italics mine.) Okay, well, they’re not lying about that. Ms. Noem did lie about another ICE shooting, though.

 

If states requiring it made voter ID equally accessible across all demographics, it’d be okay. In red states, it’s the opposite. They just said so. And who trusts Trump’s DOJ to protect the Georgia ballots they commandeered with no legal justification? His desire to “nationalize” elections is, of course, unconstitutional. Would it matter to his agreeable Supreme Court?

Noem. Bondi. Who can say who’s worse? In a tight race, impudent, arrogant, toadying Pam pulled ahead last week, when she broadcast her and her boss’s contempt for the Constitution; yelling, deflecting, insulting, refusing to answer legitimate, Constitutionally required oversight of her handling of the Epstein files. Why are you asking about that when the DOW is over fifty thousand, she sneered, non-sequiturally. While she scanned her staff-prepared, scripted whataboutisms to gotchify Democrats, Republicans on the Committee, living and dead, like every MAGA, couldn’t hide their glee. In a Congress containing Republicans of old, as in the Nixon era, the hearing would have adjourned immediately, to begin impeachment proceedings. But that party is as dead as climate regulation.

There are rumblings. In deep red South Texas last week, in a district Trump won by seventeen points, a Democrat soundly beat a Republican for state senate despite being outspent by millions of dollars. The same happened in very red Louisiana. Texas Republicans’ unprecedented and cynical mid-cycle gerrymandering, along with growing revulsion at Trump’s ICE brutality and, maybe, his transparent lying, have created unanticipated blue districts, while spurring blue states like California, after Trump’s Constitution-rewriting SCOTUS greenlit Texas, to do the same.

Clear-eyed voters know to assume every word uttered by Trump and his collection of collaborators is a lie; that every action is to their benefit, not ours. As scales drop from pinkish eyes, there might still be hope. But November is far enough away for plenty of Republican meddling.

Now, a mea kinda culpa. Last week, I praised the “unmitigated joy” of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. Since then, enthusiastic critics have sent translations which, if accurately rendered, were vulgar. I was disappointed and promised to address it. Since then, though, I’ve seen sources indicating the crudités had been edited in compliance with broadcast standards.

Few words, if any, have single comparables between languages; by definition, translations are subjective. Unless those taking offense are fluent Spanish speakers and heard it directly, I’ll stick with joyful.

Good Bunny

 

Without outrage, MAGAs have nothing. Without being offended, they’d be nothing. If it wasn’t unmistakable before, the Super Bowl (went Seahawks!) removed any doubt. Trump’s and MAGA’s anger over Bad Bunny’s halftime performance began long before it happened. Nothing, it seems, makes that crowd so infuriated as seeing people – especially those of darker hues – having fun. Exuberant fun. Occasionally sexy? For sure. But, even with some soft-boiled political Easter eggs, always celebratory. At the end, naming all countries in the Americas, as if we’re part of a whole, together. The actual not-fake wedding was sweet and hopeful. As was the omnipresent visual message, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Only in Trump’s America could that be considered a subversive provocation.

So offended were MAGAs that they hied to a YouTube-only counterprogram featuring a badly lip-syncing, white-man-jumping, over-hilled Kid Rock, who’d once sung his way to fame lauding statutory rape. Maybe that explains his connection with Trump. There was also some guy who sang an anti-woke song. Good times. Wish I’d been there.

Sure, it’d have been nice to have had subtitles for Mr. Bunny, but it was about vibe, not vocabulary. Besides, what language is required to recognize pure joy? Not the one MAGA speaks, evidently. It was a celebration of America’s unique melting pot that accounts for so much of its greatness. Which explains the freakout of Make America Ghastly Again. Having once designated liberals as “snowflakes,” under Trump they’ve taken ownership of the term. They NEED to be angry at not-like-thems. If it weren’t so pitiful and, for that matter, anti-America, it’d be hilarious.

But, mostly, it’s just sad. Unlike Bad Bunny, MAGAs are unhappy people, preferring an even unhappier leader. Because it’s all they know how to do, if poorly, House Republicans are calling for an investigation.

Their reaction to the halftime show was a MAGA microcosm. The response to Trump posting an image of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes is as macro as it gets. Within seconds of the revulsion expressed by decent people, Pressed Secretary Leavitt referred to it as fake outrage. “Report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” she demanded, dootifully. Because having America represented by the most overtly racist “president” in our history shouldn’t bother anyone. Rather, for MAGA, it’s celebrated.

The rush to defend Trump’s awfulness, as always, was a stampede. Came the predictable blaming of an unnamed staffer. Trump hadn’t seen it, or didn’t watch to the end. Then, acknowledging it was he who posted it, Trump refused to apologize. Of course not. It’d be like 7-Up apologizing for selling soft drinks.

When it’s not outrage, it’s cruelty, as from organizations whose inhumanity MAGA will defend to the death. Literally. ICE, for one. I hadn’t known this while I served there, but in Vietnam, some GIs left ace of spades playing cards on the bodies of Vietnamese they’d killed. Sometimes in their mouths. Now we learn that ICE is doing the same, placing similar cards, professionally produced, in the vehicles they’ve broken into and dragged out the occupants. It clarifies the kinds of people ICE is hiring, and those who stay silent. Make America Ghoulish Again.

Like cutting USAID, ostensibly to save money, leading to tens of thousands of deaths and disease in Africa and elsewhere, particularly among children; and then spending taxpayer money to fund “MAGA-aligned” organizations in Europe. Why aren’t Trump supporters appalled? Jesus would be.

Some might say I’m being hypocritical when deploring MAGA outrage, for what are my columns if not that? Maybe so, but there’s a fundamental difference. My words, and those of No Kings protestors, anti-ICE demonstrations, and the tens of Antifa activists, are aimed at protecting and preserving the values of our republic: fairness, equality of rights and voting, healthcare, and help for those in need. It’s outrage at our government for eliminating those most basic tenets of a functioning democracy. Following Trump’s directions, MAGA is against all of that. If indignation can be righteous, this is it.

Like outrage, for another example, at the Pentagon for making the largest ever purchase of munitions from Israel, for internationally banned anti-personnel cluster bombs. Tough guy, that Hegseth, who also threatened Scouting for allowing girls and not being God-promoting enough, because he’s nothing if not the embodiment of godliness.

Or at Trump’s DOJ for shutting down Minnesota prosecutors’ investigations of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Or having a “president” who’s such a petty, needy, and insecure bully that he withholds funds for New York unless it renames Dulles Airport and Penn Station after him. And, in one of his more insane rants, threatens to prevent opening the Gordie Howe Bridge between the US and Canada.

This is what MAGA and the not-so GOP defend. While condemning Bad Bunny. Can they go lower? In preparation for November, they already are.

McBillions

 

               Image created using ChatGPT

The lowball estimate of how much personal money Trump has grifted during the first year of his second “presidency” is around $1.2 billion. This is not counting the billions made by his spawn during this time, or the $10 billion he stands to make from suing himself, which is to say his IRS, run by his appointees, because his tax returns were leaked. After, truth-teller that he is, he’d been promising to release them himself for ten years.

This must be challenging for his MAGA idolators who, with tears in their eyes, continue to praise his selflessness in refusing his presidential salary (is he still?) because he loves and has sacrificed everything for us. In total, his Ovaltine haul is at least $4 billion. 

One might wonder how he came up with ten billion to compensate whatever trauma he suffered from the release of those returns, especially since it didn’t impair his reelection. The reelection that’s providing him with the aforementioned loot. Doesn’t matter. Because all of his appointees, from heads of the definitely not weaponized DOJ and FBI, to the Departments of Interior, Education, Commerce, and more, cater slavishly to his regal demands, it seems assured the IRS, after due consideration of the ethics and legalities, doubtless after in-depth consultation with ethical and legal icon Pam Bondi, will cough up the money. Maybe with interest. Bondi’s compliant DOJ would be charged with defending the IRS, too. Convenient. Whatever the amount, it’ll be our tax money, going directly to him.

He said he’d donate to charities, though. Presumably not like the one the courts shut down because he was stealing from it. What’s the over/under on how much he gets and how much he’ll keep?

Has there ever been a “presidency” from which more lawsuits have emerged or toward which they’ve been aimed? Lawsuits are as much a part of Trump as bone spurs aren’t. He sues. Always has. Especially people, like contractors he hires, lacking time or money to fight, who’ll pay him off. It’s how he ran his businesses, and how he’s “running” the country.

Cruel fate (ours) has inpocketed him our entire system of justice, through which, filled with people chosen for their pliability and disregard for our Constitution, he charges anyone he chooses with made-up crimes. Or sues. If only he could clone Judge Aileen Cannon, whose delay tactics and confounding rulings on indictments for his many crimes allowed him to go (for now) scot free (it doesn’t mean what you think). If every courtroom had her cloneliness in charge, lawsuits against him would be thrown out in a minute, and the people he’s had indicted would be convicted before they sat down.

Speaking of not sitting down, I don’t intend to see the Melania movie. Reviews are predictably split along party lines; if you bought Trump sneakers, you’ll love it. The significance, though, is Bezos’s bribery and Melania’s grift, as she stands to make millions off it. But MAGAs love the movie like they love life and hate immigrants, Melania excepted. Money for nothin’ and chicks for fee.

My intention this week was to back off, if slightly, from the democracy-damaging aspects of Trump and his klatch. Focus on stuff that’s only irritating and, based on decades of revelations of Trump’s ethos, predictable and almost amusing. But then came this from President-in-Fact and truly horrible person Stephen Miller: “Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote... In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.” He wasn’t suggesting it’s a positive.

In other words, per Herr Miller, the US should have a “labor class” that does our dirty work but receives no benefits, like citizenship. Or healthcare. There’s a word for that. To Übermensch Miller’s obvious disappointment, that side lost the Civil War. This link draws the appropriate historical comparison. He’s the one calling the shots (literally) for ICE and CBP. With Trump’s decline, his is the disordered mind behind it all. It’s what American values are up against, and it suffuses all of Trumpism.

As relentlessly depressing as is everything Trump, last week wasn’t all bad. A judge ordered the release of five-year-old Liam Ramos from ICE custody, and, in doing so, said the obvious: “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency...” 

Also, in Texas, the yellow rose showed a blue tinge. First a district, then the state?

A guy can dream.